WEBVTT - This Present Moment: Experience and Physics 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.880 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:14.280 Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:16.600 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:19.360 McCormick and Robert. I've got a question. I know you've 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:21.960 got a good answer for. Do you ever do that 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:25.639 thing where you try to catch an awareness of now? 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:28.920 I feel like it's it's sort of the five year 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:31.160 old game, right. I remember I learned to play this 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:33.800 with myself when I was a little kid, where I 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:37.800 would think, no, win is now, No, it's now, it's now? 0:00:38.200 --> 0:00:41.760 How soon is now? Exactly? Um? Yeah, it is like 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:44.400 a child's game to a certain extent, you know, as 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:48.320 you begin to become aware of time as an abstraction 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:52.280 and you ask yourself what is now? And then, of course, 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:55.760 one of the things about this question is you probably 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:59.280 keep asking yourself this question throughout your life, like there's 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:02.560 there's no putable answer that ever presents itself. Yeah, I 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:05.840 feel like so we have the sensation that we live 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:07.959 in the present moment, right, there is this idea of 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:11.319 the present. I think it's pretty much there and most 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:14.520 people's minds, because all cultures seem to have this idea 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:16.480 of the present. Maybe not all cultures, but most do 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:19.959 um And you've got this feeling that the past is 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:22.480 behind you and that's already happened, and the future is 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:24.920 in front of you. But in between you have this 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:27.560 present moment that I think is in a lot of 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:32.320 ways comparable to our relationship to the unconscious mind. And 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:35.200 what I mean by that is and you get the 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:37.600 feeling that a lot of your thinking and a lot 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:41.080 of what your brain does is unconscious. But you can 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:44.920 never catch the unconscious part of your mind in action. Right, 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:48.400 every time you try to be aware of how your 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:53.280 mind is working unconsciously, suddenly you're not unconscious anymore. You're 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:57.040 conscious of it. Like the flashlight of metacognition kicks on, 0:01:57.720 --> 0:02:01.720 and you you can't be aware of un consciousness. Yeah, 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:04.520 it's the feeling of being strapped to a train. It's 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:08.200 hurtling farward through time and you can't quite turn your 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:11.720 head around to see all the various engine parts and 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:14.640 wheels and what have you that is propelling you. Yeah, 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:16.360 and I think that now, the now is kind of 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:19.400 like this. It's like you suspect that there was just 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:23.040 a now, but that now is no more. You you 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:25.040 can't really turn your attention to it. So you have 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:26.959 this general since you live in the moment of now, 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:31.160 but you've at least for me, I have never really 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:34.520 been able to fully become aware of the present. The 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:37.480 more I try, the more it's sort of becomes the 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:40.320 slippery tadpole where I'm trying to catch it between my 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:44.280 fingers and it's always squirming away. I know that there 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:47.760 are future now is coming, and I'm aware that past 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:50.200 now is have gone by, but I can never really 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:53.840 find the now of now. So that leads me to wonder, 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:57.119 is there a now? Is there even such a thing 0:02:57.160 --> 0:03:00.560 as the present? And if there is, what is it? 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:04.000 And if there isn't, what is this sense of now 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:07.480 that we experience and how does it shape our lives? Yeah, 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:10.600 it's a fabulous question, uh, and one that's so easy 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:13.799 to dismiss because we we have all these various metaphors 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:16.760 that will get into to sort of understand time, to 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:20.240 sort of tie time up in a little, neat, little 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:21.839 package and set it on a shelf so we don't 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:24.560 have to really worry about it. Uh. And one of 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:27.240 those metaphors that we end up using, I think time 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:30.560 travel movies, time travel TV shows, I'm I'm watching another 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:33.120 one right now, and uh, and you know, the characters 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:36.400 are always moving around and picking what point in time, 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:39.840 what now they wish to go to, And it makes 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:44.280 you think of your now, your present moment as a 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:47.920 location on some sort of a line or a grid. Now, 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:51.080 for my own part, as far as mindfulness exercises go, 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:54.440 that that attempt to focus in on the present moment 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:58.960 and sort of unshackle yourself from past and future, I 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:00.840 think a lot of it does come down to focusing 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:04.280 on a rhythmic, ongoing process as opposed to trying to 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:08.160 you know, grab that moment, that now, or whatever you 0:04:08.160 --> 0:04:10.720 want to call it. And usually the focus is on breathing, 0:04:11.040 --> 0:04:13.320 because to focus your awareness upon your own breath is 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:16.560 to focus on the most immediate conscious exercise of the body. 