The Biocentric Universe

[bojan]

OK..
But lets also consider that our perception and "making sense of" is a consequence of external time passing.
Our mind evolved to function in the real world.. not the other way around.
If everything is in our minds, then how come we are all in understanding of such basic things, like "A precedes B". Why there are no disagreements (I am not talking here about chain of events that is happening so fast that sample rate of our equipment or brains can't resolve it)?

It is because if our minds were not evolved ( and therefore were not functioning) in accordance with reality, we would not survive a day

Sequence of events #1:
1) I see bear
2) Bear wants to eat me
3) I run
4) I am not eaten by bear

Sequence of events #2:
1) I run
2) Bear wants to eat me
3) I see bear (too late)
4) I am eaten by bear

[CraigS]

Originally Posted by bojan

OK..
But lets also consider that our perception and "making sense of" is a consequence of external time passing.
Our mind evolved to function in the real world.. not the other way around.
If everything is in our minds, then how come we are all in understanding of such basic things, like "A precedes B". Why there are no disagreements (I am not talking here about chain of events that is happening so fast that sample rate of our equipment or brains can't resolve it)?

It is because if our minds were not evolved ( and therefore were not functioning) in accordance with reality, we would not survive a day

Sequence of events #1:
1) I see bear
2) Bear wants to eat me
3) I run
4) I am not eaten by bear

Sequence of events #2:
1) I run
2) Bear wants to eat me
3) I see bear (too late)
4) I am eaten by bear

Sure.

Does the bear also conceive time ?

Or is he purely instinctive ? Ie: reacts to only events in the present and has no concept of time, (courtesy of evolving in the same environment, under the same rules of natural selection) ?

Cheers

[snas (Stuart)]

Craig

If the bear

reacts to only events in the present and has no concept of time

does that then mean that when the bear loses sight of its prey in the chase through the forest, it then forgets what it was hunting and gives up the chase? Or not?

I guess what I'm suggesting here is that if you have no concept of time, can you have a memory of what just happened?

Obviously in real life, when the bear chases its prey and loses sight of it, it does not necessarily give up the chase. Therefore it must have a memory of what it was doing a moment before it lost sight of its prey. IF having memory requires that you MUST have a concept of time, then this bear has a concept of time.

Alternatively, maybe the bear does not have a concept of time but can form memories regardless.

Who knows?

Stuart

hmm, I'm sure I could have worded that better, but anyway....

[CraigS]

Originally Posted by snas

Craig

If the bear does that then mean that when the bear loses sight of its prey in the chase through the forest, it then forgets what it was hunting and gives up the chase? Or not?

I guess what I'm suggesting here is that if you have no concept of time, can you have a memory of what just happened?

Obviously in real life, when the bear chases its prey and loses sight of it, it does not necessarily give up the chase. Therefore it must have a memory of what it was doing a moment before it lost sight of its prey. IF having memory requires that you MUST have a concept of time, then this bear has a concept of time.

Alternatively, maybe the bear does not have a concept of time but can form memories regardless.

Who knows?

Stuart

hmm, I'm sure I could have worded that better, but anyway....

So 'memory' and 'time' are intertwined !
Perhaps the bear (being a mammal) also has memory and the 'time-stamp operating system', also. Pick another group say, reptiles .. do they understand time ?

.. I honestly don't think these questions can be answered .. all we can do is point to examples where a sense of memory (or time) may be inferred … which doesn't really decouple us from the observation, anyway.

Picking a different animal group, is also a trick to make it work within Evolutionary Theory framework. It adds a little legitimacy to the concept .. but only a little bit.

This unanswerable 'other animal groups' loop, only results in what I've said … both sides of the coin may be possible … but one is more practical than the other because it gives us something we can work with .. (ie: that time exists outside of our own heads .. ie: the normal mainstream view ) .. we can build computers and visit other planets with this view .. there's heaps of evidence in support of this claim, too.

