Hi. I wonder if any of you learned people have any idea as to how the dimension of time is incorporated into biology - if it is. It occurred to me - and I'm just a layman - after reading a few popular science books on evolution that time seems to have been the major factor in the evolution of complex organic lifeforms - billlions of years of it. Does this mean that time, in the way that physicists talk about it, is part of our physical biology?
Um, I dont mean to be rude, but thats almost a nonsense question. I once read a quote (dont remember who) that said "Time is just the universe's way of keeping everything from happening at once". Keep in mind that our planet is <b>OLD</b> 4.5 billion years or so. Now <i>timing</i> is a integral part of our biology, everything works around the speed of chemical reactions or how fast signalling chemicals (hormones, neutotransmitters, etc) move about, and even how to hold us up in a gravity field (which does bend time by a microscopic amount). But nothing like "near the event horizon of a black hole time is almost stopped to an outside observer" or something along those lines. Now duration and evolution are linked due to the rate that the environmental or stressors mutation rates occur "i.e. on average 1 mutation per 20 mins" Evolution has progressed very rapidly on Earth in the last third of its existance mainly because once you have the basic parts worked out (nucleated cells, mitochondria, multi-cellular organisms, bones, muscles, brains, nerves, blood, etc) its mainly a matter of shuffling the parts around and increasing or decreasing the size/rate of development of those parts. Getting the basic parts worked out took a Loooooooong time. By the way (and I'm not trying to be funny), do you realize that as you're mutating as you read this. A mutation is just a unplanned change in DNA, as you sit there there is damage to your DNA going on; free radicals, ozone, cosmic rays, cellular metabolic by-products, division transcription errors, etc, are all doing bad things to your DNA. Usually 99% of it is repaired immediately but there's always a little bit left, depending if that error is in your germ plasm or not means whether or not its passed on to your offspring or no. If it helps your offspring survive (in their particular environment) its a benificial mutation and will have a tend to be favorably passed on. If it harms your offspring its a deleterious (bad for you) mutation and your offspring will have a lesser chance of surviving to reproduce. The bad mutations overwhelming outnumber the good ones, but the good ones do happen. BAM! evolution in action before our very eyes. BTW, its been documented that DNA mutation rates go WAY up when an organism is stressed. [my own conclusions here] it could be a mechanism for species survival in changing environments, for example; a swamp dries up, a bunch of variants of a organism arise due to the increased mutation rate, one of the mutants is better able to survive in a dried up swamp and so has a better chance to pass on its genes to its offspring. Its offspring still arent perfectly adapted to a dried up swamp so the mutation rate is still high, more variants are produced in the population, most are bad, some are good. Run this scenario through N number of generations and pretty soon you get a frog that once lived in a swamp and now lives in grasslands, or a desert or a forest, you should get the idea by now. Damn, wrote a dang novel
Mmmm.....thankyou for your extended reply. I think what I was trying to ask, in a confused manner, is this: since our consciousness is biological in origin, does this mean that time has a biological origin too? Does this make any sense? Cheers!
Now thats a different kettle of another color! If I understand your question right, you want to know if our perception of time originates in our mind or if time has a reality independent of what we observe. This is more of a philosophy question than anything else. The sticky up at the top of human science has a few hundred links going into thought and perception, far beyond my knowlege. I'm not really qualified to answer this definitevely, but my opinion is that time has a objective reality, mainly because time is an integral part of General Relativity and Special Relativity and so is a dimension just like the other three.
I think that the answer is no! That would mean there was no time before our consciousness. Therefore, consciousness must be as old as time. That pretty much makes evolutsion from single-cell organisms pointless. Or at least, jump from chemicals to single-celled organism.
As is written: "If you want to know about the evolution of life on Earth, you have to keep track of time. "How fast did it change?" can only be assessed in the context of time."" Look at the "Cambrian Explosion." Why the sudden onset of diversity in multicellular organisms in a time-frame of only ten million years? Increased acceleration of climate changes (glaciation) and a dramatic rise of oxygen on earth. In microevolution, "physical biology," current consensus is that genetic mutations are more influenced by the morphological phenotype. Just thought I'd throw this all in to stir the forum around a bit.
Consciousness has a biological origin because it only exists in the biological brains of mammals. Only mammals have the neral equipment (interconnected neurons with long-range axons) required for consciousness. Consciousness is thought to be a biological adaptation for survival. The famous psychologist William James thought that "Waking consciousness was but one state out of many, its significance being only for survival of the biological organism in the external world." More recently theories have expanded: "Neural systems and consciousness are regulated by conformational states of brain proteins including membrane receptors, channels, second messengers, and cytoskeletal components such as microtubules....The origin of consciousness is proposed to arise from the self-conversation of groups of neurons at the peak of the hierarchy, probably involving 10,000 to 1,000,000 cells." "Propositions for Consciousness: 1) Biological consciousness exists only within conscious living organisms: a) Biological consciousness depends upon biological representation of information; b) After system dissolution, biologically stored information is no longer physically retrievable; c) Biological consciousness cannot exist after death. 2) After death, the energy equivalent of stored biological information must be either dissipated, radiated, or transferred." http://www.zynet.co.uk/imprint/Tucson/4.htm See also "Biomolecular Consciousness": "Quantum Consciousness: Ultimate Computing": http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/ultimatecomputing/
I am distrustful of philosophy. Human thought did not create the world. If we cannot come to a simple and unambiguous understanding of time then perhaps it is because it does not exist. For example, like a fire breathing dragon of old, which people could never find although they had heard tales of it, and perhaps turned up 'evidence' for it - like scorched ground and burnt bodies etc... In this sense, evolution has had nothing to do with time - but with some unknown constant.
