About Time
 

Hello all.

A thread on which to exchange thoughts concerning "time".

Kick off.

Time and sequence.

Daniel Defoes Robinson Crusoe did what we would perhaps all do in similar circumstances when wishing to "know" for how long he had been shipwrecked--he recorded the passing of each day by each day cutting a/another notch in a tree trunk.

Does this begin to illustrate that the notion of "time" is actually the by product of the registering/recognition of the occurrence of sequential happenings?

Cheers.

In relation to your question that would have to be an obvious yes. A construct of past present future happenings giving the mind a framework and association to one’s understanding of time as they ‘already know it’

Without knowing time, ( not having any human construct already programmed in) the occurrence of sequential happenings would still be observable, but more so through an expansive perspective of life, all around him. I guess if it’s expanded outwardly in this way, then within expands one with that.

Does that then give you more time or less time? Or does time become something else?

Experience can be deceiving. You see the sun moving on the sky. You see the terrain being flat. You feel cold, and your spouse feels hot.

Same with "time".

Yeah this is something I’ve been thinking about for some time now and I came to the conclusion (a simple one) that if we had constant daylight without any night time at all then we wouldn’t be able to say yesterday or tomorrow cos there is nothing to judge it by. I mean everyday would be all the time wouldn’t it cos there’s no night to split it up.

Just a simple thought.

Look forward to hearing other peoples thoughts on time.

What do we think about terms like "before", "after", and "sequence" in relation to what we call "time"?

Are our experiences actual-like universally applicable, or product of a necessary perception which we have adopted?

For me time is a mental construct of sequence delivered in our mind by memories of what we call “the past” and desires of what we call “the future.” Although time is also measured by distance or how far we have traveled, i.e. birth dates, anniversaries, the speed of light or sound, etc.

In my opinion all motion is circular and there is really no straight line from the past to the future. The Earth spins in a circle on its axis, one rotation of the Earth we call “a day.” Time is marked in circular motion.

One rotation of the Earth around the Sun we call “a year.” So where is the straight line from past to future? Time in my opinion is a mental construct. The only thing that is certain is the present, the here and now; all experience takes place in the present, even our memories and desires.

Hello all.

What has occurred to me after posting #5 is that the concepts/terms "before", "after" and "sequence", whilst we may think of them as having some sort of connection with "time", they are not themselves measures of duration of "time". They are instead registering a relative relationship between events one to the other. Their points of reference are from one to the other, from one to the next with no need for reference to duration of interval. "Time" has no involvement, although it seems (or seemed to me initially) that it must have.

I am however unsure of the validity of this description/reasoning.!!

Cheers.

The only place we will ever be is in the present moment. Thinking about the past or the future also only happens in the present moment. For eternity, you will only be in the here and now.

Thinking we need to improve or are perfect as we are, only happens in the present moment. There is that famous Zen quote, "If you can't get it now, where will you go for it?" All there is and all there will ever be is now.

Scientists tell us they discovered time is relative. For example take a starfish. To us it looks like they never move. I think starfish and other living things like redwood trees, that appear to not move at all to us or move so slow we don't see it, to them are moving normally or fast, as we exist in different relative time. I believe some living things, like hummingbirds evolved to exist in faster relative time than cats. They needed to exist in a faster relative time to not all be killed as cats are very fast hunters. But cats are in slower relative time than hummingbirds in my opinion. If you watch a hummingbird fly, human eyes can't track their fast movements, nor can cats.

A giant redwood tree can live 2000 years to us. My guess is to a redwood tree, 2000 years is actually more like a few months. But they were created in much slower relative time than us as we need them for oxygen so to create air they needed to exist in slower relative time than us to add security.

I think there are slight variations in human relative time and scientists seem to back this up as they say our bodies are often not the same age as we are chronologically. This would explain why some 50 year olds look 65 and other 50 olds look 35. My explanation is they are living in different relative time. So some of us are moving through time faster than others so appear to age at different rates.

This is what I think life is like for a starfish. It was speeded up and may show what their relative time looks like to them. We would move so fast to them in our faster relative time we would be a blur to them.

This video shows what I think time looks like for a starfish.

https://youtu.be/EYFAeE2EONE

Time lapse showing what I think plants experience of time may be as I think they exist in much slower relative time than us.

https://youtu.be/UzggoZ3qHVE

I was thinking about music and the present moment and my guess is "the present moment" we live in is actually not a "moment." If it was just a moment, or something like a second or less, I don't think we could enjoy music or dance etc. I think to enjoy music, we have to be aware of about 4 seconds of time space at one time or the instant of now. So my guess is we are always "present" in the now and that includes an awareness of about 4 seconds of time space.

It makes sense to me as take how we react to things. Somebody says or does something and we react. If the now was just a second or less, it would be much easier to not react. But if now is actually an awareness of about 3 or 4 seconds of time, it would explain how we react so easily. An experience like someone saying something to us, then our brain reacting with a thought or action can all take place within 4 seconds. In 1 second it could not occur as easily.

A few weeks ago I posted this :
https://www.spiritualforums.com/vb/s...d.php?t=146508

It's about Kairos vs Chronos, the two notion of time mentioned by the Greek philosophers.

Again I say it's related to the "vibration frequency", the higher you "vibrate", the more distant you get from Chronos, the regular time on the Earth.
Or in other words, the higher you go, the closer to eternity.

There is time according to your physical body, tied to the Earth (gravity), and time according to your consciousness, eternal.

Then there are different levels of incarnation / identification to the body, and I guess this plays a big role in the Kairos experience, or in the Chronos transcendence.