| From: AstRoboY ® | 17/09/2000
16:20:00 |
| Subject: Forever now | post id:
136051 |
Can objective 'time' be reconciled with subjective/psychological 'time'; is the flow of time entirely a mental construct/illusion which physics may one day do away with? yours in time AstRoboY | |
| From: B.C. ® | 17/09/2000
20:36:00 |
| Subject: re: Forever now | post id:
136161 |
| I'm not sure if I understand your
question properly, but I remember when I read A brief history of time by
Hawking,that he said that there were three directions of time,they
are--the thermodynamic arrow of time,this is the direction of time that
entropy increases, the phycological arrow of time,this is the direction in
which we fel time pass,or to be able to remember the future and not the
past, and thirdly the cosmological arrow,this is the direction in which
the universe is expanding rather than contracting. I hope this helps answer your question. | |
| From: Chris (Avatar) | 18/09/2000
9:24:00 |
| Subject: re: Forever now | post id:
136291 |
Can objective 'time' be reconciled with subjective/psychological 'time'; Sure. Objective time doesn't exist. This is what relativity is about. The following quote (attributed to Einstein, but it may be apocryphal) sums it up: A minute sitting on a hot stove feels like an hour, and an hour spent with a beautiful (insert appropriate gender noun) feels like a minute. More seriously, vagaries in perception of time are typically to do with scale. Our awareness is limited in the number of scales on which it can operate successfully. Many people can operate only on the one scale - an example might help illustrate: In an army you have foot soldiers who operate minute by minute, each action immediate. Their commanding officers might be operating at the level of the objective (ie take/defend this town/bridge/FunPark) which may be on a scale of hours. For their commanding officers the scale in question may be the battle of which that objective is a part - that might operate in days. The generals are looking at the whole war which might be months. Some people are capable of operating on multiple scales, eg the successful commander who can operate on the timescale of his soldiers, his objective, and also the battle. Thus he sees how each minor event influences his objective, and also sees his objective in the context of the battle. I'd argue that a competitive environment selects such people that can operate at different levels simultaneously. What physics says about all this is that there is no absolute objective standard for time. So revel in your own reference frame. Cheers Chris | |