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Great article - bad title. Saying that time might be an illusion is saying that time might not be "real". But a different model of time doesn't affect its realn

by jd 18y ago

Great article - bad title. Saying that time might be an illusion is saying that time might not be "real". But a different model of time doesn't affect its realness. Is temperature an illusion? Certainly not. And yet, as the article says, it's merely a model of the interaction between molecules. Some models explain more than other models. Models that explain more are better. Thinking in terms of real/illusion is not helpful at all.

wheels 18y ago
They didn't want to let January's "YOU ARE A HOLOGRAM" outpace the fine month February.
chandler 18y ago
>> Saying that time might be an illusion is saying that time might not be "real". No, the word "illusion" references an artifact that is both real and effective, yet whose true nature is misunderstood. Moreover, for X to be an illusion, it necessarily must exist in some way.
- cchooper 18y ago
  You're both (a little) wrong! :) You can't call something an illusion just because its true nature is misunderstood. An illusion is something that looks deceptively like something else. A hologram of a table is an illusion, but just misunderstanding the nature of a table (e.g. misunderstanding the fundamental particles from which it's constructed) does not make it an illusion. Saying that time is an illusion is like saying that we appear to be living in a universe with time, but actually we don't. We are in fact experiencing something that looks like time, but isn't really time. But obviously we do live in a universe with time, and the fact that time may turn out to be something strange or unexpected does not make it an illusion. It just means we misunderstood its true nature.
  - TrevorJ 18y ago
    I believe they are saying time is a concept that is useful for explaining certain local experiences, but under certain more global circumstances, the defining characteristics of the concept of time could potentially change, causing us to need a new concept to describe it.
Hexstream 18y ago
They're just saying time might be an abstraction after all, instead of a primitive.

by jd 18y ago

wheels 18y ago

They didn't want to let January's "YOU ARE A HOLOGRAM" outpace the fine month February.

chandler 18y ago

>> Saying that time might be an illusion is saying that time might not be "real". No, the word "illusion" references an artifact that is both real and effective, yet whose true nature is misunderstood. Moreover, for X to be an illusion, it necessarily must exist in some way.

cchooper 18y ago
You're both (a little) wrong! :) You can't call something an illusion just because its true nature is misunderstood. An illusion is something that looks deceptively like something else. A hologram of a table is an illusion, but just misunderstanding the nature of a table (e.g. misunderstanding the fundamental particles from which it's constructed) does not make it an illusion. Saying that time is an illusion is like saying that we appear to be living in a universe with time, but actually we don't. We are in fact experiencing something that looks like time, but isn't really time. But obviously we do live in a universe with time, and the fact that time may turn out to be something strange or unexpected does not make it an illusion. It just means we misunderstood its true nature.
- TrevorJ 18y ago
  I believe they are saying time is a concept that is useful for explaining certain local experiences, but under certain more global circumstances, the defining characteristics of the concept of time could potentially change, causing us to need a new concept to describe it.

Hexstream 18y ago

They're just saying time might be an abstraction after all, instead of a primitive.