Ordinarily I don’t publish so much poetry at Theoria-press, and instead try to provide mostly essays with an odd poem or sonnet occasionally interspersed among them.
Physicists recognize the mystery that time as a physical parameter contains no sense of a moving "now". Our subjective experience of time as something that moves has no place in Newton's equations that govern motion, and this remains true in quantum physics.
A thought I've entertained of late is to identify what we call "consciousness" with the sense of a moving "now". Observation is the means by which consciousness enters the schema of quantum physics. The Schrodinger equation tells how probabilities evolve between observations, but the human (or animal or plant) choice of what to observe shares with the equations a causal role in brining the past forward to create a future.
We (and all of life) participate in creation by our presence as witness. In choosing the focus of our attention, we are participating in creating the future each moment. This is the physical significance of the "now".
“Nor is it fitly said, There are three times, past, present and future; but perchance it might be fitly said, There are three times; a present of things past, a present of things present, and a present of things future. For these three do somehow exist in the soul, and otherwise I see them not.”
—St. Augustine
//
…and presence is not a part of time but its principle any more than the Idea of 3 has three members. no, 3 does not have three parts but is rather what it is to have them. similarly, presence is not in time as a part of it, but rather in time as its sap and substance
Beautiful. Shared . Thank you Max
☺️
Physicists recognize the mystery that time as a physical parameter contains no sense of a moving "now". Our subjective experience of time as something that moves has no place in Newton's equations that govern motion, and this remains true in quantum physics.
A thought I've entertained of late is to identify what we call "consciousness" with the sense of a moving "now". Observation is the means by which consciousness enters the schema of quantum physics. The Schrodinger equation tells how probabilities evolve between observations, but the human (or animal or plant) choice of what to observe shares with the equations a causal role in brining the past forward to create a future.
We (and all of life) participate in creation by our presence as witness. In choosing the focus of our attention, we are participating in creating the future each moment. This is the physical significance of the "now".
“Nor is it fitly said, There are three times, past, present and future; but perchance it might be fitly said, There are three times; a present of things past, a present of things present, and a present of things future. For these three do somehow exist in the soul, and otherwise I see them not.”
—St. Augustine
//
…and presence is not a part of time but its principle any more than the Idea of 3 has three members. no, 3 does not have three parts but is rather what it is to have them. similarly, presence is not in time as a part of it, but rather in time as its sap and substance
Yes
thanks Max
my pleasure; thank you for the encouragement 😊