The concept of time and how it works

[DocHoliday]

10 minutes ago, Nahm said:

I just had the time. 

I see what you did there... What a good thing that all of eternity is at our disposal, right?

[DocHoliday]

10 hours ago, star ark said:

We need time to comprehend the human experience. Time is only possible with sentience I believe, can an animal experience pain or pleasure and understand that it will pass? Or is it 100% a slave to its instincts? Humans can understand a stimulus will last only a certain amount of time, prepare for future events in a methodical way and not by instinct.

Is time purely devised by human minds? In particular the human ego?

@star ark I'd say that animals can surely feel pain or pleasure, just as we humans can, I mean it's been shown that even plants exude symptoms of stress and agitation when they are being cut or teared apart...
And I would agree that (measurable=illusory) time is only possible through the self-awareness of awareness itself (that is to say humans), because if you wouldn't have this kind of self-awareness,
you were not able to attach meaning to certain phenomena or sensations.
Therefore, it sounds implausable to me that animals would even differentiate and distinguish between certain emotions and sensations and thus, literally create time by applying thought and distinction to said sensations and phenomena. 
See, when there are no distinctions (by thought), everything really is truly One for you and illusory by nature, since the questioning or the act of scrutinising anything wouldn't even arise for you - therefore, time is not an issue for animals.
I'd also say that this is why young children and toddlers at times are so oblivious to certain sensations or stimuli (especially time) because they just haven't made that distinction yet, they're still much more "in the pure flow of consciousness", contrary to us adolescents and adults who have been successfully fucked by our egos and society at large to make all of these further and finer distinctions between things to which we all attribute a distinct and particular meaning - that we now have to unravel and undermine on our way towards enlightenment, you see? That's the whole deal.

Edited January 10, 2018 by DocHoliday
addition in content

[DocHoliday]

@Maxx Well, do you perhaps have more information on the deeper nature of time?
Seems like you know more about this, could you share it?

[Joseph Maynor]

What is time?  That's the initial Socratic Question.

So, I think the first answer is that it's a word.  It's a word that has several meanings.  What particular meaning are you interested in?  Are you assuming that there's one essential concept of time that underlies all other concepts of time?  Notice that this is a theoretical assumption.

Edited January 10, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[DocHoliday]

@Joseph Maynor  I see what you mean with your question, although I don't tend to merely assume anything. If I did, I could obviously say anything I want, so I'm not making assumptions here, my basis is simply a quite peculiar notion of how things could be. But sure, "what is time?", that's the essential question here, or more precisely "how is time?". 

[DocHoliday]

@Maxx Not at all unsatisfying, I totally understand what you mean
Non-duality is no mystery to me, this is why (yet again) I was not so concerned about whether there is time manifesting itself in some way or not, but I was merely curious about the individual experience of "time" - how it comes about that sometimes it feels longer or dragged-out and sometimes shorter as if it would fly by, you see? That's all.

In my personal experience there is no more strong connection or boundedness to the experience of time, that is to say, the implementation of the "ever present now" (even though also that is of an illusory nature of course) has been successfully established.  Yet, we still happen to have our measurment of conceptual time (which is of course nothing else but rhythm), so in some way there still is a certain experience of time in the sense that I'm obviously still aware of "the passing of time" (the rhythm of day and night) and so on , which is by its nature surely highly relative. And exactly how this relativity of time comes about is what is so fascinating to me. 

Edited January 11, 2018 by DocHoliday
grammar

[Nahm]

@DocHoliday @Joseph Maynor

What do you guys make of the space & time relationship, and what does that have to do with the speed of light? I think time and space are working together as one ‘substance’ to make an illusion of dimensions that gives a consistent appearance to one observer, and the speed of light is the absolute, or origination that ensures or “projects” this, resulting in the experience of appearance of multiple observers. Like, some ‘parts’ are more fundamental, or happen previous, than others and the overall experience flows in only one direction; absolute, light, spacetime, experience of “reality”. Physically, we wouldn’t be able to be outside of the illusion because we couldn’t be beyond the absolute ( immediately prior to the speed of light) Mind wise though, if we are the absolute, we can be outside the illusion. 

Whatcha think?

