How is it that all sentient beings experience "now" at the same time?

Question

How do we know for sure that we are all experiencing the present at the same time?
Even if we are seeing the other person, how do we know for sure that we are not seeing a past action of that person... maybe the rest of you are already experiencing events days, months or even years ahead from me, yet I can still see and interact with your "past you". Or viceversa.
How do we know that we all actually exist at the same time? Maybe time flows slower to me than to you. Einstein did prove that time is relative, after all.
Any thoughts?

Answer 1

experience is not what happened to you in your past but what did you do with?

Answer 2

Who says we experience things at the same time? I am experiencing your thought and thoughts of others long after they were typed into the computer. For me it is now. When you read this, that will be now, and so on.

Your question reminds me of an old Star Trek episode in which people had their metabolisms sped up, so for them now was much longer in duration than it was for their crew mates. Tat would be where your Einstein theories of speed and relativity come into play. The premise you are following is that time is linear and therefore if you speed a person up beyond the speed of light that somehow the person will go back in time. I don't think that is the outcome you are looking for, however.

You seem to be looking for some sort of quantum leap relationship between people. Perhaps even a worm hole effect. For this you have to consider the possibility that time is multi-dimensional and now could be a point is time on many plains of existence. Let us argue, for example, that not all sentient life forms on this planet are carbon based humans. Let's say they are pure energy traveling through life at a rate of speed equal to or greater than the speed of light. We would never see them, then again I doubt that they would see us or anything for that matter. The whole light thing being related to visibility. Of course, sight is but one sense. You have to be willing to throw out conventional wisdom if you want to go this route.

I think the best way to look at "Now" is that regardless of your perspective, now is a point in time. Everybody will experience it some what differently and not all will even pay attention. Some will be awake. Some will be asleep. Some will be dead. Some will be alive. Assume that all exist now and perceive now or don't perceive now accordingly.

And if this is a mortality question, is there life of a different sort after death, you won't find an answer in reason there other than could be, because nobody can know for sure what lies beyond death, or should I say, nobody is going to believe anybody who says they do know what happens after death.

Oh yeah, concerning the interaction part of your question. You judge the mathematical relationship between your approximate position in time and space as it relates to the person you are in contact with and using the speed of light as a reference you judge how long it takes for your interaction to cover the distance between you. That would be the empiracist way of being certain that your relationship to one another is true. As for the existentalists, they would just accept things for what are nominally. Think form, shadow, truth. It will all make sense.

Hope this helped.

Answer 3

For that matter, can any individual positively state anything about another's sensory experiences at any level? That's the unique and truly independent part of what makes us all autonomous beings.

Who knows what my hamburger smells like to you, or what classical music is in your ear compared to mine. We agree only that it is what it is, but do I hear the same word in the same way you do? The fact is that my senses give me everyone's experiences uniformly, but they don't have a clue whether the information everyone is getting corresponds to what I'm getting.
Not everyone is the same amount of happy nor annoyed nor perplexed nor anything else. But even from culture to culture, or between people speaking different languages, there is general agreement about experiences.

However, within a single individual, those perceptions evolve and modify: as a child, I was totally enmeshed in the joy of Ring Around The Rosie, but of course my relationship with that children's game is on a different plane altogether as an adult.The same with the 70's music I used to swear by when it was on the charts; the same with my crush on little Anne in middle school (don't tell anyone).

Essentially, then, we must all be just happily coexisting with each other, assuming for our own good that our experiences and existences are at worst similar enough to arrive at agreements upon what in general is joy, anger, scratchy sounds, danger, Nirvana, etc. That's why it

For that matter, I can't even tell what anyone else thinks about the question. I have to wait and see, then hear what I want to. And maybe that's not the subjective activity we've all been led to believe all this time.

Answer 4

There is a camp of thinkers on time that believe that time is actually not a line or linear, that it's not really even circular, but that it's a single point.

The concept is that time doesn't really exist in terms that we can comprehend, it's all happening at one point and our minds do what they can to organize the entire situation into something that it can fully understand.

It's also possible (if I read the information correctly) that through the idea of super strings, all of our existence including matter and energy (and of course time) are just a level of vibration that exists on a large scale and without something to perceive it, it would not even exist.

If you haven't already seen it, I strongly recommend that you watch the movie, "What the Bleep Do We Know".

The movie is all about quantum physics and it's truly awesome. It will probably create more questions in you than answers, but it gives you a glimpse of realities that typically only existed in fantasy, but does so through science.

Hope that this helps.

