The concept of time and how it works

[DocHoliday]

So yesterday, after I watched our mighty king's video on "Understanding Absolute Infinity 1" (),
in combination with the contemplation on time, a quite peculiar thought came to me.
Based on the famous quote by John Archibald Wheeler that "Time is what prevents everything from happening at once.",
I thought "Well, what if time actually is everything happening all at once?".
Since past and future are merely conceptual frameworks implemented for the linguistic practicality of human perception,
and the only "thing" that there really is occurring is the "present moment",
could it be that, since time is realtive, the sensation of time passing,
is merely linked to the sheer amount of differnt infinite possibilities for that particular moment?

I know all of this sounds a bit weird perhaps and I personally don't even take this idea too seriously, but I'd still be very interested in what your thoughts on this are, since the experience of time is so individual and relative for everybody.

[jse]

 

[DocHoliday]

@jse Thanks for the reply, mate. I actually already know that time is, on some level, an illsuion just as everything else is, therefore i was not referring to the illusory nature of time but much rather I was curious about the particular relativity of time and why exactly it is so relative to everybody on an individual basis - the felt experience of time, so to say.

[Dodo]

8 hours ago, DocHoliday said:

So yesterday, after I watched our mighty king's video on "Understanding Absolute Infinity 1" (),
in combination with the contemplation on time, a quite peculiar thought came to me.
Based on the famous quote by John Archibald Wheeler that "Time is what prevents everything from happening at once.",
I thought "Well, what if time actually is everything happening all at once?".
Since past and future are merely conceptual frameworks implemented for the linguistic practicality of human perception,
and the only "thing" that there really is occurring is the "present moment",
could it be that, since time is realtive, the sensation of time passing,
is merely linked to the sheer amount of differnt infinite possibilities for that particular moment?

I know all of this sounds a bit weird perhaps and I personally don't even take this idea too seriously, but I'd still be very interested in what your thoughts on this are, since the experience of time is so individual and relative for everybody.

I feel that a nice way to think about time is parallel realities. 

So here's how it could be viewed: All exists now - the baby version of you, the version of you 1 second ago, the version of you 1 second ahead and the dying version of you for example exist now. Not only that but ALL possible versions of baby you, all possible versions of you 1 second ago, all possible version of you 1 second ahead and all possible versions of the dying you exist now - somewhere. You are simply jumping from one frame to another as to create the illusion that you are born, growing and finally dying. 

Is that close to what you meant? 

 

OOh, or you mean that the present moment can be like in infinite amount of ways and that's why it's creating these constant changes... Sounds very legit! Like it. You might be on to something

Edited January 9, 2018 by Dodo

[DocHoliday]

@Dodo Exactly! You got what I was referring to in your last paragraph, that's what I meant.

[Nahm]

@DocHoliday Nice post. What if you put your two points together; it’s all illusion, time is relative. A next step might be, then either time is of the illusion, or relative to what? 

[DocHoliday]

@Nahm  Well, physics obviously tells us that time is relative to speed but I'm not really referring to this relation that's being made by physics...
what I mean is the subjective experience of time, so for example one person experiences the exact same interval of time (let's say 5min) completely different to another person.

When Sadhguru became enlightened, he claims to have experienced multiple occasions on which for him 10+ hours,
or even days merely felt like half an hour or so, so I'm curious why this subjective time-experience is occuring at some points.
I'm sure we have all experienced this for ourselves at times when "time literally flew by" and on the other hand when "time dragged itself out endlessly". My assumption is that when Sadhguru spoke about those incidents, what happened was that he totally aligned with Absolute Infinity or Pure Consciousness so that during this period, the amount of possibilities became less, so that time literlally flew by extremely fast, contrary to when there is no alignment with it that there exist more options, thus time is experienced "longer" or more "dragged-out".

Furthermore, I'm currently contemplating about what this continuous "present moment" actually is and how it can be that we even have this time-continuum, so that reality simply upholds itself from one "moment" to the next, you see? I mean, deep down I already know of the illusory nature of reality and about the truth of non-duality and so forth, this is why I mentioned that I don't take all of this very seriously.
I'm actually just having entertaining thought-experiences here, but it's still quite fascinating to me just how our circular "time" is playing out.
See, that's the thing, of course time (or our universes' evolutionary-process, however you want to call it) is circular, so the beginning is equal to it's end and whatnot, but it just still "blows my mind" (ha-ha) how the present moment upholds itself and comes into existence, you know? That's why I was connecting absolute infinity and the J.A. Wheeler quote, because he is saying that "time is what's responsible for the happening of everything" and I was thinking to myself "Couldn't it be the other way around, so that the absolute infinite happening is what's causing "time".

