Wednesday Open Thread: Our Sense of Time Revisited
It's Day 51 of the Year 2019 CE, meaning that it's February 20, 2019
A while back I put up a post concerned with the question of whether or not we ever directly experience the flow of time. (December 12, 2018; https://caucus99percent.com/content/wednesday-open-thread-tempus-fugiting-or-it cross posted as ( https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/12/12/1816530/-Wednesday-Open-Thread-Tempus-is-fugiting-or-is-it). The gist of it was that we can project, predict and envision the future, with varying degrees of accuracy, because it isn't yet real, and recall and reflect upon the past, which displays elements of linearity and sequence, but we never directly experience the actual flow of time concurrently, as it happens. We are sure that there is a future and that our remembrances are a record of past futures that became momentarily present and then were history, but, in reality, tomorrow never comes, it is always now. I can focus diligently upon my hands to an extent that I can become intensely aware of them, see them with great clarity, sense what they touch and all of the minor aches and pains that emanate from them and "know" that they are now and are in the now and are part of the now, but I cannot directly sense that now. One practicing mindfulness can become enormously aware of much about the self during and in the now and of much about the now, but cannot be aware, in an unmediated fashion, of the now itself, or so it seems. As I noted in that prior post, Erwin Schroedinger of quantum theory fame stated:
“Time no longer appears to us as a gigantic, world-dominating chronos, nor as a primitive entity, but as something derived from phenomena themselves. It is a figment of my thinking.”
Now further information about "time" has presented itself to me in the form of an article in a UC newsletter which can be found here https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/study-identifies-new-way-which-human-brain-marks-time?utm_source=fiat-lux&utm_medium=internal-email&utm_campaign=article-general&utm_content=text .That article reports on a study conducted at UC Irvine that involved real time brain imaging using fmri (functional magnetic resonance imaging, a tool for imaging brain activity). This research identified a new network of human brain regions involved in storing information related to when events happen. This work appears to confirm earlier rat studies reported in nature on August 29, 2018 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0459-6 .The abstract for that article, entitled "Integrating time from experience in the lateral entorhinal cortex" asserts that "temporal information is robustly encoded across time scales from seconds to hours within the overall population state of the lateral entorhinal cortex." in "freely foraging rats" and that:
The findings suggest that populations of lateral entorhinal cortex neurons represent time inherently through the encoding of experience. This representation of episodic time may be integrated with spatial inputs from the medial entorhinal cortex in the hippocampus, allowing the hippocampus to store a unified representation of what, where and when.
The UC study was reported on in nature neuroscience on January 14, 2019 (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-018-0331-x.) The abstract for that article claims:
Experience unfolds continuously in time, but we remember discrete sequences of events. In this issue of Nature Neuroscience, Montchal et al. describe brain activity patterns that predict how well people remember precisely when recent events occurred. Converging evidence suggests that homologous neural machinery structures temporal representations in rats and people.
So here is the rub. The rat experiment was described as suggesting that the memory of episodic time sequences in one cortex could be integrated with spatial information from a different cortex to allow a unified memory of the what, where, and when of an event. Though not clear from the abstract for the UC study, that study supports the idea that the where and when are stored separately. The article from UC notes that the team at Irvine had previously found that the lateral entorhinal cortex and the perirhinal cortex are associated with the memory things or objects, but not their location. They have now found that those regions do store and retrieve information as to time as well. One researcher was quoted on point that:
“Space and time have always been intricately linked, and the common wisdom in our field was that the mechanisms involved in one probably supported the other as well,” added Maria Montchal, a graduate student in Yassa’s lab who led the research. “But our results suggest otherwise.”
So, think about your car keys. This research indicates that you remember "object car keys" + "when car keys" separate from "car keys location", and maybe don't ever remember "car keys location" per se, but only some overall generalized spatial map of your reality. As a result, "car keys location when" will be a construct and one of a great many possible combinations of one or more points on the "keys-when" line or matrix with one or more points on the "stuff-where" line or matrix. This potentially explains a great deal, such as the fact that I don't know where in hell my car keys are about half of the time. This interpretation, my own, is seemingly borne out by information in the article to the effect that the lateral entorhinal cortex seems to be impaired in persons with dementia and that it shows effects of Alsheimer's, such as tangles, early on.
