Raymond Tallis - Events and the Nature of Time

Are events measured by time? Or is time created by sequences of events? Which is more fundamental, events or time? Worse, we may get different answers from quantum mechanics and general relativity.



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.

[MicBinMusic]

Wow. This conversation was incredible. One of my favorite CTT ever. Robert you are an extremely sharp philosopher👍

[Pseudothink]

Words were said, and they mostly sounded smart and meaningful. Good enough for me!

[sunshine]

Raymond Tallis used simple logic and commonsense to state that time is real and important. It's not a counter-intutive concept.

[sritejcanchi]

I love these short videos. Gives enough material to think about and search online for additional information. Keep it coming.

[katherinestone]

The idea of causal influences from 'now to before' is mind-boggling, but the evidence is strong.

[terkfranks]

Time is constant. The past is a memory. The future hasn't happened. Neither gravity or velocity changes the passing of Time.

[dougieh]

The relentless march of entropy and it’s unabated appetite.

[chyfields]

It would be difficult to perform a play- script without a setting and a sequence of events.

[jamesruscheinski]

Present time moves into future? Can put together as many present times as like while continuously move into future?

[euclidofalexandria]

15 mins, mass adressing by on volumetrics is also possible, such that decay processes can be controlled, like making synchronicities via the 4d, so too can particles decays be controlled. imagine somebody predicting seemingly the outcome of an atomic collision, its doable.

[fotoviano]

space can't be shaken off either, but it's apparently emergent also. Our conception of space and time is just a product of our senses. It's "universal" because other humans have the same senses and neural processing. It might be interesting to compare notes with an octopus.

[Itsunobaka]

"out of a series of illusions, mobilizing illusory objects and illusory subjects, we arrive at the truth. i find that a rather extraordinary claim."

im not sure if this is a good argument or not, but GODDAMN it's compelling. so i'm just sticking it here for posterity

[REDPUMPERNICKEL]

What an extraordinarily disorganized pile of error soaked gibberish R. Tallis dropped!
It doesn't take a great mind to realize time is a concept only but
it may take a good deal of thinking
to overcome a lifetime of cultural indoctrination that
has convinced almost everyone into believing
time is a 'something' out there.

[kos-mos]

He just quantum mechanics in laymen terms with is explanation of time. Now as a pregnant moment explains quantum mechanics because we cannot observe what how matter is behaving in the now moment because it is hidden. The future is what may happen and the past is what has already been recorded.

[jamesruscheinski]

Time needed to move through space, from past to present to future?

[nyworker]

We can completely reduce time and even eliminate it in physics. We can also reduce it as a human sense like color or touch. But not just every mammal has a sense of time in order to move and gather food. Even birds, amphibians and reptiles have time sense. Simpler life forms like plants and insects instinctively react but have no conscious time sense or we can argue the evolution of time sense and consciousness are the same.

[brianstevens]

I think the only thing I disagree with him on is the concept that temporal awareness has circularity, tstamp 12:49 I think the hinge is at the midpoint of a linearity, always moving into future, at different rates {dependent on local space time}, but always in one direction.

[irrelevant]

At 7:24, Robert thinks this guy is a presentist and he's wrong where Raymond corrects him on this. Over seven minutes is a long time to get the wrong view of time from the person you're interviewing on time.

[jamesruscheinski]

Do quantum probabilities make sense without time?

[euclidofalexandria]

the construction of sychrnicities are also a 4d event.