https://iai.tv/articles/times-arrow-is-not-an-illusion-auid-3059?utm_source=reddit&_auid=2020
created by IAI_Admin on 29/01/2025 at 09:39 UTC
111 upvotes, 20 top-level comments (showing 20)
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1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
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Comment by themightyposk at 29/01/2025 at 13:37 UTC
33 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I feel like no one here is bothering to define what they mean by ‘real’ - it certainly seems most people aren’t using it in the way that Hegel did and are subsequently not really engaging with his argument
Even this article doesn’t seem to be fully engaging with the points of either Hegel or people who deny the reality of time, since these two points aren’t even necessarily in conflict since they refer to different uses of the term ‘real’. Not that this article has to go into all of these complexities since it’s main goal seems to be to bring awareness of Hegel’s argument rather than offer a comprehensive answer to the question of whether time is ‘real’ or not.
Comment by mcapello at 29/01/2025 at 13:40 UTC
21 upvotes, 0 direct replies
This is an extremely clunky argument at several points. For example:
This absolutely does not follow. Saying that a particular way of understanding something is an "illusion" is not equivalent to saying that it's "nothing" -- we wouldn't say of a stage magician, for example, that because his performance involves illusion, that there literally is no performance or that his stage is empty.
Says who? It seems like it would be rather easy for a physicalist, for example, to point to this and say that there is a difference between time as it is understood by physics and mathematics versus phenomenology and folk theory, and that the latter can be reduced to the former if we accept the body of evidence supporting the idea that our thoughts themselves are the product of neurochemical reactions in the brain. If the physical laws governing those reactions (and therefore our thoughts) don't actually conform to time as we perceive it, and can be still be explained (and perhaps even explained better) without it, then there's no ground for simply asserting without further argument that we "cannot explain the appearance" of our experience of time. It would be like saying that the Earth must be flat because the horizon nevertheless appears so to every scientist who has considered the evidence for the Earth being round.
Comment by straw_egg at 30/01/2025 at 21:13 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
This is an interesting argument, but it is not a fully Hegelian one. The clue is in this passage:
"In my reading, the infamous and highly debated Hegelian dictum that reason is reality means then that we cannot think a reality beyond our rational categories. Any attempt to do so simply puts this “beyond” back into the grasp of reason (the idea of the beyond is itself our own), preventing it from being the absolute beyond it ought to be. In other words, we cannot think beyond our own thinking"
This is a Kantian interpretation of Hegel's "rational is actual" that sustains the whole text. It privileges experience, and, naturally, the A-theory of time (what is called 'time') over the B-theory of time (what is called 'eternal').
In reality, Hegel's time is not nearly so straight-forward. The focus on the eternal's relation to the temporal betrays this: if we substitute 'eternal' with 'infinite' and 'temporal' with 'finite', we get Beiser's interpretation of the Hegelian conflict between whole and part:
1. If we take the finite to be separate from the infinite, then now the infinite is limited by the finite, insofar it is something uncontained by it. It makes the infinite incomplete.
2. If we take the finite to be internal to the infinite, then we get a natural contradiction in the unity of opposite notions - there is a part of the infinite which is not eternal. It makes the infinite inconsistent.
The answer (Beiser's) Hegel gives is not to privilege one over the other (as the argument privileges A-theory) but of course to take these two conceptions of the infinite at different moments in time.
Witnessing an event in the present, the infinite must be consistent (if incomplete) to account for the freedom of a subject, a freedom which is infinite. Then, witnessing an event after it has passed, the infinite must be complete (if inconsistent) so that what once appeared as freedom is now necessity, reason realizing itself in history.
That is, Hegel accounts for two true notions of the infinite by locating them as true at different points in time. Now, switching 'infinite' back to 'eternal' and 'finite' back to 'temporal', we must see that both A-theory and B-theory are true at different points in time: when looking at the present, and when looking at the past, respectively.
Time is, itself, a concept that depends on the time of the subject that conceives it. If you want to have a Hegelian argument instead of a Kantian one, in my opinion, this is the minimal path.
Comment by raizen19 at 29/01/2025 at 12:27 UTC
11 upvotes, 2 direct replies
What exist is change, and we evidence that through experience
Time is only a concept to explain change
Time is relativistic in a physical sense
Time is subjective in that you can dream entire lifespans in one night (in theory)
Comment by knobby_67 at 29/01/2025 at 11:07 UTC
6 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I think time is like position and directly tied to it. You can only exist at one position at a time, you can only exist at one time at a time. If time did not exist position could not exist as we could not change position, as change is time. The only difference is time ( in normal circumstances ) only has one direction. If time did not exist wave-forms could not change, if they can't change the universe could not exist.
