Time, Relativity and temporal consciousness
Until Einstein's reinterpretation of the physical concepts associated with time and space, time was considered to be the same everywhere in the universe, with all observers measuring the same time interval for any event. Non-relativistic classical mechanics is based on this Newtonian idea of time.
However, Philosophers did question that: "Time is not a reality , but a concept (noêma) or a measure (metron)" , like Antiphon the Sophist of 5th century BC in his chief work On Truth. Parmenides went further, maintaining that time, motion, and change were illusions, leading to the paradoxes of his follower Zeno. Time as an illusion is also a common theme in Buddhist thought.
A science that ignores consciousness, or artificially relegates the conscious mind to that of a secondary—and hence, unimportant—phenomenon, is actually an incomplete science. All our scientific data relies on the conscious mind as a necessary component. Both relativity and quantum physics tell us that we cannot blindly assume that the conscious mind—that experiences what constitutes our scientific data—has no effect on the nature of the data itself. So a discipline that willfully chooses to ignore the conscious mind as a vital component of our reality, must be viewed, at best, as an artificially restricted discipline, or, at worst, as a distortion of the truth.
Humans are not the only conscious beings; other animals, specifically mammals and birds, are indeed conscious, too. We still do not how consciousness emerges from the physical activity of the brain and we do not know whether consciousness can emerge from non-biological systems, such as computers.
Bill
Two contrasting viewpoints on time divide prominent philosophers. One view is that time is part of the fundamental structure of the universe—a dimension independent of events, in which events occur in sequence. Isaac Newtonsubscribed to this realist view, and hence it is sometimes referred to as Newtonian time. The opposing view is that time does not refer to any kind of "container" that events and objects "move through", nor to any entity that "flows", but that it is instead part of a fundamental intellectual structure (together with space and number) within which humans sequence and compare events. This second view, in the tradition of Gottfried Leibniz[17] and Immanuel Kant,[18][19] holds that time is neither an event nor a thing, and thus is not itself measurable nor can it be travelled.
Time has historically been closely related with space, the two together merging into spacetime in Einstein's special relativity and general relativity. According to these theories, the concept of time depends on the spatial reference frame of the observer, and the human perception as well as the measurement by instruments such as clocks are different for observers in relative motion. For example, if a spaceship carrying a clock flies through space at (very nearly) the speed of light, its crew does not notice a change in the speed of time on board their vessel because everything traveling at the same speed slows down at the same rate (including the clock, the crew's thought processes, and the functions of their bodies). However, to a stationary observer watching the spaceship fly by, the spaceship appears flattened in the direction it is traveling.
Stephen Hawking has stated that time actually began with the Big Bang, and that questions about what happened before the Big Bang are meaningless.
Scientists have come to some agreement on descriptions of events that happened 10−35 seconds after the Big Bang, but generally agree that descriptions about what happened before one Planck time (5 × 10−44 seconds) after the Big Bang are likely to remain pure speculation.
Time - Wikipedia
WHY RELATIVITY EXISTS
It turns out that relativity exists because our science is actually a science of what we experience, and not a science of a universe “out there” that is independent of us as observers.
Einstein’s second Postulate states that the speed of light is constant relative to all frames of reference. If we observe a flash of light while standing on Earth, we will find it travelling from us at 300,000 km per second.
The velocity of the observer makes no difference whatsoever. The speed of light is constant relative to all frames of reference. This then is Einstein’s second postulate. It sounds positively crazy!
Nonetheless, this second postulate of relativity has passed the test of time. It has survived a whole century of close scientific scrutiny, and has become a fundamental cornerstone of all modern physics. How do we explain this phenomenon?
Actually, Einstein never gave an explanation for his second postulate. That, in fact, is why it is called a postulate.
Distortions in Time and Space
How is it possible for the speed of light to remain constant to all frames of reference?
There is one possible solution to this conundrum. Perhaps time and space actually distort when we travel, and they distort in just such a way that all observers still measure the speed of light as the same. Strange as it may sound, this was exactly the solution Einstein implemented in his theory of relativity, and incredibly, it worked!
Relativity essentially deals with time and space, so the crucial question here is this: Are time and space inherent properties of the universe (independent of man) or are they only entities that reflect our human experience?
According to the theory of relativity, time and space vary according to the frame of reference of the observer. These entities, therefore, vary depending on the observer’s experience.