I'm not sure the other view can make these claims !
(But it seems to still be a valid possibility).

Cheers

[bojan]

Bear has the SAME perception of time as we do. Actually, ANY animal capable of learning from experience MUST have the sense of time, to some extent, depending on it's intelligence.
Young bears learn how to live from their mother and from experience later in their lives.... not much different from what we (humans) do.
We (humans) are not special in this respect - the difference is, our data processing power is much, much higher.. and that's all there is.
Computers can also "learn" from experience.

[bojan]

Originally Posted by snas

I guess what I'm suggesting here is that if you have no concept of time, can you have a memory of what just happened?

Alternatively, maybe the bear does not have a concept of time but can form memories regardless.

Memory and concept (or sense) of time are connected together ("time stamps") because the event records are stored in memory sequentially.. otherwise the process of memorising would be useless for learning from experience, and we know this is not the case.

[DJDD]

Originally Posted by CraigS

Take the video machine … would the movie make any sense if the end was at the beginning, the middle at the start and the beginning at the end ? Our perception of 'what makes sense' always involves a critical temporal order.

there was a good movie some time ago called "Memento", with Guy Pearce. He had lost his short term memory and the structure of the movie jumps backwards and forwards in time and to some extent simulates this very idea of whether seeing something in different orders would make sense.

[DJDD]

Originally Posted by bojan

Memory and concept (or sense) of time are connected together ("time stamps") because the event records are stored in memory sequentially.. otherwise the process of memorising would be useless for learning from experience, and we know this is not the case.

although event records are laid down sequentially does thsi mean that a sequence of time is required to learn from experience.

perhaps learning from experience is a reinforcement of particular events in memory and that our actions in a particular situation is based upon the events records with the strongest reinforcement.

[CraigS]

This is a really difficult concept to get across, particularly in this text medium .. namely because even our language has the concept of time embedded in it.

Anyway, here goes ..

Ever sat in a play/movie theatre, (or a uni lecture room), and been able to hear everything being presented, but not been able to understand anything about what's being presented ? .. Not because the content is too hard to understand, but because your so deeply embedded in your thoughts about something else, that you have no idea of what the play/movie/lecture is about ?

Well lets say, at that moment, your mind simply isn't existing in the 'present'. If it was, it would be bristling with attention, eagerly trying to predict what's going to happen next, and ready to respond in an instant to any situation which presents itself .. with an almost 'instinctive' reaction response and lightning speed. This second state, (as opposed to being locked in your own thoughts), means you exist in the 'present'. You are 'present' to the moment. Perhaps instinct = living in the 'present' and wild animals are specialists at it.

The other state (embedded in your own thoughts), invariably turns out to be dwelling in thoughts which come from the past. I reckon humans spend about 99% of their time in this state .. drawing upon all those accumulated experiences you guys are talking about .. which come from memories .. stored in sequential order, by our time-generating operating system.

Yet more 'evidence' .. but in these cases, we're actually generating our own sense of time, and then directly experiencing the effects of having done so ?

(This is a little along the lines of Bert's post #38 which suggests we can consciously, or unconsciously, 'dilate' the effects of time. Except the state I mention, is kind of like ensconcing oneself, deliberately maybe, in thoughts which come from the past).

Incidentally, there is little/no freedom of choice when we're in this 'past' state. We are driven by logical, rational thoughts, which all come from past experiences. The outcome will always be predictable. And actions will always have a 'reason' behind them. (As opposed to a 'no reason in particular' answer for our actions - which would suggest being 'present' to the moment).

What if, the universe was only ever doing things in the 'present' ?
Would we be able to be present to what is was doing ? .. or would we be viewing it from our own self-induced past ? (Y'know the one we spend about 99% of our time 'living' in ?)

Cheers

[avandonk]

My definition of conciousness is having a sense of recorded events that we call memory and using these to plan for the future that does not exist yet.
Even automatons do not make up fairy tales.

