@Warfarer

There is the question as to how "subjective time" relates to time.

We have a memory of driving through the city and we are aware of presently walking through the forest. But even our awareness of presently walking through the forest is a memory, because the transfer of information from the forest to our mind is limited by the speed of light.

Therefore, the conscious mind is always comparing two memories, the memory of driving in the city and the memory of walking through the forest. The conscious mind is aware that these two memories are different, and the conscious mind understands that memories that are different have different "times".

Yet, as the clock only exists in the "now", the conscious mind can only exist in the "now". As you wrote about the clock “Each successive ‘now’ of the clock contains nothing of the past because each moment, each unit, is separate and distinct". Exactly the same applies to the mind, such that “Each successive ‘now’ of the conscious mind contains nothing of the past because each moment, each unit, is separate and distinct".

The conscious mind, which only exists in the "now", can compare two memories, which also only exist in the "now". The conscious mind can be aware that these memories are different, and this difference is labelled as "time".

For the conscious mind, "time" is something that can only exist in the "now" as a difference in memories, which also can only exist in the "now".

In effect, a difference in memories that are both in the "now" can be labelled "a change in time".

Subjective time in the conscious mind is something that can only exist in the "now".
a day ago — RussellA

Thank you for your thoughtful responses to my post. Your argument highlights that our experience and awareness of time are rooted in the present moment, or the 'now,' and that the relationship between two distinct 'nows' is mediated by the mind through memory. Let me address the crucial role of this mediation.
In Bergson’s example, when the mind contemplates the sounds of the four o'clock strikes, each stroke or excitation is logically independent of the others. One instance does not appear until the other has disappeared. Yet, something qualitatively new happens in the contemplating mind. When the first stroke appears, I anticipate the second, and with the second, I retain the first. There is a synthesis of time that operates through the repetition of independent and homogeneous instances. Unlike any mere memory of distinct elements, we contract them into an internal, qualitative impression within the living present. In this way, Bergson distinguishes between duration and a measured, objective time. Duration cannot be quantified or divided into discrete units like clock time. Instead, it constitutes a continuous flow—a multiplicity of moments that are not separate but interrelated.The argument you provided suggests that the conscious mind exists only in the "now," comparing two memories that are themselves always part of the present moment. However, subjective time refers to a flow of past, present, and future that are inextricably interconnected. Therefore, your examples of driving through the city or walking through the forest cannot represent two distinct moments stored in memory. Rather, they designate a continuous flow of experience. Time is not merely the gap between two moments (“the memory of the city” vs. “the memory of the forest”). A leisurely walk in the forest after driving there for a hike feels completely different from rushing through the forest to save a life while being chased by gangsters. The intricate interplay between virtual pasts, the actual present, and future anticipations constantly evolves, shaping and influencing all aspects of our temporal experience.

there is no 'objective time' per se - time itself is inextricably linked to the subjective awareness of it — Wayfarer

You are correct that no measurement exists outside of conscious temporary awareness. However, Bergson did not completely reject objective time. He differentiated between 'measured time' and 'lived time,' arguing that time cannot be fully captured by concepts or categories alone. Instead, there is likely a complex interplay between these two forms of time.

If 'now' is defined as the moment information reaches our senses (say light beams from various sources coincide with your position in space) we can define now in terms of information being at a certain point in space. But what if nobody is there to know the information (light beams) is reaching that point in space? The light beams still arrive so do they constitute a 'now'? — EnPassant

@Number2018 makes the point that clocks don't measure time, as each successive "now" of the clock contains nothing of the past.

@Number 2018 - Evan Thompson points out Bergson’s position regarding a relation between subjective and objective times: “Each successive ‘now’ of the clock contains nothing of the past because each moment, each unit, is separate and distinct.......................Clocks don’t measure time

By the same argument, as the clock is a physical mechanism and only exists in the "now", the brain can only exist in the "now", as the brain is also a physical mechanism.

Suppose I have the memory of a clock showing 2pm and the memory of a clock showing 3pm. As my mind can only exist in the "now", both my memory of a clock showing 2pm and my memory of a clock showing 3pm exist in my "now".

If there is nobody to have a memory of the clock showing 2pm, then as before, it remains the case that the clock exists in its "now".

The problem with defining "now" as the moment information reaches our senses is the use of the word "moment". "Moment" assumes the existence of time, which "now" specifically excludes.

The definition of "now" cannot include the word "moment".

The problem with defining "now" as the moment information reaches our senses is the use of the word "moment". "Moment" assumes the existence of time, which "now" specifically excludes.

The definition of "now" cannot include the word "moment". — RussellA

But what if we leave out 'moment' and instead say that light beams arrive simultaneously at a certain location. Isn't that a 'now'? We can even, in principle, predict where a now will be if we forecast when the information/light beams will arrive at a specified location. Or, more simply, we can say there is a unique "information set" at a certain location in space and that information constitutes a 'now' at that location.

You are correct that no measurement exists outside of conscious temporary awareness. However, Bergson did not completely reject objective time. He differentiated between 'measured time' and 'lived time,' arguing that time cannot be fully captured by concepts or categories alone. Instead, there is likely a complex interplay between these two forms of time. — Number2018

Surely. But to say that time has a subjective element, does not therefore say that it is simply subjective. All subjects can measure time according to an objective measurement, but it regardless will always involve a subject. It’s a mistake to think of it as wholly subjective or wholly objective; it is what could be called co-arising.

