Time - and what is 'now'?

[MusicMan]

That smacks of 'High Strangeness', Woodsman.
Do you know when it occurred and in what locality?

 

[Woodsman]

That smacks of 'High Strangeness', Woodsman.
Do you know when it occurred and in what locality?

I'd classify it as, "Light to Moderate Strangeness", -both of which are fairly regular features in my neck of the woods. When people describe stuff like that, it barely raises any eyebrows since everybody has their own stock of weird experiences they can share.

I've heard some real doozies, and lived through several "impossible" things myself, though mine are pretty dull by comparison, containing far fewer special effects. -Which I think may be due to my fear levels; I notice that when the reality veils get thin, I have to struggle not to panic. With anything much more than "gently strange" I find myself actively asking the universe, "No thank-you! La-dee-da! Don't need any alien encounters today, thanks! All cats stay on the floor, please!" -I'd love to think I was more brave, and I think (hope) I could maybe hold my own and stay calm if necessary, (part of the reason I'm learning everything I can is in preparation for the day when I might have to deal with some of that scary demonic shit again, or help friends through it), but through researching everything available here, I'm quite content to take my weirdness in the smallest doses possible. -Which I think probably has an effect, if only because my subconscious directs me away from hot spots.

Anyway, the fellow describing it wasn't specific as to when, (it might have been years ago), but he's lived in the area, I think, most of his life.

-And I'm not convinced that it's the area so much as the attention. People in my low-population region seem to be more accepting and willing to observe things. When I lived in a big city, the strangeness levels could become pretty absurd, but there was so much distraction and "Normal" being blasted through the various broadcast systems that it was easy to miss the stuff which shouldn't have been there. Cities don't allow one to slow down enough to notice things.

 

[sitting]

Re: time

Here's a thought experiment:

The Now moment that you're experiencing now is a pin point that is exploding outwards and creating the past and the future continuously.

In this sense, time is not a linear progression of something to something, but rather an out-raying of The Now into an imaginary space of "past" and "future".

Interesting idea.

I haven't found the exact reference yet, but Seth said something similar ... though with greater complexity. He indicated the spin direction of the electron determines the directional flow of "time" as we perceive it. Rotating one way, "time" goes forward. Rotating opposite way, "time" flows backwards.

But it doesn't end there. He said the electron also rotates inwardly and outwardly. And from that attribute arises the infinite probable events, outcomes, and universes. So reality seems to be highly driven by the spin factor of electrons. This spin phenomenon (angular momentum?) may ultimately be a critical determinant for our experiential manifestations. (Perhaps this is one reason why our own physical spinning practice has been labeled a "major YES".)

FWIW.

 

[Scottie]

Given that linear time is said to be an illusion, that would make it impossible for anyone's now point to be a second before, because seconds don't exist. The way I see it is everything happens all at once at the same moment which also lasts for all infinity. Kind of a mind bender but also uber cool.

Well time can't really be defined without using the word in the definition. So as it is essentially indescribable then it can't really exist except as a memory or an anticipation.

This is exactly where I get stuck.

If everything happens at the same moment, but "moment" once again implies linear time, then that means we're using linear time concepts to explain how time is not linear. Oops!

Or how about gravity... From our POV, gravity only works because time passes. Electricity? Electrons flow... 1 Coulomb per second is 1 Ampere of current flow. Oh look, it's time again!

From simple thoughts like these, I tentatively conclude that the apparent illusion of time is incredibly important. It's as if everything depends on this one illusion. But, maybe it doesn't.

It ain't easy to think outside that particular box...

 

[Ðekel]

It ain't easy to think outside that particular box...

All the more reason to push at the boundaries of this particular box IMO.

I think sometimes modern physics can miss the point when it attempts to talk about the falling tree sans the observer.
Without a nervous system to view the world, where is time anyway ?
I have a feeling that many fairly educated people view time as an external entity, that is there even when they are not.
This doesn't seem to be the case though.

With psychological time, the nervous system parses occurrences at a changing rate and with changing qualities.
When there's danger, for instance, the experience of time can change wildly both in the moment and also in recollections of the event.