Edited January 9, 2018 by DocHoliday

[Nahm]

@DocHoliday Nice!   I wasn’t referring to physics, I was referring to what you are. This might be experiential in the absolute as self, versus in concept.  That everyone is one isn’t a conceptual matter. 

[DocHoliday]

@Nahm Yeah, sry if I portrayed it in some case as a "conceptual matter", obviously that's not the case, as direct consciousness reveals to us. 

[Nahm]

@DocHoliday I understood. Title of the post could be confusing though. 

[DocHoliday]

@Nahm In the sense that I'd be claiming to explain by definition how time works, or in what other way do you regard it as confusing?

[star ark]

We need time to comprehend the human experience. Time is only possible with sentience I believe, can an animal experience pain or pleasure and understand that it will pass? Or is it 100% a slave to its instincts? Humans can understand a stimulus will last only a certain amount of time, prepare for future events in a methodical way and not by instinct.

Is time purely devised by human minds? In particular the human ego?

[Nahm]

 

“The concept of time and how it works”.

31 minutes ago, DocHoliday said:

@Nahm Yeah, sry if I portrayed it in some case as a "conceptual matter", obviously that's not the case, as direct consciousness reveals to us. 

I was lovin the contemplation of it though. What’s time relative, to? 

[star ark]

1 hour ago, DocHoliday said:

When Sadhguru became enlightened, he claims to have experienced multiple occasions on which for him 10+ hours,
or even days merely felt like half an hour or so, so I'm curious why this subjective time-experience is occuring at some points.
I'm sure we have all experienced this for ourselves at times when "time literally flew by" and on the other hand when "time dragged itself out endlessly".

Perhaps he is not focusing on it. When you meditate and focus on certain stimulus it becomes incredibly strong. Just look at your food when you eat it and BAM it tastes so much stronger. He may have merely focused on the task at hand and not the negative emotions so this time just flew by, and prior to enlightenment he focused on the bad feelings so that was all that he saw and felt.

[DocHoliday]

42 minutes ago, Nahm said:

I was lovin the contemplation of it though. ->What’s time relative, to? <-

@Nahm I think I understand now what you mean with your question of "what time is relative to", it was at first kind of complicated to understand due to your lack of further explanation and sparse choice of words (no offense), but my answer to that question would be quite obviously the ego, i.e. the seperate sense of self. So I guess, the stronger the sense of a seperated self is, the more intense the experience of time becomes in terms of pure length. Is that sufficiently answering your question? Because I'm still not 100% sure if this was what you were getting at.

Edited January 9, 2018 by DocHoliday

[Nahm]

@DocHoliday  I agree, I’m guilty of too few words a lot. Wife says that too. Lol.  The further contemplation was all I’m getting at. If time is relative to the illusionary self, then time is relative to illusion. Yet (of course) there is an experience of it. So, what does that make you?

[DocHoliday]

@Nahm Saying that time is relative to illusion, to which I agree of course,
what that would make me in this case, would be pure illsuion as well, obvioulsy.

But in terms of the pure Absolute and the Relative, we surely have to distinguish.
Saying that this makes me also just illusion does not need to mean that just because time is also illusory that "I am time", or something along those lines. As I've said, my personal experience of time is still there, it's still individual and relative but I'd say that the stronger our alignment to Absolute Infinity and consciousness becomes (most noteworthy in the events of enlightenment), the more absolute time becomes and therefore, feels as if it flies by.

Edited January 9, 2018 by DocHoliday

[Nahm]

@DocHoliday ?. (If this is your idea of fun, also).  What is that I which refers to that me?

[DocHoliday]

@Nahm

4 minutes ago, Nahm said:

@DocHoliday ?. (If this is your idea of fun, also).  What is that I which refers to that me?

You wanna play the enlightenment-game with me now?:P
You know all the answers to your questions, so why do you ask me ?

[Nahm]

I just had the time.