The argument you provided suggests that the conscious mind exists only in the "now," comparing two memories that are themselves always part of the present moment. However, subjective time refers to a flow of past, present, and future that are inextricably interconnected. — Number2018

A clock strikes four times. There is the quantitative. In the world, each strike is independent of the others. As you wrote “Each successive ‘now’ of the clock contains nothing of the past because each moment, each unit, is separate and distinct.". There is the qualitative. In the mind, the four strikes are inextricably connected as part of a continuous flow of experience from past, present and future.

As I understand it, subjective time is the mind's consciousness of the relation between the four strikes, and objective time is the relation between the four strikes in the absence of any mind.

I know subjective time because it is in my mind. However, I can only infer objective time because it is outside my mind.

Let the clock strike four times.

At the moment I hear the clock strike for the fourth time, I have the memory of hearing the clock strike for the first time. When I hear the clock strike for the fourth time, for me, this is my "now". My memory of hearing the clock strike for the first time is also in my "now". In my "now" are both the memory of the clock striking for the first time and hearing the clock strike for the fourth time. The relation between the memory of the clock striking for the first time and hearing the clock strike for the fourth time comprises my awareness of subjective time. But this subjective time only exists for me in my "now", meaning that my subjective time is an instantaneous thing that requires no objective time at all.

In other words, subjective time requires no objective time.

You say that "subjective time refers to a flow of past, present and future that are inextricably interconnected".

I agree if you are saying that the past exists in our mind as a memory.

However, I may be wrong, but I infer that by past you are referring to an objective past, a past that exists independently of any observer. If that is the case, in order for the mind to have a consciousness of a subjective time, how exactly does the mind connect an objective past to an objective present?

1) Do people exist in both the objective past and objective present, thereby allowing them
an awareness of the flow of time?

2) Does the person only exist in the objective present, the "now", but their mind is able to go back to an objective past, thereby allowing them an awareness of the flow of time?

How exactly does a person connect an objective past to an objective present if not by a memory that exists in the objective present?

But what if nobody is there to know the information (light beams) is reaching that point in space? The light beams still arrive so do they constitute a 'now'? — EnPassant

That's how I see it.

Suppose a photon of light leaves an object and arrives at an eye 100 metres away. On its way to the eye, the photon passes through every point between the object and the eye, of which there are an infinite number. As the photon can only be in one place at one time (ignoring complexities of quantum mechanics), at each point the photon passes through, it exists in the present time, it exists in the "now". Either there are an infinite number of "nows" between the object and the eye or there is only one "now", where the photon happens to be at any moment in time.

As the photon can only be in one place at one time, and at each place the photon is in the "now", this means that there can only be one "now".

On its way to the eye, the photon passes through every point between the object and the eye, of which there are an infinite number. As the photon can only be in one place at one time (ignoring complexities of quantum mechanics), at each point the photon passes through, it exists in the present time, it exists in the "now". Either there are an infinite number of "nows" between the object and the eye or there is only one "now", where the photon happens to be at any moment in time. — RussellA

That picture of the photon passing through every point on a classical trajectory assumes a deterministic path and a continuous sequence of objective instants. But Wheeler’s delayed choice experiment casts serious doubt on whether such a path can be meaningfully assigned at all. In quantum mechanics, the photon doesn’t have a definite position at each moment unless measured.

In fact, what counts as the history of the photon (did it take one path? both? neither?) can depend on a measurement made after the photon has already passed the apparatus. This suggests that there is no determinate series of spatial locations or temporal “nows” that the photon occupies independently of the measurement context.

So no—we can’t “ignore quantum mechanics” here, because it challenges the very assumptions that underlie the idea of a photon existing at some location at each moment in time. Meaning the example of a photon does not serve the argument (ref).

It's also worth remembering that special relativity already showed us that time is not absolute. The rate at which time passes depends on the observer's frame of reference—what counts as “now” for one observer is not “now” for another moving at a different velocity. There is no single universal present in relativity. (Hence the name ;-) )

both of which reinforce my point that time has an ineluctably subjective element. That doesn't mean that it is subjective or only in the mind but that it cannot be understood as objective in any absolute sense.

That picture of the photon passing through every point on a classical trajectory assumes a deterministic path and a continuous sequence of objective instants. — Wayfarer

Why should it be that because a photon's path through space and time is unknowable to an observer, that its path is not spatially and temporally objectively deterministic?

A photon of light leaves the Andromeda Galaxy and enters a person's eye 2.537 million light-years later.

The photon must have had a path, because it made its way from the Andromeda Galaxy to the Earth, even if the path cannot meaningfully be assigned by an observer.

In having a path, the photon must have had a spatial location at each moment in time, even if in the absence of any measurement by an observer its definite position was unknown and even if each moment in time is unknown because it depends on different observers' frame of reference.

Perhaps, as for Kant, even though he argued for the unknowability of noumena, he still believed in the objective existence of a world independent of any subjective observer.

How exactly does a person connect an objective past to an objective present if not by a memory that exists in the objective present? — RussellA

The objective present you speak of is complicated, not simple.

