Time Without Human Perception

Continuing the topic of - what the heck is spatial position when your eyes are closed - - what the heck is the passage of time when you have no perception?!

How do you know that time is passing by? The second hand on the clock moves. Stuff moves. There are sounds. There are actions. Okay so what about when you close your eyes and eliminate all sound - well yeah of course you know that time is still passing my because you perceive your thoughts - thoughts moving by, thoughts. But what about when you eliminate all thoughts and simply sit only as the observer? How do you know that time is passing by? What does it then mean for time to pass by? If there is no sight, so sound, no thought, what is left to perceive? Do you then perceive nothing? Does time then stop existing?

Well first of all why should we assume that there is nothing to observe without sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, thought, feeling? Is that really all that we perceive? What about the perception of time? What about the perception of space? What does that mean? Is the perception of space and time only a by product of our perception through other senses? What becomes of - what are - space and time when you’ve got no normal perceptions left to observe the universe with? 

Does time stop? Is that what they call being entirely “in the present” when you lose all sense of passage of time? Is it then not only a metaphorical portrayal of the moment, but instead a literal one? And when the normal way of perceiving is non-existent, wouldn’t it be absurd to suppose that the rest of the universe does not exist? Or would it be absurd to suppose that it did? Does the universe exist independently of my perception? Or rather, does it exist independently of my conscious perception? Well the answer to the latter is most certainly uncertain and unfalsifiable, but the answer to the first one - as long as I am still consciously aware, then I obviously still observe something, and that something is the universe, so the universe still exists, but in a way that is entirely different from what we “assumed” it to be under our normal way of perceiving.

How many times do I have to repeat the phrase, the finger pointing at the moon is not the moon (it’s just a finger pointing). Your perception, your description, your model of the universe is not the universe, but it is all that your universe will ever be - what you believe it to be, that it is. But the question is, how do you escape perception and perceive the universe? That’s the universe I attempt to explore a little further every day, every hour, every minute.

Speed of Thought Transportation and Eating

The previous couple posts were pretty disorganized, but basically the main idea is this - How (HOW!) do people go about their everyday lives without constantly being bewildered by the state of anything at all?

So when I start talking to any given person at any given time, I have a million things to start questioning, such as whether or not you exist, whether or not you actually have consciousness, etc., but in particular I was thinking about the question, if I assume that you have consciousness and do actually exist, how do I know that you are currently perceiving the present moment that I perceive as we continue with our exchange of words?

When I ask you a question, and I get a response, I am assuming that it is because you at this instant understand what I told you and you are attempting to communicate your thoughts to me. Yes, it is already a huge leap to assume that you even understand anything at all, but how could I possibly assume on top of that that you are in fact comprehending at this very instant? Furthermore, how do I know that I am comprehending and reacting to what I think you have just said at this very instant I am perceiving and not that this has already all happened to you in some other distant point in time, but I am only currently perceiving it in my instantaneous “present moment”?

It’s easy to make a physical comparison with the speed of light and how it takes information from the sun about 8 minutes to reach the earth, and so at the instant that humans on earth can receive and information at their “present” is has already happened on the sun. But that’s just a physical comparison. I’m not saying that there has to be some sort of physical medium for thoughts to be transported from mind to mind or anything like that, it’s just that, how can I assume?

Well, as with any question that I ever linger upon, that’s just the question. It’s absolutely no surprise, in fact it’s the only thing that’s ever expected (although I should never assume always). “How can I assume?” You can’t. It’s that simple, you just can’t assume (or not assume, or assume to not assume, or whatever). That’s all there is to anything, really. How much easier could it get? So I just go ahead and make as many hypothetical theoretically possible and unfalsifiable universe models in my head as I please.

But why? Is everyone’s question. “Why? What’s the point?” Well, “why not” is always the response, but that’s not really a response is it? But isn’t it? Why not? Because isn’t it in human nature to attempt to understand what you don’t already think you do? Well, maybe that’s the problem. Most people in the world think they understand everything that goes on in their everyday life, which is absolutely absurd! They start eating, put food into their mouths, chew, maybe comment how good or bad it tastes, and swallow! And they just swallow! Without ever being bewildered by the thought of what it means to eat, to taste, to feel hungry at all. They know the experience, but they’ve never understood it or ever seen the need to “understand” it at all!

What in the world does it mean to be hungry? What do you mean “am I hungry”? I don’t even know what it means to exist, how could I even begin to attempt to swallow a mouth full of food without becoming completely overwhelmed in attempt to understand what it even means to be hungry?!

