How Long is Right Now?
December 30, 2019 6:09 PM Subscribe
Shayla Love on how we’re all living in the past (at least a little): “Our sense of right now—whichever one you mean—isn't passively measured and tracked and the brain, but constructed by it . . . . If people could be swayed into thinking that now is shorter, could they also be more invested in making bigger, societal, choices that are future oriented?”
I don't remember the source but I'm reminded of:
"This is a picture of me when I was younger."
"EVERY PICTURE IS A PICTURE OF YOU WHEN YOU WERE YOUNGER."
posted by hippybear at 8:56 PM on December 30, 2019 [15 favorites]
"This is a picture of me when I was younger."
"EVERY PICTURE IS A PICTURE OF YOU WHEN YOU WERE YOUNGER."
posted by hippybear at 8:56 PM on December 30, 2019 [15 favorites]
"I am not uttering anything simultaneous with this utterance"
posted by clavdivs at 8:59 PM on December 30, 2019
posted by clavdivs at 8:59 PM on December 30, 2019
The fun thing about B-time or about imagining upper-dimensional creatures looking down on us is imagining the snaking worms of growing human flesh entwined across the surface of Earth, unknowing of their totality, experiencing only their unwinding across their time axis, while they see it all at once. All your flights and sex and road trips and back and forth between home and office, all as fleshy human worms snaking across the 3D+Time of our dimension which we can only encounter, never envision.
posted by hippybear at 9:11 PM on December 30, 2019 [13 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 9:11 PM on December 30, 2019 [13 favorites]
How is this not existential horror?
posted by metametamind at 9:18 PM on December 30, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by metametamind at 9:18 PM on December 30, 2019 [5 favorites]
One time, this guy handed me a picture of him, he said "Here's a picture of me when I was younger." Every picture is of you when you were younger. "Here's a picture of me when I'm older." "You son-of-a-bitch! How'd you pull that off? Lemme see that camera... What's it look like?--Mitch Hedberg
posted by axiom at 9:37 PM on December 30, 2019 [5 favorites]
20 seconds, same as in town.
posted by Pastor of Muppets at 12:31 AM on December 31, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by Pastor of Muppets at 12:31 AM on December 31, 2019 [3 favorites]
See also an Asimov story, "The Dead Past", in which it turns out that a device for viewing the recent past is also a device for viewing the present. "Happy goldfish bowl to you."
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 2:07 AM on December 31, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 2:07 AM on December 31, 2019 [1 favorite]
I actually read this and there's some cool stuff in it. Cheers!
posted by lokta at 3:30 AM on December 31, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by lokta at 3:30 AM on December 31, 2019 [4 favorites]
Another entry in "science journalism discovers the 18th century"
posted by thelonius at 4:01 AM on December 31, 2019 [9 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 4:01 AM on December 31, 2019 [9 favorites]
Oh look Vice has discovered phenomenology.
posted by spitbull at 4:51 AM on December 31, 2019 [8 favorites]
posted by spitbull at 4:51 AM on December 31, 2019 [8 favorites]
In her clever horror novel Experimental Film, Gemma Files reminds us that every film is a ghost story because, while we experience it in the present, the film shows the time it was made.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:02 AM on December 31, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:02 AM on December 31, 2019 [5 favorites]
If people could be swayed into thinking that now is shorter,
Well, now IS shorter. My nephew, who is now 16, was just a baby yesterday.
posted by Melismata at 5:14 AM on December 31, 2019 [3 favorites]
Well, now IS shorter. My nephew, who is now 16, was just a baby yesterday.
posted by Melismata at 5:14 AM on December 31, 2019 [3 favorites]
According to physics, right now is an illusion altogether.[Citation needed.] I'm guessing they're talking about the failure of simultaneity at a distance, which is a real thing but seems entirely irrelevant to this discussion. Or they've been reading Stephen Wolfram's psuedoscience?
This is an interesting and fun question. In our cocktail party fight, I'm definitely on the side of the long now as an approach to understanding human timescales and the world. I'm not convinced by this answer. But, it will be a really fun fight.
