NSD Time and Timelessness

Whit, others...

Trying to clarify on my "experience exists; time does not"  prior clarification (below) summarized as "experience exists; time and all the temporal relations are mental artifacts/categories and  only part of our map (not the territory)",  and me additionally hoping to retain both bath water and baby,   please consider the following further attempt at a (nested) clarification.

My current storyline has it (currently) that, say,  roughly, we can dial back to the ancient Greeks who hold that space and time are just TOO intrinsically intrinsic to be further divided or explained away otherwise. Then we fast-forward along the Western scientific paradigm trial through Descartes' cube/subjective-objective initial trial theory and model of physical reality AND consciousness, up through Newton's refinements and insertion of the trial absolute time,  onward to Einstein's refactoring and merging  into the only relativistic, curvy space-time, where, if you want to do any measurement, roughly, I guess you have to carry with you  your own yardstick and clock.  (So in that way  it gets a little bit "nested".)

Then, that storyline sort of bifurcates and splits, I guess into the quantum electrodynamics (abstract mathematics) explored empirically with various stacks of nested fields within nested fields.  I admit I know nothing about QED and summarize most of that region as "multiple-states".

But, in others' reported accounts of the non-classical (or non-ordinary) regions, some quibbles have also emerged about  "observation influencing outcomes", and in addition and/or parallel to this, the larger cultural and/or scientific paradigm story is sort of dancing around the apparent need to groke an improved scientific paradigm that gives a better account of both the physical and the mental artifacts and features.   Or, as in some quarters where folks consider a two-step process, some are currently involved in  developing a stand alone "Science of Consciousness".

In the one-step trial theory that I am advocating and following, I
suppose  it is that  I "assume" reality is nested structured~duality -- things have structure and also have or exhibit one or more dualities or differences. This holds for stuff in both the physical (aka, standard model), and the mental (thoughts, associations, projections, feelings, paradigms, metadigms) regions.

This underlying principle comes with and emerges from the analog math of the "magnetic tetrahedron"  where fiddling with the five ways to align four rod magnets along the radii of a tetrahedron, participants get physical intuition on variable density multiple states plus an appreciation for the principle and the sp^3 hybridized (hydrogen-bonded, tetrahedral) molecular bonding of our our enfolding environment's structural-energetic make-up.

Looking within some of those patterns, I've observed the n2s2 unit gives a somewhat close tactile feel for 6^n structural coding of the 10^20 water molecules  per second forming in aerobic respiration sites, which, for now, let's just consider or focus on as just those occurring within neurons.  Previously and elsewhere ( https://structuredduality.blogspot.com ) are a few paragraphs describing how this internal structural coding provides us with an energy-conservation-related internal representation  of our surrounding, which, I guess is a wordy way of saying "part of our consciousness".

Okay. So, here is where  it may get a little weird.   For the sake of maybe  a clearer presentation,  let's say, first, that  ~you, everyone reading this, is running a conventional Neuron Theory Brand apparatus  which is or by default is mostly and mainly pre-programmed  with a flat, non-nested conventional space and time  perspective.

I, on the other hand, at least momentarily in the story, am the individual who drew the ~lucky straw  to try to describe what it's like to be running a Frost Scientific Brand 6^n ordered water processor which is non-ordinary in the sense that  it is sort of incrementally molecular but not so much a non-classical quantum mechanical level apparatus (if there is such a thing).

Okay, anyway, strings and stacks of water molecules stream from, let's say, my "one really smart" respiration site, structurally coded in some elegant way by my multi-dimensional surroundings, and these widgets unfurl into protein-foldings that show  up as marks in this post and convey some impressions to ~you, the reader.   The ordered water stacks are already packed with attractive and repulsive regions, so they already have distinctive *feels*, so if there was a hard problem, I'm seeing it as arising as a feature in the Neuron Theory model.  Similarly, intermediate and longer term memory, I am ~seeing as, say, incorporating prevailing stacks of ordered water (representative of representations of ~current surroundings) into bound water layers of ~newly forming protein  matrices.  (Sludge drying studies I have done long ago show that bound water layers persist.)

Considering the structural coding in ordered water sort of reveals structural coding in metabolism and epigenetics and genetics as common and similar forms of "memory" or guidance. But that also  delves a bit down into the multiple nesting layers of organization.

Anyway,  returning to the issue at hand regarding "time as part of the mental map",    some stirring within me  notices that my brand of processing is always ciphering in terms of increments of one or a few molecules.  And this sort of structural-energetic discreteness, let's say, makes it ~easy for me to claim "experience exists; time does not", OR to assert that "time and temporal relations"  ARE really just part of the mental artifacts -- a really handy  but still only mental set of associations.

Dare I say, to ~you and everyone else running the dominant Neuron Theory processor, my expressions sound a bit whacked out?

