2009.04.03 01:00 - Non-linear time

Wol Euler was guardian and commenter for this session, which continued on from a "duet" between Pema and myself two weeks ago.

The session began with Bertrum (late evening) and I (morning), and a day-old noob who stood silently on a cushion for a quarter-hour. We both remarked on the new pattern of the matting between cushions.

Wol Euler: hello bertrum
Bertrum Quan: Hi Wol
Wol Euler: ah, this image must be the celebration at 7pm yesterday :)
Wol Euler: onigokko and fireworks :)
Bertrum Quan: Yes.
Wol Euler: I missed that, I'd hoped and intended to attend all four meetings
Wol Euler: should just have stayed awake, rather than setting my alarm clock :(
Wol Euler: hello Deafman, didn't see you before
Wol Euler: is this your first time here?
Bertrum Quan: After your lively discussion with Pema, I wondered if your ideas have changed at all?
Wol Euler: heh
Wol Euler struggles to remember which discusion that was....

Eliza joins us, very early morning for her.

Wol Euler: hello eliza
Bertrum Quan: Hi Eliza
Eliza Madrigal: Hi everyone :) Just staying for a moment (it is 4AM here - lol)
Wol Euler: ah! insomnia again?
Eliza Madrigal: My 16 just left for her first away trip without me-to NY :) Snif
Wol Euler: aaah, I understand :)
Bertrum Quan: glad to have you here!
Eliza Madrigal: :) Quite an intersting mess. hehe . Thanks
Wol Euler: I think this image must be the celebration at 7pm yesterday :)
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Wol Euler: or did you mean getting her ready to catch the plane at 4am?
Eliza Madrigal: She will be flying at 6:40, with her drama group
Eliza Madrigal: :) So yes...just making sure to snuggle her a bit and make sure she had everything :)
Eliza Madrigal: And send her off :)
Wol Euler: :)
Wol Euler: of course.
Eliza Madrigal: But don't let me interrupt the discussion you were having :)
Eliza Madrigal: Deafman, have a seat?
Wol Euler: he seems to be busy with his inventory ...
Eliza Madrigal: Ah

We settle down and get serious.

Wol Euler: well, the discussion hadn't really started. Bertrum asked: [1:07] Bertrum Quan: After your lively discussion with Pema, I wondered if your ideas have changed at all?
Wol Euler: you mean our last encounter where we did the role reversal, talking about timelessness?
Bertrum Quan: Yes, the role reversal conversation.
Wol Euler: heh. well.
Wol Euler: I am still at sea about this. I can sense the basic not-false-ness of what he says, that our perception of time is not absolutely true, and that we cannot sense time's real nature.
Wol Euler: and I can even accept that in moments of joy or contemplation (or even at work, in "flow" state) that we can be in a ... frame of mind say ... where time is not pereived at all
Wol Euler: so far, so good :)
Wol Euler thinks.
Wol Euler: actually, yes, I think my ideas have changed :)
Wol Euler chuckles
Bertrum Quan: He has persuaded you then...?
Wol Euler: in a word, yes.
Wol Euler: my ideas are still in a mess about it, though. I get hung up on applying these things to that which we call "real life"
Wol Euler: in which people have appointments and refrigerators and life insurance
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Wol Euler: none of which would be necessary if time _really_ didn't exist!
Wol Euler: or even possible if change _really_ didn't happen.
Bertrum Quan: Change is not dependent on time is it?
Wol Euler: change that we perceive occurs in time. The milk bottle that I dropped and broke, was unbroken yesterday.
Wol Euler: the erosion of mountains is outside our perception, we don't live long enough or see slowly enough
Wol Euler: but it too takes place in a kind of time that geologists can measure
Wol Euler: so, yes, in so far as things change at all (which I think htey do) their change is bound to linear flowing directional time
Bertrum Quan: one one level--of course... but perhaps in the larger view is easier to see time as construct
Wol Euler: exept that to me it clearly isn't!
Wol Euler: people are born and die.
Wol Euler: milk bottles break.
Wol Euler: if it were only a construct, if it were only _my_ perception and analysis, then you would be able to drink from the milk bottle that I broke yesterday, because that is not _your_ perception if you weren't tehre to see it.
Wol Euler: Can you?
Eliza Madrigal: All of the things you cite (paying bills, cleaning up the milk) could be tools which bring us into some more open appreciation.
Wol Euler: granted :) And if Pema had stopped there, I'd have been in full agreement
Eliza Madrigal: And maybe, in a collective sense, you could see the others' milk bottle.
Eliza Madrigal: Ah...yes. Wol. I get that. :)
Bertrum Quan: I had more trouble with Pema's part 2.
Wol Euler: remind us, please?
Wol Euler: (I don't think Eliza was with us then...)
Eliza Madrigal: No, thank you :)
Bertrum Quan: Can you retrieve the log? I don't want to mis-represent his words.
Wol Euler: just a mo...
Wol Euler: Pema_goes_Wol_and_visa_versa
Eliza Madrigal: Thanks.

