Jeff Tollaksen - Is Time Real?

What does it mean for time to be real? Is time the ultimate stage on which all events play? Some physicists and philosophers would say no, time is an illusion; time is not real. How can that be? Is our sense of time all wrong?
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Jeff Tollaksen is a Professor of Physics and Director of the Center for Excellence in Quantum Studies at Chapman University.
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Closer to Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[@evanjameson5437]

in the country there is an old saying: you can't cut a stick so short that it's only got one end..

[@misterhat6395]

This was basically what I was saying whenever I was late to school as a kid

[@montyvergo5844]

Just like a flicker book where all the states are connected through the binding, all are available at the same “time” and you can move in one or the other direction

[@mrnessss]

that's what I always thought too! I feel like everything that could possible happen exists already, frozen in a moment, and we tunnel our way through it, but time doesn't move, we only experience the feeling (the illusion) of time because of the way our minds work

[@Stoney_Snark]

Is time actually a measurement of change? The change is what is actually happening. What else does the concept of time actually add? We account for changes by recording them, experiencing them, or predicting them. Is time a construct to account for change?

[@projectmalus]

It's interesting to think about how thoughts or pictures move thru one's mind. If each is complete then no time within each, but strung together. Is it a pushing out of the first by the second, or the first leaving and a vacuum pulling in the next, or strung like beads and time itself working on it, to shape it, by being the string, what action makes an idea from thoughts? So if our macroscopic world is time asymmetric, what is it that guides our thoughts in one direction, just corresponds to external world? Or other way around :) perhaps time is a measure of not change: the more not change, the more time. This might introduce a weirdness where quantum fluctuations are "all time" and what we see is "no time" since it's used up in manifesting.

[@bobblacka918]

Yes, to all. A brilliant observation.

[@Stoney_Snark]

@@projectmalus , our thoughts might be the result of adaptive and predictive experience and learning. Again we are adapting to current change based on past change, and planning for future change. The scale is both macro and micro, but what is subjective requires and dominates the attention of the being.

[@scoreprinceton]

@@bobblacka918 Not only time, but everything else, is just a construct of human reasoning mind. But, the mind itself might not be a construct but an outcome of everything else. If so, everything else is the cause of mind and mind's construct - time !! If it seems circular or self-referencing, it probably is, also !!

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

*"Is time actually a measurement of change?"* ... Change is a byproduct of "motion" and everything in existence is in motion. Anything that moves demonstrates a specific degree of change, so change and motion are two sides of the same coin. Time is subservient to change (or "motion") because all time really does is chronicle the event. Zero Motion = Zero Change = Zero Time. ... Likewise, Zero Time = Zero Change = Zero Motion.

[@david.thomas.108]

Yet another fascinating interview!

[@prabhakarv4193]

Very nice and informative. Thanks

[@ChuckBrowntheClown]

Through time you have different choices to make, and the choices you make are what define you ,and what make you decide to be different ,or to do different.

[@gregorysagegreene]

Depression is despair in the moment, at foreseeing either not being able to improve one's future reality or knowing that one's present reality will continue to break down. It is the trap between symmetric waves of time, at the bound of every minute.

[@Kadajpwns1337]

I love these videos but it would be great if the interviewed person's name and field of expertise/function would be edited in at the start so we know who we're dealing with without having to read the description.

[@simesaid]

Yes, agreed. Moreover, given that the interviews are often chopped up and released piecemeal, and not uncommonly with intervals of some years between them, the inclusion of the date and place of the original interview and any other relevant details, would be appreciated. One imagines something like "Excerpt of Interview with Dr John Scientist, Theoretical Physicist at Oxford University, originally conducted Thu, 6/12/2014, during the FQXI 'Foundational Questions in Physics' conference, Los Angeles, Ca. (Or however these things are supposed to be referenced). Although this may appear overly particular, I feel it somewhat important to the guest's credibility insofar as at least some of Roberts subjects must have since changed their minds about opinions they may have once ventured, either in light of experimental results or, as likely, just because they are human beings.