What this is, is hard to say because language itself it performed in sequential thinking, I mean, to think at all has its superficial analysis always already IN objective time, as when I note how 'in' "follows" 'already' in the preceding phrase. But this does not at all imply that such sequential thinking is primordial (any more that "things fall downward" exhausts the basic analysis of gravity). All one has to do is take a closer look at the apriority of time: What is it to engage the past? To recall itself is an event in the present act of recalling, and one cannot even conceive of the past qua past, as an independent event or body of possibilities or some stand alone condition. No, the past is only the past IN the recollection that is performed in the present; but then, this leaves the present in question: can the present be regarded as some "stand alone" supposition? One has to examine the present's apriori structure: In order for the present to be more than just some abstract concept lifted from ordinary time-talk, it must be understood in terms of its actuality: to recall is to recall something, and this something can only be of the past (keeping in mind that the intent here is to be "descriptive" of the apriori structure of time, putting speculation on hold), and the past is the totality of events of the having-been (to borrow a phrase). So the present as such cannot be understood apart from the past--the past is analytically IN the present, meaning it is nonsense to speak of the present as some fleeting movement forward that carries nothing at all but itself. The present is inherently historical. The future: In the event that a future is imagined, conceived, understood, etc., it is anticipated. All events are future looking, even as I lift this coffee cup, the familiarity of coffee cups immediately takes control, and this belongs to the past. the future is literally nothing without the past, not can it be conceived apart from the present act that anticipates it by drawing upon the past's totality of possibilities. Call it the "not yet" of any given conscious moment.

This kind of thinking leads here: The three modalities of time are really one. One cannot isolate any one modality and speak of it as such, for this analytically carries along with it the other two. Everyday time, and Einstein's space time, and all that physics can say about time, presuppose this analysis.

It is also what can properly be called metaphysics, simply because this apriority is not witnessable empirically, quantitatively. It is "about" the world", yet it is apriori! It is what I call good metaphysics, not the nonsense we associate with medieval theology. Analytically responsible metaphysics. It belongs to phenomenology.

At the moment I hear the clock strike for the fourth time, I have the memory of hearing the clock strike for the first time. When I hear the clock strike for the fourth time, for me, this is my "now". My memory of hearing the clock strike for the first time is also in my "now". In my "now" are both the memory of the clock striking for the first time and hearing the clock strike for the fourth time. The relation between the memory of the clock striking for the first time and hearing the clock strike for the fourth time comprises my awareness of subjective time. But this subjective time only exists for me in my "now", meaning that my subjective time is an instantaneous thing that requires no objective time at all. — RussellA

in order for the mind to have a consciousness of a subjective time, how exactly does the mind connect an objective past to an objective present?

1) Do people exist in both the objective past and objective present, thereby allowing them
an awareness of the flow of time?

2) Does the person only exist in the objective present, the "now", but their mind is able to go back to an objective past, thereby allowing them an awareness of the flow of time?

How exactly does a person connect an objective past to an objective present if not by a memory that exists in the objective present? — RussellA

Let me clarify my view on the relationship between subjective and objective time. Subjective time highlights the mind’s role in constructing and experiencing temporal flow. Hume and Bergson used the example of a clock to show how subjective time allows the mind to transcend a fleeting, current moment of experience. You are correct that all mental operations, including memory, occur within a single moment of objective time. However, the contents of memory do not coexist in the same way that physical objects like furniture in my room do. Instead, memories form an evolving, continuous whole possessing all dimensions of time. For Bergson, the actual refers to the reality we directly experience in the present moment, while the virtual designates past experiences or memories that are not immediately present but exist in a latent state. They have distinct ways of existing. Virtual memories are not separate from our actual state since memory continuously reactivates past experiences and integrates them into the ongoing flow of the present moment.
On the other side, when we experience subjective time in consciousness, we cannot separate this process from external temporal processes.
Objective time involves a framework for measuring time and organizing the external procedures that mediate and shape our temporal consciousness. Our time-related tools and activities, such as clocks, schedules, and social or technological rhythms, are embedded within our practices and guide our memory. For example, when one remembers the clock striking for the first time, this memory is not merely a mental image. It is connected to the external structure of the clock’s strikes; discrete, periodic sounds mark time in everyday life. Mechanical and tower clocks constructed external dimensions of time by aligning them with visible and audible signals. They structured collective activities as well as individual temporal experiences. By marking regular intervals through mechanical sounds and visual cues, tower and striking clocks imposed an external memory framework onto daily practices. It created a shared rhythm that synchronized individual experiences and embedded a collective temporal memory into social practices and personal routines. Without these measurable objective markers, the flow of subjective experience might lose coherence or structure. Since our temporal consciousness now adapts to different temporal cues, one is unlikely to perform the clock’s exemplary synthesis of retention and anticipation. Subjective time structures are not fixed; they evolve with the events themselves.

The three modalities of time are really one. One cannot isolate any one modality and speak of it as such, for this analytically carries along with it the other two..............It is also what can properly be called metaphysics, simply because this apriority is not witnessable empirically, quantitatively. It is "about" the world", yet it is apriori! — Astrophel

You write that the three modalities of time, the past, the present and the future, are really one, and are to be understood within metaphysics, about the world yet outside the world.

I suggested that my subjective time only exists in my present.

But this subjective time only exists for me in my "now", meaning that my subjective time is an instantaneous thing that requires no objective time at all.

@Number2018 wrote about subjective time

The argument you provided suggests that the conscious mind exists only in the "now," comparing two memories that are themselves always part of the present moment. However, subjective time refers to a flow of past, present, and future that are inextricably interconnected.

