why do we as humans perceive time as linear?

Answer 1

It is well known that the space/time continuum is curved. The curvature occurs as a result of the influence of mass against movement in time. Recently, it has been possible to detect this curvature. As three-dimensional beings, we perceive time only as a result of memory. We remember what was as a variable interval from what is now. If we had zero memory, we could not detect time - we would exist only for the moment. The result of this is our apparent perception of time as a linear line, always going forward. This is similar to primitive peoples perceiving the Earth as flat. It could be infinite - the horizon always kept bringing something new no matter how far they traveled; or, it could be finite, in which case there was the risk of falling off the edge.

Answer 2

We do not perceive that time is linear. We believe it. And, as usual, belief blinds the observer.

If you look around you right now, you will see that the content of the present moment changes continuously. You will not see a past or a future, just constant change.

Where is the past? Memories are like dreams. They are fragmentary images of moments that were the present when they happened. Even the dream of the past is experienced in the present. Speculation about the future is also a process occurring in the present.

Each thing is constantly being rearranged in relation to every thing. Mountains rearrange more gradually than rivers, but the dance is all-inclusive and goes on endlessly. We call the dance "Now".

If you subtract all the particulars that make a moment real, you can break up the imaginary empty nothing that's left into constant intervals. You can make timepieces, clocks and calendars to keep everyone in step. Then you have linear time. Linear time is not a perception, it's a concept about reality.

Answer 3

We perceive time as linear because it is perceived by our intellectual intelligence (one of seven that support human life)). Intellectual intelligence deals with creating and sorting ideas (morning, noon, afternoon etc). The time is idea. Where there are not ideas time cannot exist.
Where there are not ideas about future and no personal memories (or memories registered with the help of machines) about past, the time does not exist.
In dreams the time does not exist because the happening is observed by emotional and instinctive intelligence. From their point of view there is only eternity.
The life is process, everything happens simultaneously. Everything is part of eternity. Reducing activities just to intellectual level (which mainly dominates in our culture) all the happenings become linear (or mechanical), can be measured, registered, organised.
Without memorising by any kind of technical devices (clepsydra, clock or similar) the time cannot be recorded. Cannot be registered and compared. So it has (by help of the measurement) quality like any other thing that can be measured and through such organised observation felt as linear. Although far from standard opinion the time is just an imagination, a dream, useful in the world of mechanically orientated humans. But it is limiting in the world of fully functioning human beings.

Answer 4

I agree with Stephen H that we perceive time as linear because of our memory of the past. But I would like to add that is also because we deteriorate and die. Because of this, we see time as having a beginning and and end, making it quite linear. But if we do not grow old and die, we might think that time is constant or perhaps completely disregard the concept of time all together.

Another reason is because humans do not travel at the speed of light. We know from modern physics that when we move at the speed of light, time will come to a stop and we will be everywhere all at once. Then we will no longer see time as linear.

Answer 5

It is programming, we are taught to.

Probably the earliest people didn't have much concept of time.
We live in the NOW, and we remember time BEFORE, which may be days before or longer. We can imagine things that will, or might happen in the FUTURE. (flight of spear, changes in weather)This is all Hunter gatherers would need to know.

However they would observe the changes in day and night, phases of the moon, the tides, migrations of animals, seasons of plants and animals. Even movements of planets. All these changes have pattern, and many would be important for their survival. These patterns would be how they perceived time.

When they began to grow crops they seem to have perceived the pattern of time to be cyclic. The cycle of life, of the seasons, of the zodiac. Life, death and resurrection. Seed, growth and harvest. We still see many aspects of time in this way. Look at an analogue clock.

This is how Hindu philosophers still regard time. And it is part of Buddhist ideas too. Other worldviews see time as being flexible possibly like an all-pervading mist. Future, Past and Present all exist eternally and can be accessed or brought together by those who know how.

When did the view of time as linear begin?
This concept ties in with Christianity, where it is believed that the world has a specific beginning in time(CREATION) and is moving towards a final endpoint(LAST JUDGEMENT). This idea first appears in ZOROASTRIANISM, but seems to have been an underlying belief of the pagan ancestors of the English, who also believed that there would be an end time and the gods themselves would die. This is part of a dualist view of the world.

This idea is ingrained in Newtonian physics. This is what we are mostly taught in schools, time is depicted as a line, we are shown time-lines in History etc. This assumption underpins most of the subjects you study in schools. For most practical purposes it is a valid analogy, and so it becomes ingrained in our minds. It also serves to underpin our ideas of cause and effect.

However it has its limitations, scientifically and philosophically.

Scientists regard time in various ways, not necessarily linear or cyclic. They will use whatever model fits. Generally they regard it as an inseparable part of the space-time continuum which "curves" when it is in proximity to an object.

Philosophers also have no fixed position on time, real, unreal, a concept or a measure. It is undecided.