This strongly suggests that what we define as time and space are, in fact, not inherent properties of the universe. They are simply our time and space, i.e., what is experienced by us. Thus, time and space, as defined by our science, are actually only properties pertaining to how our senses interpret the universe.
The speed of light happens to be constant to all human observers simply because the speed of light (which is the speed of electromagnetic transmission) plays an intrinsic role in how our body and our perceptual apparatus function.
Startling as it may sound, human physiology has everything to do with relativity. The theory of relativity would not even exist if not for the way our human body functions!
The question is simply this: Are our scientific theories actual theories of phenomena that are independent of man, or are they merely theories of how man experiences the universe? In other words, is our science a study of the universe that is independent of us, i.e., one that would be equally valid even if we were not around? Or—as we are now asking—are our scientific theories actually only theories of how our mind and senses perceive and interpret the universe?
There is, naturally, an inherent problem with answering this question. We simply cannot compare observed data with unobserved data. No observation means no data; so we do not have any “unobserved data” to compare with.
The very foundation of all modern physics—both relativity and quantum theory—point to the fact that our scientific data are actually observer dependent. Without the observer, much of quantum physics and relativity would not even make sense.
Why the Speed of Light is Constant
The speed of light is the speed of electromagnetic transmission. It is constant because of a limitation in our perceptual ability. We are simply unable to experience the speed of light varying because both our perceptual apparatus and our brain function via electromagnetic transmission. In other words, we cannot experience the speed of light to be anything other than constant because the very rate at which we ourselves function depends on the speed of light!
We are essentially trapped inside the system, like the characters inside a video movie. If someone slows down the video, all the characters inside the video—as well as everything else there—slows down equally. The characters’ movements, and even their rate of thinking, slow down exactly in line with everything else. How then would these characters inside the video notice any difference in the speed of the video itself? They would, in fact, not notice any change at all, simply because they cannot escape the system to view it from the outside.
Why Relativity Exists - Kenneth Chan
The constancy of the speed of light is due to a limitation in man’s perceptual ability.
We have arbitrarily defined time as the rate of electromagnetic transmission in our perceived space. (Light is a form of electromagnetic transmission.) There is, therefore, actually a limitation in our ability to measure the speed of electromagnetic transmission itself, including the speed of light.
The theory of nonhuman consciousness
Cleve Backster (1924 – 2013)
In the early morning hours of Feb. 2, 1966. Backster had been up all night in his office on West 46th Street and had just poured himself a cup of coffee when he noticed a houseplant, a Dracaena fragrans his secretary bought to brighten the office.
Backster wanted to induce a similar anxiety in the plant, so he decided to set one of its leaves on fire. But before he could even get a match, the polygraph registered an intense reaction on the part of the Dracaena. To Backster, the implication was as indisputable as it was unbelievable. Not only had the plant demonstrated fear — it had also read his mind.
He publicized his findings, the so-called Backster effect became a pop-culture hit.
Not only had the plant demonstrated fear — it had also read his mind.
Scientists, however, were less convinced. No one could reproduce Backster’s results — a problem Backster explained away with a variety of post-hoc qualifiers. (A lettuce leaf didn’t respond to harmful stimuli? It probably shut down to protect itself.)
Backster went on experimenting until the end, expanding his theory of nonhuman consciousness to encompass chicken eggs and even sperm, forever finding more proof of what he called the “fundamental attunement between living things.” He never married, preferring the company of his Siamese cats, and he never again performed experiments that burned plants. He once said. “I have a truly wonderful ally: Mother Nature.”
The very foundation of all modern physics—both relativity and quantum theory—point to the fact that our scientific data are actually observer dependent. Without the observer, much of quantum physics and relativity would not even make sense (see “A Direct Experiential Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics”). This strongly suggests that our scientific theories are actually theories of how we experience the universe, as opposed to being theories of a universe that is independent of us as observers.
The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness
On this day of July 7, 2012, a prominent international group of cognitive neuroscientists gathered at The University of Cambridge to reassess the neurobiological substrates of conscious experience and related behaviors in human and non-human animals. While comparative research on this topic is naturally hampered by the inability of non-human animals, and often humans, to clearly and readily communicate about their internal states, the following observations can be stated: "Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Nonhuman animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates.”