sorry, newbie up for something to say. um, if you're so distrustful if philosophy, why do you seem to support the belief that time doesnt exist, but a mere fragment of our consciousness? physical evidence states that time does exist, even before we were conscious. how did you think that rocks weather, wind moves, etc, if we didn't have a concept of time? our concept of time as humans is arranging things by units of time, and this concept is something we created. time itself is existent, and proof of it is change. according to darwin, species change OVER time, by our concept of time, it will take millions of years. they /did/ change, because they were similar, but they are different (look at the finches he studied at the galapagos). even if we humans did not exist, there will still be time, there will still be change, and i believe that evolution will still occur,but how other sentient species will percieve it will be different. on the biological basis of time--in the beginning, there was just time. biology, or the study of life, originated after time moved on, because changes occured, molecules and energy developed over a period of (again) time. organisms made use of this energy to maintain their lives, they lived and they died, even if we weren't conscious of it. i think it would be proper to put this discussion under the philosophy portion. (headache....)
Hi. When I say time doesn't exist I don't mean its only in the mind. I mean it doesn't exist. Movement has always been present in the world but this has nothing to do with 'time' or any human idea. If everything is in motion (including us), how then can we talk about organic change? Evolutionists use time as a constant against which the 'change' of an organism is mapped. But if that constant is removed - then what? I sympathise with your headache.
dmac2020 look in the mirror today and then look again in ten years time i suspect before you will be some evidence for the existance of time and its passing
The fact that things "happen" prove that time exists. We can argue about our units of time measurement, seconds, days , months and so on, but time is still there. Take for example t=0. In this case we require no units, time is now completely unsubjective. But what happens at t=0? Nothing happens. Movement implies time.
But there is movement both inside and outside our bodies. Therefore, 'time' is flowing around us and through us. There is no barrier between our internal world and the external world in terms of movement. As Heraclitus said: "you cannot step into the same river twice". Since 'time' is relative it is open to change. Something which can be affected by change can be abandoned. Let us abandon time. Evolutionists attempts to explain life using 'time' are bogus. They are as bogus as appealing to creationism.
OK, so what happens when we abandon time? Oh look, the entire corpus of science dissappears. And you cant talk to us using the computer that you are using just now, smartarse.
I've had an idea now for a while that there is a "Planck" unit of time of incredibly small duration. That time proceeds in these small chunks step by step. The idea was that from each step of time there are uncountable quantum possibilites (some with more probability than others) for reality for the next step of time, then the wave function collapses into a new reality and time moves on to the next chunk of time. The planck unit of time is the duration from one step to another.
Occasionally I read a series of posts by an individual and realise they are operating on a different plane. Whether this is a higher one than that which I frequent is not for me to say. I shall make some observations, and the answers may provide insight. There is no connection between the first sentence and the second. Your conclusion, dmac, is groundless. Moreover, how does time flow around us, or through us?. Yes there is. It may be a semi-permeable barrier, but it is there. For example, temperature is movement. As a mammal I typically maintain a different temperature from that of my surroundings, therefore the atomic and molecular movements within my body are different in magnitude from those outside.. Since this was said in the context of the Doctrine of Universal Flux and Identity of Opposites, wherein Heraclitus seeks to demonstrate that it is precisely because rivers are changing that they are rivers, then how can you use it to support your dismissal of change?. Abandoned by what? By whom? This is meaningless science and ersatz philosophy.. You may abandon time. Time will not abandon you. .. Perhaps this sentence has meaning for you. To us mere mortals it has the appearance of a chiffon scarf caught in a hurricane.
I'm not on a plane.... I'm on the ground. Maybe you should try and get down here? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I was responding to a previous poster who said that movement implies time. Since everything is moving, including our internal bodies, we have no stable reference point from which to verify something called 'time'. Einsteins work presupposes 'observers' who can experience 'time' as something either happening TO them or TO someone else. Since it does not deal with the possibility of time flowing through us, ie, we are inseperable from the environment, the notion of 'time' can be called into question. Furthermore, Einsteins thought experiments all deal with technological objects such as lifts, trains, spacecraft, etc... These are unnatural, man-made objects and therefore there use in experiemnts to prove a 'natural' force/dimension is questionable.
You have conveniently avoided addressing any of the points I raised. Repetition of unassociated and unsubstantiated opinion is not necessarily conducive to discussion.