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:20.400 It always reminds me of various adages about how God 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:22.680 is as close to you as your own breath, and 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:25.919 I believe in Islam, uh, they use the jugular or 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:28.760 the veins of the body in the same way, so 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:30.719 like it's as close to you as your own blood 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:33.919 or your own circulation. This flow of blood, the movement 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:39.520 of change through your body and through this pinpoint of experience. Uh. 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:42.599 And and when when I say pinpoint again, if you 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:45.280 try and grab that pinpoint and it it just you 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:48.200 cannot grasp it. And there are so many I mean, 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:51.520 I constantly think of the way literature explores this. I 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:53.600 mean it's a it's a recurring theme and a lot 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:56.799 of our favorite books and stuff about how whenever somebody 0:04:56.839 --> 0:05:00.440 has something good or something they want to remember, they 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:03.400 can never have it in the moment, you know, Oh yeah, yeah, 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:06.120 I mean so many books are about life and death. 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:09.120 Corman McCarthy has said that all great works of literature 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:11.400 about life and death. He can't have life and death 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:13.760 without time. He he has a great quote from The 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:18.800 Crossing that I'll read real quick. Snowflake. You catch the snowflake, 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:21.159 but when you look in your hand, you don't have 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:24.479 it no more. Maybe you see this day chatto, but 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:27.159 before you see it, it is gone. If you want 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:28.839 to see it, you have to see it on its 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:31.800 own ground. If you catch it, you lose it. And 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:34.400 where it goes there is no coming back from not 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:38.279 even God can bring it back. Oh that's great. Then 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:40.159 now then now is like the snowflake, Like if you 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:43.240 want to hold it in your fingers, it's gonna immediately melt. Yeah, 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:46.880 it's this, it's this kind of this uh, this concept 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:49.480 that we use to make sense of our experience of time. 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:52.440 But when you try and and study it, when you 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:57.240 level physics, neuroscience, philosophy. We're going to expose a number 0:05:57.279 --> 0:05:59.680 of the different tools you might use to try and 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:04.159 cap sure than now, but time after time, that snowflake 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:07.200 just melts away into nothingness. So this will be the 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:09.440 first part of a two part episode, right, that's right. 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:10.760 So I think in the first one we're going to 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:13.520 focus more on like the the experience of time as 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:16.480 it relates to physical reality, and then in the second one, 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:17.960 we're going to try to look a little bit at 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:22.280 the philosophy of time and at neuroscience and psychology and 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:25.160 what they can shed light on the experience of now. Right, 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:28.200 And there's there's gonna be a lot of interconnectedness too. 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:31.640 So this is definitely a two parter to listen to 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:34.520 in order. Now, I would imagine if I was five 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:37.880 or six years old and playing this win is Now game. 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:40.760 I wasn't the first person to do this. This has 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:43.279 to go way back in human history. I can imagine 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:46.160 that the ancients were probably probably writing about this mystery 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:48.080 of what is the now? Even though we have a 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:51.240 sense of now, how come it's so hard to catch? 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:54.560 Oh yeah, I mean the great thinkers throughout time have 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:58.760 tackled this, and most of them have seemed rather frustrated 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:02.400 by the nature of and by the elusive nature of now. 