And then they’ll probably combat me with the practically appropriate response “why does it matter?” “What difference does it make?” “Why should I care?” “What good would it do me to know what it means to be hungry? It is an absurd question to start with.” Well, I don’t know. I just don’t understand how this question could possibly not be of importance, and that’s when I stop talking. Change the topic. You wouldn’t understand. You’ve lived in your experiences of the universe for too long, haven’t you? But haven’t I? Why haven’t I become brainwashed yet like all the other grown-ups, and even children in the world?

Or better yet, I just wouldn’t ask you what it means to be hungry before we begin a meal. I don’t think you would understand. People don’t really understand because they think they do. The people who think they understand everything must know the least.. Or never mind it’s probably more like a Gaussian distribution for some reason. (Like with people who don’t actually know that they know nothing, like rocks and stuff, and people who know they know nothing on opposite ends of the spectrum, and people who think they know mostly everything but know actually nothing and don’t know they know nothing in the middle where the peak is.) People are just strange.

Inverted Spectrum II - Time

So back the the problem: Inverted spectrum does not just apply to colors. It applies to all perceptions, including the perception of space, time, and consciousness itself (well, yeah). I focus on the idea of the inverted spectrum problem as applied to the perception of time.

So just because I am perceiving the present moment instantaneously at this exact moment, how do I know that you or anyone in the world is also perceiving the same exact “present moment” at this point in time. You would always agree with me on “what is red” and likewise, you would certainly agree with me that “now” is now, but does that even have any meaning at all? So at this present moment - say 11:42:37:09 AM (UTC+8), Wednesday, August 22nd - that I am experiencing as the present moment, how do I know that you’re also perceiving this exact moment at the time that I’m perceiving it? Why should our times be synced? Why shouldn’t they?

(Of course this goes into a bunch of complicated problems such as whether time even exists at all, whether other people’s minds exist at all, etc. And also, there’s always the “I have no reason to assume why not” argument (that infuriates me, because please - actually listen to my argument. I never said I was arguing that we should assume that we all perceive different times or different colors or whatever. All I’m saying is that you can’t know if we do or don’t. I never said we had to choose a side. In fact I explicitly argue that neither side can be right/true. The nature of subjectivity.) But let’s just disregard that. I am only thinking about this problem because it brings me pleasure to be puzzled by it, and we’ll see what happens from there.)

So at any rate, if you didn’t perceive the present at the same present moments as me, does that imply an argument on the side that the mind is a separate entity from the body? Does it matter? How does this affect free will and causality? Do all conscious beings need to perceive the present in the same frame of present in order for free will to exist? Well, for “free will” as we know it, that seems to be the case, but already we have a million other problems because of our ill definition of “free will” - yet another definition. Free will is just a definition of something. It’s a human invented concept, just like logic and all other things.. 

Well, just because we invented a definition for the term “free will” does not necessarily imply that something such as what we define as “free will” does not exist in the universe, but that somehow seems unlikely because don’t all definitions have to be consistent, and if any description is internally consistent, does that not imply that it cannot be a complete definition? So point being, definitions are completely useless, meaningless, and irrelevant. Ok, let’s throw away the problem of “free will” and just theoretically suppose what it would be like in a universe where conscious perceivers perceived present moments at different present frames.

So like most other theoretical universes (where I can be sure of no nature of other people’s conscious perceptions) that I’ve thrown myself into, this one also seems quite lonely if I suppose that I’m the only person in the whole entire universe who is perceiving this present moment at the present moment.. What happened/happens to everyone else? That leaves room to suppose that I could indeed be everyone and everything in the whole entire universe, and there is no such thing as separate, different people with different conscious minds, because as “you” are reading this post in your present moment, that may not be my present moment or anyone else’s present moment at all. And so if there is no reason why any present moments should overlap at all, there is no reason why I can’t believe that at some point in time, I could experience every single present moment of every single conscious being in the universe. When “you” are reading this post, that is actually “me” just in a different location in space time and consciousness and reality.. But it’s still in the same universe. You can’t get out of the universe.

Yes, but again that’s just a theoretical universe, and I have absolutely no grounds to either believe or not believe the truth in it. There can be no arguments to prove or disprove a theoretical universe, so in the end it is a choice, isn’t it? The universe exists in the exact way I choose to believe.

How does a relativistic particle perceive a non-relativistic particle?

I would just like to point out again (to myself) that velocity is just a unitless number, since time carries the same units as distance in 4-dimensional spacetime, and the speed of light  just a conversion factor of seconds into meters, both of which are arbitrary units.

So what implications does this have to the question “what is a universe with only spacetime and photons”? In an exclusively radiation filled universe, can space and/or time exist? If so, how? Can/does empty space exist in between the photons? How can a photon exist as a (point) particle when it exists everywhere along its path simultaneously (i.e., what does it really mean to exist as a particle and a wave simultaneously)?

