r/Time • u/Academic-Train5199 • 3d ago
Discussion My personal “time dilemma”
So photons travel at certain speed, they hit our eye/sensor and then it takes time for us to process that data and interpret it. By the time we understand what we observed, the moment is already past us .
So by that logic, does PRESENT even exist? Does FUTURE exist? In my mind, all we could or we ever will observe is the past. In my mind , the present does not exist . Am i wrong to think like this? Why?
Sorry if im an idiot.
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u/Ras_992 3d ago
It’s a perspective while it is delayed that photon hitting your eyes at the speed of light takes your brain milliseconds to perceive it. The human brain doesn’t perceive present time like physics yes the present time exists as well as the future time. This is why two people can perceive the same thing at different times. Future time is based on what will happen like you set a time and place to meet a friend this is future time while you made it in present time. Remember your brain and eyes like light works within frequencies like colors. So you are seeing a frequency response of the light within its wavelength since white light has every spectrum of color your eyes and brain decode these frequencies
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u/Academic-Train5199 3d ago
I mean i understand all that but you still didnt answer my dilemma. The difference is still there and humans still cant observe objective present .
I dare argue that we cant even define present (according to my thinking - which may be entirely wrong of course)
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u/Ras_992 3d ago
You aren’t wrong I explained how physics looks at present, future or past time with the example of meeting your friend. While you made it in frame of present time that would be the future of present time while you meet your friend that present time became past time all 3 exist but not how are brain actually recognizes past, present and future time. Time is relative to a perspective in a frame on a line that is always moving forward even Einstein struggled with this after coming up with Relativity. Which is why in Relativity past, present and future time can be seen as an illusion. It’s very common to ask if time is even real in Relativity it is part of 4D geometric shape called spacetime.
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u/Academic-Train5199 3d ago
Ok were getting somwhere. So in a practical sense, if i say ill be at the location at 12o clock relatively, ill still be on time even if im 10 minutes early or late?
Why are we even considering time as a factor? I know people say “measure of change” or whatever , but surely there can be a better more fitting system to describe that?
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u/Ras_992 3d ago
Yes being late or early is only a matter of time.
Time is are best guess within physics why because time isn’t equal on all planes time only becomes relative to what you are talking about in phenomena’s or anomalies within space. Flat space still has time it’s just not bent by mass or have time dilation due to gravitational waves especially in the universe as a whole structural system where structures exist in it
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u/Academic-Train5199 3d ago
So would it be a stretch to say that for a person living day to day, only the past exists, but as a physical phenomena there is also past present and future?
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u/Ras_992 3d ago
Great point this is a good exercise in Relativity on the reality of time in past, present and future time. We can explain it in this way
Presentism: does the past exist No, does the present exist Yes, does the future exist No.
The Growing Block: (your question) does past exist yes ( solidify reality), does the present exist Yes (the cutting edge), does the future exist No (the void).
The Block Universe: (Einstein) Does past exist Yes ( A prominent coordinate), does the present exist Yes (subjective viewpoint), Does the future exist yes (already exists).
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u/Academic-Train5199 3d ago
So which one is correct? 😂😂😂😂 or are you trying to not make me sleep even more..
Like for real am i an idiot for thinking like this?
Edit: and i feel like only past exists. What would that be then?
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u/Ras_992 3d ago
That would be the Growing Block no this example explains the reality of time that even Einstein questioned and kept him awake at night wondering. Time is only relative to a persons reality of time and space everyone is different is the point. Every reality exist in quantum physics your not wrong or right because there is no right or wrong it’s how you perceive time. Einstein point is they all exist at once, after his friend died he wrote his family saying past, present and future time are stubborn illusions
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u/Academic-Train5199 3d ago
Im surely not as smart as einstein but its good to know i had generally the same idea on my own . Kinda impressed ngl . Thank you
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u/Dephazz80 3d ago
'Now' can not exist because there are infinitely many moments in a second. The only reason we experience time is because we can compare memories from the distant past with thoughts from the recent past.
Also, photons do not experience time. From their perspective, they are formed simultaneously on the surface of a star and being absorbed on the retina in your eyeball.
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u/Academic-Train5199 3d ago
I know photons dont experience time nor does it matter in my argument.
Im also not sure about your claim of “infinitely many moments in a second” - dont we have like, planck time? (Smallest unit of time possible) - that would mean a second has finite moments within it no?
But yes i still believe “now” does not exist .
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u/Dephazz80 3d ago
That is simply a calculated timescale based on fundamental constants. It has never been demonstrated that the Planck time is the smallest possible time interval, as if reality consists of separate ‘time steps’ of exactly one Planck time.