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:06.520 For instance, Aristotle wrote about it in the Physics, which 0:07:06.560 --> 0:07:09.840 is a fourth century b c. Text. He said, for 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:12.400 what is now is not a part. A part is 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:14.920 a measure of the whole, which must be made up 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:17.800 of parts. Time, on the other hand, is not held 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:20.120 to be made up of nows. And he goes on 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:24.280 again the now, which seems to bound the past and 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:27.280 the future. Does it always remain one and the same? 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:30.360 Or is it always other and other? It is hard 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:33.440 to say. In Aristotle goes on to address the difficulties 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:36.200 of time on both counts. Time is a series of 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:39.680 nows lined up like beads, h you know, back to back, 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:43.600 and the notion that now is a termination point on 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:47.600 a line extending infinitely in either direction. I think this 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:51.559 serves to hint towards a debate that I think most 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:53.800 physicists would come down on one side. Of and the 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:59.560 debate is whether time is composed of continuous or discrete quantities. 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:02.840 Now you can think of all the the objects in 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:05.720 the world is made up of either continuous or discrete qualities. 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:08.760 One example would be that water seems to be a 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:11.760 continuous quantity. It just sort of like flows and there 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:14.160 doesn't seem to be units of it. But in fact, 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:16.440 through chemistry, we know that there are units of water. 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:19.000 There are h two O molecules. If you get down 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:21.120 to the molecular level, you can see that it is 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:24.720 discrete and not continuous, and you sort of have to 0:08:24.760 --> 0:08:27.920 wonder if time is the same way. Time feels like 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:31.600 this continuous quantity, that there couldn't be like a single 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:36.240 smallest indivisible unit of time, could there be? Well, well 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:38.840 we will get into that a little but in this episode. 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:41.040 But it is one of those things where you can't say, oh, 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:43.840 how many so you want to meet me at the 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:46.600 coffee shop in three hours? How many times is that? 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:50.840 Can you can you break that down into indisputable um, 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:54.600 you know, micro portions of time. Well, I mean, obviously 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:56.320 you can have units of time, because we do, but 0:08:56.360 --> 0:08:59.240 they they don't seem to be set by nature. There 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:02.920 doesn't appear to be a physical bottom limit to dividing 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:05.640 time into pieces. Yeah, there's not a like a lego 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:08.560 brick ification of time. I mean, if there is, it 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:12.840 is a brickification. It's it's the dividing up of time 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:15.640 into blocks that we can make sense off, but not 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:19.600 the the the unearthing of the pieces that make it up. 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:22.920 Though at the same time, this is going to keep happening, 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:25.280 isn't it. Later in this episode we will mention that 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:27.840 for the purposes of science there might be sort of 0:09:27.880 --> 0:09:32.920 bottom units of time, but not necessarily for the universe itself. Yes, well, 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:34.360 we'll come back to that because I have more to 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:36.920 say on that as well. But for now, I guess 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:39.360 we should we should back up a little bit and 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:42.960 talk about just the basic experience of of now and 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:45.559 basic experience of time. Yeah, I guess we should look 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:49.000 to uh to physics for some definitions, Like if you 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:51.440 wanted to have a measure of time that wasn't just 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:55.920 you know Einstein's cheeky answer. Einstein would say, what's the 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:58.079 definition of time? It's what you read on a clock. 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:00.520 But you know he's joking, Like, if you're trying to 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:05.120 come up with the best physical universe based approximation of 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:07.920 what we mean by time? What is it? Well, I 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:10.560 mean it's at its most basic level, time is the 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:14.000 rate of change in the universe. The rate of change 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:18.200 in the universe, so the relationship between one point and 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:22.200 the next point in the history of an object. Yeah, though, 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:24.200 doesn't it get It gets tricky when you start bringing 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:26.840 in time based terms than to describe it when you 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:29.559 bring in history, etcetera. Yeah, that's true. It's one of 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:33.120 those things like, uh, you know, the classics and in 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:35.520 the art of motorcycle maintenance question like how can you 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:40.000 define quality without invoking the concept of quality? How do 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:43.560 you define time without invoking the concept of time? Yeah, 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:45.960 I mean basically though, you have to say, all right, 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:49.800 we are creatures that live in a universe where there 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:53.360 is change, and stemming from that, we haven't live in 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:57.400 a universe of causation to where uh, the cause must 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:02.000 precede the effect of something, which certainly becomes important when 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:04.320 you start thinking about time travel and what have you. 