[@GelinLuo]

If time arrow from the past to the future is equal to that from the future to the past at quantum level, then how do we explain the particle decay, which is always for one direction of the time arrow, i.e. from the past to the future?

[@bartdart3315]

Superb. Thnk you.

[@terrycallow2979]

Time exists. I've spent 10 minutes watching this and I still don't know what they're on about.

[@dennisgalvin2521]

The 10 minutes is just a measurement of 'the videos duration.

[@dn1697]

... so I've never been too late or too early for work in my entire life ... excellent news ...

[@binbots]

Because causality has a speed limit every point in space sees itself as the closest to the present moment. When we look out into the universe, we see the past which is made of particles. When we try to look at smaller and smaller sizes and distances, we are actually looking closer and closer to the present moment. The wave property of particles appears when we start looking into the future of that particle. It is a probability wave because the future is probabilistic. Wave function collapse happens when we bring a particle into the present/past. GR is predictable because it takes place in the predictable past and the probabilistic wave properties of particles takes place in the probabilistic future.

[@khalidrasouli]

Very well put

[@svperuzer]

"We try to look at smaller and smaller sizes we're actually looking closer and closer to the present moment" ... Is this an original thought? If not, where did you encounter it?

[@binbots]

@@svperuzer I may have not been the first to think of it, but as far as I know its an orignal thought.

[@longcastle4863]

Pretty good actually. But I'm a layman so...

[@kos-mos1127]

That is the most accurate statement about causality I heard on youtube. The speed of light is the speed of causality. The closer an observer gets to the speed of light the closer they are to the present. At the speed of light the observer will notice that present moment contains no mass.

[@patmat.]

Great conversation, very mind opening.

[@penultimatename6677]

Fascinating discussion and quite though provoking. Sabine Hossenfelder said there is no concept of time in quantum mechanics. How does that mesh with quantum having time that is equal in both directions?

[@dahoudali1692]

It's so complex to figure very precise value of time appreciated by all and so could we measure the speed mass...and other variable other way with the light recording

[@jamesnasmith984]

An exceptionally well enunciated description. I hope plenty of physics classes get the benefit of Dr Tollaksen’s teaching skills.

[@DharmaBeing]

Yes, this is the most clear articulation of this idea I have heard.

[@BritishBeachcomber]

This argument says that in classical physics the future is predictable, but in quantum physics it is non deterministic, not predictable. But there is a third way. With chaos theory it can still follow classical rules, but is still not predictable. Ignore this at your peril.

[@antonystringfellow5152]

Chaos theory is best ingored. It has been disproven. Ignore this at your peril.

[@gjingodjango]

@@antonystringfellow5152 Yep. Chaos does not exist only our inability to perceive the order within it. Like a shadow time does not exist either other than a measure of magnitude.

[@MrVikingsandra]

Now time is a topic that completely fascinates me. I'm trying to find as many books as possible about it

[@Robinson8491]

I thought Poidevin and Macbeaths 1996 compendium was a stimulating read

[@OldFartGrows]

Just listened to this @ 2X speed. Unreal

[@guaromiami]

Is it possible to conduct a quantum experiment where you know the past state of a particle, and you test to see if its current state (the "future" state relative to its past known state) is compatible with its past known state?

[@BennyChin]

We are so fortunate that 'present' is still as it is.

[@micronda]

Schrodinger's cat: "Only nine lives. Pull the other one, it's got bells on it"!

[@nivekvb]

Is there a now? What is the smallest amount of time? How long does it take for the very now to exist. To experience now we need a short while to process it.

[@dallyuk]

surely if u got an empty box and it doesnt move even in relation to its place in the universe, would that factor as storing time? if time is relational to expansion of the universe

[@hgracern]

Thank you. I think Parms said, if it came into being it could not be. ..in what?

