Why the Flow of Time Is an Illusion • Hacker News Board

Re: Why the Flow of Time Is an Illusion

#21

Post by vinceguidry » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 1:55 PM UTC

7373737373 wrote: post #4

The word 'illusion' should be removed from every dictionary. It's one completely unspecific, indeterminate and misleading word and most subjects or patterns of discourse in which it appears have the same properties. The title of this post also reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime Just searching for "* is an illusion" returns - consciousness - choice - spacetime - the world - physical reality - certaint…

Illusion can be tricky to understand, but not impossible. It means that the referent is not the same as the representation. When something isn't an illusion, it means the referent is the same as the representation. We have different words for different kinds of illusion. I can show you an actual, physical chair, or a picture of a chair. The first is not an illusion, while the second is.

You watch a real television show on a real television. The television is designed to create visual illusions of real things. But the television is itself real. The show is a dramatic rendering, an illusion, of real-life situations.

So there's three elements needed to make illusion. A referent, a representation, and a type.

Consciousness is real, but its contents are illusory, thought represents things that are not those things.

Re: Why the Flow of Time Is an Illusion

#22

Post by egjerlow » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 1:55 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #20

egjerlow wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would your brain need consciousness to anticipate the future? A computer, which has no consciousness, would be able to do the same.

Consciousness is how the algorithm feels from inside.

Why would we need to 'feel' anything from the inside? We could operate perfectly well as 'machines' without having this 'feeling'. Also, consciousness isn't a feeling. It is what makes it possible at all to have a subjective experience of feelings in the first place. And that is mind-blowing the more you think of it.

Re: Why the Flow of Time Is an Illusion

#23

Post by 7373737373 » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 1:56 PM UTC

fouronnes3 wrote: post #8

7373737373 wrote: post #4

The word 'illusion' should be removed from every dictionary. It's one completely unspecific, indeterminate and misleading word and most subjects or patterns of discourse in which it appears have the same properties. The title of this post also reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime Just searching for "* is an illusion" returns - consciousness - choice - spacetime - the world - physical reality - certaint…

illusion - noun, an instance of a wrong or misinterpreted perception of a sensory experience.

A misinterpretation always requires a context, or direction. Its use implies the existence of a 'true interpretation'. The word illusion doesn't give either, it just signifies that there is one. But then I have to ask, how can a subjective experience be something truly or falsely interpreted?

Re: Why the Flow of Time Is an Illusion

#24

Post by 7373737373 » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 1:57 PM UTC

n4r9 wrote: post #11

7373737373 wrote: post #4

The word 'illusion' should be removed from every dictionary. It's one completely unspecific, indeterminate and misleading word and most subjects or patterns of discourse in which it appears have the same properties. The title of this post also reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime Just searching for "* is an illusion" returns - consciousness - choice - spacetime - the world - physical reality - certaint…

> The title of this post also reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime I don't understand what the title has to do with avoiding forms of "to be"? It contains the word "is".

"Is" is (heh) one of the forms of "to be" and can signify many different things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime#Different_functions_of...

Re: Why the Flow of Time Is an Illusion

#25

Post by JdeBP » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 2:00 PM UTC

jatsign wrote: post #12

Even a skeptic philosopher, who would say most things can't be proven beyond the self, would probably agree that one of the things we have direct experience of is change.

"How can I tell that the past isn't a fiction designed to account for the discrepancy between my immediate physical sensations and my state of mind?" -- The Man In The Shack, The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy

Re: Why the Flow of Time Is an Illusion

#26

Post by barking » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 2:02 PM UTC

7373737373 wrote: post #4

The word 'illusion' should be removed from every dictionary. It's one completely unspecific, indeterminate and misleading word and most subjects or patterns of discourse in which it appears have the same properties. The title of this post also reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime Just searching for "* is an illusion" returns - consciousness - choice - spacetime - the world - physical reality - certaint…

What would magicians do without illusions, mere tricks, that's what. Shame on you.

Re: Why the Flow of Time Is an Illusion

#27

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 2:03 PM UTC

egjerlow wrote: post #22

TeMPOraL wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consciousness is how the algorithm feels from inside.

Why would we need to 'feel' anything from the inside? We could operate perfectly well as 'machines' without having this 'feeling'. Also, consciousness isn't a feeling. It is what makes it possible at all to have a subjective experience of feelings in the first place. And that is mind-blowing the more you think of it.

Consciousness is the algorithm. What you call "consciousness" is how the computational processes that are you see themselves.

It could work differently, but for some reasons it doesn't, and we don't understand the reasons.

Re: Why the Flow of Time Is an Illusion

#28

Post by hunta2097 » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 2:04 PM UTC

egjerlow wrote: post #22

TeMPOraL wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consciousness is how the algorithm feels from inside.

Why would we need to 'feel' anything from the inside? We could operate perfectly well as 'machines' without having this 'feeling'. Also, consciousness isn't a feeling. It is what makes it possible at all to have a subjective experience of feelings in the first place. And that is mind-blowing the more you think of it.

Why are you thinking? You are anticipating various scales of "the future", using memories of past events.

As computers try to anticipate the future more, they may also start to "experience" things.

Re: Why the Flow of Time Is an Illusion

#29

Post by lm28469 » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 2:04 PM UTC

GuB-42 wrote: post #16

rc_mob wrote: post #2

Time is just a measurement that we haven’t quite nailed down the definition of yet.

We have a very precise definition of time: a second is "the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom". It is used in a lot of physical equations which are very accurate at describing the universe as we observe it. There are some philosophical questions regarding time. Questions about the arrow of tim…

> We have a very precise definition of time

> a second is

Well that's a very precise definition of a second (unit of time), but not of time itself.

Re: Why the Flow of Time Is an Illusion

#30

Post by simonh » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 2:04 PM UTC

lisper wrote: post #14

7373737373 wrote: post #4

The word 'illusion' should be removed from every dictionary. It's one completely unspecific, indeterminate and misleading word and most subjects or patterns of discourse in which it appears have the same properties. The title of this post also reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime Just searching for "* is an illusion" returns - consciousness - choice - spacetime - the world - physical reality - certaint…

"Illusion" is perfectly well defined: it is a perception that does not correspond to any objective reality outside your brain.

The problem is, that just punts the issue down to what is considered objective reality. If that's in contention, as in this specific case, then referring to things as illusory can be ambiguous. I happen to disagree with the comment you are responding to, but I do accept that the term illusion is often used ambiguously, especially in relation to notions of objective and subjective reality.