I think I read a good explanation somewhere. We experience time by forming memories. If our molecules somehow participated in times still future to us but no memories were formed, we would not be aware of it. And the formation of memory (in the brain, or in any mechanical recording system) is a creative process, which because of that famous law can only reliably happen when energy is consumed and entropy increases. Given that memories can only form in the "positive" direction, we are obligated to experience time that way. In my view, the psychology of perception is more complex and mysterious than the physics (not to say that I have mastered either). Evidence of variable perception of time is hard to come by. Experimenters concluded that "frightening events are associated with richer and denser memories ... And the more memory you have of an event, the longer you believe it took." This, I think, is the key to resisting the common perception of time accelerating with aging: avoid getting stuck in repetitive behaviors, seek novelty and adventure. Buy experiences and not material goods. I remember a bizarre time perception I once experienced. I had listened to a Radiolab episode about Ötzi while biking to the train station, then started reading the Wikipedia article on the train. The podcast was quite affecting, and I felt an uncanny connection to a man so remote in time and space. Then, with perfect timing, Pandora began playing "Beyond This Moment". I was about a quarter through the article, and sensed that I would still be reading it when the song finished. I felt like I was aware of the whole of that time at once, as if the little slice of time called the present had expanded to several minutes, and I was already enjoying the memory of the beautiful experience I was about to have.An increase in entropy signals what we have defined as the "positive" time direction, but physics may never tell us why humans can only seem to experience time towards the positive direction
The article may have been Why We Can’t Remember the Future about the (subscription required) paper Relation between the psychological and thermodynamic arrows of time. The argument reminds me of Maxwell's demon and Feynman's ratchet and pawl heat engine.
Well, you are actually incredibly well-versed in yet another subject, it's taken me some time to reflect. That's a great explanation of the current physical situation of our consciousness. I agree that it's logically sound, definitely can't throw it out. Only semi-related: sleep's weird though. It's not like you're experiencing reality. It's definitely related to toxin purging and memory processing. The reason I'm bringing it up is because the idea also ties into physical/chemical capabilities/limitations. I love thought experiments. So imagine if you were able to encode your consciousness into the brain-capacity (or greater) equivalent of an entangled mass of matter that was additionally programmed to act like a neural network. That could be fun! Yeah, and they're both basically dead ends for any professional career. Which, I think I'm OK with, because most theories would prove ultimately untestable. It's like art. How do we value this sort of musing? Well, we don't, from a capitalistic perspective, but neither do I find it a worthless pursuit. Like I said, adrenal responses. Maybe a "heightening of the senses" leads to better quality sensory input processing and logging, which is perceived as time dilation (slowing). OK, yep, I wrote the previous two sentences before reading the "hard to come by" link article, sorry to waste everyone's time. And 100% with you on novelty, adventure, and experiences. Neurogenesis will result. Little bits of transcendence just aren't common enough. I can see how a crazy synchronicity like that might have triggered a chemical event leading to your profound impressions. But if it was common, the significance would of course be diminished. Tangent Paragraph: I have an incredibly arbitrary memory bookmarked. It was like a diagnostic test that I ran sometime in late elementary school. The memory is around two seconds long, the headlights of my school bus rounding a sharp corner early in the morning. It was dark, and all that was illuminated were cedar tree branches. Must have been sometime soon after daylight savings went out of effect in the fall. Absolutely nothing significant happened, apart from me telling myself "I'll remember this one moment for the rest of my life," and I never forgot it. I think about it every now and then, for no apparent reason.I think I read a good explanation somewhere. We experience time by forming memories. If our molecules somehow participated in times still future to us but no memories were formed, we would not be aware of it. And the formation of memory (in the brain, or in any mechanical recording system) is a creative process, which because of that famous law can only reliably happen when energy is consumed and entropy increases. Given that memories can only form in the "positive" direction, we are obligated to experience time that way.
In my view, the psychology of perception is more complex and mysterious than the physics.
Experimenters concluded that "frightening events are associated with richer and denser memories ... And the more memory you have of an event, the longer you believe it took." This, I think, is the key to resisting the common perception of time accelerating with aging: avoid getting stuck in repetitive behaviors, seek novelty and adventure. Buy experiences and not material goods.
I remember a bizarre time perception I once experienced. I had listened to a Radiolab episode about Ötzi while biking to the train station, then started reading the Wikipedia article on the train. The podcast was quite affecting, and I felt an uncanny connection to a man so remote in time and space. Then, with perfect timing, Pandora began playing "Beyond This Moment". I was about a quarter through the article, and sensed that I would still be reading it when the song finished. I felt like I was aware of the whole of that time at once, as if the little slice of time called the present had expanded to several minutes, and I was already enjoying the memory of the beautiful experience I was about to have.