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

Might time in quantum fields move in opposite direction (future to present) than the way person experience time spatially in classic reality (from present to future)? Would time in quantum fields moving from future to present help to explain human experience of classic reality (in reverse direction from present to future) as deterministic?

[@cleander97]

What he says is intellectually interesting but already well understood and not novel! In simple terms, if you’re an electron, time doesn’t determine your state or where you might be or energy level. When you come together with bunch of other subatomic particles to form complex molecules, then time become meaningful in determining your location, energy level, when you might decay, etc.

[@whatzause]

If there is a completely different universe (or reality) at “each moment” (as I believe is close enough to what you said), then can you define “moment”? Does it have a length in time? Is it an instant? How far apart is each instant from the next? Or are they as a continuum? Tough questions. Maybe this thinking can only be addressed on a level above the quantum, making it somehow irrelevant?

[@addyyyyg]

I basically asked this same question (not as eloquently) & then scrolled down to your comment & was like damn Zach got the jump on me & did it better at that…lol

[@whatzause]

@@addyyyyg Thanks. I receive any kind of praise about once in every 50 years.

[@addyyyyg]

@@whatzause lmao I’m glad to provide you a small ego boost

[@rjgood1]

What I hear is that there may be an equal influence by the future and the past on the present but that flies in the face of common sense. My intuition tells me that maybe there is something still missing from the understanding of time--something that would account for this paradox.

[@dahoudali1692]

The speed using cinétic force and the dimensions using power variations

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

the probabilities of quantum energy move backwards in time from the quantum wave function? quantum probabilities are closer to the present than wave function in the future?

[@addyyyyg]

What unit of time would you use to delineate a given “moment” that’s entangled w/ particles in another given “moment” ???

[@patrickgravel9261]

An imergent one conform to and with the scales involved.

[@erikevens8920]

Is not TSQM similar in concept to Cramer’s Transactional Interpretation of QM?

[@demitrac.9082]

Beautifully Explained Version of Time. observed

[@Criscross292]

As he stated, ‘entanglement’ allows a human experience of time, but in reality, universes after universes are being formed, to infinity. That’s a head scratcher.

[@mehdibaghbadran3182]

Thanks

[@benji.B-side]

Time is a constant succession of absolute instant of 'The Now' so it seems. 'The Now is permanent but always changing, are permanency and change of matter time, or will time still exist if there was no matter, particle and wave?

[@leoverran311]

I realize after two minutes that I don’t understand a word of what they said and won’t waste any more time on it, if time exists

[@Aaron-oe8xw]

Very interesting take on time, however i would ask the question, if every "moment" i am born anew, than at which point has my past self died and my new self existed? When does time reset everything and what defines a "moment"?

[@kpkpkpkpkp5]

Additionally, what mechanism supports a relatively consistent perception of my identity by myself across these endless “rebirth cycles” occurring every single second? In other words, why are my memories and perception of surrounding environment more or less the same right now and 10 seconds ago?

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

Could the probabilities of quantum wave function come from causation in the present? Maybe time in quantum fields develop from future to present, while classic reality experiences time in quantum fields from present to future?

[@asap..now.]

Interesting..

[@ronjohnson4566]

concepts are not reality. most every morning i awake and make coffee. I drink that coffee. brush my teeth. then do my day. in the future, let's say tomorrow. I consider tomorrow the next day or when this day ends it will be tomorrow. But, that is not the future it is now today. these are words that structured in a way that 90% of the local population understands. Now today, i wake up and go to the coffee urn and I can drink yesterday's coffee. But, I will never be able to get up and drink tomorrow's coffee. Because it hasn't been made. because all coffee is made when you make it. I can make coffee today. I can make coffee tomorrow. and i did make coffee yesterday. just because i can tell this story doesn't make it possible to be drink coffee tomorrow because tomorrow hasn't occurred yet. Whether or not we are different people at every moment doesn't really make any difference. you have to make the coffee before you drink it.

