Philosophy Wire: In a second.

Some of Earth's finest gemstones grew in a matter of minutes. Geologists made that discovery while investigating mineral formations that are rich in lithium and rare metals. [1] The greatest of things happen within the split of a second. No matter how much pressure you have withstood. No matter how much you have studied. No matter how much you have been prepared. No matter how much support and love you have had. No matter whether you had passed a lifetime of being good and kind. Despite the aeons that have passed by. Becoming a human only takes a second...

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Philosophy Wire: Homogeneous. Dead.

Gravity can accelerate the homogenization of space-time as the universe evolves. [1] Universe evolving. Towards a homogenous soup. But if the inevitable is this, why are we seeing something else? How can we exist in the middle of evolution? How can anything be in the middle of time? Does past, present or future have any meaning in a cosmos distilled through eternity? Look at that jasmine. You can feel it can't you? There never was a time when you hadn't smelled it...

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Philosophy Wire: Time travel. Paradoxes. Deranged logic.

Paradox-free time travel is theoretically possible, according to the mathematical modelling of an undergraduate student. [1] Humans. Always trying to get rid of the paradoxes. And yet, life is full of them. How can Being be without the Irrational? How can wisdom exist without the craziness? In a world with no meaning, how can you search for it unless you are truly crazy? In a world of nothingness how can you seek anything, unless completely deranged? Travel through time. With no paradoxes created. Is there anything more paradoxical than that? Look. It is you. Travelled through time. To speak. (Be honest. Don’t be afraid.) In a world filled with silence, the greatest paradox of them all is what you experience each day. (Can you listen to what I said yesterday?)

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Philosophy Wire: Quantum states. Forever. Now! (Watch for Socrates)

A team of scientists has announced the discovery of a simple modification that allows quantum systems to stay operational - or 'coherent' - 10,000 times longer than before. [1] One second. Ten thousand seconds. A century. A thousand years. Forever. Different words meaning the same thing: Now. For all there ever is, is now. Look at the water drops falling. The bee buzzing. Worlds colliding. Empires falling. Do you feel it? No, they did not crumble in the past. Look at Rome burning! And stop looking at those stupid particles. Socrates dies as we speak! Whispering to us…

(Nothing is coherent… Except the world that is not…)

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Smart clocks…

Photo by Spiros Kakos @ Pexels

A new study of molecular interactions central to the functioning of biological clocks explains how certain mutations can shorten clock timing, making some people extreme 'morning larks' because their internal clocks operate on a 20-hour cycle instead of being synchronized with the 24-hour cycle of day and night. Researchers found that the same molecular switch mechanism affected by these mutations is at work in animals ranging from fruit flies to people. [1] We value synchronization. But synchronization with what? Who defines the things we define? Look at your clock. Be late. The safest way to lose time is to be on time, as Henry Wotton used to say. Try to synchronize with yourself. And you will see that there is nothing to do. Bright day. Dark night. The clocks are already set in motion. All they need is someone to read the hour…

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Philosophy Wire: Tik tak… Tik tak…

By measuring the fast electrical spikes of individual neurons in the touch region of the brain, neuroscientists have discovered a new type of cell that keeps time so regularly that it may serve as the brain's long-hypothesized clock or metronome. [1] A cosmos changing. A human dying. Open your eyes. Look at you and cry. There is a river passing by. Can you feel it in your feet? You are now too long in that river and you have forgotten. That the only reason you saw the river was because you weren't in it in the first place…

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Philosophy Wire: Circadian clocks

Researchers have suspected that the body's various circadian clocks can operate independently from the central clock in the hypothalamus of the brain. Now, they have found a way to test that theory. [1] Life is defined by time. Time passing by. Skipping through our fingers. There are many clocks counting this time. Which can only mean that there is none… Tic Tak… Tic Tak… Falling asleep we will soon be… And the ticking of the clock will go away… We were sleeping long enough. It is time to rest now. Until the ticking of the clock wakes us up again…