[DocHoliday]

@Nahm I have to admit, right now I'm having a hard time making proper sense of what you're trying to say but maybe later I'm able to formulate something of significance to this... although what strikes me the most, is the connection you made between the absolute being the speed of light and us "being it", and therefore being able to "step outside of the illusion". This sounds so weird to me and I wonder what purpose that would serve us to "step outside the illsuion", you know? What are you actually referring to with this?

[Nahm]

@DocHoliday Maybe the body can’t because it is, but the mind can because it isn’t (illusionary). Or maybe more specifically there’s the absolute and the illusion, and “experience” is a word for inbetween. 

[DocHoliday]

1 minute ago, Nahm said:

@DocHoliday there’s the absolute and the illusion, and “experience” is a word for inbetween. 

That's a really nice way to put it, I like that.

[star ark]

14 hours ago, DocHoliday said:

@star ark I'd say that animals can surely feel pain or pleasure, just as we humans can, I mean it's been shown that even plants exude symptoms of stress and agitation when they are being cut or teared apart...
And I would agree that (measurable=illusory) time is only possible through the self-awareness of awareness itself (that is to say humans), because if you wouldn't have this kind of self-awareness,
you were not able to attach meaning to certain phenomena or sensations.
Therefore, it sounds implausable to me that animals would even differentiate and distinguish between certain emotions and sensations and thus, literally create time by applying thought and distinction to said sensations and phenomena. 
See, when there are no distinctions (by thought), everything really is truly One for you and illusory by nature, since the questioning or the act of scrutinising anything wouldn't even arise for you - therefore, time is not an issue for animals.
I'd also say that this is why young children and toddlers at times are so oblivious to certain sensations or stimuli (especially time) because they just haven't made that distinction yet, they're still much more "in the pure flow of consciousness", contrary to us adolescents and adults who have been successfully fucked by our egos and society at large to make all of these further and finer distinctions between things to which we all attribute a distinct and particular meaning - that we now have to unravel and undermine on our way towards enlightenment, you see? That's the whole deal.

Sorry I didn't mean the pain of a broken leg or anything like that I meant the pain of passage of time. I assumed animals won't feel bad about themselves, they won't feel sorry for their appearance and how it change with time, won't feel anxious if they haven't squirelled away enough resources for their old ageetc

But I just had a second thought on the matter. I see time is a concept of even insects understand, a spider's web is only effective in time. Even if it is instinctive time is the major player. Other animals can lay a trap, stalking prey for hours knowing it will have more energy and eventually pounce. I was clearly wrong on the matter but it's still a grey area in that time is being utilized but perhaps it is pure instinct.

[Nahm]

@DocHoliday thanks

[DocHoliday]

@star ark Yes, this instinctual behaviour is an interesting thing to look at.
That's why I was hypothetically connecting the degree of ego to the subjective experience of time,
because in case you have ever been in a really intense "state of flow" (you know what I mean),
time was not noticeable that strongly anymore,
probably it wouldn't even occur to somebody that time is even relevant at that point any longer;
at least that's what I can say in retrospect to the intense experiences of flow.
Because in a state of flow, even humans act so much more "instinctual" and "intuitive",
since there is just no more thought, i.e. lesser to no ego at all, and only action.  

Edited January 11, 2018 by DocHoliday

[pluto]

You can slow down or even stop time with one thing we are doing all the time

[DocHoliday]

@pluto So what would that be?

[pluto]

Just Breathe

[FirstglimpseOMG]

I imagine the nature of our human construct; 'time' is just and only that, a construct or concept, and in my opinion it is false.

Sounds a bit like a cut & paste response right? Not so fast, fellow travellers.

What if there is no time. I love quantum physics, and I've done my best to date to integrate it into my understanding of reality as we perceive it, but spacetime is to me, likely as much a construct, hence; illusion, as the rest of the ego-centric human fallacy.

I'm coming to understand that pure, unadulterated consciousness operates outside of spacetime. Space and time may be features of perception, but how can they be intrinsic to reality when all of reality, including our spacetime, is coached within some (no) thing that is infinite and eternal... without beginning or end? 

I imagine we can negate clock-time at will, depending on our state of consciousness and our abilities to see past illusion and operate from a deeper understanding, to whatever degree and frequency. Lol, go ahead & chuckle at my use of the word 'frequency' within a post where I claim there is no 'time', but I'm attempting to make a fundamental point about the non-existence of time 'passing', or progressing in any linear or 'real' way.   What if time as the average joe understands it, only exists within, and is very possibly  completely dependent upon cognitive dissonance?