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

*"But, I will never be able to get up and drink tomorrow's coffee. Because it hasn't been made."* ...True! Tomorrow's coffee doesn't exist until tomorrow is actuated within the present. Because tomorrow does not exist, one _possible_ future is that today's coffee might be the last cup you'll ever drink. _... So drink up!_

[@katandmouseyt]

The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup 🎵

[@longcastle4863]

Are ideas made of atoms? They are nouns, they are things... But not I guess like chairs and tables... Are quarks more like ideas or more like chairs. And time... Idea, concept or actual thing? A dimension. Are dimensions more like ideas or more like chairs. What are dimensions made of? If not atoms and they're more than just ideas than what?

[@jaredfromspace]

I don’t disagree at all, but if you do get up and drink coffee tomorrow, then you did drink coffee… in the future 😎

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

@@jaredfromspace *"I don’t disagree at all, but if you do get up and drink coffee tomorrow, then you did drink coffee… in the future"* ... The coffee you'll drink tomorrow cannot be consumed until it is actuated within the present. The moment your press your caffeine-lusting lips to that fresh, hot cup of joe, your are acting within the present. Tomorrow's coffee once again remains in limbo - waiting to be actualized within the present. ☕

[@manta567]

One cannot understand something if there is nothing to be understood. That is summarizing this video.

[@BritishBeachcomber]

When you consider time as a purely quantum physical phenomena, you forget that time can also be viewed as the direction of increasing entropy. From that viewpoint, the future can never influence the past.

[@Quvan]

If you are certain that if you lite a match while you are doused in gas, do you lite it? Your future influenced your past. Depends on how you see things.

[@BritishBeachcomber]

@@Quvan in your example, it was your evaluation of a possible future that influenced the past, which at that time was the present.

[@philproffitt8363]

@@BritishBeachcomber I agree. Acting on a prediction just changes your future outcome. Past seems then irrelevant.

[@HArryvajonas]

Isn't entropy becoming less of a hard determined law? which is why it might not be an accurate way to determine the function of time?

[@BritishBeachcomber]

@@HArryvajonas not unless you are prepared to revoke the second law of thermodynamics.

[@padraigtakahashi7498]

Light particles do not experience time at all. For them, everything that has happened ever, is happening. I wonder if at some very small scale, this is similar for other things that we think have mass.

[@xspotbox4400]

What do you mean by particle of light, what do you mean by light doesn't change with time, how can light experience something, and what light has to do with all the rest of energetic stuff? I understand what people mean when they repeat what they read in popular science media, but it's really not that simple. What i try to say is, this scientific fairy tale is meaningless, since nobody can make sense and visualize what they mean by this idea. Nothing like that exist in our objective environment. Except one thing, we can see, so our environment exist all around us somehow, at all times. It's not stuff we see, our eyes can detect only light, this is what we mean by saying, to see. And photons of light are only disturbances in the electromagnetic field, so field is eternal and can't experience time, but information is spreading in a shape of a growing sphere, therefore light is changing all the time. Doesn't actually change, only grow and spread around the entire universe.

[@antonystringfellow5152]

It is unlikely that time is fundamental. By the same token, it is unlikely that space is fundamental, as they're inseparable (spacetime). Most likely, spacetime is an emergent phenomenon, just as gravity is emergent (not a force). As for photons, if you want to think of spacetime as something fundamental, they travel at the speed of causality. We all actually travel at the same speed through spacetime. The faster you travel through space, the slower you travel through time but your absolute speed does not and cannot change. Energy without mass does not experience time. The same is true of gravity waves. Gravity waves propagate through space at the same speed as light and for the same reason.

[@glenemma1]

@@antonystringfellow5152 So Space and Time are not fundamental. What is fundamental?

[@ronjohnson4566]

i always thought it was because light particles don't senses

[@johnnytass2111]

Can you also interview a scientist who is working on or understands enough to explain Chronon Field Theory?