Feynman did some interesting personal research on sleep which you have probably seen. He also experimented with sensory deprivation, which sounds like something that would make for a memorable experience.sleep's weird though
Sleep is weird. People object to the transhumanist idea of "uploading your brain" into a computer, which I think you are hinting at with "encode your consciousness" because there will be a discontinuity when the wet brain turns off and the electronic brain turns on. But we lose consciousness every evening and come to in the morning. What kind of continuity do we have now?the headlights of my school bus rounding a sharp corner early in the morning. It was dark, and all that was illuminated were cedar tree branches.
This image stuck with me since first reading it earlier today. Maybe it will stick longer.
Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about this lately, which has entirely too much to do with having seen Ex Machina and Chappie within the last couple of weeks. I would contend that today's humans (and all other animals that sleep) have full "continuity of consciousness" between the sleep to awakeness transition, or vice versa. We're not fully alert while asleep, but still certainly conscious, and the processes in the brain just change between the two differing states. The moment of discontinuity when uploading/encoding a consciousness into a new form may serve as barrier that we can never cross. If you simply make a copy of yourself and boot it up (so as to circumvent "pulling the plug" on your wet brain), all you've done is clone yourself. Here's an even better mindfuck; let's say we think we've been successfully transferring wetware to hardware. How can I guarantee that it isn't just the clone saying "Yeah, I made it into the computer just fine, thanks!", and that you have actually died, but the copy you made of yourself shortly before your death was booted up, and behaves just as you would? Maybe if we copied someone without their knowledge, killed them, and then booted up their file? Oh god, this is fun, but is, at present, unknowable. Another aside: Although I've never heard it put into these terms, believers in reincarnation seem to subscribe to some sort of "conservation of consciousness" theory. Again, unknowable, at least this side of death (and very possibly the other). I've only seen a little bit of it, truthfully. Definitely have a dream journal laying around here somewhere that only has maybe 10 entries. Had a few lucid dreams before, but I always end up either choosing to fly or have sex with a woman not too dissimilar from Mouse's "woman in red" in the Matrix. Pretty boring, considering the endless possibilities. Edit: Ah, and I managed to achieve some form of sleep paralysis back in high school. I never slept at night, and fell asleep during class with my head in my arms on my desk. My mind would often wake up, receiving audio, conscious of my breathing, but was unable to conduct any physical motion, including opening my eyes, yelling to pull myself out of this purgatory state, punch myself in the head, anything. Sleep paralysis is terrifying, it's true, especially the first few times. Ever seen Altered States? Heh, interesting flick. I do find it fascinating that humans are reportedly unable to cope with total silence. I'd love to get in an isolation tank and see what happens.Sleep is weird. People object to the transhumanist idea of "uploading your brain" into a computer, which I think you are hinting at with "encode your consciousness" because there will be a discontinuity when the wet brain turns off and the electronic brain turns on. But we lose consciousness every evening and come to in the morning. What kind of continuity do we have now?
Feynman did some interesting personal research on sleep which you have probably seen.
He also experimented with sensory deprivation, which sounds like something that would make for a memorable experience.
This seems to require a rewrite of the usual dictionary understanding of conscious and unconscious. Sleep is a deeply altered state. I can still perceive stimuli, so that a loud noise or shake will wake me up, but I am not aware of any stimuli, or at least I don't remember them long. It seems like awareness is the main difference. I don't know I am sleeping; it is much like being dead. My friend Barış told me about his idea of a workaround the night before I had my lucid dream. He suggested that you could transfer the mind gradually. As you activate the neural mappings in the new substrate, you keep them wired to the old brain. You turn off the old nodes one by one as you turn on their new copies. The conscious person would always have a complete, intact mind, and there be no awkward moments of non-existence or duplicate existence. I didn't think it fair to criticize this plan on technological grounds, since there's no telling what will eventually be possible, but I thought of a laws-of-physics objection: No matter how near you have the new mind matter, there will be some unavoidable lag in signals going back and forth to the old brain. Assuming that timing is critical in neural messaging, I conclude that the mind will become hopelessly jumbled and confused while it is divided across two locations. The process would be so disruptive that continuity of experience would be impossible. Added to my queue. I would like to give it a try too, but I wouldn't expect it to be so intolerable: "a mix of deep relaxation and temporal disorientation" sounds reasonable for anyone spending an hour wide awake in a dark room.We're not fully alert while asleep, but still certainly conscious
The moment of discontinuity when uploading/encoding a consciousness into a new form may serve as barrier that we can never cross.
Ever seen Altered States? Heh, interesting flick.
I do find it fascinating that humans are reportedly unable to cope with total silence.