Ask the Box

23 jul 06

"Does time exist?"

i remember i dealt with this before, in my b-l-o-g, and that i concluded that time doesn't exist since the universe operates on strict determinism, and therefor every event that is "going to" happen has already "happened", in a sense, because the outcome is known by laplace's demon. that was a phase of mine (strict determinism), and although it might still be immutable, it's irrelevant, because the illusion of free will is so convincing that it's no longer an illusion.

schopenhauer flings some powerful fatalistic words at us; almost everything he says can be interpreted as "this has been pre-determined". here's a great schopenhauer quote i recently found:

"Everyone believes himself à priori to be perfectly free, even in his individual actions, and thinks that at every moment he can commence another manner of life... . But à posteriori, through experience, he finds to his astonishment that he is not free, but subjected to necessity, that in spite of all his resolutions and reflections he does not change his conduct, and that from the beginning of his life to the end of it, he must carry out the very character which he himself condemns... ." -- a.s.

"from the beginning of his life to the end of it, he must carry out the very character which he himself condemns" -- our paths are fixed. this is a commentary on human psychology and behavior; because of the way our brains are wired, we have to follow the path that's etched out for us by our neurons. what schopenhauer doesn't mention is that the physical brain can be changed by its own consciousness (unless the potential for that change was part of the "character which he himself condemns"). and, in fact, we see that most people don't change their life's paths -- fat people stay fat, for the most part. so, massive lifestyle-change is rare, at least, even if we don't take up any "this could not have happened otherwise" philosophical baggage.

this all has more to do with "people suck" than it does with scientific (in)determinism, so we'll leave arthur to wallow in his sty of sorrow for the moment.

if we don't want to accept strict determinism, through some kind of pop-quantum mechanics or just because we can't bear the thought of it, then time, i suppose, would exist, because there is a future place in which events are not known -- events have something to progress to. this progress inplies a contiuum of time.

but, as i mentioned in another one of these infernal questions, i'm not a big fan of continuum time, and i think that it's an illusion of consciousness.

let's put it this way: time isn't what we usually think it is, and maybe the concept would be better being thrown out all together, at least from a scientific perspective. from a practical perspective, it's useful to know when the bus will come; the non-fruity answer to the question is "sure it does" -- if you set an hourglass down on the table, go do some stuff, and then return to it, you'll find that more sand is at the bottom than when you left it. so, even if time is an illusion, its a consistent illusion, and one that isn't noticably relative and variable for us (even though it is, of course).

we know that newtonian physics are, essentially, wrong, but they still make excellent predictions on how things in our perceptions will behave. linear continuum time is the same way -- even if its not ultimately valid, it still works. so, it had better exist, or my mom's going to be weirded-out when i send her a birthday card four months early.

this also reminds me of that "is nothing something?" question -- once we say the word "nothing", then it textually becomes something. does "concept x" exist? well, obviously -- we just mentioned it, and in order to do so we must have conceptualized it. same thing with time. but is there a referrent, a thing apart from the "word for the thing", that "is" time? i don't believe so, actually -- it's a useful referrent, for us and the way our own brains are constructed, but it doesn't actually refer to anything (any "thing").

so.................nah, time doesn't exist. but that doesn't mean you can pay your next rent two weeks late.

that probably didn't make much sense/wasn't all that cohesitve, but hey -- neither was the question. QED.

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but its sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but youre older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the english way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought Id something more to say

Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
And when I come home cold and tired
Its good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells.

schopenhauer would have been into "pink floyd".

After your death you will be what you were before your birth. - a.s.

now that one knocked me on my ass; i've never thought about things that way.

it illustrates something about time -- it's a lot easier to think of something after its end than it is to think of something before its beginning. at its end, we have the whole of its existence to frame our conscious picture. but at the beginning, there's just nothing; a thing's non-existence can't be conceptualized. why should this be? non-existence is non-existence.

the difficulty in comprehension can be attributed to spectral concepts of the "arrow of time", which philosophy, science, and, most importantly, "ask the box", have deemed invalid.

philosophy quotes are great; you don't have to plough through all of those books. i'm all for reducing nietzsche to a fortune cookie.