[@nyworker]

For those two books on the shelf behind them, there is no record of when they were put there or will be removed. Without some dynamic observed system time is meaningless. Perhaps the state of those books are no different than the state of quantum particles.

[@joegeorge3889]

Great video time for me to go

[@No2AI]

This perticular reality (universe) is subjected to time, it is programed so - other realities even the base reality on which this one is simulated may be defined and 'managed' by an alternative to time. Some verses may operate in Multi-time.

[@plinden]

If you cannot predict the future how can you build machines that fly to mars? The fuel could work sometimes and not othertimes even given identical conditions.

[@surendrakverma555]

Good 🙏🙏🙏

[@esmerillia]

I would say time is the reconciliation vessel of the story unfolding. Can’t experience the story without the finite unit you’re experiencing in the eternal now. It’s our way of appreciating reality itself.

[@patrickgravel9261]

I would postulate that time is emergent from space and that no space is impossible (a vacuum is still a space with feilds.). Our brightest minds are experts at rationalising, analysing and justifying any point in or about our Universe.

[@REDPUMPERNICKEL]

Time is a concept that makes thinking about myriads of moving objects easy and convenient.

[@never3xist391]

I still don't get what he's saying even after watching the whole video.

[@je25ff]

Same here. It's because he doesn't tell us what the theories are he is referring to.

[@andrewg9457]

I think he’s saying that when you look at really small things, their behavior seems to be influenced by both the past and forks. This goes against our traditional understanding that only the past affects the present.

[@chrisg1234fly]

@@je25ff or how it will affect us tomorrow or in 5 minutes. Seems to be just theory and of no real use to anyone? Dont think there is a REAL world answer to the qustion about time, especially from this guy. The question should be, if there was no humans on this planet, physics would supposedly still exist, but it was humans that invented the idea of time, so would time exist then?

[@mickeybrumfield764]

Don't know what it is, it would appear to be meaningless outside the existence of living organisms. Within the existence of living organisms particularly humans capable of thought it sure inspires a great deal of curiosity and wonder though.

[@longcastle4863]

When a planet forms, stabilizes and then crumbles and disintegrates into oblivion (let's say for the sake of argument without ever having life on it) has time played a role in this? or is time just an arbitrary construct foisted on it by humans to facilitate a description of what has occurred?

[@integratingpresence]

What is the speed of time?

[@francesco5581]

So if matter arise from probability waves at quantum level can be that time arise from quantum level too ? That would fit the fact that information are not lost there.

[@tonoornottono]

what does that mean? matter is *something,* discrete or continuous we don’t know. but time... we don’t even know if time is something. how could we say it comes from somewhere (a spatial metaphor) when we’re only experiencing its effects instead of the event itself.

[@francesco5581]

@@tonoornottono let's say the perception of a sequence of events in one precise direction .... Something that for example is absent in some states of altered consciousness.

[@stringsseeds]

This is wha Yogacara Buddhism said about time and phenomena, but not only every split second the world is a completely different world, each person's world is also completely different from others' worlds.

[@con.troller4183]

To have this discussion you first need to define "real". Then define time. Then stop parsing imponderables. It saves time.

[@longcastle4863]

Pretty sure _real_ can't be defined. I mean you can define the word, but you can't define what _is_ real...

[@con.troller4183]

@@longcastle4863 yep. Pretty much the problem.

[@livethemoment5148]

exactly...people spend so much time arguing what ill-defined words like "time", "real", "universe", "energy", etc etc are, when in fact most arguments arise because their personal definitions of the words differ..... it saves a lot of time to first agree on the definition of the concept being discussed

[@con.troller4183]

@@livethemoment5148 I like Wittgenstein's take on it: "Philosophy is just the byproduct of misunderstanding language".

[@miguelrosado7649]

Reality is the perception of the interactions of the energy fields in the universe. If there is no perception, the energy fields are in the state of existence/being. There are different means to perceive energy fields, so reality is not the same for all perceivers. Time is the perception/measurement of movement, as long that there is energy there will be time. It is the same energy that is moving in space so there is no time travel.