Answer 6

Imagine you are running around the globe indefinitely, will you ever reach an end at which point you cannot go any further?

No.

Is the globe a 3-dimensional object?

Yes.

Time and space are essentially interrelated and forms a multidimenional fabric (based on the theory of relativity).

Now do you consider your driveway as flat?

Yes.

Physically is it perfectly flat?

No, it is curved.

Time, according to popular scientific theory, can be curved because of gravitational force. Time dilation is also present in our daily lives, but since our motions is nowhere comparable to the speed of light, the effect is not apparent. When we are perceiving, we only see what's happening here on Earth, but it may not necessarily reveal the complete truth behind the inner clockwork of time.

Answer 7

Not all humans always have. The native americans thought of it as circular... goes round and round like the seasons.

I suppose we perceive time in linear because it's the easiest for us to understand and make sense of. We humans like to make sense of the things around us and the laws to which we are naturally made to live by.

Here's an interesting website I've seen before about time:
http://www.eaglespiritministry.com/issues/time.htm

Check it out.

Answer 8

Up to now, the Ladies gave genarally the more original and essential answers than the boys.
The one I liked the most was babyrawls' - it's concicely and precisely hitting the point.

In basic physics and statistics, on charts, time is mentally and graphically reduced to a line. Our business activities, our plannings, our timetables, our models of processes are generally reduced to onethread sequences. It fairly worked up to now. But the more complex our tools and systemic conditions, the less the onethreadmodels give reliable illustrations of their results to be expected.
For the future, we will more and more depend on scenarios considering different combinations and constallations of happening strings and potential blocks. It seems we approach an end of general objectivation of time and will need methods of combining and linking special times as produced by different systems and by different kinds of awareness.
One may ask the question, whether the collective reluctance to change our notions of and attitude toward 'time' we are trained and accustomed to since about a quarter of a millenium is a still neglected though elementary cause of many economical and political global problems we actually face.
Globalization cannot work just by reckless imposing the western objectivation and generalization of 'the time' to the rest of the world. The dogma 'Time is Money' comes to it's limits. People who followed it up to now start to ask questions as : 'Whose Time is Whose Money?' or : 'O.k., but what is Money?' or : 'If it is true that time is money, does or can that mean as well that money is time - and what depends from the correct answer to that?'

Answer 9

There is a modern day tribe who actually perceive time the opposite way to most of us (death is in the past and birth in the future) which suggests that perception of time is a cultural concept (rather than an absolute)

Answer 10

This is due to the very nature of our perception of physical reality. We perceive things and events through our senses just like an input into a computer system. We feel as if things are happening around us are in a linear sequence - one after another. With our senses, we can grasp only a few things happening at a given time, but this does not mean that countless other things are not happening at the very same moment in time. This is how we perceive reality and this is therefore how we perceive time. It is not necessarily how it actually is, but it appears to us the way we are.

We perceive or sense time just because events around us happen and things change. From the Sun to an electron inside an atom, everything is in motion, everything is changing and churning up time for us to observe and realise. If nothing would move, we would not sense or see anything. The world, including ourselves, would have been impossible for us to observe or experience. What is time really like then? If it is not linear like road - an entity with the past, the present and the future - what is it really like? Well, it is nothing like anything else. It is abstract reality that we observe through things around us. The closest answer to the question however is that Time is just like the way we perceive it - linear, and fast moving forward. This is how we can understand time and manage Time for our own good. There are other forms of reality beyond the automatic grasp of our knowledge and understanding but we see things as we need to see them.

Now, imagine a candle. How do you perceive it? You first see just a candle, then you see that someone has lit it up. You see the wick of the candle catching the flame, and then rising to its full size. Then you see the candle fully lit and burning with some occasional flickers. You watch it for some time, and realise that all these events happened, or are happening, as a sequence in time. There is no other reasonable way for a human eye to observe this happening. You sense time because changes are happening in the object of your observation and you see them in a familiar linear form. But if you look at the flame and concentrate you will realise that your sense of time has slightly altered. This is because you do not see many things happening or changing around.

Now, imagine yourself to be in the place of the candle. Try to see from the eye of the candle. You realise that you can see all around. You are a sphere of light. The longer the candle burns the wider the sphere grows. With strange feelings you also realise that you can see from one edge of the sphere to the other - you see all that at once. You can also see everything within your fast spreading sphere of light. This is strange even to imagine, but it does make some sense.

When you see the candle with your eyes, you perceive reality and acquire knowledge and knowledge has to be linear – as it comes from the outside as input. But when you see with the eye of the candle as a sphere of light you perceive reality differently - this is awareness which comes from within and spreads around. When we become aware of things we see various forms of reality. The people who meditate to focus their mind upon one single moment in time they perceive sigulariy and they describe the nature of time, space and matter very differently – and often they simply do not because they cannot.

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