So, back to Shroedinger, and "time" as a construct, derived from phenomena, and the idea that we do not directly experience time, but instead, infer it from memory. This study seems to leave that view unchallenged. Sure, we store "Time data", but we do so after the fact, and only as a memory. The process is pretty immediate, but not instantaneous, nor even immediate enough that we can say we directly experience the flow of time. What we have learned is that we now know why we don't know where our keys are, because we don't remember where, only what. The best we can do is remember what was before or after keys, like maybe "door" before and "kitchen table" after, telling us to try all possible paths between those two "whats" in the hope of stepping into the correct "where". If we fail, after searching and re-searching, then we look to the next what, like toothbrush or lawn mower and see how to get to that what from the prior what, still looking for the where. As entertaining as that idea is, I suspect that it isn't complete, because when I consider my model of the space around me, it seems to me to contain some whats among the wheres. It's a simple test: my gardening hat is on a magnetic hook on a metal cabinet above the roll-away tool box in the garage by the door to the back yard, and my wide-brim hiking & birding hat is on the right end of my dresser which is to the left of the bed in the bedroom, while my everyday EFF baseball cap is on a hook by the front door. The where data may not be associated with the what-when data, but is must have some what data associated with it somewhere somehow. That also only makes sense, because pure where really can't be a category for a memory, certainly not for a reality map, there is an intrinsic association between where and some one or more whats. Where am I? Where is the Thai restaurant? Where is my heavy coat? Those things make sense. Pure "Where?" with no object really doesn't. What is the whatless "where" that our brain putatively somehow stores. I suspect that a lot more work in this area is required particularly on how the lateral and medial entorhinal cortexes communicate and interact.
Image is: Project 366 #135: 140512 All Together Now, by Pete: Public Domain
Its an open thread so have at it. The floor is yours
.
Comments
The more things change, the more they remain the same.
(Is that is a reference to the past, present and future? Whether it is or not, it is an intro to the balance of this post.)
During the 2104-16 primary season, Jon Stewart, then still host of The Daily Show, attacked Bernie Sanders several times, usually about his hair. Not exactly the witty commentary I'd seen from Stewart in other contexts. After getting a bunch of negative feedback from viewers and perhaps from a Daily Show writer or two, Stewart said his own prior criticism seemed "random" and made some more balanced comments about Sanders. From then on, Stewart said nothing about Sanders. During his very last week, however, Stewart said something to this effect--and in something of an angry tone to boot: No one is ever going to take you seriously as a candidate for President when you go around looking like you just stuck your dick into an electrical outlet.
Not only was that uncharacteristically** puerile, but it had long since ceased to be true. Observant fans and foes of Sanders alike knew that he had gotten a Presidential campaign hair cut long before Stewart's cheap parting shot.
So, what does the far less brilliant Trevor Noah say about Sanders as soon as Sanders announces? Yeah, you guessed it: another dumb ass shot at Sanders' hair. Although, to give Noah his due, Noah, unlike Stewart, at least noticed the current state of Sanders' hair: You must be serious this time. You're no longer rubbing your hair with a balloon before you speak. Or something like that-going from memory here.
As Lisa Loopner might observe: "So funny I forgot to laugh."
*Larry Gilmore may have been a Sanders fan. Though I believed him when he said, "I'm not mad at Hillary," he did give Bernie a good amount of air time on his Daily Show spin off, the Larry Gilmore Show
**I was and still am a huge Jon Stewart fan. He is brilliant, both as to comedic delivery and as to incisive commentary. Genius as a TV producer, too. However, he'd practically wet himself whenever he was around anyone whose surname was Clinton. Although, for years, I watched every show, either when it aired or afterward, I found him decidedly unfunny and unfair only twice: once was as to Sanders and the other was as to Graham. I was obviously a fan of Sanders in 2016 and obviously never a fan of Graham. However, Jon's affecting a Southern belle delivery whenever he did a bit on Graham was crap. So was commenting on Bernie's hair (a) at all and (b) falsely.
Bernie's 2015 campaign haircut:
Good morning, HAW. Maybe thee is something to the hair
criticism. Remember that the US is staunchly anti-intellectual, from many merged cultural overlays and heavy propaganda from the slick bourgeoise batards. Right? Can't have Adlai Stevenson, he's one of those damn eggheads.
Now envision that unruly hair - Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, a bit of Beethoven. The mobs go rushing (and are herded if they don't) for the egress, except that they would eschew "egress" as snooty and intellectual. Compare to, for example, Ike, RMN, either Bush, Slick Willie. How are you gonna pick up on all the low down scuttlebutt except from your bi-weekly visit to the barbershop?