And the metronome thing is incredibly strange and unrelated to my experience of the world. Which means it must be wrong.
posted by eotvos at 5:35 AM on December 31, 2019 [1 favorite]
"the metronome thing"
Wittman said we can also see evidence of this in other places—like a metronome. If you listen to a metronome tick, the ticks are all the same and not being grouped in any particular way. But we do hear a grouping: either one-two, one-two, or if it’s faster, one-two-three, one-two-three. “Although these chunks are not in the metronome,” Wittman said, “our brain creates these units of perception.”
Well, leaving aside the unsupported claim that we hear a faster metronome grouped in 3, (which is mot my experience either) that doesn't even discuss the cultural context of metric grouping in music, which surely influences our perception of a metronome's beat as much as some abstract category produced by the "brain". I mean, all our lives, we are surrounded by music grouped by metric stress into twos, fours, and threes.
posted by thelonius at 6:03 AM on December 31, 2019 [7 favorites]
Wittman said we can also see evidence of this in other places—like a metronome. If you listen to a metronome tick, the ticks are all the same and not being grouped in any particular way. But we do hear a grouping: either one-two, one-two, or if it’s faster, one-two-three, one-two-three. “Although these chunks are not in the metronome,” Wittman said, “our brain creates these units of perception.”
Well, leaving aside the unsupported claim that we hear a faster metronome grouped in 3, (which is mot my experience either) that doesn't even discuss the cultural context of metric grouping in music, which surely influences our perception of a metronome's beat as much as some abstract category produced by the "brain". I mean, all our lives, we are surrounded by music grouped by metric stress into twos, fours, and threes.
posted by thelonius at 6:03 AM on December 31, 2019 [7 favorites]
How Long is Right Now?
4:25, but the album cut is longer.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:24 AM on December 31, 2019 [2 favorites]
4:25, but the album cut is longer.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:24 AM on December 31, 2019 [2 favorites]
{shouldbewritteninfrench}Now is just a moving line that separates bitter regret from fearful dread.{/shouldbewritteninfrench}
posted by thatwhichfalls at 7:27 AM on December 31, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by thatwhichfalls at 7:27 AM on December 31, 2019 [5 favorites]
I'm guessing they're talking about the failure of simultaneity at a distance, which is a real thing but seems entirely irrelevant to this discussion
I'm not sure about that. The fundamental issue being discussed in the opening of the piece is that "now" can only be experienced, expressed, or have any significance at all in terms of a frame of reference. There is no universal right now, no matter how far down or up the metaphorical ladder of the term "frame of reference" you go. That seems to be an important fact, if we're trying to construct a workable definition of "now" that minimises confusion and arbitrariness, which is an important project for interdisciplinary and philosophical discussion.
[Citation needed.]
I doubt it reflects your actual intention, but when people do this, it always makes me feel like they're trying to shoot something down rather than engage with it. I expect I've done it (and I know I've done much worse) in the past, though, so I'm casting no stones here.
posted by howfar at 9:08 AM on December 31, 2019 [6 favorites]
I'm not sure about that. The fundamental issue being discussed in the opening of the piece is that "now" can only be experienced, expressed, or have any significance at all in terms of a frame of reference. There is no universal right now, no matter how far down or up the metaphorical ladder of the term "frame of reference" you go. That seems to be an important fact, if we're trying to construct a workable definition of "now" that minimises confusion and arbitrariness, which is an important project for interdisciplinary and philosophical discussion.
[Citation needed.]
I doubt it reflects your actual intention, but when people do this, it always makes me feel like they're trying to shoot something down rather than engage with it. I expect I've done it (and I know I've done much worse) in the past, though, so I'm casting no stones here.
posted by howfar at 9:08 AM on December 31, 2019 [6 favorites]
as an old acid tripping friend of mine used to keep reminding me -- the problem with all experience is that it's always in the past. Because it takes time for your nervous system to process the experience, so you never see the actual shooting star, you see your nervous system's impression of it, delivered to your consciousness a micro-second (or whatever) after your optic nerve started processing it. And so on.