Mice react to many more occurrences within the same "amount of time" than humans do.
This is why they seem to move and react quickly and often. They seem hyperactive to humans.

It's possible that if we were able to interact with the environment without a nervous system, or with a different one, we would have a direct experience of how time can be simultaneous. Until then, it is mainly through visualization and analogies such as the film-slide analogy, that we can approach this.

 

[luc]

This is exactly where I get stuck.

If everything happens at the same moment, but "moment" once again implies linear time, then that means we're using linear time concepts to explain how time is not linear. Oops!

Or how about gravity... From our POV, gravity only works because time passes. Electricity? Electrons flow... 1 Coulomb per second is 1 Ampere of current flow. Oh look, it's time again!

From simple thoughts like these, I tentatively conclude that the apparent illusion of time is incredibly important. It's as if everything depends on this one illusion. But, maybe it doesn't.

It ain't easy to think outside that particular box...

Yes, all this is mind-boggling indeed.

Since I just finished the fantasy series "the wheel of time" (great books featuring an epic esoteric battle, multiple worlds and "the hero's journey" in all variations), one analogy I can think of is, err, the wheel of time :)

The idea is basically that we can comprehend our reality as a gigantic, turning wheel, which of course also implies that there are cycles or ages that come again and again. So in our normal state, we "ride the wheel", so to speak, and thus cannot help but experience time. However, if we could step outside the wheel, time vanishes, and there is only movement, or different places. This is somehow similar I guess to the analogy of the slide projector the C's presented in one of the sessions.

So seen from outside the wheel, there would be an all-encompassing "now", while the "now" that we normally perceive is just a smaller chunk of reality, and this is all we can access while "riding the wheel". So maybe your 1 Coulomb/s, seen from outside the wheel, would look like a certain concentration in a certain area? Or rather a certain concentration in all areas, transcending space? It's really hard to think about these things...

 

[Kasia]

From simple thoughts like these, I tentatively conclude that the apparent illusion of time is incredibly important. It's as if everything depends on this one illusion. But, maybe it doesn't.

Zimbardo argues that time perspective is the central foundation of human thought and action and that most people are
unaware that they have imbedded time frame that guides their life.

For me time illusion it's kind of 3D-live curse and at the same time (!) one of the most important challenges to deal with.

http://www.thetimeparadox.com/

 

[Esote]

What about Time being Consciousness in 3D ?
Raising our consciousness would give the opportunity to see the path followed from a higher perspective, from a more or less distant past to a more or less distant future, depending on the level we reached.
Until 7D, encompassing all that is, which is Now...

 

[lilyalic]

Given that linear time is said to be an illusion, that would make it impossible for anyone's now point to be a second before, because seconds don't exist. The way I see it is everything happens all at once at the same moment which also lasts for all infinity. Kind of a mind bender but also uber cool.

Well time can't really be defined without using the word in the definition. So as it is essentially indescribable then it can't really exist except as a memory or an anticipation.

This is exactly where I get stuck.

If everything happens at the same moment, but "moment" once again implies linear time, then that means we're using linear time concepts to explain how time is not linear. Oops!

Or how about gravity... From our POV, gravity only works because time passes. Electricity? Electrons flow... 1 Coulomb per second is 1 Ampere of current flow. Oh look, it's time again!

From simple thoughts like these, I tentatively conclude that the apparent illusion of time is incredibly important. It's as if everything depends on this one illusion. But, maybe it doesn't.

It ain't easy to think outside that particular box...

I'm pretty much on the same lines as you Scottie, a few months back I would have moments when I would say to myself, at a given time "it's alright because it'll be so and so time soon" and then I'd remember saying this to myself, when that "so and so" time came. What boggles me is that, "time" will run at the same time consistently. It is how we perceive it, i.e. if you're focusing on the clock, it runs much slower as when you're busy/ doing an activity and the time is irrelevant. For me, linear time seems to exist only when it's relevant for us. Considering we age, morning turns to night, we have time schedules for life events etcetc... it's very easy to see why we are all stuck in the illusion of time.