So I think I concluded that time only exists for non-relativistic particles and therefore does not exist for relativistic particles in the previous spacetime post so it makes no sense to talk about motion or moving for a universe with only photons since that entails rates of distance per unit time. Or rather, all motion in whatever universe is just a ratio in the photon’s perspective. We non-relativistic particles perceive relativistic particles as “moving” but they perceive us as “ratios”. What does that mean? What does it mean to “perceive something as a ratio”? I think that the photon (or neutrino or whatever) would be just as clueless about what velocity means as we are about what this ratio thing means..

Well, Einstein asks “what happens when we catch up with a beam of light” but what he really asks is “what happens to the perception of a non-relativistic particle when it reaches the same velocity as a relativistic particle”. What happens to the second half of the question “what happens to the perception of a relativistic particle when a non-relativistic particle suddenly acquires the same distance/time ratio as the relativistic particle”? Wasn’t that part of the deal too since in relativity everything is relative and so you shouldn’t just be questioning things from the absolute perspective of a non-relativistic particle? Did that second question get answered along the way/was I just not paying attention??? Uh…?

How can space or time exist without physical objects and vice versa?

Space and time are the same - I don’t understand how they could exist without physical objects, just like physical objects could never exist without space and time. But we always talk about space and time as if they came before physical objects, how do we know that it wasn’t because of physical objects that space and time existed. But of course that’s a rather pointless question because it’s presupposing the existence of time for there to be an order to things, or it could just be asking the question, is time necessary for causality? Can causality exist independent of time? Association can, but can order? Order exists in space, but space and time are basically the same type of thing, they’re both media, for storage of information.. And I begin to be reminded that this must all just be a problem with the limitations of language to explain the concept that we already understand, have always held, in our way of experiencing or perceiving, but that cannot be conveyed through thought in the form of language. Or “thought” is only language, a product that “happens” but is not caused? At least not by intention. But arguing about all this is meaningless because of the nature of “truths” anyways, so just leave that.

Back to the problem - How can time exist without physical objects? I seem to have defined* “time” as the order of events happening between physical particles**. I said, if there are no events, how can there be time, how would we know if there were time, and more importantly, what difference would it make if there were or weren’t time if there were no events to happen anyways? And how could there be an event without a physical particle? Well, a physicist would say, that’s silly! Light exists, and light is not a physical particle. It could well be a particle, but it is not physical, and it takes “time” for a photon t travel from a point in space to another point. But that’s silly too! The time it takes for light to travel from one point depends on the reference frame of the observer, the motion, the relative velocity of the observer in the reference frame, but if no physical particles existed to be a observer in a reference frame, then how would we know how much “time” it takes for a light beam to travel from one point in space to another point in space?

Is saying that other photons exist in other reference frames to observe other traveling photons stupid? Time does not exist in the reference frame of a photon. For a photon there is no such thing as time, no such thing as velocity, no such thing as motion. But then what is a world completely devoid of physical particles but filled with empty space and photons? Does it even make sense to suppose the existence of empty space when the only existing particles are non-physical (by virtue of the same argument of time)? We, as perceivers only used to experiencing and perceiving a universe with both physical and non-physical matter could imagine a universe filled with empty space and photons, with photons moving from point to point at different “times” some before, some after, and at first sight it seems perfectly sensical, but immediately on second thought, how could this possibly be?

How could photon 1 start traveling from point A “before” photon 2 starts traveling from point A if time flowed for neither of them? Or imagining of that scenario requires us to “be there” to observe it, even if it is only a scenario in our heads, but by being there, we are the physical particles there to “observe” the photons. Photons cannot be observers because the act of observation seems to require “time” or at least anything that we, as human perceivers, could possibly imagine. But then isn’t it pointless to “think about” the non-existence of physical matter anyways? Since you would never be able to imagine it because the very act of imagining it, perceiving it, trying to perceive it at all creates its existence.. Just like everything else.. But what if it’s completely “internal”? Having nothing to do with the physical world, but only with what “goes on” in the mind?

What is an event in the mind? It requires no physical objects at all! It requires no “real” physical objects, but then are we saying that just because a physical object that exists purely in the mind if not “physical” at all simply because it is not “real”? It seems that everything and anything “real” has the exact same properties as everything and anything “imaginary” except that one is real and the other is imaginary; one exists in the “real world”, and one exists in the “mind”. So I don’t think that just because an imagined physical object is not real, it is not physical, so to say. And so we are going in circles once again, trying to “imagine” the unimaginable but circularly causing the imaginable just because we are “imagining” the unimaginable, which is not being “imagined”.. I think that the conclusion always gets to the same basic point - that creation creates itself, everything and anything creates itself and itself and itself, and back the the problem of zeros and ones and ones only creating ones and zeros only being zeros all over again. Everything is so unimaginably “simple”. “Simple”.

*Not a good thing. I use the term “define” loosely here. I don’t want to give anything a definite definition.

