How do we experience time?

[Lucretius]

I would say we are conscious of time through memory.

 

[otrrl]

Comedian Woody Allen said that God invented time so that everything didn’t happen at the same time.

 

[STT]

I am missing your point.

 

[STT]

I agree that we are making memory but I fail to see how we could make continuous experience of time through discrete memories.

 

[Dovekin]

I fail to see how we could make continuous experience of time through discrete memories.

Do you have any memories of ever hearing music? Do you remember it as a LOT of discrete memories? Or as a continuous experience that lasted through time?

Is it fruitul to analyze a piece of music by saying “she played 47 F#, 125 C, 97 E…”? Do the discrete memories have any real significance apart from their context?

 

[STT]

Do you have any memories of ever hearing music?

Yes. It seems continuous. For seeing we get discrete frame of lights which enter our eyes.

Do you remember it as a LOT of discrete memories?

No, it is continuous.

Or as a continuous experience that lasted through time?

What do you mean?

Is it fruitul to analyze a piece of music by saying “she played 47 F#, 125 C, 97 E…”?

Yes, they write music based on a language.

Do the discrete memories have any real significance apart from their context?

No.

 

[Dovekin]

For seeing we get discrete frame of lights which enter our eyes.

What gives you that idea? While movies used to do that, modern video/projection has left that model behind. I doubt our brains are still in film mode.

Dovekin:

Or as a continuous experience that lasted through time?

What don’t you understand? Memories are rarely like film-frames or photographs, but capture time too.

they write music based on a language

You used 3 a, 1 b, 1 c, 1 d, 4 e, 2 g…

 

[STT]

What gives you that idea? While movies used to do that, modern video/projection has left that model behind. I doubt our brains are still in film mode.

Photons are discrete. Frames of movie are discrete too. What we experience however is continuous.

What don’t you understand? Memories are rarely like film-frames or photographs, but capture time too.

Concepts are discrete.

You used 3 a, 1 b, 1 c, 1 d, 4 e, 2 g…

Yes. Something like that.

 

[Seagull]

It’s all in how - we choose - individually - to experience time.

I learnt early on in the game - that time is short -
And that Jesus could come back at - any time !
I learnt that people die - unexpectedly - at young ages.

It’s fun to watch a time travel based movie.
They often have a lot of truths.

An old guy at church insists - there’s no future or past -
He keeps telling me this - via a prophecy ( Cathrine Emmerict? )

 

[STT]

It’s all in how - we choose - individually - to experience time.

I learnt early on in the game - that time is short -
And that Jesus could come back at - any time !
I learnt that people die - unexpectedly - at young ages.

It’s fun to watch a time travel based movie.
They often have a lot of truths.

An old guy at church insists - there’s no future or past -
He keeps telling me this - via a prophecy ( Cathrine Emmerict? )

I don’t understand how what you said is related to topic of this thread.

 

[Gorgias]

Time is fundamental thing/entity in reality without it no change was possible.

No. Time does not cause change. Time is the means through which we experience change. It is not a ‘variable’, or an ‘entity’. It is merely the way we can conceptualize (and describe) the changes that we experience.

 

[Gorgias]

Calliope:

STT:

Can’t you find even one particle which is not in motion in the vast universe?

No, can you?

Yes. The chair that I am sitting on right now.

Nope. That chair moved when you sat on it. It moves, albeit imperceptibly, as you yourself move and breathe. The atoms which make up the chair, themselves, are in constant motion. Moreover, as @Calliope mentioned, the chair moves with the earth, the solar system, and the galaxy. So… no; the chair on which you sit is not motionless.

What we experience however is continuous.

That’s only because your senses are unable to distinguish the discrete states; therefore, reality appears continuous to you. That doesn’t mean that this is reality’s nature, however.

 

[Dovekin]

Photons are discrete.

Lightwaves are continuous.

Unfortunately, they are the same.

Concepts are discrete.

In what way? Memories need not be, though the discussion of them may require discretion. But even if we break a memory for analysis, it may still persist as a continuous memory.

 

[meltzerboy2]

Yes indeed. There is the psychological perception of time depending on several factors, including, among others, what you say (how much fun–or misery, boredom, etc.–we’re having), as well as our age: for older people time seems to pass faster (unless they are lonely), while for the young, time passes slowly.

 

[DignumEtJustum]

How could that be possible? You asked “How do we experience time?” You then defined time as “a variable entity which allows change to happen.” I then asked if you’ve experienced change. You said you had. You therefore, by your own definition of time, have experienced it.

 

[Jknifeman]

Time is a sort of weird subject.

In physics it is seen as a differential between point A and point B.

In most people’s minds it is simply a force which both causes them gain and loss and limits what they can do.

But in reality time is a medium through which everything that will ever happen and has happened flows. It most certainly is relative, and in addition it is extremely hard to grasp fully because humans see it from a single point of reference, trying to figure out what time really is is like trying to copy the Mona Lisa seeing through a pinhole.

 

[Jknifeman]

Partially incorrect. Time is a variable because it is relative, when a jet moving at Mach 1.2 has a clock onboard that clock and the entire jet themselves are farther in the future than a man sitting on a bench watching the jet because of time dilation. Therefore time is a variable in so much as time dilation.

Whether time is a an entity depends upon how you perceive it and or measure it. It can be seen as a medium or it can be seen as a differential.

 

[brian_custer]

please don’t believe in “time”
“time” is a human misconception ; we’ve been promised eternal life

where there is no “time”

 

[Jknifeman]

Misconception? Then what do you suppose time is?

Also remember this is to the best of my knowledge a science question unless the OP forgot to include the point of view he wants.

 

[brian_custer]

there is no “time” in the eternal life

stop looking at your alarm clock: the number it shows is meaningless