Linear and literal sense.

Bertrum Quan: You argument about the linear nature of expeirece is how we make sense of the world--literal sense. And within the construct, it certainly exists for me!
Bertrum Quan: But my laymen's reading of Hawking gave me a credible picture that I hold in my mind: AFter the "big bang" fime evolves. It was not there prior to it.
Bertrum Quan: time evolves
Wol Euler: granted, I can understand the time-and-spacelessness of BtBB
Wol Euler: but ..
Wol Euler: hmmm.
Wol Euler: I don't see the relevance of that to us, because we weren't there either.
Wol Euler: not just the three of us who now sit and listen.
Wol Euler: Nothing was there.
Wol Euler: No life at all, no worlds, no universe - in fact, just "no"
Eliza Madrigal: :) And that is what is real
Eliza Madrigal: "really" ?
Wol Euler: it feels ot me that there is a diference of quality, of kind, between the timelessness taht we can experience now,
Wol Euler: or conceive now when we talk about God's time or Being's time,
Wol Euler: and what was not-there before the Big Bang.
Wol Euler: now it is possibly-present-but-in-abeyance
Wol Euler: then it simply did not exist, neither possibly present nor in abeyance
Bertrum Quan: It's not apparent that Pema conviced you about part 1!
Wol Euler smiles.
Bertrum Quan: convinced
Wol Euler: well, this is a tricky subject so let's take it very slowly ;-)
Bertrum Quan: tricky, how so?
Wol Euler: (quoting pema)
Bertrum Quan: But you are not Pema, and you do not appear convinced.
Wol Euler: I am not convinced at all by what I (possibly misunderstand) to be his greater argument, that there is no Time and therefor no Change.
Wol Euler: that seems to me just wordery.
Bertrum Quan: And he said time is an illusion... you are not conviced of that idea either...
Bertrum Quan: Or am I misreading?
Wol Euler: I think he uses the word in two overlapping but not identical senses
Wol Euler: [1:16] Wol Euler: I am still at sea about this. I can sense the basic not-false-ness of what he says, that our perception of time is not absolutely true, and that we cannot sense time's real nature. [1:17] Wol Euler: and I can even accept that in moments of joy or contemplation (or even at work, in "flow" state) that we can be in a ... frame of mind say ... where time is not pereived at all
Wol Euler: sense 1, how I perceive the world: agreed.
Wol Euler: but sense 2, the capital-T Time that he claims is a construct and therefore that there is no Change either: no.
Wol Euler: for me time (and change) exists, but we imperfectly perceive it, and can sometimes step outside it.
Bertrum Quan: Perma would say there is no outisde. But here I agree with you.
Wol Euler: but we are stepping outside a perception, not a reality. People are continue to be born and to die while I am unaware of time passing because I'm in love
Wol Euler: well, say perhaps not "outside" but "at right angles to"? like stepping off a conveyor belt which continues to roll
Bertrum Quan: Let's step back and see if all experience (reality) is linear.
Wol Euler: lead on! :)

Memory and time.

