Raymond Tallis - Setting Time Aright

To appreciate time is to touch the texture of reality. Does time differ from our common perceptions of flow and passage? Is time fixed or flexible? Do we misunderstand time? If so, how to get it right? How does time work with physics?

Raymond C. Tallis is a a retired physician and neuroscientist from Great Britain. His resume boasts titles like philosopher, poet and novelist. He is also a member of the Academy of Medical Sciences, the Royal College of Physicians and Royal Society of Arts.

Closer to Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[louisbullard]

I think you are spot on!!! Time is Real!!

[roccolobosco]

Thank you for this dialogue between two true but mutually exclusive viewpoints.

[rooryan]

I have to agree with Robert here. To doubt the primacy of math and science in favor of human intuition is as foolish as flying an aircraft without using the instruments. Science gives us more than just useful pieces of technology. It also gives us a more accurate way of thinking about real phenomena in the universe, including what we know as time. Our brains are full of illusions designed to help us make sense of a strange world.

[quantumkath]

Raymond Tallis: My favourite subject. I could talk about time for "hours".

[Bill..N]

The questions and challenges Robert posed to Dr Tallis were very effective.. In the end, Dr. Tallis presented his last resort catch -all assertion that mathematical reasoning itself can not lay claim to real truth.. Fair enough, philosophical point taken.. BUT, when theories in physics can make predictions accurate to within a trillonth of one percent, it PROBABLY (an understatement) indicates we are at or near to truth.. Peace..

[pritomsarker]

(not referring to Raymond Tallis btw) When I first discovered that this guy really does not think much about what he says, and soon found out that he REALLY doesn't think at all about what his mouth produced because he confidently produces those words and continues to do so with steady consistency. And he seems very proud of his statements, and might even call some of them arguments. Now I whole-heartedly believe that he is not capable of pretending to be orthogonally situated from the scientist that he is because then he quickly morphs into a physicist that isn't really the kind he thinks he is really aiming for. Einstein was after all the famous mathematician that worked on some critical things that turned out to be oddly non-standard. When Lord Rayleigh is too busy to write a new paper on a thing that he quickly summed up with the dozen other discoveries he made during those periods, so that he could get the last settled thoughts out to someone else, because he would go on to work on something that wasn't so obscure such as what phonons, band gaps in the spectrum, crystalline lattices, the whole atomic theory etc would later build on; he did not really aspired to be the experimental physicist of the trendy kind that we see everywhere spending the physics dollars.

[AlexBhmth]

"the fact that I have less time now than I did as a school boy" This is actually only a fact in retrospect. Tomorrow is not promised.

[igor.t]

👏| an extremely smart person, Raymond Tallis...🥇

[elonever..]

If time doesn't exist it sure takes up a lot of our thought processes while engaged in living.

[tunelord]

Time is the movement of consciousness, is only through consciousness time is contained.

[guitarpick]

Time is an illusion, wait a second…that can’t be right.

[λάδα]

Time appears to exist because of human perception using their eyes etc. This concept is very unituitive for humans to understand. Nothing we see is real in the absolute reality sense of the word. Likewise, Time is a perception. What is not real can of course be perceived to be real. Its a Belief. Just like Beliefs, we can perceive time to be as real as God (whichever God in your mind). God is perceived to be so real, its the absolute truth. But there are millions of Gods. Which god? Regardless of Reality, humans Perceive a reality in their minds.
Time Never exist in the natural world until man conjured up this theory aka invention. Yes, all scientific theories are merely an Invention. It works but its an invention. Hard to understand, i know.😅 mathematics is also merely an invention and like most inventions, it works. The mechanics of time and maths works. But that does not mean it is real. Our perceived Reality is not Reality. So how can maths and theory be reality? They are Perceived realities😅 The mind is not about realities. The mind is merely about perceptions. This is why whatever our mind believes, that appears to be our truth.

[bobcabot]

...the best session in time for a while!

[Maxwell-mvrx]

Guys are absolutely misstep phich time . He show time evidence keep put fundamdntal phich in this process. Lack fundamental of law phich in his hipotesy. Insteafo

[Bassotronics]

What’s amazing is that I’m alive right now going through “present time”.
Am I riding the cosmic microwave background?
What’s so special about us that we are currently living in “present time”? For example, George Washington was living in “present time” which now is the past.
The future is constantly “flowing” into our present and into the past at speed of causality. Time is just as strange and paradoxical as the singularity of the black hole where the laws of physics break down.
Time could be divided into two parts I guess; The perception of time passing even if we’re still and also the fact that it takes time for objects to get from point A to point B.

[keithwalmsley]

I think time is basically a human construct created in order to provide order and reference points for our lives, such as train timetables for instance, which led to a unified time here in the UK, but is ultimately only a description of basically movement and atrophy.

[peweegangloku]

What is that physical equation of fundamental reality that shows time does not exist? Put it in the open and prove your claim.

[markpmar]

"Frequency" is a certain number of cycles per second. Rate of change = time. Also, "frequency" = "how often". Which one is the "human perception"?

[straithill]

Really wanted to watch all of this but didn’t have the time.

[wordzfailmebro]

I'm sure this is not the correct date on this calendar.