**By “physical particle” I really just mean non-relativistic. I’m not really sure what being a “physical” particle would entail anyways (as opposed to an “imaginary” particle?) not sure why I just completely forgot about the term “non-relativistic”. Sorry.

Q&A

Q: I thought the idea of reality conforming to (or perhaps being created as a result of) one’s thoughts especially interesting, though I don’t like the phrase “time-dependent.” To me, “time,” as the word is typically used, means a measurement of change. (One second is determined by a particular unit of change in the physical world.) This would imply that reality changes as a result of thought changing, which is sort of what you’ve described but not quite. I think a better word to use would be “moment,” such that reality is “moment-dependent.” In this case, reality would simply conform to whatever the thought is, and not the difference between thoughts. Both interesting ideas, but I think the latter is actually a more accurate, valuable description of your perspective. I say this because, as you have contemplated, our conception of reality may be different now than at any time before or after now, emphasizing the importance of the individual moment.

A: I think this is coming down to more of an argument of definition/choice of word than meaning. When I say time, I’m talking about an instant in time, not an increment of time. Of course this is all idealized, and I don’t know if it even makes sense to talk about “instants of time”, but I think what you are getting at by “moment-dependent” is exactly the what I mean by “time-dependent”, unless you don’t mean “instant in time” by “moment”. i.e., if “r(t)” is a time-dependent function that outputs the state of reality at time “t”, the “t” we are looking at is a number, not a difference between numbers, and I think calling it “moment” could raise more confusion in definition because it is not as commonly used a word as say “time”.

On second thought, I think a more appropriate way of putting it is just “thought-dependent” reality, in which each thought may or may not have anything to do with time at all. Time may or may not exist, each thought may or may not exist in a distinct instant of time, and so forth. All we’re assuming is that different thoughts exists, which give rise to different realities, so there - thought-dependent reality!

Time Dependent Existence?

Is my existence time dependent even when I think I’m alive?

Reality, the Strange Loop

Today I was thinking about the possibilities of demons again, but Sandy reminded me that I shouldn’t start believing in demons if I haven’t already been believing in them. This is very true, and although this has always been my take on reality - that what you believe in is what reality becomes, and that there is no objective “truth” - it is nonetheless still difficult to appreciate at times after being conditioned (somehow? by what?) to believe certain things about reality for so long.

Well, for some reason I have been conditioned to have faith in the idea that people who I observe outside of my consciousness also have consciousness despite the complete lack of direct evidence. Why is this so? Why was I not conditioned to believe from the very beginning that no one else had a consciousness, and that my mind was the only thing that has ever existed - in which case, the former would seem extremely absurd (in contrast to the absurdity currently perceived in the latter).

Well, for one thing, I have constantly been approaching these thoughts in a “trying to figure out” kind of way, which is ironic because the act of “figuring out” pre-supposes that there is an objective truth without the necessity of one. I haven’t really stopped to suppose that the universe and reality may be a “morphing” thing, that is, it changes instantaneously with whatever I happen to come to believe at the moment.

I’ve run into this thought before, at which point, terrified to be “God”, I stopped, but it seems to make a lot of sense as I think about it now, even though it may not be the most “ideal” and/or “comforting” possibility, but those things are arbitrarily emotional anyways, so I should disregard. But that thought I have is this: For every instant that I believe or have ever believed that people outside of my mind actually exist (i.e., they have their own conscious minds), then they do. But as soon as I go back to supposing that they don’t exist, then they don’t. And the universe is basically only this weird ever changing thing that morphs into whatever I believe at the moment, because beliefs are not consistent all the time, and neither is reality. That is what is implied by the belief that “reality becomes whatever I come to believe” - it is a time dependent belief in the sense that my beliefs change with time.

And as you see, this belief clearly only seems to make sense in a very circular way, because that belief cannot always be true, otherwise it would constitute as an “objective truth” which violates its own statement. So that belief must not always be true, but only when the perceiver perceives that belief to be “true” but again true in a time dependent sense, or rather, a belief/consciousness dependent sense - that truths, just like realities, universes, and consciousnesses are amorphous and self-dependent in a circular way. This does not exclude the possibility of other realities, universes, and consciousnesses existing independently with different principles outside of any given reality, universe, or consciousness, but it also doesn’t prove it.

Hmm… I think this bemused euphoric sensation that I derive from running into more and more questions and questions and answerless questions about reality is what “people” would generally call “trippy”. Why does it have to be a drug-related sensation (not that there is anything wrong with drugs)? Shouldn’t this be a pretty regularly experienced normal feeling that people get on a day-to-day basis if they’re at all capable of thought? I don’t understand how people could just ignore these things and “live”, but I guess that’s an irrelevant question because at the moment I don’t believe that any of them really exist.