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:07.720 We age the planets move around the Sun and things 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:11.400 fall apart, right entropy, Yeah, and this is often linked 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:13.600 to time. Right. Time seems to have something to do 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:17.120 with the direction of entropy in the universe. As as 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:23.400 things tend toward disorder thermodynamically, the time interval goes up. Yes. Now, 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:26.640 early humans quickly took note of the cyclical nature of 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:29.640 sun and stars and moon and the seasons, and they 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:33.960 utilize this information to organize their lives. Natural time mattered, 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:38.600 local time mattered, and for more ancient societies, the understanding 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:42.240 of time was as cyclical as the cosmic movements they observe. 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:45.120 The sun rose and set, people were born, and people died, 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:48.559 all in an endless cycle. We've touched on on this 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:53.200 this version of time many times on the podcast, and 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:55.840 I think it's interesting to look to ancient societies and 0:11:55.880 --> 0:11:59.240 see how much these markers of time, passage, and the 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:02.480 cyclical nature of the seasons and stuff really seemed to 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:07.679 matter to them. Like they often invested huge amounts of 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:12.439 resources and energy into projects for like marking celestial events 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:16.079 that would be recurring events. Yeah, why did they do that? 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:19.720 I mean, was that really necessary? I would I would 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:22.280 love to do a future episode where we explore this 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:24.960 more because one of the books that I used in 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:28.520 research here was Dan Falks In Search of Time, The 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:31.360 History of physics and philosophy of time and excellent volume, 0:12:31.400 --> 0:12:34.120 and he devotes a lot of time to discussing these 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:39.720 ancient cultures and ancient people's, the Neolithic treatment of time, etcetera. Yeah, 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:42.360 that that would definitely be worth an episode. Like what 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:47.040 were the reasons these cycles were so meaningful in their lives? Yeah? 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:49.720 And it certainly was meaningful because that the repetition of 0:12:49.800 --> 0:12:52.600 the cycle made things matter. I think it was really 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:56.520 Audio who said that encyclical time. Uh, any incident in 0:12:56.559 --> 0:13:00.600 your life only matters insofar as it repeats uh an 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:04.320 archetypical moment of significance. Yeah. I think we can see 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:08.079 this distinction between the idea of cyclical time and linear 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:11.800 time showing up also in the types of like stories 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:15.400 that people like to consume. Yeah, Like, is is a 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:18.760 story meaningful because it recapitulates a story that's already been 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:21.560 told a million times? Or is it meaningful because it 0:13:21.600 --> 0:13:25.760 tells a new story that's never been told before? Exactly? Now, 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:27.960 of course, this human society has became more modern, they 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:32.440 largely discarded cyclical time in favor of linear time, all 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:36.360 with a great deal of help from calendars and clocks. Now, 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:41.400 but before we go the Devil's contracts. Yes, Now, now, 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:43.839 before we go any further, uh, I thought we might 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:47.360 take a moment to talk about metaphors, because we've already 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:49.040 stepped in a number of them, and we're going to 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:52.400 continue to to use them intentionally and accidentally, as we 0:13:52.600 --> 0:13:55.280 discussed now in time, I think it's just worth letting 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:57.720 you know out there that we have already had to 0:13:57.720 --> 0:14:00.600 stop and edit out like at least a dozen times 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:03.520 we use the word time, right, So if you get 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:07.120 sick of hearing it a dozen times, then then just 0:14:07.360 --> 0:14:09.800 know that we there were like three dozen instances that 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:12.800 were cut out, but it totally pervades all of our 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:15.319 metaphors and our figures of speech, right, Yeah, I mean 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:18.800 that that's the really the damning thing about about time 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:22.080 is that nothing in our lives is as close and 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:25.960 personal and yet at the same time so abstract and 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:31.480 resistant to our understanding. But still we try, right, and 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:34.000 one of the ways that we we try to understand 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:37.640 time is we we roll out metaphors. As with consciousness. 