Time is an illusion

[TheWhat?]

I want to be a project built from genetics, development, and life experiences, but which is more than the sum of those parts. I want to be an emergent entity with the "rules" of my operation not entirely deducible from antecedent components.

Rearrange the components and what becomes of consciousness? Reductionism seeks to explain phenomena in terms of component parts, but emergentism recognizes the existence of the phenomena.

 

[durangodawood]

....If our thoughts are deterministic but unpredictable, they will not, subjectively, seem deterministic. People worry that not having free will means we're helpless passengers in robotic bodies, but that's dualism raising its ugly head again - our thinking selves are part and parcel of the deterministic process....

I dont get it. You seem to want to soften the blow of us being robots by saying our thinking selves are basically following a script?

The worry seems valid. Are we following a script or not? If so, does the fact that we dont see each line of the script until the last second mitigate anything? The only sense in which our robotness is mitigated is that our ignorance fosters an illusory world of free will we can feel like we're living in. But if youre committed to the reality behind the illusion, then youve got to accept you dont get to edit the script. You just read what youre given.

 

[TheWhat?]

This sense of the separation of our mental selves from the state of the world is shown best in the definition of free will as the ability to choose differently in a given situation. For example, people may say that in a particular situation they had the choice of vanilla or chocolate ice-cream, and they chose the vanilla ice-cream; but because they have free will they could have chosen the chocolate ice-cream in those circumstances.

But if you ask them what would cause them choose the chocolate ice-cream in identical circumstances instead of vanilla, they will explain it in terms of some difference in their mental state; e.g. preference, mood, recent experience, etc. But this means the circumstances are not identical - they're just not including their mental state in the circumstances. And if they thought it through, they'd realise that their mental state, e.g. mood, preference, recent experience, etc., couldn't be different unless prior circumstances had also been different.

"Free will" in common vernacular is meaningful without approaching popular determinism -- by claiming "I chose of my own free will" I'm saying "I did in fact make a choice, and it was not coerced by an external agent."

We don't have much of a natural reason to ask the question "could I have chosen differently?" except in those extreme cases to establish culpability. Excluding that, nobody has any reason to speak of the possibility that one could have chosen differently, unless one is speaking of the nature of what a choice is, philosophically. It's not part of common language. What is common is the conclusion that "had I known differently, I would have chosen differently." Naturally, we recognize the role of cognitive states in the decision making process, and this does not contradict the common use of "free will."

The illusion that determinism is somehow completely contrary to the natural functioning of the mind is the product of philosophy.

 

[partinobodycular]

Obviously, it's not two locations in space-time we're dealing with in the hypothetical, but it does mean that one location in space-time will have at least two distinct time coordinates, neither being more correct than the other, and that's inherently problematic.

Perhaps it would help if you thought of the clock as something more akin to a car's odometer.

If you and a friend are traveling in the same car, then you can use the car's odometer as a reference point. But if you're traveling in separate cars, taking separate paths, then the odometers are useless as a reference point. You have to designate an actual physical location.

Likewise things that measure time, like clocks and calendars are just a different kind of odometer. As long as we're all traveling in the same car, aka the earth, we can use our clocks as a reference point. But once our paths separate, our clocks aren't any good anymore.

At that point, just as you would have to designate a specific location, you would have to designate a specific event as well. And just as the location can't be...when my odometer hits 500 miles, the event can't be...when my calendar says January 1st, 2050.

So if you think of the clock as an odometer, then it's really not that problematic.

 

[TheWhat?]

Perhaps it would help if you thought of the clock as something more akin to a car's odometer.

If you and a friend are traveling in the same car, then you can use the car's odometer as a reference point. But if you're traveling in separate cars, taking separate paths, then the odometers are useless as a reference point. You have to designate an actual physical location.

Likewise things that measure time, like clocks and calendars are just a different kind of odometer. As long as we're all traveling in the same car, aka the earth, we can use our clocks as a reference point. But once our paths separate, our clocks aren't any good anymore.

At that point, just as you would have to designate a specific location, you would have to designate a specific event as well. And just as the location can't be...when my odometer hits 500 miles, the event can't be...when my calendar says January 1st, 2050.

So if you think of the clock as an odometer, then it's really not that problematic.