I don't think it's the concept of time that does or does not exist but rather our lack of language due to our evolution to verbalise or even comprehend it. I think it's more openly seen in maths or really calculus. That's shows time must exist.
Comment by oone_925 at 29/01/2025 at 09:48 UTC*
4 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Is reality dependent on experience? How lucid are our experiences really? And our ideas of those experiences? We also experience time in dreams.
Comment by victorpeter at 29/01/2025 at 16:20 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Time is just a count of movements.
Comment by SunbeamSailor67 at 29/01/2025 at 15:22 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Hard disagree. Time is a construct of the human mind and illusory.
It’s always just ‘now’.
The future has never arrived and the past is just an echo of memories like the wake cascading behind a boat.
Comment by Formal_Impression919 at 29/01/2025 at 19:58 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
time IS relative
Comment by FaultElectrical4075 at 29/01/2025 at 20:48 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I take that to mean our *experience* of time is real. I don’t necessarily think it means time itself is actually real.
Comment by Shirosukidesu at 30/01/2025 at 00:57 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Is time only a construct of the human mind? Maybe time is only a 4D object with everything already in its place; how do we even test the existence of time? What reaction does time give to confirm its real existence? It exists for sure; the question is, is time just a mind construct, or does it have physical reality?
Comment by Tathanor at 30/01/2025 at 02:36 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Time exists as a dimension higher than 3rd. That's why we experience it and can measure and understand it, while also not being able to control it. It's dimensionally above our experiential world so we only get to experience a "slice" of it. That's why time only ever moves forward.
Considering that certain concepts can *only* be understood through time like music/vibrations, or thoughts/electrochemical reactions, it makes sense that denial of a fundamental mechanic of our reality is a self-contradiction. The concept of you couldn't exist without time, as well.
Comment by Nexipal at 30/01/2025 at 07:43 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Simply put, time exists and is the fourth dimension but the way we measure time is made up. The same is true about any other standard . Standar5s and measurements are true until we find something better.
I dont know what is so controversial about this and I'm surprised about it.
Comment by willparkerjr at 31/01/2025 at 10:12 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It depends what you define as time.
Comment by [deleted] at 31/01/2025 at 21:19 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
[removed]
Comment by Rockfarley at 29/01/2025 at 12:48 UTC
0 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It seems odd when this is brought up using Einstein. He conceptualized it as a model. By definition of how he would use the word, that is like saying it is a good way of imagining the relations, not they are the relations in actuality. I think too many people start with a misunderstanding of Einstein and then go off into this head space of claiming he thought it absolute. That is his model yes, but to say he didn't think further models might come about is stupid. He was revising Newton after all.
Still, time is movement from one frame of reference to another & that is relative due to time/space being a thing, not 2 things. The thing you are calling time, he would call the delta between positions in space, which can be experienced differently to an individual experiencing the delta/t. Still, this is notation of an experience, not the experience. The article was after your experience of time/space, since it invokes Einstein's ghost to back the claim.
Where does this leave us? The model isn't to say time is a block, like space, but rather is conceptualized by a being that can't experience that dimension as such. We don't move in time like riding a bike down the street & then going back reverts the positions. We are caught in a singular direction in time. So, that claim of time being a block, is to say a model is reality, which the argument in the article does cover the concept of.
I think it isn't talking about what it is trying to talk about, but rather is talking about the experience. Yes, I am experiencing it, whatever it is that I am swimming in, because I have little control of direction, yet a current caused by space has me in its clutches. The model is a representation of this, but to say it is this is an illusion.
To quote Monte Python, "It's only a model.". You are fine to ignore relativity in this debate. You are talking about the change over time, which physics is going to say is happening & that's all you need from science. Time is this, but that is hardly philosophy.
I think distinctions in how we experience time is far more interesting than saying that time is an illusion. Misapprehension isn't illusion, it's how we experience a real thing. Red exists only in my mind, but the wave is real. Red is only a model in my mind of that real wave.
Comment by [deleted] at 29/01/2025 at 10:29 UTC
-3 upvotes, 2 direct replies
[removed]
Comment by Illustrious-Win-8023 at 29/01/2025 at 11:33 UTC
-2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
What most people seem to forget is time is everywhere not just on earth so when they speak of time in existence, they are talking about their existence on the Earth and the time according to the Earth in the sun because for example that mercury is about 88 earth days but a year on Pluto is 248 earth years so as you can see, there’s a massive difference there
Comment by CosmicExistentialist at 29/01/2025 at 11:35 UTC
-8 upvotes, 1 direct replies
How can time exist when special relativity debunks it? And we also have experiments with quantum mechanics that suggests the existence of the past and future.
There is too much evidence against time being real.