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:39.440 Parts of part of the problem is that we're just 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:43.080 attempting to understand the thing from within it, uh, even 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:46.320 more so than the human mind. We can't step outside 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:49.840 the human experience of time to consider the thing. In 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:52.640 that book I mentioned by by Dan Falk in Search 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:55.000 of Time, The History, Physics and Philosophy of Time, he 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:57.160 points out that we've long turned to the river as 0:14:57.200 --> 0:14:59.760 a way to understand the quote unquote flow of time. 0:14:59.840 --> 0:15:02.880 And that's great because the river metaphor. He's totally right 0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:05.080 that this is one of the most common metaphors used 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:07.920 for how time progresses. But it it is both a 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:11.520 great metaphor because the river is unstoppable and you have 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:15.560 no control over it. But it's also not quite right 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:17.880 because you can stand in a river and let it 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:22.080 flow past you. So for the river metaphor to really work, 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:24.720 you would have to sort of be part of the river, 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:26.800 and you would have to be on a boat, which 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:31.600 means it's essentially just another technology metaphor. Right. But even 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:33.760 in a boat, you can paddle, you can swim against 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:35.880 the current, you know all that, you would have to 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:40.720 essentially be the water itself, with no power whatsoever to 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:44.120 control your position upstream or downstream in the river. You 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:47.720 would just flow and that's all you could do. Yeah, 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:50.960 it's one of those metaphors that breaks down upon close examination. 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:53.840 As Fault points out, a river flows in respect to 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:57.320 the shore. But what are the banks of time? Um? 0:15:57.840 --> 0:15:59.840 Another one that comes up a lot, and especially with 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:04.200 with modern for modern minds. Uh. Again, a technological metaphor 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:09.000 is that emotion pictures? Uh, it's it's a there's a 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:11.720 film playing and we are we're watching a portion of it, 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:14.280 and then there is a played portion and an unplayed portion, 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:16.920 and it's physically present in the you know, when you're 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:20.040 looking at a you know, an old school projector. But 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:23.120 also with the film, like you say, the river moves 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:25.480 with respect to the shore, the film plays with respect 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:27.960 to the viewer the projector. It would have to be 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:31.720 that the film just is a thing that plays itself 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:34.440 and that's all there is. Yeah, And in a way, 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:36.520 these examples some of a lot of the problems and 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:39.440 understanding time, especially as we get into the often explored 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:42.640 idea the time is an illusion because it feels real. 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:45.680 It's a central aspect of our conscious experience. It's a 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:48.040 part of the world we and as we see it 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:51.400 and understand it. But yeah, when you when you try 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:53.920 to focus in on it and grab it by the neck, 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:56.200 it just fades away, you know. We can mention this 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:58.200 in a bit. But I think that there are some 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:01.760 physicists who will say that time is an illusion in 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:05.680 that time itself is not necessary to describe the universe. 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:07.959 But I think they're in the minority, right, I mean, 0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:10.760 I think the majority of physicists would say, yeah, time 0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:14.119 is a real thing. It's just that there's certain aspects 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:17.240 of it that are an illusion. Our our experience of 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:20.760 time is an illusion because it privileges this sense of now, 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:24.280 that time is like happening, and that maybe the future 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:27.360 has the potential to change and could be one way 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:31.000 or another, whereas you know, just looking at the physics, 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:34.919 there's no real reason to suspect that. Now. On on 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:37.920 the heels of this motion picture analogy, I should point 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:40.639 out that Max Tegmark, who will will come back to 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:44.880 again later on Max he likes to point out point 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:47.160 to a film on a DVD as a suitable metaphor. 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:50.280 So in this our life is a movie and space 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:53.879 time is the DVD. So just consider a DVD copy 0:17:53.880 --> 0:17:58.240 of Risky Business? Is that his example or yours? Um? Oh? 