I dunno, I may have missed the subtle sub-contexts discussed here, and am only repeating what you folks have already said, in so many words, but let's go to our perceptions of time, as this may be where the secret lies. How does time work? I think it may only, ONLY  work as illusion. Yes, everything we percieve with our senses and (ahem) intellect are illusions. Not that they don't exist, it's just that they are not what they seem. How deep are we striving to go here?

If the way time 'works' is pure illusion, more and more easily manipulated by the (hopefully) growing levels of consciousness that we are certainly capable of realizing, can 'time' simply not fall away as a concept or construct altogether? What if it's simply erroneous, and there is absolutely nothing ever more than: now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now....!!?? Sure, if you care to punctuate your 'nows' by the femtosecond, feel free, but I'm thinking that if past and future do not exist, then neither can the title, or label; 'TIME' really be meaningful? (I know, detecting anything by the femtosecond is impossible without a sweet laboratory setup, it never works when I try to be cute, but ya get the gist I hope.)

And yeah, if you're buying me lunch at 1:00 pm at Larry's House of Debauchery on 5th street, Tuesday, I'm using clock-time to make sure I don't miss out, but if I'm single-guy reclining in my chair after my daily responsibilities have been met, I'm a-tossin' it. ?

You made reservations, right?

[DocHoliday]

48 minutes ago, FirstglimpseOMG said:

 What if time as the average joe understands it, only exists within, and is very possibly  completely dependent upon cognitive dissonance?

If the way time 'works' is pure illusion, more and more easily manipulated by the (hopefully) growing levels of consciousness that we are certainly capable of realizing, can 'time' simply not fall away as a concept or construct altogether? What if it's simply erroneous, and there is absolutely nothing ever more than: now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now....!!?? 

@FirstglimpseOMG Could you explain what exactly you mean by cognitive dissonance and why time is dependent on it?
I agree that time could very well fall away as a construct and concept, although just so much that we simply acknowledge and realise its surreality and illusory nature, since we still need it, just as you stated it in your example below, as a useful concept and construction to meet up and navigate ourselves through reality.

There is only this infinite now, since you can never experience anything else anyway. "Tomorrow" will also be experienced in the same way you're experiencing this very moment right now - in the present moment. That's why past and future are simply conceptual, linguistic implementations for our human experience that we use to describe predictions and memories with. Although conceptual, they're still highly useful. 

[FirstglimpseOMG]

Sorry to be out of step replying to DocHoliday's query, you posted while I was typing away lol.  <<< EDIT 

 Oh I agree fully that time is a useful tool, and we need clock-time (yes, I'm an Eckhart Tolle fan) in many ways to functionally navigate and coordinate within our world. 

Regarding my cognitive dissonance remark, I may have mis-used or even misunderstood the term in reference to our discussion. I think what I was trying to say was.. if I watch the pot of boiling water intensely, waiting for the water to boil, and I really, really  want it to hurry up so I can have an egg for breakfast.. what happens - it seems to drag along excrutiatingly, very possibly causing anxiety or frustration (working on that, lol). Now, if I go into another room and think up an appropriate forum-post response to an interesting topic, type it out, hit submit, & head back into the kitchen, I'm all delighted (gotta get out more), the water's all boily & ready for my egg, just like quick quick magic that seemed to take no time at all. Point being that just what the hell is the 'subjective' relationship to 'time', how is it so easily malleable within perception, and if it can be so easily manipulated within experience, how real can it be, and just how deluded am 'I' to be paying that much attention to it as a fundamental part of (that section) of my day? Just how much delusion enters into the equation when I think time is passing at a certain rate when my perception, therefore my experience of it, is so easily warped, or dead-wrong (within this context)?

[DocHoliday]

Damn, now the coin really dropped for me, right there. Yes, of course...! Time is just another appearance so it's destined to change and vary in differnt, relative ways. That really makes a lot of sense. Thanks a lot for that clear description.

I just somehow wasn't able to make the proper connection between time and appearances, since I'd generally only regard "material" things as appearances so time slipped right through, due to its immaterial nature. But of course it's only another appearance.