The past, present and future certainly exist in language and thought. For example, "last year I visited Paris, today I am in Seville and next year I will visit Reno.".

However, the fact that I can talk and think about the future is no reason to believe that this future will ever exist. Similarly, that I can talk about the past is no reason to believe that this past ever existed. That I can think and talk about the past and future is no reason that this past and future ever existed or will ever exist.

I agree that the three modalities of time in thought and language are inextricably linked. I can only talk about visiting Reno in the future if I am not in Reno at the present, and I can only talk about having visited Paris in the past if also I not in Paris in the present. Talk about the past and future only make sense in relation to the present.

In thought and language there is an inevitable flow of past, present and future that are inextricably connected. In my conscious mind there is a subjective temporal flow between the past, present and future. Last year I visited Paris, I am now in Seville and next year I will be in Reno.

I think, therefore I am in the present.

But it is in this present that I talk and think about the past, present and future. It is accepted that it is not necessary to teletransport to a future existence in order to be to talk or think about it. Similarly, it is also not necessary to teletransport to a past existence to be able to talk or think about it.

But this talking and thinking about the past, present and future is the foundation for my conscious experience of subjective time. As my talking and thinking exists in my present, my conscious experience must also exist in my present.

My present is momentary, neither in the past nor the future. In effect, timeless. My subjective time, which also exists in this momentary present, must therefore also be timeless.

My subjective time flows from the past to the present to the future. All these exist in my present when I talk and think about them, meaning that my subjective time is also something that only exists, metaphysically speaking, in my present.

Subjective time highlights the mind’s role in constructing and experiencing temporal flow. Hume and Bergson used the example of a clock to show how subjective time allows the mind to transcend a fleeting, current moment of experience. You are correct that all mental operations, including memory, occur within a single moment of objective time. However, the contents of memory do not coexist in the same way that physical objects like furniture in my room do. Instead, memories form an evolving, continuous whole possessing all dimensions of time. — Number2018

As you wrote, Bergson believed that subjective time ("duration", "lived time") of the conscious individual is able to transcend the objective time of the current moment of experience. I don't disagree with that, but it all depends on the meaning of "transcend".

Evan Thompson in his article Clock time contra lived time wrote that the difference between Einstein and Bergson as regards the nature of time has narrowed in the intervening years.

"In the century since 1922, the conceptual distance between the German physicist and the French philosopher seems to have shrunk."

I tend to agree with both Einstein and Bergson, as two different approaches to the same problem.

Einstein's approach is that of objective time. His approach is that of physics and mathematics. In his special theory of relativity, the time measured by a clock is no longer an absolute because simultaneous events are only simultaneous in one frame of reference.

Bergson's approach is that of subjective time. His approach is that of the psychologist. It is about human experience, the lived experience of the passage of time and the experience of duration. Things that cannot be measured as they elude the possibility of measurement.

Objective time independent of an observer and subjective time dependent upon an observer are two aspects of the true nature of time, and it for the the philosopher to unite them into a single cohesive whole. But this is problematic, as Kant showed in his Critique of Pure Reason. Kant may believe in the existence of an external world, yet never able to know the noumena that inhabit this external world. The clock may be part of an objective time, but only a subjective observer is able to read what the clock shows. As Thompson says "Clocks don’t measure time; we do." We may live in a block-universe, where the passage of time from past to present to future is an illusion. However, we could only know this if we were able to stand outside our own frame of reference, which is logically impossible.

I agree when you say that "all mental operations, including memory, occur within a single moment of objective time". I think that this has important and relevant implications, but not discussed within the Thompson article. As I wrote before "But this subjective time only exists for me in my "now", meaning that my subjective time is an instantaneous thing that requires no objective time at all." I agree with Bergson that the subjective time of our conscious mind is different to the objective time of the clock in the world, and we feel that our subjective duration of lived experience transcends the objective single moment of "now". Yet this subjective duration of time exists in a single objective moment of time.

For me, philosophically, an interesting question not raised by Thompson's article is how we are able to subjectively feel the duration of time within a single momentary objective instant of time.

Why should it be that because a photon's path through space and time is unknowable to an observer, that its path is not spatially and temporally objectively deterministic?

A photon of light leaves the Andromeda Galaxy and enters a person's eye 2.537 million light-years later.

The photon must have had a path, because it made its way from the Andromeda Galaxy to the Earth, even if the path cannot meaningfully be assigned by an observer. — RussellA

You should really take a look at the article I linked earlier about John Wheeler—it directly challenges the idea that a photon must have had a definite path.

Wheeler’s cosmic delayed-choice experiment involves light from a quasar billions of light-years away being bent around a massive galaxy en route to Earth due to gravitational lensing. The light can reach Earth by two different paths—left or right around the lensing galaxy.

But here’s the twist: if we set up the experiment to detect which path the photon took, it behaves like a particle—one path. If we instead set it up to detect an interference pattern, it behaves like a wave—taking both paths.

And this choice of how we observe the photon is made now, on Earth—long after the photon has supposedly taken its “path.” The implication is that the photon didn’t have a determinate path until we made a measurement. So the assumption that it had a single, objective, space-time trajectory just doesn’t hold up under quantum scrutiny.

And really, that same principle has been illustrated with the much smaller-scale versions of the ‘delayed choice’ experiment e.g. here

You write that the three modalities of time, the past, the present and the future, are really one, and are to be understood within metaphysics, about the world yet outside the world.

