

Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Time - rkda
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2011/09/01/ten-things-everyone-should-know-about-time/

======
crazydiamond
Some misconceptions need to be cleared.

| 4. You live in the past. About 80 milliseconds in the past

This may hold true for sensory perceptions, thoughts etc but not for
consciousness. When there are no thoughts, there is absolutely no gap in
consciousness. When you live "consciously" there is no time-lag.

| 6. Consciousness depends on manipulating time. Many cognitive abilities are
important for consciousness, and we don’t yet have a complete picture.

Who is this "we". Consciousness does not depend on anything, unless you've
incorrectly defined it. Everything else depends on it.

| Consciousness wouldn’t be possible without the ability to imagine other
times

Utter tosh. Who has cooked this up ? We've been through this for at least 2-3
millenia. Those who meditate, and there are lots on HN, understand that
consciousness is independent.

"Everyone experiences time differently" -- if we talk of perception of time,
then yes. A moment of boredom or pain can feel longer than an hour of pleasure
but we all know that.

| 5. Your memory isn’t as good as you think. We all know this don't we.

| In that very real sense, all animal species experience “the same amount of
time.”

We really don't know that do we. Just speculation.

~~~
sharkbot
Considering we don't have great definition of consciousness, it's a bit of a
stretch for you to say that "Consciousness does not depend on anything...,
everything else depends on it".

In fact, your broad statement isn't true. Consciousness does depend on having
a physical brain in a certain state of development, and depends upon a
"normal" chemical environment surrounding that physical brain (ie, no
anesthetics). There are autonomic functions in the brain that absolutely don't
depend on consciousness.

~~~
crazydiamond
| Considering we don't have great definition of consciousness

Yes, you will not be able to "define" consciousness. However, you can point to
it, so others can get it. It is on the basis of that _discovery_ of
consciousness that we can say it is independent. And yes, modern/western
science has it backwards. Consciousness does not depend on the brain or body,
these are events in consciousness.

A simple book that can help you get it is The Power of Now by Tolle. Science
assumes that consciousness depends on the brain, we often take these
assumptions to be facts.

~~~
sharkbot
You seem to be using obfuscatory wording to avoid the issue. We have evidence
that physical brains are not just correlated with consciousness, they are the
cause. Anesthetic is probably the best example; once you've administered
anesthetic to a brain, consciousness is lost, while removing it restores
consciousness. There is no continuity under anesthetic, the time is just
'skipped'.

A simple book that will help you get it, is "How the Mind Works" by Steven
Pinker. Science assumes that consciousness depends on the brain, since that
assumption explains the observations. What's more, we take assumptions for
facts once we have enough consistent observations to overcome the biases of
reasonable people.

~~~
crazydiamond
I am not trying to obfuscate. And I am sorry if i sounded condescending when I
mentioned "getting it".

When you dream at night, and see yourself in a "body", is the mind and
consciousness of that body your real consciousness. Is that body's brain
creating your real consciousness. If science points to that consciousness,
then there is a strong possibility of it being the wrong consciousness. The
consciousness of the sleeping person is the real one. The same applies here
too.

Normally, since the conscious state is one of low awareness, one is not aware
in deep sleep and swoon. However, when one practices being aware and raises
the level of awareness, one is conscious in all states. All this becomes very
apparent as one raises one's awareness and comes out of "mind consciousness"
-- continuously living in thought.

~~~
sharkbot
As a person who is sympathetic to Buddhism, I appreciate what you're saying.
But, what you are describing is still vulnerable to the "anesthetic defence":
Can you (or someone) remain conscious after the administration of anesthetic,
especially after training? If not, then consciousness appears to be a strictly
physical phenomenon.

I haven't found any literature to suggest that consciousness thru anesthetic
is the case. I don't deny that meditation may give you the impression that you
have reached "deeper" levels of consciousness, but I don't think your
conclusions are justified by the evidence.

------
baltcode
"""every event in the past and future is implicit in the current moment. """

I didn't think so (according to current physical theories). We don't know
where a particular photon will land in a double slit experiment.

~~~
CMartucci
Can't you use the Schrödinger equation to assess the wave function and
estimate (roughly) the future position?

Also, just because we don't know exactly where the photon will land doesn't
mean photons break the laws of physics. Quantum mechanics are difficult to
observe by nature -- that's what the uncertainty principle states: there is no
way to observe quantum particles without moving them in hard-to-detect ways. I
don't think the uncertainty principle states that quantum particles randomly
defy the laws of physics in indeterministic fashion.

------
Auguste
"Time is an illusion. Lunch time doubly so."

-Douglas Adams

------
Brashman
This sort of feels like it's butchering physics to try to make some
philosophical claims.

~~~
CMartucci
How is it butchering physics?