It's not problematic in the sense I don't know how to deal with it. In fact, that's kind of how I'm inclined to interpret the situation, because I interpret the universe as stateful and the time measurement is, in a sense, a measure of the observer's awareness of change, but it's problematic if we consider the odometer readings to be coordinates, as we would if time is a traversible dimension, the future and past being eternally existent.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I like this answer, it's very articulate, and very reasonable, but...doesn't it assume a certain overarching worldview?

Yes.

Specifically, that cause and effect are linear. "A" causes "B" causes "C". But what if that's not the case, but instead all time, effects all time, all the time. Such that there's a collective "cause" which operates over and above what we perceive of as simply linear causes?

There is good reason to suppose that cause & effect is an emergent phenomenon supervenient on the arrow of time which is itself emergent from statistical mechanics. But at the scale of everyday life, cause & effect is overwhelmingly linear, otherwise we and the macro-scale world would be very different or would not exist at all.

I know, there's a certain irrationality about the concept of all time, effecting all time, all the time. It's like the epitome of teleology, wherein the result is also the cause. Except that in this case "everything"...and "every thing"...are in fact the cause...and the effect. With seemingly the only requirement being that they're internally consistent...maybe.

This is where I tend to find myself falling down the rabbit hole. What happens when all time, effects all time, all the time? And what does it mean for determinism?

I'm not sure what you mean with this suggestion, but for it to be more than speculation it either needs to be a prediction of an established theory or to be testable, i.e. to make a detectable difference from the current understanding of time.

IIRC, there are formulations or interpretations of quantum mechanics that involve retrocausality, but they don't make a difference, i.e. they are consistent with the quantum formalism like all other formulations.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Let's assume for the sake of argument that we exist in a block universe, in which past present and future all exist at once. In such a universe all that we can really say for sure about "A", "B", and "C" is that they're consistent with each other. It might seem reasonable to assume that "A" caused "B", since that's the way we experience them, but since "A" can't really be said to have preceded "B", how is it possible for "A" to have caused "B", at least in the sense that we understand the concept of causation?

It isn't possible, because our understanding of causation is a product of the 'illusion' (in this scenario) of the passage of time. IOW at every point along the temporal axis, we have a coarse cumulative record of previous points along the time axis and some predictions about what is to come, so at every moment, it seems like we 'just got there' and that we're moving on to the next.

In a block universe the state of "B" is just as much of a constraint on the state of "A", as the other way around. And this holds true for every other point in time as well.

Sure, and this may well be relevant at quantum scales, but not at macro-scales.

Of course the very concept of a block universe is counterintuitive, but if you're in one, then linear causality becomes something of an illusion.

Yes, my main problem with the block universe model is how or why events along the temporal axis are ordered the way they are... but it's just a model.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

That appears to make sense as it stands. Surely it could be said that we internally interpret the incoming information - which is deterministic, and then self determine our actions. That would make us responsible agents. So one could argue that we're not automatons and that we do have free will in that sense. But...

Yes, in a not very coherent sense. A large part of the problem is that our language and thoughts are based on concepts that are emergent misunderstandings; the folk concept of free will is incoherent even in a dualist worldview, but it's so much a part of our thinking that we have to find ways to approximate it in determinism.

But the real issue is complexity and ignorance - we are extremely complex entities with a very limited knowledge of our inner workings, so we don't know exactly why we do what we do, and like a calculator, we don't know what the outcome of our deliberations will be until we've completed the evaluation.

So we have the experience of evaluating options for action without any deep insight into the reasons why we feel the way we do, and we make up plausible stories to explain our decisions, which may or may not approximate the truth. This gives us a sense of agency, and I think our ignorance of the subconscious influences on our thinking suggests a mysterious personal 'void' from which ideas and inspirations arise, which can be an impetus both for dualism, and the idea of free will as something inscrutable - personal values & opinions from beyond the accessible world, from the ghost in the machine, the 'soul'...

But that doesn't tie in with what we agree with above. That we do operate separately from the environment in some way. At least, it appears that we do. So there is some degree of personal responsibility if you approach the problem from one direction but none from the other.

Well, we are separate from the environment as individual entities, and we have a continuity through time that identifies us, just as trees and mountains and tables. It's a useful way to view the world. As such, we are personally responsible for what we do, in as much as we are the individuals that do it.

...if we allow for the fact that the perpetrator isn't entirely responsible for the anger that he feels, then your prof must equally not be entirely responsible for the love he feels for his mother.

That's a problem with the ambiguous language of responsibility; what does 'entirely responsible for' mean in a deterministic universe?