[@priyakulkarni9583]

Time is another name for “memory of change” time exists because change happens

[@jeholloway2]

This has to keep physicists up at night.

[@catherinemoore9534]

Fascinating. Powerful. Amazing. The past is in the future and the future is in the past.

[@plinden]

And nothing means anything.

[@longcastle4863]

So they cancel each other out? Making the present? Which I have no idea what that means lol ...

[@manta567]

Genius, right?? But it's so hard to understand! I think i will spend the rest of my life thinking about these amazing insights. ...or do something else. Maybe play videogames. ;-)

[@plinden]

@@longcastle4863 exactly, this is nonsense

[@kevinhaynes9091]

What duration of time is the present moment in time...!?

[@gmonorail]

the present is pulled forward from "the future" as much as it is a result of its causation narrative in the "past" ?

[@haroonaverroes6537]

9:00 they miss essential parts, it is far more complicated than that.

[@orangeSoda35]

Heraclitus didn't know that the earth revolves around the sun and the sun revolves around the center of the galaxy. So not only can you never bathe twice in the same river, you can never stand in the same place twice. Even if you're not moving, the earth moves through space, so where you were 5 minutes ago is not the same place you are now even if you stand perfectly still.

[@grandeau3802]

Because all inertial frames of reference are equivalent, there is no such thing as “the same place” at all.

[@evaadam3635]

You are still in the same place that you are standing on because you and the place are still together.

[@TheMasterblaster32]

Is this why i fall out the bed?

[@evaadam3635]

@@grandeau3802 "NOTHINGNESS" that Smith was referring to is NOT a place but an empty state where "something existing" occupies. A true "place" is something existing, not nothing.

[@evaadam3635]

@@TheMasterblaster32 your landlord did it for not paying the rent.

[@DavidKolbSantosh]

Brings to mind the doctrine of momentariness of Buddhism.

[@bluelotus542]

You, Mr. Tollaksen, are always the same conscious self amidst the changes created by time. In other words, you, the observer of the workings of time moment after moment, are beyond time.

[@Anna_Fortunka]

I don't understand. Okay, so maybe quantum particles returned to their original state and we can view it as movement backwards in time but they are not suspended in nothingness. The world around moved, the time passed. If we chose selectively the parts of a system that go back to previous state, then all oscillatory movement would have parts that go back in time. I wish this was explained bc the topic is very interesting!

[@mileshamblen9982]

Even a broken clock gets to be right about time twice a day.

[@bradleygt1070]

I enjoyed his take on this, but I feel like Carlo Rovelli explained it better in his book The Order of Time

[@REDPUMPERNICKEL]

Time is a concept.

[@champfox1]

Is time real? Even if there were no time, there would be time. That's how real time is.

[@MrKydaman]

Where does science end and philosophy begin, or vice versa? It seems to be getting harder to tell.

[@HighStakesDanny]

It's change right? Time is just change from one state to another state. That's how I see it, time is the thing that clicks off "states" at the Planck length. Idk. We live in a probability event. All life is a probability event.

[@longcastle4863]

Except the present is the constant collapsing of the probability wave

[@mintakan003]

The positron as an electron going backward in time? Delayed choice erasure experiment?

[@RolandHuettmann]

So, the universe is like a film, each moment is a picture. We experience the movement, while, in fact, there are only single frames. Each frame is the universe. Every film is an illusion. Time is an illusion. Or? Probably, reality is an illusion as well. When matter is energy, what is energy if time "moves" in both directions? I feel that it is a huge mystery we all share.

[@hajorm.a3474]

No the universe is not like a film, physics is implying that the future affects the present as much as the past.

[@kendebusk2540]

Isn't that almost exactly the view given by Julian Barbour?

[@plinden]

@@hajorm.a3474 That is a reductio ad absurdum of physics then. Past events have 100% certainty, prob 1, since they happened exactly how they happened, hence the future cannot change their probability.

