Is Consciousness the True Measure of Time?

[pe3]

Thanks Apeiron, really clear and interesting information indeed.

ConradDJ, yes I have been mostly thinking about physics (closer to my background) - but have been interested how we can feel the "present" so strongly even if does not exist.

 

[ConradDJ]

ConradDJ, yes I have been mostly thinking about physics (closer to my background) - but have been interested how we can feel the "present" so strongly even if does not exist.

Well, I agree there's no single "now" for the entire universe at once... but I don't think Special Relativity gives any reason to believe that my "now" (as I write this) doesn't physically exist -- or your "now" (as you read it), even though these two are clearly not the same present moment.

From any point of view in the universe, there's a clear separation between the factual past and the possible future -- even in Relativity. There's no reason to think that our experience of things happening in this moment -- possibilities becoming facts -- is something that only happens "in our heads".

I think that the significance of spacetime structure in Relativity is that the local ongoing "now" of each entity is physically interconnected with those of others in a complex web, along their respective light-cones, rather than on a single simultaneous hyperplane.

You might look at this thread if you haven't already seen it --

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=309445"

So it seems to me we experience the present so strongly -- in fact that's all anyone ever experiences -- because that's what does exist, physically: a web of real-time interaction-events.

We're more used to a picture of the universe "from outside" -- as a vast object extended through all space that's been in existence for billions of years. I don't think that picture is wrong. But I think there's also more to be learned about physics by exploring the structure we see "from inside", in real time. These are complementary rather than contradictory views of the world.

Hope that's of some interest, or at least somewhat intelligible.

-- Conrad

 

[SDetection]

I want to ask a question about our concept of time:
Does time go faster for a system that consumes more energy relative to another system that consumes less energy?.
I mean, for example:
When we are mentally active, time seems to go faster than when we are doing nothing. Also when we sleep, time stops for our conscious mind, and when we wake up, we find ourselves suddenly in the future. Can this be considered time travel?.
The same thing seems to apply to chemical reactions.