A perpetrator is responsible for his angry actions - in the sense that he is the identifiable entity that acted. But his anger and the kind of actions he takes have prior causes that are ultimately outside his control. So he is an identifiable causal nexus - the world impinges on him, changes him, and produces those actions as a result. But without him there would be no such angry actions.

The same applies to my prof loving his mother; he loves her in his unique way because he's the unique product of his genetics, development, and life experiences, and that's the way people fortunate enough to have that sort of history respond. He does it because it makes him feel good, and it makes him feel good because that's how his history has configured him.

The degree of responsibility that we have is something I've struggled with for a long time. I had hopes that Sam Harris would finally solve it in his book on free will, but every time he came close to making a determination, he left the question hanging.

We are materially responsible for what we do, just as a storm is materially responsible for blowing your roof off. Moral responsibility is something else, another convenient heuristic built on an incoherent concept of free will and entangled with religious/supernatural thinking, aimed at promoting approved behaviours and discouraging disapproved behaviours. A reasonable and plausible idea, but built on a misapprehension, in my view.

I can't get past the problem that our internal deliberations as to what path we should follow in response to deterministic inputs are themselves the result of deterministic inputs over which we had no control.

Yes, I know exactly what you mean. I don't think we can escape our intuitive way of thinking in day to day life, our society is built around it, and it's just too... intuitive But by being aware of it, we can rationally forgive our failures, learn from them and move on, and celebrate our successes without hubris.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Obviously, it's not two locations in space-time we're dealing with in the hypothetical, but it does mean that one location in space-time will have at least two distinct time coordinates, neither being more correct than the other, and that's inherently problematic.

No, there's only the one spacetime coordinate (that they now share). The two individuals just experienced differing amounts of elapsed time getting to it.

If they were in the same place in space, but at different time coordinates, they wouldn't be at the same event (the spacetime coordinated where they're supposed to meet up).

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I dont get it. You seem to want to soften the blow of us being robots by saying our thinking selves are basically following a script?

Not exactly - we're not robots in the conventional sense (preprogrammed automatons), we're learning systems. There isn't a script, but our thoughts are causally determined by prior events.

The worry seems valid. Are we following a script or not? If so, does the fact that we dont see each line of the script until the last second mitigate anything? The only sense in which our robotness is mitigated is that our ignorance fosters an illusory world of free will we can feel like we're living in. But if youre committed to the reality behind the illusion, then youve got to accept you dont get to edit the script. You just read what youre given.

See above; there is no separate you that reads the script (that's the Cartesian theatre fallacy with its infinite regression), it's not a good analogy, but what you think is, in a sense, scripted by prior thoughts and the events that led to them. The 'script' can't be edited because there's no 'editor'.

Crude and oversimplified analogies like 'robot' and 'script', with all their baggage, tend to obstruct a grasp of the deterministic model of people.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

"Free will" in common vernacular is meaningful without approaching popular determinism -- by claiming "I chose of my own free will" I'm saying "I did in fact make a choice, and it was not coerced by an external agent."

Yes, that is an alternative and more reasonable definition. But it is a subjective expression of how it feels to make a choice. For example, when someone encultured by one society's norms and values visits another society with different norms and values, she may find that she feels coerced and constrained in her choices where an encultured native of that society making the same choices would not.

This can give rise to conflicts of judgement, for example when someone indoctrinated by a cult does something cultish we disapprove of, we may say they weren't acting of their own free will because they'd been brainwashed. This has resulted in people being 'deprogrammed', against their will, in order to restore their free will...

We don't have much of a natural reason to ask the question "could I have chosen differently?" except in those extreme cases to establish culpability. Excluding that, nobody has any reason to speak of the possibility that one could have chosen differently, unless one is speaking of the nature of what a choice is, philosophically. It's not part of common language. What is common is the conclusion that "had I known differently, I would have chosen differently." Naturally, we recognize the role of cognitive states in the decision making process, and this does not contradict the common use of "free will."

Agreed, but, in my experience, what you call the common use of free will is far from universal, especially among believers in the supernatural.

The illusion that determinism is somehow completely contrary to the natural functioning of the mind is the product of philosophy.

As is the idea that it is not...

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

It's not problematic in the sense I don't know how to deal with it. In fact, that's kind of how I'm inclined to interpret the situation, because I interpret the universe as stateful and the time measurement is, in a sense, a measure of the observer's awareness of change, but it's problematic if we consider the odometer readings to be coordinates, as we would if time is a traversable dimension, the future and past being eternally existent.