Love as always,

Sebastian

Answer 5

You've just seen "The Lake House," haven't you? (ha, ha)

The theme of the film is exactly what you are positing. Two people are living in the same house, but at different points in time. Somehow, they can see each other, but can't get together because they are two years apart.

Fascinating thought. Great question. I don't know. Let's puzzle this out. Is time linear? Does it only move in one direction? Or are we only able to perceive of time in a very narrow way? I don't think we can truly understand another's perception of time. Or of anything, for that matter. Pain, love, happiness, tiredness - it's all relative, and relative to the individual. Of course, Einstein was talking about time in relation to speed; the closer we come to the speed of light, the more time expands. Maybe people who are generally faster experience time differently than people who are slower.

I do know this: when I'm hoping that my work day will end, time seems to creep like molasses in January. But when I'm out in the back yard, snurfeling with my dog, there's never enough time!

P.S. Yes, this does belong in Philosophy, and just ignore hateful comments.

Answer 6

Ok. First off...you say that Einstein proved that time is relative. Is that so? I didn't know that, I thought it was called the THEORY of relativity. Strange. So, now that we took care of that little misnomer, let's move forward to your actual question. Time is real, yes. We ALL experience time at the same (forgive me) time. Though our measurement of time is man-made, it still exists. For instance: There are 24 hours in every day. But that isn't to say that we could say a 'day' really consists of 36 hours, or even 48. We could even say that a 'day' has 893 hours in it. It wouldn't matter. It's all units of measurement to help keep track of dates for us humans.

Now as far as experiencing 'now' at the same time. We do. So there. I believe the real question should be, do we really experience the same things in the time frame of now. If you and I ride in a car together for an hour, my experience in the car could be very different from yours. While you took note of all the scenery and beautiful weather and had a great time, I drove and had to focus on the boring gray road, and didn't really enjoy myself. That is the same time frame, and the same actions, but we did not experience them in the same way.

My reasoning and opinions here are based on a philosophy called existentialism.

Answer 7

My thoughts would be that if you come into this world and want to be a brain surgeon, but the sharpest implement you have to hand is kitchen spatula, then it's probably best you stick to cooking. Or in other words don't fool around with things you don't have the sensitivity for. It's clear you don't understand the most straightfoward PHYSICS (this isn't a philosophical question at all), so either go back a do some more reading or just shut the hell up.

Answer 8

All of us exist in the forever present. No one is ahead of you, nor is anyone behind you. God created time for mankind, and he created it to be stable. Think of what were happen if some people existed in the present, but others existed in the past and the future. History and the future would be constantly changed and there would be no stability to the present. God is a God of the forever present. He is able to look at our entire lives at a glance. Only he can do this.

Answer 9

so ur asking if your conciousness is active in the past? well i guess you could think of it in the way that there are things still to come and you are interacting with future people's past. but then you have to think that since they are interacting with you, when this original interaction happened so long ago, they would have been interacting with the future you. i don't think that would work because if you were not there, concious & making those decisions, it would be as if you are a robot, just living things through that have already happened. this theory could stand just fine, but only if you're able to accept that every action you make is not under your personal control.

Answer 10

Er...okay-

One could argue the following: If you came up and stabbed me in the face, how would my future self react? Would my 'present' conciousness develop a scar, seemingly out of nowhere? Would my 'present' self now develop a memory of getting stabbed in the face by you? If you kill someone's past self--would their present conciousness cease to exist? That said, would all the acquiantances that 'present' self had suddenly forget about that person's existence?

It might pay to consider every instant (immeasurable by our current concepts to time) a cloistered little universe...or dimension...or whatever. The people you are interacting with at this moment only exist in that current ephemeral space, yet any alteration you make to that space causes a domino-effect that effects the others.

But I think that theory's got holes all-up-innit. It's easier (not necessarily true, but easier) to assume now is now is now is now. Ad nauseum. I mean, go ahead and try to change your perception of 'now'. It's pretty hard to do. I did it last Thursday, slowed myself down about a half-second behind everything else. My speech stopped synching up properly. It drove people nuts.

Answer 11

Steven: Did you just punch me in the face on June 15th at 3pm Eastern Standard time?

John: Yes I just did.
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For the purpose of human necessity we have created calendars and clocks based on the solar system. We accept this concept
and as such agree on how old we are and where we are and what point in time it is for us. We exist at the same time based on the fact that we have imposed a human conception of time upon ourselves. Nobody is experiencing anything ahead of anybody else when everybody agrees on the actual day, month and year it is. You even use our human notions of time in your question so I think you should have a look at what you asked because it makes no sense.