How Does Consciousness Shape Our Sense of Time?

TL;DR

The felt passage of time may be a construct of consciousness rather than a physical flow described by relativity. The conference compares brain-produced and brain-filtered models of consciousness, discusses altered states in which both self and time disappear, and argues that understanding time and mind may require physics, neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and related disciplines to work together.

Transcript

The passage of time is a mystery we like to marvel at. And in our storytelling, we often do so with bullets. One of these bullets is like us to lean forwards through time. The other one's going backward. We like to fantasize about freezing, inverting and traveling time. And we do so because we know that ever since Einstein physics tells us that tim... Read More

Key Insights

• Einstein's theory of relativity describes time as observer dependent, but it does not explain the fundamental human experience that time seems to pass from the past through the present and toward the future.
• Paul Davies's position is that time exists but does not flow. What appears to be an arrow of time is instead directionality within sequences of physical states, not a mechanism carrying observers from one moment to another.
• A landscape model of time treats events as already present while human experience moves across them. This differs from the familiar model in which events arrive sequentially and the future remains unknown until it becomes the present.
• The standard account of consciousness holds that quarks, nucleons, atoms, biomolecules, cells, organisms, and brains emerged through increasing complexity, with brains eventually producing consciousness as the culmination of that process.
• The alternative account treats consciousness with a capital C as underlying everything. In this framework, consciousness is not located within time, and time may instead be understood as a construct arising within consciousness.
• The brain's dependence relationship with consciousness can be modeled as productive or permissive. A productive brain generates consciousness, while a permissive brain functions more like a filter that constrains or channels a consciousness not produced by neural tissue.
• Edge cases such as precognition, remote viewing, and reported extraocular vision motivate Alex Gomez-Marin's investigation of the filter hypothesis. The hypothesis suggests that altered or impaired brain function might permit more mind to flow through rather than merely degrading experience.
• Altered states reveal a correlation between the experience of self and the passage of time. During a monk's peak state, decreased connectivity in the posterior default mode network was interpreted as loss of the narrative self, matching reports of no time and no self.

Questions & Answers

Q: Why does relativity not explain the passage of time?

Einstein's theory of relativity describes how time is observer dependent, illustrated by the idea that an hour experienced on one planet could correspond to seven years on Earth. The unresolved issue is that this mathematical treatment does not describe why people experience time as flowing from the past through the present toward the future. The conference asks whether consciousness is necessary to explain that felt passage.

Q: What does it mean to say that time does not flow?

The claim does not mean that time is nonexistent. Paul Davies distinguishes time itself from the subjective impression that it moves. In his account, the arrow of time is directionality within sequences of physical states, not an arrow carrying people forward. Events can therefore be pictured as a temporal landscape across which human experience moves, rather than as moments physically flowing into existence.

Q: How could time be a construct within consciousness?

If the passage of time is an illusion generated by mind, consciousness would not simply occupy a flowing temporal stream. Instead, the ordering and movement people experience as time could be constructed within consciousness. The conference presents this as an alternative to the familiar assumption that consciousness is produced by brains situated in spacetime, while acknowledging that thought clearly depends on the brain in some way.

Q: Does the brain produce consciousness or filter it?

The conference presents two possible relationships between brain and consciousness. The productive model says the brain creates consciousness, which is described as the option assumed by most neuroscientists. The permissive model says the brain acts as a filter. Under that proposal, damage, reduced irrigation, insufficient oxygen, or limited nutrients might loosen the filter and permit more mind to flow through rather than simply destroying experience.

Q: Why are unusual consciousness experiences relevant to brain theories?

Alex Gomez-Marin studies edge cases, including a blind man reported to see and phenomena described as precognition, remote viewing, and extraocular vision. These cases are introduced because information may appear to be perceived without passing through the five senses. The conference suggests that such reports may be easier to investigate under a filter model of the brain than under a strictly productive model.

Q: How are the sense of self and the sense of time connected?

Altered states appear to show a correlation between the narrative self and the felt passage of time. In peak experiences, people report both no time and no self. Marc Wittmann's research with a Buddhist monk found maximally decreased functional connectivity in the posterior default mode network during a peak state. The researchers interpreted this neural pattern as a loss of the narrative self.

Q: What scientific fields are needed to study time and consciousness?

The conference treats time and mind as an interdisciplinary problem involving physics, philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, and parapsychology. Bernard Carr also notes that literature offers concepts including sequential, disjointed, suspended, anticipated, circular, reversed, alternate, and internal time. The central idea is that physical descriptions of time and studies of conscious experience must inform one another if temporal passage is to be understood.

Q: Can physics be extended to include consciousness?

Three positions are presented. Consciousness may be an illusion generated by the brain, it may be real but outside physics or science, or physics may eventually be extended to accommodate it. Bernard Carr favors the third possibility while noting that it is probably not the majority view among physicists. The conference connects this possibility to post-material science and to going beyond Einstein's block universe.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• Einstein's relativity describes how measurements of time depend on the observer, but it does not explain the human feeling that time passes. Paul Davies argues that time does not flow and that its apparent arrow instead reflects ordered sequences of physical states, raising questions about whether consciousness constructs temporal passage.

• The conference contrasts the standard view that increasingly complex matter eventually produces brains and consciousness with the proposal that consciousness is fundamental. Under the latter view, the brain may permit or filter consciousness rather than produce it, offering a possible framework for examining unusual experiences and edge cases.

• Research on altered states connects the narrative self with temporal experience. An fMRI study of a Buddhist monk found maximally decreased functional connectivity in the posterior default mode network during a peak state, interpreted as loss of the narrative self. Such peak experiences are reported as involving neither time nor self.