I suggested that my subjective time only exists in my present.
But this subjective time only exists for me in my "now", meaning that my subjective time is an instantaneous thing that requires no objective time at all. — RussellA

Yes, but when you speak of 'now' you are simply localizing subjective time, and the concept remains abstract. Analysis shows that what we call 'now' is really an ecstatic relation between temporal categories and there "really" is no boundary at all. Time is a pragmatic language imposition that is essentially social (Rorty), that is, talk about events before, after, until, prior, next week and all the rest are FIRST ways of taking up the world that "works" and as such are entirely contingent, as all are taken up as and in language. Our existence is essentially historical (our historicity, as Heidegger calls it) and so, even this analytic of time sketched out above (it is, of course, derived from a course of thought, starting with Augustine's Confessions, then others: Brentano, Husserl, finally, Heidegger. that put forth here is from his Being and Time, Division 2, starting at section 65 or so) because language is historical.

But when you say, your subjective time is instantaneous and requires no objective time, I DO think you are on to something because I am convinced since language and its pragmatics, its historical nature, which is culture and all of its institutions (everything you can "say") is THE contingency that produces the linear and sequential "sense" of time, is, as the Hindus say, the binding illusion, maya (heh, heh--Kierkegaard called this inherited sin in his Concept of Anxiety. You see his idea: we are far more interested in our own affairs than we are about the existential crisis of separation from God. Tillich will call this a matter of ultimate concern), then this, as you call it, subjective 'now' is a radical liberation.

Consider what serious meditation is really about: the cessation of thought, of language, of the "attachments" that create and bind our desires, and the grip it has on defining the world.

The implication is that the photon didn’t have a determinate path until we made a measurement. — Wayfarer

It is beyond my comprehension that in a Universe 93 billion light years across that has existed for around 13 billion years, the determinacy of the path of photons throughout this Universe is dependent on a few scientists making measurements on the 3rd rock from the Sun.

Tim Folger in his article "Does the Universe Exist if We're Not Looking?" mentions Wheeler's idea that the principles of the two-slit experiment can be applied to the Universe.

Wheeler's hunch is that the universe is built like an enormous feedback loop, a loop in which we contribute to the ongoing creation of not just the present and the future but the past as well. To illustrate his idea, he devised what he calls his "delayed-choice experiment," which adds a startling, cosmic variation to a cornerstone of quantum physics: the classic two-slit experiment.

However, there are doubts about the implications of this two-slit experiment. For example, Sabine Hossenfelder, asks Did We Get the Double Slit Experiment All Wrong?

The double-slit experiment is a famous quantum physics experiment that shows that light exhibits behaviour of both a particle and a wave. In a new paper, researchers claim they’ve proven the experiment wrong, and that light is just a particle. Instead of light also being a wave that interferes with itself they say that there are both light photons and dark photons. Let’s take a look.

She also poses the idea Why This Nobel Prize Winner Thinks Quantum Mechanics is Nonsense

Gerard ‘t Hooft won the Nobel Prize in 1999, and the recent Breakthrough Prize, for his work on the Standard Model of Particle physics. He also thinks that quantum mechanics is nonsense. Indeed, he has an alternative theory for quantum mechanics that he says is how the world really works. This theory has been almost entirely ignored by physicists. Which is unfortunate, because he predicts a limit for what quantum computers can do.

My knowledge about quantum mechanics is insignificant when compared to that of Sabine, but at the least she is pointing out that there is still much to learn about quantum mechanics, including about the path of photons.

Yes, but when you speak of 'now' you are simply localizing subjective time, and the concept remains abstract. Analysis shows that what we call 'now' is really an ecstatic relation between temporal categories and there "really" is no boundary at all. — Astrophel

There are articles that describe how meditation can alter how we perceive the passing of time, for example "Meditation May Change the Way We Perceive Time"

New research has found that meditation can change the way that we perceive the passing of time. Researchers published new findings in the journal PLoS One. The studies found that mindfulness meditation increased happiness, decreased anxiety, and also changed people’s perception of time.

I sit staring into space for ten minutes and feel that it was a long time. I read for ten minutes and feel that it was a short time. My subjective feeling about the duration of an objective period of time does change depending upon circumstances.

At the start of this ten minutes, I am conscious that the clock shows 10.55. This is my present and my "now". The clock showing 11.05 will be in my future. At the end of this ten minutes, I am conscious that the clock shows 11.05. This is my present and my "now". The clock showing 10.55 was in my past. Throughout this ten minute period I am only conscious of being in the present, of my being in the "now". I am never conscious of being either in the past or if the future.

If my "now" can never be in the past and can never be in the future, does this not mean that my "now" is a distinct boundary between my past and my future?

If my "now" can never be in the past and can never be in the future, does this not mean that my "now" is a distinct boundary between my past and my future? — RussellA

Rather, your now always already IS the past and future. The past, of course, is not a place or something that can be visited awaiting recollection that "takes one" there. The past IS the recollection itself, and recollections are present events, but as I recall yesterday's event, say, I am actively anticipating what this recollection will be as-it-is-recalled; that is, as one recalls one is doing so in the anticipatory structure of those past events being recreated. So recollection is the ecstatic unity of the recalled, being recalled in the forward looking of the present event, an event that is continuously on the threshold of anticipating what comes next. As i am sitting here, I look up and note the time from the clock on the wall. How is it that I implicitly know everything about time and clocks and the conventions of telling time? I recall this, tacitly, from a living memory in the immediacy of the moment. But this moment also has this forward looking dimension, forprior to looking at the clock, I anticipated what it all would be like. In a very meaningful way, the "looking" was already done! It is repetition! (See Kierkegaard's book of this name). Thus the recollection, the not-yet of the future, and the present actuality are an all-in-one event.

