According to Einstein, the experience of 'now' that we all share is meaningless

Sabine Hossenfelder investigates life's big questions through the lens of physics, particularly Einstein's theory of special relativity. She highlights the relativity of simultaneity, which states that the notion of "now" is subjective and dependent on the observer. This leads to the block universe concept, where past, present, and future all exist simultaneously, making the past just as real as the present.

[LucVNO]

Its always fun to talk about just how real reality is, but at the end of the day, everyone who doesnt get out of the way of the lights will be hit by the car behind them.

[toddlipira]

If the toilet needs to be fixed, everybody in the house knows exactly what "now" is. 🤨

[derradfahrer]

The speed of light is actually the smallest "problem" when it comes to perception of anything.
From a physical point of view, the chemical processes of your senses, the transmission of the impulses and the comprehension/processing of the signals in your brain takes way more time then the light from the device to your eyes.
And from a metaphysical pov, you can't even be sure if what you expirence is actually truely "real", and not just a concept in your mind.

[RobLockstone]

The nerves that send the signals from our eyes, or any of our sense organs, plus the time it takes the brain to process those signals and then surface that information to our conscious brain are all far slower than the speed of light. So even if the speed of light were infinitely fast, which presents many more problems than it solves, there still wouldn’t be a perceivable “now.”

[michaels.]

It should be noted that, while the fuzzy, human-centric notion of "now" breaks down when discussing things in a relativistic framework, all causally-connected events still have an objective order in which they occur. So while observers may disagree on how much time has passed between events, they will still agree on the order in which the events occurred.

[Community_Guideline_Violator]

I wouldn’t say it’s meaningless. I’d say it’s all relative.

[nub-cake]

Hypothetically if we are each experiencing our own version of reality, the component of everyone having a now might be very meaningful, rather than meaningless.

[JasperXoR]

Everything falls apart with scaling and discrete points and moments. We are the flow and it feels discrete at time but it's just our perspective.

[neologian]

What does it mean to use a phrase like "fundamentally meaningless" when, if you were to treat your experience of "now" as ACTUALLY being fundamentally meaningless...treating objects and events as having no real existence or consequences would be both swift and in many cases fatal?

It may be a kind of stitched together illusion in the strict and narrow constraints of physics....but our perception of "now" is quite possibly the most consequential, meaningful, and important capability we have as living organisms.

[nsnopper]

The best explanation of this Principle of the Now is in Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs (1987). It provided an excellent illustration of phenomenological reasoning. Husserl couldn’t have explained it better himself. Plus, I loved Rick Moranis as Dark Helmet.

[eternalsoul]

Everything you see is someone's Imagination, Imagination is all powerful in this Universe...

[le_th_]

Now is not something to try to define because it's simply a word used to convey a point in time when something is occurring in the present, and not 5 minutes, an hour, or a day ago.

Now is simply the present moment and it's fleeting because by the time you articulate "now" it in the past.

It's not meaningless to 911 if you tell the operator, " he is choking her right now", or "The house is burning now and people/pets are still inside" or "An impaired driver is swerving all over the highway right now".

It DOES have meaning, and it's far more reliable than a lot of what is passed off as "science". I'm looking at YOU Lancet...

[HarryGuit]

As to the semantics. „The notion of now“ doesn‘t care about the tiniest fraction of a second the light takes or the small fraction of a second our nervous system takes. It just means „now“ as we experience it. This is a human centered definition and it‘s OK, meaning satisfyingly accurate for the purpose of communicating about our everyday life. Though I know what is meant, we shouldn‘t blur the meaning of our now. We need it everyday. Call your notion another name. Invent one fitting for the purposes you need it for.

[seanspartan]

Plus what we experience is the world filtered through our sense organs and perception. We are only aware of a tiny fraction of what's really going on around us.

Example, about 100 trillion neutrinos pass through our bodies every second yet we are blissfully unaware of this. If humans were able to detect neutrinos, how different and chaotic our environment would appear!

[celticlass]

I have seen the whole interview this is a portion of, and WOW it's amazing! It really makes you think about what time might be, and what it means. Very cool.

[wryltxw]

This content works well this format. Worth hearing it multiple times.

[scottjackson]

I’ve had this thought many times. There cannot be any actual“now” because the instant referenced by the word has already passed before the word can be spoken.

[jeffreyadams]

We do a very good job pretending it’s “as if” it’s now.

[dtothemtothea]

Don’t know if It is truly there now, but it is at least very very close to being there a very very short time ago, which to our senses, is a good and usable approximation to there now.

[willmcguigan]

I have really enjoyed your videos this year on the utube thingy - I know we're not at the end of human 2023 time - but hey, all the best to you - great stuff.