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:00.439 You know, I can't. I can't remember because I keep 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:02.680 thinking back to this analogy and I always think of 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:04.960 risky business for some hand, for some reason, And I 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:08.800 can't remember if that was my flourish or his. But 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:12.239 the idea here is the DVD doesn't change. So you 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:15.880 can't say Tom Cruise is traveling through the DVD. He's 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:18.840 traveling through the lifespan of the film, and so is 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:20.760 the viewer. Speed it up, slow it down. But the 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:24.880 physical DVD doesn't change. Yeah, the movie just exists, though 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:27.880 you can watch it. Yeah, then again the viewer from 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:30.600 the outside of the way. Yet again, all the metaphors 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:35.879 fall apart. Now, every ancient society developed a calendar system 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:39.480 of some sort, even prehistoric people exposed to the naked 0:18:39.560 --> 0:18:43.439 cosmic expanse of her head, they noted the movement of 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:48.240 the heavens. And here's just another cool bit about technology 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:51.119 and our our measurement of time. I was reading James 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:54.439 Burke's The Day of the Universe Changed, Uh, which was 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:57.919 one of his like two classic works on the history 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:00.720 of science and technology, and he made this point about 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:03.439 these of clocks and medievil times. He says that that 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:07.439 without calendars and clocks are written records memorable events marked 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:11.280 the time, such as seasonal activity surrounding the harvest, which 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:14.920 goes in with what we've been saying already. So that way, 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:19.760 it almost be like saying that instead of using a 0:19:19.840 --> 0:19:23.480 ruler to measure distances, you'd measure distances by your by 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:28.360 your relationship to landmarks, you know, familiar important landmarks. And 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:31.680 so instead of using some kind of standard measure of time, 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:36.480 you measured them by relationship to festivals and important events. Right, 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:40.439 and here's here's what he had to say. Additionally, quote, 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:43.480 country people were intensely aware of the passage of the year. 0:19:43.760 --> 0:19:46.760 But between these seasonal cues, time in the modern sense 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:50.280 did not exist. Even in rich villages, which could afford 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:53.119 a water clock or a sun dial, a watchman would 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:56.800 call out the passing hours, shouting them from the church tower. 0:19:57.119 --> 0:20:00.720 The hours would echo through the surrounding countryside, shouted along 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:03.920 by the workers in the field. Units of time smaller 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:06.920 than an hour were rarely used. They would have no 0:20:07.000 --> 0:20:10.440 purpose in a world that moved at the pace of nature. Man, 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:13.639 that's fascinating to consider. I mean, we so live in 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:17.800 a world of minutes and seconds. Now, I think could 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:20.280 it be that it's because we're surrounded by all these 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:23.640 digital devices that keep time accurately and of course we're 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:28.280 on top of that, we're constantly bemoaning the relativistic experience 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:30.320 of time, you know, where we look at the clock 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:32.560 and we're like, we say, Jesus, where did that hour go? 0:20:33.119 --> 0:20:35.199 I've been working for an hour. It doesn't feel like it. 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:37.800 Or you think, oh, man, I I've only been waiting 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:42.439 here ten minutes. It feels like an hour. So it 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:44.840 is you do wonder to what extent we we have 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:48.120 this this rigid timekeeping system and it ends up backfiring 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:51.960 on us because our bodies and our experience of time, 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:54.119 it still moves at the pace of nature. Do you 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:58.160 think that maybe hyper awareness and hyper acute keeping track 0:20:58.200 --> 0:21:01.160 of time actually makes us more like cleared to squander time. 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:03.800 I would say the intuitive thing would be the opposite, 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:06.520 that if we're hyper aware of time, that we you know, 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:08.879 we'd be very careful how we spend our minutes. But 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:11.000 I wonder if there could be kind of some some 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:14.720 backfiring mechanism there, because I often think when I'm sitting 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:17.359 around sort of watching the clock while I wish I 0:21:17.440 --> 0:21:20.520 was doing something else, I can really waste a lot 0:21:20.600 --> 0:21:23.119 of time on the internet. Yeah, I find that to 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:25.040 be the case too. I mean part of it. Maybe 0:21:25.160 --> 0:21:28.760 I just have poor time management skills, but uh, I'll 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:31.760 often find myself in the trap of thinking, oh, I 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:35.119