Bertrum Quan: Memory... in my experience is non-linear. (processing memories--is where linear time is superimposed)
Wol Euler: yes, agreed, memory is ... like a cloud of fireflies in the woods :) 3d and volumetric and existing around each other
Bertrum Quan: Dreams... in y experience are non-linear (atttempting to interpret them is where linear time is superimposed)
Wol Euler: (Eliza, are you still here? you're very quiet)
Eliza Madrigal: Just thinking :)
Eliza Madrigal: And going back and forth between the log and here. The only thought I had was....
Eliza Madrigal: We are in and out it all the time. We get off the conveyer belt, then get into the baloon, then move onto the slide, the glider, the sea... :) It is easy to experience people like this also...one person is a bubble, another a flower... :)
Wol Euler: :)
Eliza Madrigal: :) But wasn't sure if that was a sidetrack so ws about to erase it - lol
Bertrum Quan: My point is, if we are looking to expand the mind--to see a larger reality--these are certainly clues.
Wol Euler: agreed.
Bertrum Quan: You mention earlier, experiencing loss and clear beginnings and endings-- evidence of time and the reality of linear experience
Wol Euler nods
Bertrum Quan: are you certain of the landmarks?
Wol Euler: do I know that the milk bottle is not in my fridge? yes.
Wol Euler: I am willing to be quite absolute there.
Wol Euler: There is no possibility that a combination of body-and-perception that I would recognize as "Wol" might detect what I would recognize as "a milk bottle" in what I would recognize as "my fridge".
Wol Euler: perhaps ther is a parallel universe in which a not-Wol might be able to perceive things that Wol cannot.

Eliza heads back to her RL bed.

Eliza Madrigal is glad that she dropped by this morning. Thanks for this. I have to close my eyes for an hour :)
Wol Euler: But "I" am not there, and neither of us knows that this parallel universe exists.
Wol Euler smiles. I'm not surprised. Bye Eliza, sleep well, and don't worry about your daughter :)
Eliza Madrigal: :) Thank you. Bye for now
Bertrum Quan: Bye Eliza
Bertrum Quan: I am not arguing the literal experience.
Bertrum Quan: What you say makes sense.
Wol Euler smiles. I'm sorry to get so wound up about this.
Wol Euler: clearly my idea of time and change is an Attachment, with an emotional load.
Wol Euler: and I do try to see beyond that
Bertrum Quan: That's the key point for me as well. I found that conversation that you had with Pema very much worth thinking about. That's why I brought it up again this evening (my first chance to discuss it with you).
Wol Euler nods
Bertrum Quan: For me, at least, the attachment to Time (linear time), keeps me from fully seeing and experiencing.
Bertrum Quan: Eliza's metaphor of the conveyor belt... that to me is the Time machine
Wol Euler: "machine" as in "linear"?
Bertrum Quan: yes, that's the lock step of it all
Bertrum Quan: This can get very abstract. But becoming more human can have something to do with putting the machine aside. It's useful for organizing things.
Wol Euler: agreed.
Wol Euler: it's Pema's next step, his "and therefore" taht I disagree with
Bertrum Quan: I had a good deal of trouble with his part 2. I thought 3-D made some insightful comments in the conversation.
Wol Euler: hmmm, I read Pema's mail about htat but haven't yet read taht log. I'll do so this weekend
Bertrum Quan: Anyway, I was very impresswed with the session.l How prepared you were and how vigorous Pema's retorts were. Pretty amazing really. But I'm not sure we're there yet (at least for me). This issue of Attachment and how that is entwined with Time is so very basic.
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: and thank you :)
Wol Euler: let us continue this another time, time appears in our imperfect perception to be passing, and I have to be at work at noon
Bertrum Quan: And I need sleep (and some non-linear dreams!). Thank you, Wol.
Wol Euler: thank you, bertrum. It was a grand discussion.
Wol Euler: goodnight, sleep well.
Bertrum Quan: Have a good work day!
Bertrum Quan: Take care.
Wol Euler: bye for now