[mikekchar]

I often think that the flow of time is really just an artifact. At any given point in time, a human has a memory whose state is dependent upon the points in time before it. So at any given point in time, it appears as though we've travelled through time up until that point. However, as long as causality is preserved, I don't really see any necessity at all for movement through time. I mean, the phrase is self-referential - "movement through time". Movement is defined by change in position over time. I think from a practical perspective, the concept of time "flowing" or "moving" is really just saying that causality is preserved. There is an order. That's all. And from an experiential perspective, as long as you have causality and memory, it's going to appear as if time "flows". I'm not sure there is any meaning to be derived beyond that.

[stareatgoats]

> I often think that the flow of time is really just an artifact

All human concepts are artifacts. "Flow" is a concept that presupposes the concept of "time", i.e. it is self-referential as you say. "Movement" presupposes "time". Citation marks are used here to highlight the conceptual nature of these terms - to say that time is something other than our concepts is true since the phenomenon is different than the concept, but once you conceptualize those differences you are again creating artifacts.

This process flows a common pattern, but usually just means one has found a new way of looking at a phenomenon which is different than conventional concepts, usually involving the removal of some dimension from view and viewing it as a two-dimensional or three-dimensional object, or similar (even 11-dimensional). It can be a truer view, if it explains something causally that previously was just guessed or misunderstood, but usually it just an expression of some hoping-for-a-goldmine theoretical framework that is going nowhere.

Some phenomena are especially prone to these kinds of gymnastics - economics comes to mind, attempts at creating historical models another. They take extreme complex and volatile phenomena and extract (reduce it to) a few dimensions, which may explain things with in a very limited frame of reference, not in its totality. It is certainly true of that which we denote as "time", a phenomenon that we have no problem communication about (we know what "time" is) but which at the core as a phenomenon is a mystery to us.

The insight that terms differ from, and can never fully explain phenomena in and of themselves, is an insight that comes with philosophy. At least since Kant. Science tends to downplay this, to the detriment of our understanding of the world.

[koheripbal]

I don't think it's necessary to introduce human perception to illustrate the directionality of time.

Mathematically, there are innumerable physical laws where time is a variable, where the current state of something is dependent upon the previous state - and specifically _independent_ of the future state.

...or maybe that too is just an illusion. Perhaps we misinterpret those equations (eg simple Dynamics in Physics I).

...but regardless, discussing human perception is an unnecessary complication in the discussion.

[twomoretime]

That doesn't explain why humans have the concept and sensation of "present".

[jonsen]

This is due to the (extremely) limited capacity of consciousness. It is only able to handle a window of a few seconds.

[posterboy]

Talk about ADHS!

Although, I like to think I'm able to conceptualize my whole life uo to now as a stretch of time that is the present, which becomes smudged to something smaller than a point if looked at from a far, in a broader context of past, present and future. The missing link is the inherent uncertainty of the potential effects that my actions cause in the future. So, I want to argue it's not the time perception for which I have limited capacity, but the possibilities that are sheer endless. Of course, considerations of the past are pretty much as uncertain as the future. Hence feelings of remorse can cover both hindsight and fear.

Of course, lower beings, users under acute drug overdose or other reduced states of conciousness have shorter feedback loops. Say, you are half-asleep and consistently dip in and out of consciousness because the darn bird outside started chirping again, then each moment will be largely disconnect. Vice-versa, prolonged states of consistency (wording?) may count as one. What I'm saying is, time is the rate of change.

If v=s/t, logicly t=s/v.

If we ask how long the answer is usually measured in time. The way doesn't change, it's constant. The speed has a theoretical maximum. And what changes is the scenery outside, the worsening nausea, the numbing legs.

Whereas trolling on HN feels like almost no time passes, because it takes almost no effort, and changes hardly anything, except that I might grow tired (avoiding thoughts about Heisenberg and Einstein, och)

[mgamache]

I think the 'frame rate' of the human mind is around 13 milliseconds. We fill in the gaps so our perception is of a continuous reality.

[mgamache]

I can't find the source, but here's a reference:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2542583/Scie...

[vagab0nd]

True. Why now? Why not any other "time"? These are questions that are very similar to "Why 'I'?", "Why not anyone else?". Maybe time and consciousness are deeply related, or even based on the same principle?