This makes me think of when G (i think) mentions the possibility for multiple things. It goes along the lines of, imagine a table with various objects on. This means there are various possibilities... one of those objects (For example, a pen) falls off the table - so that possibility occurred, but all others still exist (similar as the C's said about the slide projector, and slides still being on the wheel) but then things, for me, get further complicated as those other possibilities could be happening in different realities and we're just living this one where the pen fell off the table instead of the cup.

Now my head hurts!

 

[luc]

I'm currently reading Rupert Sheldrake's "The Science Delusion", which I can highly recommend. He also talks about time and guides the reader through various approaches to understand what's going on. Honestly, I have not enough background in science to confirm everything he says, but I think he offers a lot of food for thought on the topic.

Here, he discusses Alfred North Whitehead's take on this, one of the most famous philosophers of mathematics:

As Whitehead put it, 'An event in realising itself displays a pattern.' The pattern 'requires a duration involving a definite lapse of time, and not merely an instantaneous moment'.

As Whitehead made clear[:] [...]
There is no such thing as timeless matter. All physical objects are processes that have time within them, an inner duration. Quantum physics shows that there is a minimum time period for events, because everything is vibratory, and no vibration can be instantaneous. The fundamental units of nature, including photons and electrons, are temporal as well as spatial. There is no 'nature at an instant'.

And, after discussing the classic dualist and even materialist view, where the mind is at one place, spatially distinct from matter:

By contrast, for Whitehead mind and matter are related as phases in a process. Time, not space, is the key to their relationship. Reality consists of moments in process, and one moment informs the next. The distinction between moments requires the experiencer to feel the difference between the moment of now and past or future moments. Every actuality is a moment of experience.
[...]
According to Whitehead, every actual occasion is therefore both determined by physical causes from the past, and by the self-creative, self-renewing subject that both chooses its own past and chooses among its potential futures. Through its prehensions it selects what aspects of the past it brings into its own physical being in the present, and also chooses among the possibilities that determine its future. It is connected to its past by selective memories, and connected to its potential future through its choices.
[...]
The direction of physical causation is from the past to the present, but the direction of mental activity runs the other way, from the present into the past through prehensions, and from potential futures into the present.

So he seems to make a distinction between the "physical past", pressing us from behind, and a "mental future" of different possibilities, which attract us from the other direction. Seen in this light, consciousness transcends time, but our viewpoint, where we experience reality - the present - presents us with the feeling of "time".

One of [Whiteheads] modern exponents, Christian de Quincey, has described his idea as follows:

Think of reality as made up of countless gazillions of 'bubble moments', where each bubble is both physical and mental - a bubble or quantum of sentient energy ... Each bubble exists for a moment and then pops! and the resulting 'spray' is the objective 'stuff' that composes the physical pole of the next momentary bubble ... Time is our experience of the ongoing succession of these momentary bubbles of being (or bubbles of becoming) popping in and out of the present moment of now. We feel this succession of moments as the flow of the present slipping into the past, always replenished by new moments of 'now' from an apparently inexhaustible source we objectify as the future ... The future does not exist except as potentials or possibilities in the present moment - in experience - which is always conditioned by the objective pressure of the past (the physical world). Subjectivity (consciousnes, awareness) is what-it-feels-like to experience these possibilities, and choosing from them to create the next new moment of experience.

The relation of conscious experience to time has been investigated experimentally with intriguing results.

He then presents these interesting results and concludes:

Mental causation would work from the future towards the past, while physical causation works from the past towards the future.

Later, he quotes Freeman Dyson:

I think our consciousness is not just a passive epiphenomenon carried along by the chemical events in our brains, but is an active agent forcing the molecular complexes to make choices between one quantum state and another.

So our consciousness, our experience is 'attracted' towards potential futures, but at the same time, we can also choose, and we can "select/interpret the past events" in different ways so that they push us to this or that future. He puts forth the analogy of gravitation:

Once again the attraction in these epigenetic models is analogous to gravitation. Developing systems are attracted towards their ends or goals. They are not only pushed from the past, they are pulled from the future.

[...]
The final state of the universe - if there will be one - would work backwards, affecting events in the present
[...]
But whether or not time-reserved processes occur within physical systems from actual futures, the influence of virtual futures or potentialities is of central importance in all developing patterns of organisation, including molecules.