Even when one seems to be clear of recollection, attending explicitly to the presence of things, there is "behind" this intention a foundation of tacit recollection that gives the present its stability, its fixity. This is, in simple terms, familiarity. So as the meditation takes one to a certain detachment from all that is there "behind" the sitting quietly, from familiarity itself, this familiarity is MOST stubborn. It is a lifetime of education and conditioning that one is trying to "still". Serious meditation is a matter of giving up life as one knows it, literally! The "now" that is achieved is most radical. It is another now altogether. See the way Levinas and other post Husserlians (like Michel Henry) are talking about this "extreme phenomenology". They are closer to Meister Eckhart's "On Detachment":

Perfect detachment
is not concerned about being above or below any creature; it does not wish to be below or above,
it would stand on its own, loving none and hating none, and seeks neither equality nor inequality
with any creature, nor this nor that: it wants merely to be.

Of course, Eckhart holds that God and one's own divinity appears when this space of detachment opens and yields. To his credit, he does not dogmatically tell us what this "is".

It is beyond my comprehension that in a Universe 93 billion light years across that has existed for around 13 billion years, the determinacy of the path of photons throughout this Universe is dependent on a few scientists making measurements on the 3rd rock from the Sun. — RussellA

The problem is with taking scientific realism at face value. I watched Sabine’s presentation on T’Hooft. Likewise Roger Penrose and Albert Einstein said they thought quantum physics is radically incomplete. And they too were scientific realists. Penrose says in an interview:

It (quantum mechanics) doesn’t make any sense, and there is a simple reason. You see, the mathematics of quantum mechanics has two parts to it. One is the evolution of a quantum system, which is described extremely precisely and accurately by the Schrödinger equation. That equation tells you this: If you know what the state of the system is now, you can calculate what it will be doing 10 minutes from now. However, there is the second part of quantum mechanics — the thing that happens when you want to make a measurement. Instead of getting a single answer, you use the equation to work out the probabilities of certain outcomes. The results don’t say, “This is what the world is doing.” Instead, they just describe the probability of its doing any one thing. The equation should describe the world in a completely deterministic way, but it doesn’t — Sir Roger Penrose, Interview, Discovery Magazine

The question is, why should it? What if reality is not completely determined by physical principles?

Rather, your now always already IS the past and future.........So recollection is the ecstatic unity of the recalled, being recalled in the forward looking of the present event, an event that is continuously on the threshold of anticipating what comes next...................................They are closer to Meister Eckhart's "On Detachment" — Astrophel

In my present, my "now", are not only my recollections of the past, but also my anticipations of the future. In this sense, my "now" does include the past and future.

Meister Eckhart writes in "On Detachment" that God, in his immovable detachment, which he has had since all eternity, has no past and future and does not see in a temporal fashion.

You should also know that God has stood in this unmoved detachment from all eternity, and still so stands; and you should know further that when God created heaven and earth and all creatures, this affected His unmoved detachment just as little as if no creature had ever been created.

But he also writes that man is not God. Not being God, man does not have this detachment, does see in a temporal fashion and does have a past, present and future.

Therefore, if a man is to be like God, as far as a creature can have likeness with God, this must come from detachment.

So man does have a present, a past of recollection and a future of implications.

For man, unlike God, recollection and implication can only exist in the present, can only exist in the "now".

If man can only exist in the present, in the "now", yet can think about recollections from the past and can think about implications concerning the future, then these recollections of the past and implications concerning the future must also exist in the present, in the "now".

You say "your now is always already in the past and future". Perhaps, however, it is more the case that "your past and future is always in your now"?

What if reality is not completely determined by physical principles? — Wayfarer

What is the physical reality of time?

Let us start by ignoring quantum mechanics contribution to this problem, because as you wrote "Likewise Roger Penrose and Albert Einstein said they thought quantum physics is radically incomplete."

Consider the equation ${d = 0.5 * g * t^{2}}$, which very accurately and very successfully predicts the position of a stone falling in a gravitational field .

This equation represents a physical principle, that ${d = 0.5 * g * t^{2}}$, and the undoubted success of equations such as this strongly suggests that reality is founded on physical principles.

It is not so much the case that reality has been determined by physical principles, but rather that reality is physical principles.

But in what sense is the reality of space understood by "d", and in what sense is the reality of time understood by "t"?

Equations such as the above are part of the undoubted success of science. They are able to very accurately predict future events in the observable world. This naturally leads to the principle of Scientific Realism, the philosophical view that the world of space and time exists independently of any observer (Wikipedia - Scientific Realism). Such a world would also exist independently of any scientific theory developed by these observers in their search to better understand this world.

But "t" is not time, it is a letter, a symbol. It is certainly not time as it exists in a physical world, even though it can be successfully used to accurately predict future events .

Cat Gillen in his article "Hossenfelder vs Goff: Do electrons exist?" refer to Scientific Realism, Scientific Antirealism as well as Structural Realism.