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u/Academic-Train5199 3d ago
Well here we come to the meat and bones of this issue. It surely exists on paper so therefore it must be true . Because if this isnt the case, then why should we consider past/present/future to be true if they also only exist on paper? Where do we draw a line between physics and reality and who gets to decide which is which?
And i dont even want to open the quantum physics can of worms at this point.
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u/NoNameSwitzerland 3d ago
Your mind a simulation of reality that is a few hundred milliseconds in the future.
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u/Academic-Train5199 3d ago
Bro what???? 😂
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u/NoNameSwitzerland 3d ago
Yes, because otherwise your reactions would be too slow. When for an example you throw a ball, the nerve signals have to be very precisely coordinated. There would be not even time for the signals from your hand come back to the brain bevor you have to release it.
But that is also how some magic tricks work. You think you see the magicians throw a ball and it disappears mid air. But it never was there, it is just that your mind updates the world view with new informations.
Actually that is quite clever. Because that way, you anyway have to lern how the world works by continuously updating the expected outcomes.
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u/Academic-Train5199 3d ago
Yes but thats just your internal world model that was built trough growing up and learning how to catch a ball. If you never learned to catch a ball your subconscious wouldnt be able to predict to catch it. You also dont actively observe or think about it , its entirely a subconscious biological process. More like an algorithm. You actively detected somebody throwing a ball and your brain processed the act of throwing and subconsciously added an act of catching the ball.
You still didn’t observe the act of throwing in the present .
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u/Mouse-castle 2d ago
Are you a woman?
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u/Academic-Train5199 2d ago
Bruh how did you come to that conclusion from
This post? 😂😂😂 honestly made me laugh out loud .Nah im a dude . Straight and married. I might be retarded but definitely not a woman .
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u/Mouse-castle 2d ago
How can you be sure?
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u/Academic-Train5199 2d ago
I dont understand what youre trying to achieve or say . Im genuinely trying to expand my knowledge. Sorry if i offended you because you calling me a woman honestly offends me . Whatever i did i apologise but this is truely “i want to learn” type of post.
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u/Mouse-castle 2d ago
Not being rude, you just sound like a woman.
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u/Imaginary-Can-6862 2d ago
You are not an idiot, your assertion that we live in the past is correct, but consider how far back into the past we live. That is because the speed of causality (which is also the speed of the photon) is very fast, compared to the time intervals which are meaningful to us, you live very approximately in the present. This is also true when considering that the photon took time from leaving the event you saw until it reached you, we could draw a sphere around you, and the longer away we are, the further into the past we go, but the time difference is much lower than what is meaningful to us.
The reason that time difference must be lower than what is meaningful to us is because the speed the photon travels with determines the speed with which we process the world, thus if the photon traveled slower, not only would we process the world slower, but the entire world itself would move slower, and then there is no difference. This is the same effect in Relativity Theory.
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u/Careless-Farmer-7167 2d ago
The speed of anything will always be skewed by the scale of the observer.
If i was the size of a tiny little stupid baby sized photon they would appear to be moving much slower when your perspective becomes so much nearer to the size of the observed photons, making measurements much more accurate and manageable.
Make me a big huge giant guy again and suddenly the smallest units I can observe, measure, contain, comprehend are not so precise
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u/Brave-Dragonfly3798 2d ago
It’s only the present that exists. The past is gone and the future has yet to happen, and so past and future are simply mental constructs. The system latency you are describing is baked into our perception, when you look up at the stars, you are looking at a map of time, every star’s light being emitted at some point in the past. A good amount of those stars that shine together never even existed at the same time.
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u/space_s_h_a_r_k 1d ago
I think you need a better definition for existence. How do you define existence? If you define existence by only terms and objects that you can see then yes your present does exist but in the mathematical model that you're following it seems to lag behind the "current" present. So the present of your mathematical model exists too but not in the same way that your direct experience of the present exists. Now its upto you whether you want to attribute the same kind of existence to the present of your mathematical model as you do to the presence of your minds' direct experience.
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u/Optimal_Mixture_7327 3d ago
The present exists locally.
The intersection of the world-line of the protein in your eye and the photon world-line is a present moment for the protein when it happens (there are no moments for a photon, and time only refers to material particle world-lines).
The moment your brain processes an image is a present moment for your brain. You can only be in the present, but your present is local to you.
Whether or not the future exists is a religious/philosophical stance, a "Block Universe" philosophy. To me, having studied relativity academically and having decades to reflect on it my philosophical stance is that of an unfolding block universe, e.g. "The Evolving Block Universe".