This was all part of his notion of what psychedelics did to your experience of things. They sped the process up, brought you closer to the infinitesimal instant of NOW, thus the apparent distortions or hallucinations, which weren't hallucinations at all, but a more accurate presentation of so-called reality. And what happened when you got all the way up to it, experienced a moment in absolute simultaneity with its momentum? Something to do with God, cool white light, infinite collapse, convolution ... or whatever.
posted by philip-random at 9:30 AM on December 31, 2019 [7 favorites]
This was all part of his notion of what psychedelics did to your experience of things. They sped the process up, brought you closer to the infinitesimal instant of NOW, thus the apparent distortions or hallucinations, which weren't hallucinations at all, but a more accurate presentation of so-called reality. And what happened when you got all the way up to it, experienced a moment in absolute simultaneity with its momentum? Something to do with God, cool white light, infinite collapse, convolution ... or whatever.
posted by philip-random at 9:30 AM on December 31, 2019 [7 favorites]
That seems to be an important fact, if we're trying to construct a workable definition of "now" that minimises confusion and arbitrariness, which is an important project for interdisciplinary and philosophical discussion.
Or heated arguments in pubs.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:51 AM on December 31, 2019 [1 favorite]
Or heated arguments in pubs.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:51 AM on December 31, 2019 [1 favorite]
metametamind: "How is this not existential horror?"
Sunrise, sunset, night and day
The changing seasons
The smell of hay
Look at your hair grow
Isn't it strange
How time makes your appearance change?
posted by Rhaomi at 10:33 AM on December 31, 2019 [2 favorites]
Sunrise, sunset, night and day
The changing seasons
The smell of hay
Look at your hair grow
Isn't it strange
How time makes your appearance change?
posted by Rhaomi at 10:33 AM on December 31, 2019 [2 favorites]
I mean, all our lives, we are surrounded by music grouped by metric stress into twos, fours, and threes.
As a human worming cross country (from the perspective of the upper dimension creatures), I thank you for helping me put my brain back in after reading this article while listening to 123 ABC by the Jackson 5.
posted by avalonian at 12:43 PM on December 31, 2019 [2 favorites]
As a human worming cross country (from the perspective of the upper dimension creatures), I thank you for helping me put my brain back in after reading this article while listening to 123 ABC by the Jackson 5.
posted by avalonian at 12:43 PM on December 31, 2019 [2 favorites]
This article reminded me of Keith Chen's work on strong and weak tenses, where the difference between, say, "I will retire in 30 years" v. "I retire in 30 years" influenced how likely people were to save for retirement. If linguistically the future is the same as the present, then the gap between future and now shrinks.
posted by Flannery Culp at 12:47 PM on December 31, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by Flannery Culp at 12:47 PM on December 31, 2019 [4 favorites]
I doubt it reflects your actual intention, but when people do this, it always makes me feel like they're trying to shoot something down rather than engage with it. I expect I've done it (and I know I've done much worse) in the past, though, so I'm casting no stones here.You're entirely right. I can be pretty dismissive of philosophers when they talk about physics. That's almost always a bad habit. Thanks for the reminder. In this one very particular case, I really would be interested in citations, 'cause I don't actually understand the statement. My choice to phrase it in that way was obnoxious.
posted by eotvos at 2:58 PM on December 31, 2019 [2 favorites]
leaving aside the unsupported claim that we hear a faster metronome grouped in 3, (which is mot[sic] my experience either)
Briefly experimenting with my metronome app, I did experience this perception of a fast beat (about 220 bpm) as grouped in threes; it kind of slid in in the way that you suddenly see optical illusions, and then stopped the same way.
But I don't know how much this was prompted by suggestion.
posted by thelonius at 3:13 PM on December 31, 2019
Briefly experimenting with my metronome app, I did experience this perception of a fast beat (about 220 bpm) as grouped in threes; it kind of slid in in the way that you suddenly see optical illusions, and then stopped the same way.
But I don't know how much this was prompted by suggestion.
posted by thelonius at 3:13 PM on December 31, 2019
Oh, Tralfamadore, how I long to see you,
once again, somewhen, wherethen.
posted by mule98J at 11:06 AM on January 1, 2020
once again, somewhen, wherethen.
posted by mule98J at 11:06 AM on January 1, 2020
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“Soon!”
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:57 PM on December 30, 2019 [10 favorites]