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Several of Stewart's hair comments, shallow as they were,
came well after Bernie's "campaign hair cut," but were worded as though Bernie's hair were still unruly. Political comedy is funny only if it has at least a kernel of truth. Otherwise, it's just a lie, told by a Clinton-worshipping comedian, full of sound and fury at a Clinton challenger, but signifying nothing.
Not to mention how shallow it is to criticize a politician based on hair. Can you just imagine the blowback if a comedian, male or female, had criticized Hillary night after night, based upon her hair?
BTW, the Einstein image did occur to me back then, as well as the image of the genius inventor in Back to the Future.
Because haircuts
are the single most importantthing about a person. Yup, that takes Stewart down (another) notch. Not that he cares, he has all the $ to be excessively well-coifed.
I KNOW, right?
I am still--and always will be--in awe of Stewart's prodigious abilities. However, there is no getting away from the fact that he idolized the Clintons and probably still does.
As far as the hair---Stewart had a lot less than it appeared. After he came back from the extended leave he took from The Daily Show to try his hand at directing a film, they did a bit outside his dressing room during which he turned his back to the camera to re-enter the dressing room. Kind of reminded me of the finale (or one of the last few airings of Cheers in which "Sam" showed his bald spot.
Well,
he can always do a super-elaborate and surprisingly odd comb-over. Then he can color it a surprising color and who knows, it could be a new fad.
Who was it that had a $400 haircut on the tarmac?
Was it Clinton or Edwards? It was during a campaign IIRC.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Pretty sure
it was Clinton. That was back in the day. It would probably be much more now. I just remember the big hoopla over it.
Might have been Edwards too
This Twitter thread is fun to watch. Brings back memories of Obama's lies.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Show me the code that draws the pretty pictures please
ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
Show me the code that represents drawing a magic mushroom thought! lol right on, but I am not kidding, not really.
A Bug in FMRI Software Could Invalidate 15 Years of Brain Research
Nothing has changed since '16, as far as I know. No new headlines. fMRI is still a highly proprietary ($sekret$) technology, reserved for trained monks just to study the "data" that spews forth from said code. harumph
I don't trust big proprietary software, but go on. I won't argue. Lost all the f-bombs I ever had to drop. Maybe tomorrow a few will show up again. heh tomorrow
fritter away the hours in an offhand way
the sun is the same in a relative way but you're older
shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Second dead man found in Sonoma County waterway
RIP Sonoma County homeless brothers, who no one cares for at all anymore. Rest in freezing cold water peace dad, brother, father, son. I'd say your names but the papers don't care anymore either. "check back later" for a dopamine click
on the river
it is march 28
every day
Good morning eyo. I would expect the mushroom finding,
shrooms do do that ya know, as I'm sure that you do know. The bug raises a ton of interesting questions. Proprietary software, eh? That kind of throws all FMRI into doubt. Basic scientific need for reproduceability sort of goes in the dumpster when reproduction requires a sekret mystical black box that is man made but withheld from examination. Is there a midget in the miraculous mechanical chess playing machine or not? If we can't look, it can't really be evidence, imo.
Sad to hear about the brother in the river, The past couple of nights must've been a special hell for those sleeping rough, everything wet or at least damp and then the freeze. The market has no use for those people, and thus they ceasee to exist. Criminal.
Try go have a good day, boring or otherwise. Maybe try Caitlin's "Beauty Mindfulness", regardless of the denial involved there.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
and now... the rest of the story
huh Paul Harvey just fell out of the lint trap. Thanks a lot, I also remember enjoying The Readers Digest at one point back then, or was it now. Like when Heisenberg slept here, or somewhere nearby. ka-ching! Love, Jake.
Healdsburg defends spending third of voter-approved affordable housing fund on staff, overhead expenses
bottle shock bottle awe
cabernet displacements
wah workforce housing gosh darn it all to heck
wOrkforce! non wOrking citizens need never apply, ever.
tax dollars at work
kneed knot
P.S. Oh man that midget is gonna stick now too. In my midget brain. lol srsly thanks. Midget, meet lizard. Lizard, meet midget. hoo whee
being in the now...
...is all we can do. The past is filtered and stored in our brains. Our future, a dream and hope. There is only the present...a true gift. Enjoy.