[@Bluudclaat]

Yeah it sounds a bit new-agey when you try to explain it but I was thinking in that way too. It’s extraordinary that we can experience consciousness as we kind of ‘fall through time’

[@longcastle4863]

_A hundred green bottles of beer_ _In a plastic swimming pool full of ice..._ The future just affected how you saw those green bottles in the past : )

[@manulscode]

Mind blown 🤯. I love how he is so excited about these theories. I had a physics student friend who told me that there's actually no time and we just move in space further and further away from the past moment, so the past is still there but it's very far away. He couldn't explain exactly how it works. This video explains this. Also if it's true it would be interesting to know if the past universes are destroyed and we only live in brand new ones or we can go back to the past.

[@eternalsoul3439]

Let me explain you past is an illusion doesn't exist, Future is an illusion doesn't exist as well it's the present which is always there Eternal forever & forever but in different state. "Past, Present & future" Is nothing but stubborn illusion because the state of matter can't change by itself until observed by an observer or by an external force.

[@raphaeldavis522]

@@eternalsoul3439 love this reply although I would challenge the idea of an external observer. Since we can never experience reality outside of ourselves there's no way of proving that such a thing as an "external observer" really exists. We can assume one does but the evidence speaks to the contrary. In other words, if you don't exist how can you prove that anything else does? In fact, if we rely upon the very pragmatic definition of death being the complete and permanent absence of our conscious awareness then it would stand to reason that when you die everything must die with you. If that definition is true then it would mean the opposite MUST also be true i.e everything exists BECAUSE of you. Weird right?? 🤔 Clearly there is a symbiotic relationship between conscious awareness and reality that we've yet to comprehend.

[@cajones9330]

What if the Universe is Infinite , how does that effect these ideas about time?

[@MrMattWelcome]

Dear Professor Tollaksen, Mr L Kuhn and anyone else interested in the idea/theory of Time. Consider the question below, to which your answer can only be Yes, or No. If your answer is No, then imho you may possibly be subject to some unchecked confirmation bias re the idea of a thing called Time actually existing vs time possibly being just and only a useful idea. Therefore, given that in the world around and within us, all we seem to observe is a vast collection of matter moving and interacting in all physical directions. And, that nowhere do we actually observe anything coming out of a “temporal future”, nor disappearing into a “temporal past” ( instead, only ever assimilating from and disintegrating into its surroundings ). Resting on these (I believe) scientifically verifiable observations, my question is this; *As a Professor of Physics interested in the idea of time, have you asked yourself the following question…* *“ **_If_** it happened to be the case that there is just and only matter moving and interacting in all directions, would this be enough to mislead me, into wrongly assuming, a thing called Time also exists ?”* Note, as stated above, the answer to this question is either *Yes* , or *No* . If your answer is (e.g.) *“No, as a professional in the field, I have never carefully asked myself ‘would matter just existing and moving in all directions be enough to mislead me into wrongly assuming a thing called time exists’ “* Then, perhaps throughout your studies you are only considering and trying to prove something you already believe, and not making an equal attempt to check its opposite, or to disprove your own (or a given) assumption. * M.Marsden. (Auth: A Brief History of Timelessness ) PS: this is similar to asking; As a scientist, being told the emperor in front of you is wearing an invisible robe, Would it be scientific to start only from the assumption that invisible robes exist, and to only ask yourself “how many ways can I try to find evidence to prove invisible cloth exists”? Or would you also ask yourself... “If this man is just naked, then could I be wrong to assume invisible cloth exists”? (* Similarly have you also considered the possibility that Relativity may only be showing us that fast moving objects etc " _are just changing_ more slowly than expected", and not that there is also a thing called Time being dilated in it's passage between an unobserved "future" and "past" ? )

[@B.S...]

The original CMB temperature = 273,000,000 (K) - today = 2.726 (K) Ask any CMB photon... That takes approximately - 13.8 billion years, (depending on your frame of reference).