Hossenfelder and Goff argued whether electrons exist. Are scientific theories true and show us how the world really is or just useful tools for making predictions about events in the world. Even though Bohr's atomic model can make fantastically correct predictions, as a theory it is incorrect. Scientific Antirealism says that we should not ascribe truth to a scientific theory just because of its predictive success. But this misses an important point, that there must be some underlying truth to a scientific theory that is predicatively successful. Structural Realism may be a better approach, as it argues that even though we may overlay a semantic story onto a scientific theory, there must be an underlying structure from which it gains its predictive abilities. This underlying structure maps with the reality of the world. Both scientific theory and the reality in the world that it predicts must share the same inherent realism.

Superficially, "t" is the semantic overlay to the reality of time in the world, where "t" may be a symbol, figure of speech, metaphor or simile. But in order to account for its predictive success, "t" must share with time an unobserved yet common underlying structure as proposed by Structural Realism.

Therefore, if the symbol "t" and time share an underlying reality, it must be the case that the symbol "t" is able to give us insights about the nature of time.

Because of the predictive success of equations such as ${d = 0.5 * g * t^{2}}$, and of scientific theories in general, the reality of time must have consistent and unchanging principles.

subjective duration of time exists in a single objective moment of time.

For me, philosophically, an interesting question not raised by Thompson's article is how we are able to subjectively feel the duration of time within a single momentary objective instant of time. — RussellA

This question is indeed both interesting and important. Gilles Deleuze elaborates on Bergson’s notion of duration in a way that may help us understand how subjective time exists within a single moment of objective time. The mind performs a synthesis consisting of retention (memory), anticipation (future), and contraction. Retention holds the nearest past, expectation anticipates an immediate future, while contraction unites these and brings them together into a lived present existing within the objective moment.
When the mind contemplates the sounds of the four o'clock strikes, each stroke or excitation is logically independent of the others. One instance does not appear until the previous one has disappeared. Yet, something qualitatively new happens in the contemplating mind. When the first stroke occurs, I anticipate the second, and with the second, I retain the first. The next moment will be different since it will retain all previous ones. There is a synthesis of time based on the repetition of independent and homogeneous instances. Unlike any mere memory of distinct elements, we contract them into a living temporal flow that is dynamic and continuous, differing from a mechanical sequence of moments. For Deleuze, the synthesis of the contemplating mind operates like a living organism integrating past and future states. Both do not simply register a sequence of discrete sensory inputs but synthesize time, creating a continuous living flow. At microscopic or quasi-living levels, organisms operate time internally so they can remember, anticipate, and adapt. For example, bacterial quorum (population) demonstrate duration rather than just mechanical repetition or a simple stimulus -response reaction. Quorum sensing integrates multiple past chemical signals and anticipates future collective actions to coordinate behavior. Bacterial life creates a kind of a continuous temporal process that cannot be reduced to isolated moments of objective time.
Deleuze demonstrates that subjective time, while unfolding within the discrete and measurable moments of objective time, nevertheless possesses a unique and irreducible mode of existence.
“This present becomes the most contracted state of successive elements that are themselves independent of one another…The synthesis of time constitutes the present in time. It is not that the present is a dimension of time: the present alone exists. Rather, synthesis constitutes time as a living present, and the past and the future as dimensions of this present” (Deleuze, DR, p76).

For man, unlike God, recollection and implication can only exist in the present, can only exist in the "now".

If man can only exist in the present, in the "now", yet can think about recollections from the past and can think about implications concerning the future, then these recollections of the past and implications concerning the future must also exist in the present, in the "now".

You say "your now is always already in the past and future". Perhaps, however, it is more the case that "your past and future is always in your now"? — RussellA

Let's leave God out of it. It can be such a distraction and the same issues that turn up here also turn up there, trying to explain God and, what, divine temporality?? What good is this if the temorpality itself is not made ontologically clear? Keeping in mind that God is first a term that occurs to us, and thus, whatever can be said of it, goes through the structure of our time. Beyond this, just bad metaphysics.

'Perhaps' is an invitation to speculation. This is really has no place here. It is an apriori argument, that is, it deals with the way time can work given its own nature or essence.

But yes, you nearly have it here: "these recollections of the past and implications concerning the future must also exist in the present, in the "now"," but for one important matter: The now cannot be understood as a place where all things temporal intersect or settle. There is no now apart from the not yet and the having been. Conceived like this one becomes either a mystic or an abstractionist. If one turns to the eternal now as a kind of nirvana, then one is just being loose with descriptive language, and I suppose one is forgiven for this, seeing here the now is not a theoretical term looking to be cleearly understood, but rather a place holder for something sublime and alien to common sense. That is, 'now' is a term borrowed from everyday language, and in grasping for expression, one does what one can.

But the abstraction of the now is really not tolerable. Putting aside the way our time words "work" we are of course bound to contests of usage and this deals exclusively with linear time that is so familiar. But a phenomenological analysis of time, time conceived for what it IS apart from the free talk about various affairs, is analytic: One cannot conceive of any of time's modalities apart from the others. Even in a profound mystical state in which time seems to vanish, such a state can only be understood AT ALL as an anticipatory event, I would argue, for no anticipation, no agency to "be there" to be in a mystical state.