Our present condition is wet! So far 5" since the weekend on saturated soils. All the wet weather springs are running. The roadside ditch is roaring like a creek, but not overflowing down the road fortunately (at least not yet). More rain due today through Sunday. Makes me glad I live on a mountain!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_xuS77_UZc
Be in the Now
There's a cloud that hangs above us
For to darken every light
And to take our spirits from us
Like a bandit in the night
There's a storm on the horizon
Here to wake us from our sleep
It's gonna warm us and to frighten
Every child of pleasant dreams
But never mind the rain
It only aims to slow you down
Never mind the rain
It only means to show you how
To be in the now
To be in the now
There's a man behind the curtain
He got the whole world in his hands
He knows that nothing is for certain
And how he laugh at all our plans
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Good morning Lookout. Well spoken -
Ram Dass used to exhort humanity to "be here now", which always made me wonder whereinhell else we could possibly be. I would sometimes chalk random points along my travels with (0,0) or (x,y) or even (ρ,θ) because, after all, every point is all of that and more, depending.
have a great one.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
I meditated with Ram Dass on my birthday once
thanks, this was one of those days when the cosmos totally blew my brains out with joy, it was the last and the best concert I ever attended in GG Park. namaste
Spiritual leader Ram Dass talked about the need to find peace within and make peace without. He brought with him a holy man who led the crowd in a meditation (see below).
The crowd sat down and followed instructions for breathing, moving the hands and visualization.
What still lives inside my little head is the chant, the om. It started like a low rumble and after a while the whole meadow was vibrating and people were levitating off the grass on to stilts and other high things. The ground was like magnets anchoring feet to it as head chakras exploded all around. Maybe that was a dream, a lucid dream. Seems like it now. I swear there were no mushrooms involved, although I may have shared a bowl full of herb with the dancing adults picnicking alongside. The next day my legs were so sore I could hardly walk without stabby reminding me of the fun. cheers
That sounds so awesome
Why can't we do that instead of what we do do?
Love the phrase 'power to the peaceful'.
We used to joke around with the phrase...
Bubba Dumbass says Beer Now. We got into this whole fantasy of creating a Radio yoga show with such silliness. What is the sound of one antenna flapping? Bong....
Then conducting a yoga sequence which was absolutely impossible, and other such nonsense. It was funny at the time (with the right drugs) anyway.
Thanks for the real story.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
"only two things bound to sooth my soul"
Cold Beer and Remote Control
"it's a long wait for the turning clock"
i miss beer some times, and knobs all the times
hamster wheel
Cool. Missed it.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
sorry, hit save instead of community content
...and accidentally created this message.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
dada poetry session time, I see
sorry, hit save instead of community
content
...and accidentally created this message.
Addressee unknown
content likewise, but not "community"
it would seem
Where to now?
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Where to now?
to the exquisite place where diaries are not,
and essays become us,
and we become them,
us and them.
keep going
or stop
now
or later
Mind-boggling
fascinating stuff. The future as a construct of our mind? We can always and only know the now? We have different filing cabinets in our brain for now and later and do not actually experience time passing, we just think we do? Then we have to be able to find that connection? I'm fuzzy about all of this.
I have a long to-do list which is projected into the future. It's actually an eternal to-do list in the sense that it is never ending and always present. It does however change as I do some of the things. I project it into the future with ever changing projects.
The alzheimer portion of this is what interests me. It actually speaks to the physical aspects
of our brain; our neurons, synapses, excessive arteriosclerosis, trauma, or injury etc. This morning when I was making my coffee I poured the hot water into the wrong receptacle (very alzheimerish of me).
Then the conversation can get metaphysical which is the really fascinating part, but then I am really lost and my poor little brain synapses are asking directions of where to go and how to send their signals.
I'm going to put these questions on the back burner right now, except I want to address them later so I will shoot them into the future, which I can't physically do, just mentally.
I'm of to work on my to-do list, if I can find it.
Thanks for the OT, love this stuff.
Good morning, rantntx. Thanks mucho for Time Is. Somewhere
in the memory locus of things wheres events and such is that album, and song, live, on the grass, on acid, in the sun, in Provo Park,in Berkeley. Hitherto unknown, pretty much brand new band. The band and album wound up pretty much condensed into White Bird in my memories, but this, this needs more revisits than I have been giving it. Thanks.
I've got so many to do lists that I have an item in one of them telling me to check all of the others, I'm experimenting with keeping a short list, recreated daily, and actually trying to make sure that I work on it whenever I start drifting around going "hmmm, what next?"
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
A short list
hmm. Don't know about that. Is that fair?
I'm starting to like the idea of Time as circular
I just keep remembering that historical bigotry is a real thing. The rules of physics don't stop working because nobody invented them yet. It just happens that the vast majority of humans didn't have the same data, so didn't think in the manner that involved using the tools in a specific manner.