[@kallianpublico7517]

Is time a logical construct like imaginary numbers and the square root of 2; or is time an impression of several of the senses instead of one sense? Depending on one's opinion the answer as to ontological, reality differs.

[@cmvamerica9011]

We aren’t sure of the past or the future, and the now is kinda fuzzy.

[@prettysure3085]

Only time will tell..

[@chrisg1234fly]

And how will this affect me tomorrow?

[@drhilltube]

As space expands, time unfolds. Interlocked. No past. No future. No present. Time is an illusion.

[@philproffitt8363]

So, if each tiny moment of our existence is like a 'new universe'...is that just like saying that the next frame of a movie is like a brand new movie? I say no...not really. In both cases...the same story is unfolding with constraints on the amount of possible change between 'frames'. Any uncertainty at the quantum scale seems to become irrelevant once you zoom back out and find the causality observed at the macro scale is unchanged and unaffected by any observation you made at the quantum scale. Is time real? Is a yard, metre or mile real? They're all just measurements...'reality' resides in the 'objects' they measure.

[@activeeye6576]

Maybe all the mass in the universe, slows our perception down. Maybe your conciousness is actually traveling at the speed of light.

[@mohamedselim6547]

Thanks great video My point is, time scenario has more problems to me than organizing my day. There are plenty of other ways I can do that by. now the year is 365 days.... when trying to get the hours per year, you see there is a + going on, 6 more hours in a year, so in a time period of 4 years they came up with the so called leap year. which is a 366 days, ohhhh, now that's interesting it's a year still. due to the time value of the second. is there a way, that can be fixed? aside, the idea of having 28, 29, 30, 31 days in a month. Can this also be fixed? I think we now know more, I think there is no need to stick with some classical theories. Thanks for them, no doubt. But it always goes in that direction, the students creates new/better ideas than the teacher/instructor... because no doubt, the students will know more.

[@ThomasGodart]

When I see that kind of video where a researcher talks about the nature of time, I always wonder if they actually see the reverse causality that they are talking about (without realizing it), or not. I bet that they don't

[@mouseminer2978]

But may be they are creating an environment where someone in the future will have this realization of causality.

[@ThomasGodart]

@@mouseminer2978 Yes of course, and btw it's already done in the past too, just like if making a time machine in the future at any point in time, then it's already done (in the past) and such a machine is already located here and there, in the future and in the past simultaneously

[@richardbowers3647]

Whoa!!! Using the word 'time' to explain 'time' is much confusing!!! Check it out?

[@longcastle4863]

Unfortunately, _every moment being born anew_ does nothing to lift the spirits of one having fallen off a tall building.

[@stephenlupoli]

No time isn’t real! I’ll watch this video tomorrow!

[@john-paulwallcraft9362]

The beginning of time, if no conscious being was there to see it did it actually happen, or did time just fast forward to where consciousness began?

[@kos-mos1127]

Speculation no one has proven a beginning of time.

[@longcastle4863]

Things happen all the time when no conscious mind is there to experience it, it seems to me. So if time is a thing and not just an idea than I think it also would exist regardless of it being consciously experienced or not.

[@nickloks]

Time traveling from the past to the present & the present to the past makes perfect sense when you’re dealing with the karmic effects we experience in life

[@goham5481]

They could just say I have no idea.

[@alanbooth9217]

fascinating idea - these mere shifts in perspective so obvious sometimes can lead to great insight- we do have the capacity to keep probing , the answer always in front of us in retrospect and we must somehow transcend the shackles of ordinary language so tense driven and holding us back now

[@dondattaford5593]

Bravo thanks I believe there is no such thing as time it's made up everything we experience can't be based upon one individual there's no telling what you call when will happen again all you know is that it happened you are here now we're experiencing all of us through entanglements ohh ask and I'll explain

[@ChuckBrowntheClown]

Sounds like you just described cause and effect.