A neuroscientist investigates how the architecture of the human brain shapes our understanding of the nature of time.
"Time" is the most common noun in the English language, yet philosophers and scientists don't agree about what time actually is or how to define it. Perhaps this is because the brain—the most complex dynamical system in the known universe—tells, represents, and perceives time in multiple ways.
Deeper and deeper into #Japanese#culture and people, I went into the #Kyoto Imperial Palace for a special performance of #Gagaku (雅楽), imperial court #music and #dances of #Asian mainland origin that have been performed there since the Heian Period over a thousand years ago. An acquaintance who is a Shintō priestess (see photo) from Nara played two types of traditional flutes that sustain an eerie or higher-worldly atmosphere. The relatively slow and deliberate movements of the mostly male dancers in many-layered gorgeous contumes stand in contrast with the frenetic tempo of modern #entertainment. We experience #time as the pace of transformation, and that brief time transfixed with the Gagaku performance was but an interlude from an ancient era in a workday preparing for university classes and a keynote address. Photos will have to suffice to evoke the special atmosphere.
On the Origin of Time: Stephen Hawking's Final Theory
Perhaps the biggest question Stephen Hawking tried to answer in his extraordinary life was how the universe could have created conditions so perfectly hospitable to life.
Nicholas Breton: Four of the Clocke - a detailed description of life through the day in #earlymodern England From Fantasticks, 1626
Read by Peter Kenny
When I read articles like the one I'm sharing here, my first reaction is to wonder: does #time really exist? Seriously! What we seem to observe is a change of states, and change appears to fit more appropriately within the category of motion (both qualitative and quantitative) rather than of time. Therefore, how do we (philosophically) establish time beyond any reasonable doubt?