Agency is almost always overlooked in analysis, whether one is in the anglo american tradition or the continental condition; most poignantly in ethics and aesthetics and religion.

It is not that the present is a dimension of time: the present alone exists. Rather, synthesis constitutes time as a living present, and the past and the future as dimensions of this present” — Number2018

Well said. And yes, very intriguing. The question is, does this make any difference in one's (genitive) "objective" time? That is, Husserl's reduction takes one to the radical subjective end, where one faces an inexorable givenness (reading now Jean Luc Marion's Reduction and Givenness), and once one has pushed this "method" to its limits a very different world appears, that of givenness "as such". Heidegger famously doesn't buy it, but others, neo Husserlians, take it as momentous. This analysis of time, Bergson (haven't read), Deleuze, Husserl (The Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time) , does invite a violation, if you will, of objective familiarity, such that time as sequential events yields to the more basic analysis.

It is not that the present is a dimension of time: the present alone exists. — Number2018

I agree.

In Bergson’s example, when the mind contemplates the sounds of the four o'clock strikes, each stroke or excitation is logically independent of the others. — Number2018

It seems so. When I hear the clock strike for the second time, I have the retention (memory) of the clock striking for the first time and the anticipation (future) of the clock striking for the third time. In objective time, each stroke is independent of the others, in that each successive ‘now’ of the clock contains nothing of the past because each objective moment is separate and distinct. In subjective time, each stroke is also independent of the others, in that we are able to distinguish them.

Unlike any mere memory of distinct elements, we contract them into a living temporal flow that is dynamic and continuous, differing from a mechanical sequence of moments...Both do not simply register a sequence of discrete sensory inputs but synthesize time, creating a continuous living flow. — Number2018

I don't understand Deleuze's explanation of "synthesis". On the one hand, the present alone exists. On the other hand, within this present there is a "temporal flow".

How can there be a flow of time within a single moment in time?

But yes, you nearly have it here: "these recollections of the past and implications concerning the future must also exist in the present, in the "now"," but for one important matter: The now cannot be understood as a place where all things temporal intersect or settle. — Astrophel

Recollections of the past and implications of the future must exist in the present, in the "now".

But doesn't that mean that it is in the present where all things temporal (recollections, implications, the "now") intersect or settle?

But doesn't that mean that it is in the present where all things temporal (recollections, implications, the "now") intersect or settle? — RussellA

Depends on what you mean by 'present'. As a meaningful concept, it is only an pragmatic modality, meaning when we think of the essence of the present, what it IS, past, present and future are discovered first, and these are found in the everydayness of affairs, where the world is divided up into a second ago, right now, and a second from now, say. But this is the way things go when we are talking in a rough and ready way about normal things, like when things have to be done, come before and after, and on and on. Look closer, and you find a rather simple analysis discovers serious structural problems very quickly. This is has been around a very long time; see Augustine's confessions chapter 11 where he says of the present, " Whatsoever of it hath flown away, is past; whatsoever remaineth, is to come." Impossible to make sense of the present as a stand alone concept, because it doesn't stand alone, but is bound to past and future analytically. The moment a moment arrives, it is both past and future in that moment.

But if you mean the present to be an experiential clarity in which lived and deeply rooted habits and familiarities that spontaneously rise in every perception, turn all things into the "potentialities of possibilities" established in the totality of the "having been" (Heidegger. He calls this "the they" and holds that this is what we are, mostly. Our "thrownness" is discovered only when one is already entirely IN a language and culture), fall away, to reveal pure givenness of the world (Husserl, Jean Luc Marion, Michel Henry, et al, say various things along these lines), then this analysis of time and the ecstatic unity of these three modalities (as Heidegger puts it. Obviously, the things I have been talking about are derivative of continental philosophy) has to yield, for now the whole matter is in the hands of this phenomenological givenness, and the world is seen "as if for the first time". Time as a pragmatic imposition on the world (what time is it? You're late! It should arrive early. Come here, now!) loses meaning.

Heidegger was no mystic, but Husserl and neo Husserlians lean this way. It is what happens when one takes the present and attempts to "observe" the bare presence of things. This Husserl argues is achievable in a phenomenological reduction. See his "Ideas Pertaining to Pure Phenomenology".

Depends on what you mean by 'present' — Astrophel

There is the present within the mind of an observer. Thinking about present experience, past memories and future implications.

There is the present in the absence of any observer. The Earth as part of a Solar System, preceded by the Big Bang and followed by the Big Freeze.

The present within the mind of an observer exists as a subjective duration. The present in a world absent of any observer exists as an objective instant.

However, the observer, where the present exists as a subjective duration, exists within this world, where the present exists as an objective instant.

One asks how subjective duration relates to objective instant.

Perhaps in order to answer this question, we should take on board Husserl's concept of phenomenological reduction. We should attempt a meditative approach, fully grounded in the present, absent of any preconceptions from our past and absent of any implications about our future.

One asks how subjective duration relates to objective instant.

Perhaps in order to answer this question, we should take on board Husserl's concept of phenomenological reduction. We should attempt a meditative approach, fully grounded in the present, absent of any preconceptions from our past and absent of any implications about our future. — RussellA

Well, this is exactly how to go, asking just that question. The hard part is to affirm the very difficult, yet inexorable, premise that the latter, the objective instant, presupposes the former, the subjective duration. Then the world is turned upside down as one encounters Kant's Copernican Revolution.