Apart from Kryten 11000010011000010010001000010010001 001!

The last bit was the punchline to the joke.

Bert

[avandonk]

The really scary thing is we all 'live' in the past by a about a couple of hundred milliseconds. It takes this long for our sensory input to be registered in our pre frontal lobes.

We have auto systems that can overcome this temporal limitation. Involuntary eye blink for example. Or your instant withdrawal from painful stimuli that is part of your nervous system but is not registered by the brain until after the event.

Concert pianists hands are playing the notes before any signal can possibly be sent from the eye brain system reading the notes. It is as if an automaton is anticipating the non existent signals. Very good batsmen or women in cricket have this same skill. F1 drivers etc. There is far more evidence.

It is called practice, practice. practice until it becomes automatic!

Bert

[rcheshire (Rowland)]

Alternatively, rather than being a set of memories, instead a set of faculties, time is always in the present. While information processing theory suggests that information processing is fast serial processing, not parallel, it is also possible to do as Craig suggests. Certain actions are automatic, as with Bert's pianist.

The ability to do something so-called unconsciously while thinking about something entirely different may be the result of different faculties operating in parallel? But, it is well evidenced that experts can perform complex actions in series, while thinking about something else. This is not true for a novice who needs to concentrate on the task with all their attention. Learned processes seem to be quite independent of the faculty of thinking/musing and the ability increases with practice, rehearsal reinforcing pathways to long term memory. The expert is also able to perform a task with a minimum of attention while less taxing on short term memory (RAM).

[avandonk]

I would like to offer a definition of wisdom. Wisdom is when your basic primitive emotions no longer overcome any rational logical thought.

We are a product of our evolution. Base emotion overides rationalty every time. Until you collect enough knowledge to realize this is idiotic!

The nice gentle kind loving religious people of all brands of faith think nothing of killing their 'non believers'. This is done through the promulgation of fear due to ignorance.

Ignorance and stupidity is no excuse for irrational behaviour. Or is that stupidity and ignorance.

As an atheist I find all this religious nonsense an excuse to perpetrate sins on our fellow man in the name of some mythical god a perversion of their basic beliefs.

It is a logically inconsistent world view only a twit would believe.

Bert

[rcheshire (Rowland)]

Yeah Bert! I get it! Once a staunch atheist, of the Richard Dawkins genre, I shared the same sentiments

[CraigS]

Originally Posted by bojan

Bear has the SAME perception of time as we do. Actually, ANY animal capable of learning from experience MUST have the sense of time, to some extent, depending on it's intelligence.
Young bears learn how to live from their mother and from experience later in their lives.... not much different from what we (humans) do.
We (humans) are not special in this respect - the difference is, our data processing power is much, much higher.. and that's all there is.
Computers can also "learn" from experience.

Hmm .. I think we need to rethink 'Bojan's bear' ...
… stumbled across this (from Wiki) … Chronesthesia …

Chronesthesia, or mental time travel, is a mental ability first hypothesized by Endel Tulving in the 80's. This refers to the ability to be aware of one's past or future. While many may describe it as uniquely human, others now argue that this ability can transcend to include non-human animals as well as birds. The mechanisms of mental time travel are not yet fully understood since there is a level of obscurity and complexity when trying to measure if or when someone underwent mental time travel or not. However, studies have been conducted to map out areas of the brain that may be responsible for mental time travel.

Then, Scientists find evidence for 'chronesthesia,' or mental time travel

"Mental time travel consists of two independent sets of processes: (1) those that determine the contents of any act of such ‘travel’: what happens, who are the 'actors,' where does the action occur; it is similar to the contents of watching a movie – everything that you see on the screen; and (2) those that determine the subjective moment of time in which the action takes place – past, present, or future,"

Notice the word "subjective". This implies that we invent the sense of time involved. Ie: we are the source of the sense of time .. not the environment.

