What is Time?

Abstract

Time is not a fundamental dimension but an emergent property of relative oscillations in quantum fields. It arises from phase relationships, causal sequencing, and interactions between field excitations. When nothing changes or oscillates, time does not manifest. When patterns shift, time is perceived. In this view, time is not a container in which events occur—it is the shadow cast by change itself.

Section 2: Related Scientific Perspectives

Several prominent scientists have explored views of time that align with or complement the idea of time as an emergent property:

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1. Carlo Rovelli

Carlo Rovelli is a leading figure in loop quantum gravity and advocates for the idea that time is not fundamental but emerges from more basic physical processes. In his book The Order of Time, Rovelli explores how our perception of time arises from thermodynamic and quantum phenomena. He also discusses the concept of "thermal time," suggesting that time emerges from the statistical state of a system.

• Carlo Rovelli's Profile at the Rotman Institute of Philosophy

• Into the Impossible — Carlo Rovelli: Loop Quantum Gravity & The Order of Time

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2. Julian Barbour

Julian Barbour challenges the traditional notion of time, proposing that it's an illusion and that the universe is a collection of "nows." In his book The End of Time, he argues that change is real, but time is not a flowing entity. His work emphasizes configurations of the universe without referencing time as a dimension.

• The Universe Is Not in a Box – Julian Barbour

• Julian Barbour – Closer To Truth

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3. Sean Carroll

Sean Carroll explores the emergence of time through quantum mechanics and entanglement. He discusses how time might arise from entangled quantum states and the role of decoherence in giving the appearance of a classical world with a time dimension.

• Sean Carroll's Blog: Space Emerging from Quantum Mechanics

• Sean Carroll | Philosophy | Johns Hopkins University

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4. Lee Smolin

Lee Smolin proposes that time is fundamental and that the laws of physics evolve over time. He emphasizes the importance of considering time as a real and dynamic aspect of the universe, contrasting with the block universe view.

• The Causal Theory of Views – Lee Smolin

• Lee Smolin | Perimeter Institute

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5. Fotini Markopoulou

Fotini Markopoulou has worked on quantum gravity and the idea that space and time are emergent phenomena arising from more fundamental processes. She has explored how causal structures could give rise to spacetime geometry.

• Why is Quantum Gravity so Significant? – Fotini Markopoulou

• Fotini Markopoulou – From top class theoretical physicist to ambitious hardware tech designer

Section 3: The Human Experience of Time — A Thought Experiment

The Thought Experiment

Imagine a sentient robot that is switched on for one year, then off for one year, in a repeating cycle. During its "off" state, the robot has no awareness, no processing, no memory updates—effectively, it ceases to experience anything.

From an external perspective, two full years pass during each on-off cycle.

But from the robot’s internal perspective, only the periods of wakefulness—the "on" years—are experienced. When it is turned back on, it has no sense of having been turned off; the last moment it remembers is the moment it was shut down, and the next moment it experiences is one year later in the outside world.

This leads to a subjective experience of "time jumps" or temporal teleportation, where the robot feels as though it is leaping forward through time in discrete chunks.

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Insights into Human Temporal Experience

1. Time is Experience-Dependent

Just like the robot, human beings experience time only through continuous awareness, and more fundamentally, through change and memory. If there is no sensory input, no internal change, and no memory of the interval, then from a first-person perspective, that interval does not exist.

• Anesthesia, blackouts, or dreamless sleep simulate this effect.

• Time continues in the external world, but to the subject, nothing happens—and subjectively, it might as well have been instantaneous.

2. Continuity of Consciousness Is the Metric of Time

The robot’s perception of time is not governed by the ticking of a clock, but by the continuity of its own sentient processes. This illustrates that consciousness acts as a filter for time. If there is no continuity, there is no perceived passage.

• This echoes Julian Barbour’s idea of a universe made of Nows.

• It also resonates with the block universe concept, where all events exist, but awareness moves between them.

3. Time Requires Memory

The robot is only aware of the passage of time because it remembers the last moment before shutdown. If it did not retain memory, it would not experience time jumps; it would simply "begin" anew each time, thinking it was activated for the first time.

• Thus, memory is what links experiences and generates the feeling of temporal flow.

• Human perception of duration, sequence, and change is deeply dependent on the memory of prior states.

4. Time Is Not Uniform for the Observer

The robot's jumps mirror non-uniform time perception in human life:

• In boredom or depression, time seems to slow.

• In danger or excitement, time feels compressed or distorted.

• Under altered states or trauma, time may be "lost" or rearranged.

So even while external clocks tick uniformly, internal time can dilate, contract, or even skip.

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Conclusion

This robot thought experiment powerfully reveals that conscious experience does not require a continuous timeline—only the illusion of continuity based on change and memory. It suggests that time, for sentient beings, is not a flow, but a reconstruction from available information. Thus, subjective time is a construct of consciousness—a narrative woven from data snapshots.

Section 4: Time Perception and Clock Rate — Altering the Robot’s Internal Timing

The Modified Scenario

Instead of turning the robot on and off entirely, we now keep it continuously "on," but change the frequency of its internal clock—the rate at which it processes information, makes decisions, stores memories, or updates its internal state.

For example:

• In one mode, the robot's clock runs fast, allowing it to process a million operations per second.

• In another, it runs slow, with only a thousand operations per second.

From the robot's own perspective, its subjective experience of time is tied to how much it can do and how much it can change within a given stretch of external time.

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Key Insights

1. Subjective Time Depends on Processing Rate

The faster the robot's clock, the more events it experiences per unit of external time. It lives "more moments" within the same stretch of objective time.

• Fast-clock robot: Experiences a single second as rich and detailed.

• Slow-clock robot: May barely register a second; a full minute could feel like a blink.

This is analogous to how flies perceive time: their neural processes run faster, so they perceive more detail in the same span than humans do.

2. Time Is a Ratio Between Internal and External Change

This reveals time perception as a ratio between:

• Internal change (subjective): operations, thoughts, memory formation.

• External change (objective): movement of the sun, ticking of a wall clock.

By changing the internal pace, the robot's relationship with the external world shifts:

• If the internal clock slows down, the world appears to speed up.

• If the internal clock speeds up, the world appears to slow down.

This is functionally similar to time dilation in special relativity, where time appears to slow for a moving observer relative to a stationary one.

3. A Bridge to Physics: Internal Clocks and Field Oscillations

The robot analogy maps directly to your earlier proposition that time emerges from field oscillations.

• If the oscillation frequency of a field (say, an internal fermion field) changes due to motion or interaction, the rate of time experienced by a particle or system changes.

• This supports the idea that motion through a field landscape could result in slowed or accelerated internal oscillations, giving rise to time dilation effects.

4. Implications for Consciousness and Simulation

This model hints at the idea that time, as perceived by consciousness or a machine, is:

• Scalable (can be slowed or accelerated).

• Relative to processing constraints.

• Frame-dependent, not in a spatial sense but in a computational or informational one.

A slow-clock robot might feel immortal while watching the universe race by. A fast-clock robot might experience decades in what others call minutes.

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Conclusion

By altering the robot's internal clock rate, we see that time is not a substance flowing through the robot, but rather an emergent metric of how much internal structure evolves relative to the outside world. This strongly reinforces your thesis: time is not a dimension but a relational property of changing systems. Faster oscillations, richer time. Slower oscillations, thinner time. No change, no time at all.