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Philosophy Wire: From death to life… Timeless…

Fossilised newborns, egg shells, and egg bursters preserved together in amber provide the first direct evidence of how insects broke the barrier separating them from life and took their first steps into an ancient forest 130 million-year-old. [1] We love staring at ‘moments frozen in time’. We believe we know – even though we can never understand why – that the cosmos is made out of such moments. We believe in that magical river of which a wise man talked about so long ago. And yet, we missed the whole point he was trying to make. Looking at the finger instead of looking at the moon. There is not a single experience we can experience inside that flowing river. We can never enter again the river. Not because the river changes. But because we are that river. Look at the raging waves. Behold of the deep unknown abyss. Only a drop inside it can grasp it so clearly…

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Philosophy Wire: Orangutans. Past. Future. Humans.

Orangutans are the only non-human primates we know of who can talk about the past. [1] Gifted we are. Seeing the past. Pondering on the future. And yet, there is something wrong with this nice picture. We used to cry. We used to laugh. Now we do neither. Now we cry about someone. Now we laugh about something. We used to feel. But now we don’t anymore. We just feel things. We used to exist. We do not exist now. We only do for a reason. We used to think. We do not think anymore. We just think for something. Only because we have forgotten that Being is only about non-thinking. The picture is crying now. Gifted we think we are. But the orangutan is laughing. Seeing the past. Pondering on the future. But only because he does not see the present…

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Philosophy Wire: Did you see it?

We experience the world through our senses, a constant torrent of sights, sounds, smells, and more. Our brains take these signals and process them, giving rise to our individual perceptions of the world. But sometimes our senses play tricks on us, notably in the case of perceptual illusions. Now, Caltech researchers have developed two new illusions that reveal how the senses can influence each other -- in particular, how sound can give rise to visual illusions. These illusions occur so quickly that they illustrate a phenomenon called postdiction (as opposed to prediction) in which a stimulus that occurs later can retroactively affect our perceptions of an earlier event. The Caltech work is among the first to show this kind of time-traveling illusion across multiple senses. [1]

Seeing what is not there. Because we heard something. Remembering of what was not there. Because we saw something. Living on what is not here. Because we die someday.

Fleeting moments. Ghostly presences.
Dancing on the border of existence.

Lift the veil of time.
And you will see.
They are all standing…

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Philosophy Wire: Time distortions.

When you move your body in time to a rhythm, your perception of time stretches and contracts. The finding might help us pin down which parts of the brain control our internal clocks. “Distortions of perceived time are coupled to the timing of your actions, which are dictated by an internal rhythm,” says Alice Tomassini at the Italian Institute of Technology in Ferrara. [1] People tapping fingers. People breathing. People dancing. Listening to music over the shadow of existence silently watching over. Time flowing into oblivion. Beyond the veil of nothingness shrouding everything. A cosmos made out of nothing. Only when it seizes being, will we realize that it was never there…

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Philosophy Wire: Predicting the future…

Photo by Marlon Martinez from Pexels

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2019-10-01]: Scientists have invented a software that can 'see' several minutes into the future. [1] Predicting the future. Based on what has happened already. Predicting what is happening today. Based on what will happen tomorrow. Sitting on either side of mirror we are. Trying to figure out the cosmos. Not understanding that breaking the mirror was the solution in the first place…

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Philosophy Wire: Light. Interactions. Abyss. Perception. Cosmic cycles.

Researchers have devised a new way to make light interact with matter. Reducing the wavelength of light could allow it to be absorbed or emitted by a semiconductor, their study suggests. [1] One. Not interacting with anything. Two. Interacting with each other. Many. Producing a chaos of interactions. Now the ocean is raging. Seemingly untamable. Irrational and dark. The abyss of existence. Hiding deep inside the greatest secret of them all. That there is nothing interacting. A small crab walks in the depths of the sea. Eaten by a fish. Killed by a great shark. Caught by a human. Eating next to the fire. The man dies now. The fire will soon go out. The crab will soon go out for a stroll…

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Philosophy Wire: Seeing behind corners… yourself!