Maybe this sentence from the book sums this idea up best:

Mental causation flows backwards from the realm of possibilities in the virtual future, and interacts in the present with the energy flowing forward from the past, resulting in observable physical events. The push of energy from the past and the pull from virtual futures overlap in the present, as they do for a ball rolling around a basin.

I think this ties in also with the idea that our consciousness is a "reading instrument", and that we can "debug the universe" with our choices, aligning ourselves with the truth - both with the truth of our personal and collective history (the physical past) and with a potential future based on truth (the right "attractor" from the future).

As I said, I think this is food for thought and it gave me useful analogies and ways of thinking about this whole thing.

 

[Ðekel]

I'm currently reading Rupert Sheldrake's "The Science Delusion", which I can highly recommend. He also talks about time and guides the reader through various approaches to understand what's going on. Honestly, I have not enough background in science to confirm everything he says, but I think he offers a lot of food for thought on the topic.

Here, he discusses Alfred North Whitehead's take on this, one of the most famous philosophers of mathematics:

As Whitehead put it, 'An event in realising itself displays a pattern.' The pattern 'requires a duration involving a definite lapse of time, and not merely an instantaneous moment'.

As Whitehead made clear[:] [...]
There is no such thing as timeless matter. All physical objects are processes that have time within them, an inner duration. Quantum physics shows that there is a minimum time period for events, because everything is vibratory, and no vibration can be instantaneous. The fundamental units of nature, including photons and electrons, are temporal as well as spatial. There is no 'nature at an instant'.

And, after discussing the classic dualist and even materialist view, where the mind is at one place, spatially distinct from matter:

By contrast, for Whitehead mind and matter are related as phases in a process. Time, not space, is the key to their relationship. Reality consists of moments in process, and one moment informs the next. The distinction between moments requires the experiencer to feel the difference between the moment of now and past or future moments. Every actuality is a moment of experience.
[...]
According to Whitehead, every actual occasion is therefore both determined by physical causes from the past, and by the self-creative, self-renewing subject that both chooses its own past and chooses among its potential futures. Through its prehensions it selects what aspects of the past it brings into its own physical being in the present, and also chooses among the possibilities that determine its future. It is connected to its past by selective memories, and connected to its potential future through its choices.
[...]
The direction of physical causation is from the past to the present, but the direction of mental activity runs the other way, from the present into the past through prehensions, and from potential futures into the present.

So he seems to make a distinction between the "physical past", pressing us from behind, and a "mental future" of different possibilities, which attract us from the other direction. Seen in this light, consciousness transcends time, but our viewpoint, where we experience reality - the present - presents us with the feeling of "time".

One of [Whiteheads] modern exponents, Christian de Quincey, has described his idea as follows:

Think of reality as made up of countless gazillions of 'bubble moments', where each bubble is both physical and mental - a bubble or quantum of sentient energy ... Each bubble exists for a moment and then pops! and the resulting 'spray' is the objective 'stuff' that composes the physical pole of the next momentary bubble ... Time is our experience of the ongoing succession of these momentary bubbles of being (or bubbles of becoming) popping in and out of the present moment of now. We feel this succession of moments as the flow of the present slipping into the past, always replenished by new moments of 'now' from an apparently inexhaustible source we objectify as the future ... The future does not exist except as potentials or possibilities in the present moment - in experience - which is always conditioned by the objective pressure of the past (the physical world). Subjectivity (consciousnes, awareness) is what-it-feels-like to experience these possibilities, and choosing from them to create the next new moment of experience.

The relation of conscious experience to time has been investigated experimentally with intriguing results.

He then presents these interesting results and concludes:

Mental causation would work from the future towards the past, while physical causation works from the past towards the future.

Later, he quotes Freeman Dyson:

I think our consciousness is not just a passive epiphenomenon carried along by the chemical events in our brains, but is an active agent forcing the molecular complexes to make choices between one quantum state and another.