In relativistic spacetime, time is only traversable in one direction (with some exotic theoretical exceptions), but neither space nor time is absolute; both are dynamic, differing between observers in relative motion.

 

[durangodawood]

....If we are able to operate independent of the rules of physics who or what determines how we should act in a given situation? This inevitably leads to the concept of dualism - a separate 'driver' which has the ability to cause us to act contrary to physics.....

Thats where I am. Tho I dont like the word, because whatever this additional driver is, its all part of one reality.

Perhaps something like ideas or meaning are part of this additional reality. They are real, they dont seem to have physicality tho they need to interact with physical brains.

 

[durangodawood]

It's neither an easy concept to grasp, nor an easy concept to explain, which is why I tend to end up somewhere down a rabbit hole.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that we exist in a block universe, in which past present and future all exist at once. In such a universe all that we can really say for sure about "A", "B", and "C" is that they're consistent with each other. It might seem reasonable to assume that "A" caused "B", since that's the way we experience them, but since "A" can't really be said to have preceded "B", how is it possible for "A" to have caused "B", at least in the sense that we understand the concept of causation?

In a block universe the state of "B" is just as much of a constraint on the state of "A", as the other way around. And this holds true for every other point in time as well.

Of course the very concept of a block universe is counterintuitive, but if you're in one, then linear causality becomes something of an illusion.

....And what does it mean for determinism?

Not to be flip, but I think it only means "determinism" is the wrong word in that "determine" has a linear time flavor to it.

The block universe is more like a fixed-ism view of the human self.

I do wonder how the illusion of time would sneak into minds in a block universe reality.

 

[partinobodycular]

I do wonder how the illusion of time would sneak into minds in a block universe reality.

You and me both.

 

[TheWhat?]

No, there's only the one spacetime coordinate (that they now share). The two individuals just experienced differing amounts of elapsed time getting to it.

That's fine, depending on what you mean by time.

If they were in the same place in space, but at different time coordinates, they wouldn't be at the same event (the spacetime coordinated where they're supposed to meet up).

Except that there exists nothing which renders the coordinate, say t1 = t2 - 30 minutes to be correct, and the other coordinate, say t2 = t1 + 30 minutes to be less correct.

 

[TheWhat?]

I do wonder how the illusion of time would sneak into minds in a block universe reality.

A growing block theory, interpreting the present to be a gestalt past, is fine but it's more of a variation within presentism. The past still doesn't exist as a place where you can go, but it exists as integral to the present.

 

[TheWhat?]

In relativistic spacetime, time is only traversable in one direction (with some exotic theoretical exceptions), but neither space nor time is absolute; both are dynamic, differing between observers in relative motion.

We still run into problems -- at least there is no physical reason to say otherwise -- by assuming that a body at rest is still going places in the direction of the arrow of time, simply because time is passing. Physics, until Einstein's relativity in general has assumed that the universe is stateful, implying an inherently presentist paradigm, which ought to be no surprise as eternalism as supported by the idea of spacetime is more of a later development. I'm no quantum physicist but according to the few I've conversed with, the same is true of QM, which, as far as I'm aware, is still struggling to make sense of spacetime. Spacetime is apparently part of the gap between QM and Einstein's relativity, a chasm currently in need of being crossed before physics can arrive at a theory of everything.

But, it really is not so problematic in my estimation if you consider that Einstein's predictions describe transformations of the physics, the components responsible for what we describe as the passage of time, at a local level, bringing us back to a stateful universe as opposed to one that is stateless with time itself being a traversible dimension.

In other words, to arrive at the ToE, in the long run, an overhaul of QM may not be needed so much as an overhaul of Einstein's relativity.

 

[chad kincham]

So there is this theory/concept that time is an illusion .... have been reading about it a bit. (you can google it)

so... am curious .... IF true how does that impact your current beliefs in regard to formation of the universe (regardless what that is)?

I'm not saying true or false .... I'm putting forward IF true.

What are your thoughts about it?

Time is not an illusion, it’s the fourth dimension.

Time has physical properties, which is why time Is affected by velocity, and even by gravity.

 

[chad kincham]

the same is true of QM, which, as far as I'm aware, is still struggling to make sense of spacetime

Quantum mechanics so far is only able to explain what is happening in micro physics, not why it is happening or how it is happening.

QM can explain the quantum entanglement happens, but can’t explain how or why, for example.