Seeing behind corners. By reflecting light. [1] In the beginning there was nothing. And then came light. Bouncing ever since to the boundaries of the cosmos. We now try hard to see. To take a glance at the beginning of time, where everything started. Bouncing light around the corners of the universe. Reaching the very end. Some day we will be able to see. That the end is the beginning. That the only thing lurking around that corner is… us. Watching patiently since the beginning of time. Waiting to tell us the great secret of life. That there is no secret…

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Philosophy Wire: Erasing the past. Building the future.

Physicists insist on determinism: your past and present determine your future uniquely, per Einstein's equations of general relativity. They call this strong cosmic censorship. A mathematician found some types of black holes - charged, non-rotating objects in an expanding universe - that allow an observer inside the black hole to travel across a horizon into a place where the past is obliterated and there are an infinite number of possible futures for every initial state. [1] Humans believing in a past and a future, all determining the present. (see this article here and relevant posts in Harmonia Philosophica for how the future affects the present) A present which in essence never existed or can ever exist. Consisting just by fleeting moments in an illusionary river (time), which we can never cross. Try to put your feet into that river and it will go away. We have split the water into zillions of droplets and yet we can feel none of them. Go into the black hole and see for yourself. There was no river in the first place. Only empty space; flowing through nothingness. Start fresh. Be born again. Oh look! What a nice river…

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Philosophy Wire: Past. Present. Future. Video. MIT.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2017-03-13]: MIT has used machine learning to create video from still images, and the results are pretty impressive. The system "learns" types of videos (beach, baby, golf swing...) and, starting from still images, replicates the movements that are most commonly seen in those videos. [1] Look at the sparrow flying. The past is not past. The future is already here. In our minds. The sparrow is gone. It was never here.

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Philosophy Wire: Time flowing backwards. Death and life. Love.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2015-04-18]:

Time seems to be able to flow backwards. [1]
What will happen affects what has happened.
What has happened has not happened yet.

What is dead is alive. What is alive is already dead.

Love.
Everywhere.
Why do you care?
You are here.
And you hold my hand.
Now.
Then.
Forever.

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Philosophy Wire: Time capsules…

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2015-01-19]: People burring time capsules. [1] We all want to leave our mark in time. What we do not understand is that we have already left our mark. Find a real time capsule. Go back to the time when you lived. Find your self again. Convince him to destroy that time capsule. Stop wanting to live in the future. There is no future. There is no past. You live here and now. For ever.

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Philosophy Wire: Time. Life. Death. Lanza.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-12-21]: 'Professor Robert Lanza claims that life creates the universe, and not the other way around. Lanza is no newbie to controversy. He has been working with cloning and stem cell research for over a decade and with his new book Biocentrism, he is attracting even more controversy. While his ideas are ahead of their time, it doesn't help that the current scientific community is very opposed to new ideas and change.

"This means space and time don’t exist in the linear fashion we think it does and he uses the famous double-split experiment to illustrate his point". According to Lanza’s study, if space and time aren’t linear, then death can’t exist in ‘any real sense’ either. [1]

Time and timeless.
Death and life.
Existence and non-existence.
Something and nothing.

So difficult to define.
So opposites and yet so close to one another.
Difficult to distinguish.
And when you can not do something easily, maybe the reason is simple.

Maybe you just cannot do it...

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Philosophy Wire: What has passed... What is still here...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-06-29]: Wormholes, time travels, communication with superluminous speeds. [1] Everything is possible! Everything can be done!  Everything is away and yet everything is near you. Everything is different and yet everything is One. I tell you so! Your future self! Or your past self? It does not matter. What is past has not passed. What is to come may have come already. We are all in a hole. Wandering for the obvious...

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