So our consciousness, our experience is 'attracted' towards potential futures, but at the same time, we can also choose, and we can "select/interpret the past events" in different ways so that they push us to this or that future. He puts forth the analogy of gravitation:

Once again the attraction in these epigenetic models is analogous to gravitation. Developing systems are attracted towards their ends or goals. They are not only pushed from the past, they are pulled from the future.

[...]
The final state of the universe - if there will be one - would work backwards, affecting events in the present
[...]
But whether or not time-reserved processes occur within physical systems from actual futures, the influence of virtual futures or potentialities is of central importance in all developing patterns of organisation, including molecules.

Maybe this sentence from the book sums this idea up best:

Mental causation flows backwards from the realm of possibilities in the virtual future, and interacts in the present with the energy flowing forward from the past, resulting in observable physical events. The push of energy from the past and the pull from virtual futures overlap in the present, as they do for a ball rolling around a basin.

I think this ties in also with the idea that our consciousness is a "reading instrument", and that we can "debug the universe" with our choices, aligning ourselves with the truth - both with the truth of our personal and collective history (the physical past) and with a potential future based on truth (the right "attractor" from the future).

As I said, I think this is food for thought and it gave me useful analogies and ways of thinking about this whole thing.

This part is very interesting; Mental causation flowing from the future backwards.

A few days ago I was thinking that an interesting experiment would be for one to start "speaking" with themselves at various points in the past and make a point of it becoming a regular habit. For example having a mental conversation with yourself at a critical junction in the past in which you could have used the insight you gained after the fact..

It would be interesting to see whether or not impressions from a future self would begin to appear as well.

 

[luc]

This part is very interesting; Mental causation flowing from the future backwards.

A few days ago I was thinking that an interesting experiment would be for one to start "speaking" with themselves at various points in the past and make a point of it becoming a regular habit. For example having a mental conversation with yourself at a critical junction in the past in which you could have used the insight you gained after the fact..

It would be interesting to see whether or not impressions from a future self would begin to appear as well.

I thought about this "speaking to my past self" as well a few times, but never really did it, maybe that's something to try :). On the other hand, myself in the past didn't really ask for something like this, so I don't know if he could be "guided" in that way, even if this worked? Don't our past selves have to go through all this in order to get here? I thought a couple of times about really depressing situations in the past where I had zero awareness and I feel for this older me, and I can look this older me in the face now and don't avoid him like I used to do, but I feel very sad... So maybe the connection to our past occurs more through feelings? Maybe, when we process past experiences and express all those feelings we couldn't express in the past, that kind of changes the past, gives it new meaning, and maybe encourages our past selves in a way to keep on... Just speculation of course.

 

[Thor]

I was just skimming through this thread but have not read all the posts closely, so apologies if this perspective has been covered before.

It occurred to me that my notion of myself and my consciousness is that I exist at a given time at a given place. If there are an infinite number of universes and many of the universes are populated by my consciousness in alternate nows, alternate futures and alternate pasts, the seen from the perspective of my entire consciousness the illusion of time could be said to be the illusion that I only exist in this universere. Similarly, the illusion of space can be seen as a limitation on the consciousness to this particular universe. Therefore, the illusion of space and time are limits of the consciousness believing that it’s only in this universe.

It may be that as we reach the higher densities our consciousness is able to hold within in all the different "sub-consciousnesses" that all believe that they're limited to a different alternate universe. In other words it's impossible to understand that time and space are illusions as long as our consciousness only experiences us in this universe.

FWIW

 

[Deleted member 9511]

Time is imagined change. In the everything-all-the-time cosmos, the only change can be the perspective, or view of that immutable whole. Of course, that perspective must also be part of the everything-all-the-time cosmos, in which case the appearance of change is simply the moving of information from content to context and back again within the consciousness of the perspective, while that information never changes one bit. Or rather, the appearance of change happens as perspective "orbits" the everything-all-the-time cosmos. Except that there is no movement or change in this everything-all-the-time cosmos, so whatever appears to change is only imagined.

 

[psychojen]

Study Shows Some Evidence of Human Precognitive Powers
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-11/precognition-research-shows-human-mind-can-perceive-future

We remember the "now" after in happened. We are aware of the future but don't remember it. Gives a whole new dimension to Schrodinger's Cat.