 Pressing forward, from the incremental molecular processing perspective, or dialing out to the nested structured~duality  level, then we come to really considering what a more unified, more coherent scientific paradigm might really feel and look like, and what cherished notions it might likely disrupt -- and how it would do that.

Here, I'd like to say, qed, or the remainder is left as an exercise for the student, but to venture a guess,  in a scientific paradigm that really does give some kind of account for  BOTH physical and mental artifacts and features --BETTER than is done  in or via the Cube/subjective-objective instance-- SOME of the adjustments in the scientific paradigm would involve just this sort of re-partitioning, as in time only being in the mental fraction.

In a nested motif, model and existence such as the one we share and inhabit, where we are just now upgrading or first establishing an improved  mental or consciousness fraction of the scientific model, this re-partitioning is pretty straightforward, obvious  and rational. Life and business goes on and the change is basically or mainly just in the scientific revisions.

We keep the baby and the bathwater.

At this point I do  have to go  do some chores.

Best regards,
Ralph Frost, PhD

Changing the scientific paradigm.
https://magnetictetrahedra.com

With joy you will draw water
from the wells of salvation. Isaiah 12:3


========
Whit,     [re-posted from Dark matter thread... 5/13/2018]

Some other questions and thoughts...

On Friday, May 11, 2018 at 11:24:46 AM UTC-4, Whit Blauvelt wrote:

    On Fri, May 11, 2018 at 02:19:51AM -0700, Ralph Frost wrote:
    ...



    There is so much about how knowledge works that's dependent on temporal relations, that it's hard to conceive how it might work beyond that.


[rf] Are you experiencing time as such an entangled tenet in your mind wrap capacity that you cannot conceive of the temporal relations just as different categories , as in "before, currently, potential or expected but not yet happened"  -- "past, present, future"?  Just mental categories...?

I recently found myself puzzling frantically over how to make a connection in an airport even though I had left home a hour or two late.  Then I realized I was dreaming and that I could let the angst go because it did not, and in fact could not be resolved as in a regular, actual  experience. I was in "dream time" -- "~neuron time". Armed with a memory, i am convinced of the "past".  Able to guess or expect or predict, learn or surmise developing or repeatable events, I am convinced of the "future". And yes, the shadow on the sundial moves and night and day alternate and seasons changes in regular varying patterns.  If I have batteries in the clock, the clock hands and date indicators move with great accuracy so I know when to pay my bills.   But, again, these are part of our conventions and map.

As well, if you have taken or studied some calculus, please reflect on the conditioning of onboarding years worth of dx/dt meditations --  a change in some variable "x"  relative to  a small change in "time, t".   A bird flying east overhead seems to be moving relative to time, but the actual change of it swimming through air occurs due to a lot of fancy, energy-related protein-folding, etc.  So, the "time", the dx/dt, is part of our conceptual map, the comparative summary, as a function a shorthand approximated category.  Time and the temporal relations are in our mental map, but not a fundamental part of the territory.


...

   While our current paradigm of time has cracks in it, the only alternatives

    proposed so far seem to me to toss baby with bathwater.


[rf] What is it that you are meaning by this as an alternative?

Or, putting it another way as I nervously question or reflect upon perhaps how much my own paradigm has shifted,  are you saying that you cannot easily glide from the left side of the spectrum  where "time"  is definitely an intrinsic field,  through the mid-section and over to the right side where "experience exists but time does not" -- where time and temporal relations  are  clearly just nested mental, enzyme-catalyzed artifacts and categories? 

What might it be like for you, or where on the spectrum do you see yourself -- and why?



    I agree with you
    that more data from experience may be essential to progressing on this
    (allowing that "progress" is also "timely"). Jonathan's fascination with
    time (and James' own struggles with the concept of it) followed from his
    experience of timelessness on a meditation retreat.

    Best,
    Whit


Amid my own few, skimpy, provincial experiences, upon reflection I notice that it is the anomalies and breeches within the vast consistency of our life and living processes that provide the evidence supporting the "correct insight" that, scientifically: "experience exists; time does not".  And, we can notice that this stands, even though we generally think there is 100% corroboration with  the "obvious flow of time" with ALL results of ALL empirical tests (that I am aware of or able to understand).  I chalk this implausible or apparent counter-factual development up to the previously unacknowledged "nesting problem".  Reality is actually nested structured~duality, yet ~previously we've been unaware of that underlying principle.

Perhaps there is a better way to express that.  The temporal anomalies are important.

Best regards,
Ralph Frost, PhD

Changing the scientific paradigm.
https://magnetictetrahedra.com


On Friday, May 11, 2018 at 11:24:46 AM UTC-4, Whit Blauvelt wrote:
- show quoted text -