4 ms·

It's also possible that time is real. One thing happens after/causes another. It's possible that when you are in a flow state your brain is just failing to noti

It's also possible that time is real. One thing happens after/causes another. It's possible that when you are in a flow state your brain is just failing to notice the time that is objectively passing in the world around you.

haswell 3y ago
I don’t question that something is happening that we experience as time. But the point was that the ways we commonly experience it tend to instill ideas about what it is that seem not very close to whatever is objectively happening. I think the point about the flow state is that it’s one of the most reliable ways to disconnect from that common experience, and doing so regularly starts to reduce the primacy of the constructs we’ve built on top of it. Another way to put this is that the common clock and schedule oriented notion of time is just a complex set of concepts and labels and increasingly granular slicing of ongoing experience into chunks we can use to reason more effectively about other aspects of experience. It’s extremely useful to be able to make plans with a friend at 3PM next Thursday. 3PM next Thursday doesn’t exist. Understanding the rate at which phenomena occur helps us develop increasingly useful and accurate world models. To understand what “rate” even means, it’s necessary to build up some concept of time. What I’m mostly pushing against is the primacy of that construct. The pervasiveness of clocks and schedules to a point that it feels like they rule us. The past and the future tend to feel like places that exist. Time tends to feel like some kind of arrow. We’re always coming from some point in the past or going to some point in the future. A useful tool to help us make sense of our memories, and decide what to do next. But the role of time in what actually happens at any given moment seems pretty unlike our experience of it, which seems to be something we largely manufacture to make sense of the rest of human experience.
tobiasSoftware 3y ago
One of the weirdest things Einstein discovered is that time is relative, but cause and effect are absolute. For example, muons should decay before they hit the ground, but they don't due to time dilation. We see the time dilation when observing the muons, but the muons don't, so you would think that for us, the muons make it to the ground but for the muon it would decay too fast. However, the muons experience length contraction, so they do make it to the ground from their viewpoint as well. So cause and effect is preserved, even though we would disagree with the muon on the relativistic reason why it is preserved.
- drdeca 3y ago
  Time is relative, sure, but “proper time” isn’t relative.
- syspec 3y ago
  > For example, muons should decay before they hit the ground, but they don't due to time dilation. Would you mind expanding on this?
  - mikhailfranco 3y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon#Muon_sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon#Muon_sources
thomastjeffery 3y ago
Time is a dimension of space. We are falling through time just like the other 3. The only way to know you are falling is to see something that isn't. The tick of a clock draws a boundary in time just like a pen draws a line on a page.
- Gooblebrai 3y ago
  > way to know you are falling is to see something that isn't What would one of those things be?
  - thomastjeffery 3y ago
    Something that isn't falling with us? The night sky.

haswell 3y ago

I don’t question that something is happening that we experience as time. But the point was that the ways we commonly experience it tend to instill ideas about what it is that seem not very close to whatever is objectively happening. I think the point about the flow state is that it’s one of the most reliable ways to disconnect from that common experience, and doing so regularly starts to reduce the primacy of the constructs we’ve built on top of it. Another way to put this is that the common clock and schedule oriented notion of time is just a complex set of concepts and labels and increasingly granular slicing of ongoing experience into chunks we can use to reason more effectively about other aspects of experience. It’s extremely useful to be able to make plans with a friend at 3PM next Thursday. 3PM next Thursday doesn’t exist. Understanding the rate at which phenomena occur helps us develop increasingly useful and accurate world models. To understand what “rate” even means, it’s necessary to build up some concept of time. What I’m mostly pushing against is the primacy of that construct. The pervasiveness of clocks and schedules to a point that it feels like they rule us. The past and the future tend to feel like places that exist. Time tends to feel like some kind of arrow. We’re always coming from some point in the past or going to some point in the future. A useful tool to help us make sense of our memories, and decide what to do next. But the role of time in what actually happens at any given moment seems pretty unlike our experience of it, which seems to be something we largely manufacture to make sense of the rest of human experience.

tobiasSoftware 3y ago

One of the weirdest things Einstein discovered is that time is relative, but cause and effect are absolute. For example, muons should decay before they hit the ground, but they don't due to time dilation. We see the time dilation when observing the muons, but the muons don't, so you would think that for us, the muons make it to the ground but for the muon it would decay too fast. However, the muons experience length contraction, so they do make it to the ground from their viewpoint as well. So cause and effect is preserved, even though we would disagree with the muon on the relativistic reason why it is preserved.

drdeca 3y ago
Time is relative, sure, but “proper time” isn’t relative.
syspec 3y ago
> For example, muons should decay before they hit the ground, but they don't due to time dilation. Would you mind expanding on this?
- mikhailfranco 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon#Muon_sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon#Muon_sources

thomastjeffery 3y ago

Time is a dimension of space. We are falling through time just like the other 3. The only way to know you are falling is to see something that isn't. The tick of a clock draws a boundary in time just like a pen draws a line on a page.

Gooblebrai 3y ago
> way to know you are falling is to see something that isn't What would one of those things be?
- thomastjeffery 3y ago
  Something that isn't falling with us? The night sky.