So, can the bear also do mental time-travel ? ...

The two biggest questions in the field right now are whether mental time travel is unique to humans or not, and what the mechanisms of this phenomenon are. Suddendorf and Corballis say that while mental time travel is uniquely human, it does not mean that animals cannot exhibit future-oriented behavior. In contrast, it is that there are several characteristics that distinguish one from the other. For example, future-orientation can be based on instincts, and imagination may be involved. However, mental time travel does not involve these things. Rather, it is a mental state that cannot be directly observed. It involves flexibility in situations to adapt to individual goals, and therefore must be unique to humans. But, as Toomela describes in his study, since mental time travel is a complex episodic psychological phenomenon that is personal and subjective, evidence of it in animals can only be indirect. It may also be beneficial to look at research in the field of psychology to further understand this state.

So, it appears that mental time-travel may be unique to humans. In the context of the Biocentric hypothesis, this would not be surprising.

I think it might be very difficult, (if not impossible), to conduct an experiment whose results did not heavily rely on inferences imposed by the observer.

Interesting.

Cheers

[bojan]

Hmmmmmm Hmmmmmmm..

Notice the word "subjective". This implies that we invent the sense of time involved. Ie: we are the source of the sense of time .. not the environment.

Not necesarily..
"mental time travel" is just "playback" of our memory content, associated time stamps included..
Bear can learn from mistakes.. so maybe bear can also "mentally" travel in the past ?

[CraigS]

Originally Posted by bojan

Hmmmmmm Hmmmmmmm..
Not necesarily..
"mental time travel" is just "playback" of our memory content, associated time stamps included..
Bear can learn from mistakes.. so maybe bear can also "mentally" travel in the past ?

Its interesting eh ?
I must admit, I did a bit of cherry-picking. It seems its a controversial matter in psychology circles .. there are 'believers' and 'non-believers' when it comes to animal mental time-travel, eh ?

Either way, the interesting aspect for me is that it is acknowledged by those looking into this formally, that we are able to re-create the aspect of time, whenever we indulge in these kinds of mental-gymnastics.
We seem to do it effortlessly, also.

Time, memory and consciousness are extraordinarily closely intertwined.

I can't help but question how can we dissociate our own perceptions of time, from time in the physical universe. And it seems that many others before me, have spent a lot of time pondering this same question. Its probably unanswerable, so that's good enough for me to not get too hung up on it.

It is certainly fertile ground for development of pseudo-sciences … "any questions mainstream science can't answer, must mean mainstream science is wrong, and by default, my theory is right", eh ?
(I think this was a key feature in the recently uncovered "Crackpot Index" …)

Cheers

[avandonk]

Until we can talk to animals like this we will never know what they really experience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beCYGm1vMJ0

I am sure I met Gerald in a pub one night.

Fundamentally though our experience of the Universe is only what our brain interprets through our senses. It is a total fabrication of reality. We are just very complex systems that somehow interact with our environment and learn from it.

The amazing thing is we can have abstract thought that can model what we cannot experience. It is called Science and at the heart is Mathematics and Physics.

Bert

[CraigS]

Now I know where you get your debating prowess, Bert. (Just kidding).

Modelling is only a relatively recent 'invention' in Science, also. I'm not so sure it carried the same meaning before computers got underway, either.

Modelling also forms the heart of Science theory now. The days of deterministic formulas being the sole dominion of predictive capability are dwindling away.

Our models are getting as complex as the parts of the bodies we use to visualise them, also.

I have been asked .. 'where will it all end' ?
(I recall the question was spurred on by the notorious 'Dark Matter' topic .. itself an outcome of our model of the Cosmos).

Good topic for another thread.

Cheers

[avandonk]

Our 'nicely' behaved equations just do not cut it when we want to describe complex systems. We have been through this with Chaos Theory and Fractals. When the feed back is self aware we have life.

Bert