Now most humans use ONE tool. If it isn't on the smartphone, they don't use it, create it or think about it. How alien will that thought pattern be to the civilization that comes after?
I tried to capture a bit of that thought in my last two pieces, but really, it's hard to bridge the communication difference. Don't use a smart phone, and you might as well be living on a different planet. I'll tell you one thing. A smart invader of the US, first thing they'll do? Target EVERY cell phone tower they can. Americans will be helpless for the most part.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwvlbJ0h35A]
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Funny what you say
about citizens being helpless. C. Hedges says the very same thing in his latest column;
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/worshipping-the-electronic-image/
h/t JB
Interesting read
The older I get the more I find that the imaginary world has less and less control over me. Reality, with its bruises and bumps, lasts longer, and is far more fulfilling.
Still can remember almost every heat and beating of my first creations on a forge. To this day, I can't remember half of my video and virtual achievements. I remember the work to create them, but feeling surprisingly unsatisfied with the virtual creation.
Funny thing. Lots of owners of anvils seem to have had them going missing recently. A three hundred or four hundred dollar investment in time and energy, sold for scrap metal for pennies. To be destroyed. The means of creating more, destroyed, because of the immediate benefit. If it isn't a good allegory for the capitalist system, I don't know what is.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uttlRqHpvNs]
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
I had to go look up 'anvil'.
I sort of knew but couldn't quite picture it. That is impressive that you do that. I think it can be very satisfying to engage in a difficult craft like that and realize improvement and finally mastery as you go along.
PBS used to have a show about artists/craft people around the U.S. . There was one person who was famous for his wrought iron work. It was highly decorative, sort of like the balconies they have in New Orleans in the French Quarter. It was amazing, he did everything by hand.
Good morning, detroit. Dunno about time, but history
certainly seems helical. I'm actually finally starting to use my phone as a tool again, but in bizarre ways, and still sporadically.
Great vid by Weird Al, thanks.
Have a good one.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Marxists vs Jordan Peterson Fan (2 parts)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L2BAEiwnjw]
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F5VdO95XPQ]
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
Good morning, Aspie. Thanks. I'll have to watch later.
Watch later, crap, there's that future tense again. heh.
Have a great one.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
morning el...
et al
tim m m m m e and spaaaaaaace ce ce...
remedios varo - do not know the name of the peice..... peace
Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation
Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook
Good morning, magi. Thanks for the timely art work.
Have a good one.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
The Saker interviews Jorge Valero, Ambassador of Venezuela
The Saker interviews Jorge Valero, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
PEACE
Measurement of time is the obsession of humans
From the appealingly simple steps of knowing when to celebrate a festival to planting the crops. The more urban a society the greater need for time keeping and predicting.
My multiple clocks and time pieces are controlling all my activities today. Need to hit that magical moment when multiple entities converge to meet. Our timepieces and travel are so routine I often do not think about all the activities of my fellow humans that make this possible. From the gathering of material for my car, creation of it and the roadways and a special timepiece to calibrate the worlds clocks. Truly wondrous.
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
Good afternoon, soe - yes, that is our peculiarity, as far as
we know, at least in the manner in which we do so. OTOH, many animals seem to keep track of certain major gradations of time, time to migraate, time to breed, time to put on fat for winter, etc. How conscious is any of that? Quien Sabe?
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Animals are a quandary.
Most of the behavior described can be rationalized by length of day, gravitational fluctuations and other natural phenomena.
But it does not explain the behavior of specific animals I have observed. One of my favorite dogs long sense passed,could tell time on an analog clock and not a digital. One responsibility as an office dog was no talking or barking from 9 to 5 pm. A quick point to the analog would shut her up until the minute hand reached 5 pm, then she would speak whatever was on her mind.
My current schedule does not follow any weekly pattern, not even subtle TV or radio. PBS plays opera Saturday at noon. I may not know the day of the week or the time, but the cockatiel does.
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
An interesting video on East Germany
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otMtz4w94Qs]
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
Good morning, el ~~
Time is man-made.
Have a beautiful day, everyone!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
time waits for no man
according to the stonze, it won't wait for thee. The idea of time waiting for...time?, the future?, for the past to catch up? is ridiculous and somewhat entertaining. If you think about it.
Full agreement, though many rhythmic and periodic event
streams are natural phenomena. Many were out earliest clocks, for that matter.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --