[Nightmare]

How do you perceive time? What do you perceive time as? What metaphor would best suit your perceptions of it?

Example 1: A large lake with multiple vantages
Example 2: A one-directional rushing river

For me, time is a road system with roundabouts... Sometimes you get trapped by routine, and when you escape nothing afterward is like it was before, though future roundabouts or roads can seem similar as you pass by.

[Kyvan]

None of these, as I understand them.

To me, it is a linear series of cycles, which are similar, yet differ in very specifical things. Eventually, cycles become completely different from each other as they go further in this line.

It's like... a one-directional rushing line of washing machines which are interconnected by pipes, and once the laundry ends being washed in one, it goes to another, and so on.

Excuse that my metaphore is not as literary as yours.

[Tahiti]

Self-Capacity for temperature, therefore enabling the ability to perceive energy-vibrations, energy-frequencies etc...

[Avid]

The perception of time passing from my personal (limited and singular) existence feels more like a train slowly chugging away on some train tracks. I'm too lazy to conjure up the right words for the entire image at the moment.

I had a natural psychotic break brought on for various reasons (but most of all extreme allergies) and that was one of the main things that struck me during the recovery. The simple act of waking up and just perceiving the passage of time from day to day was painful. Like, imagine one of the wheels being screwed up and just dragging along what should be a smooth track. I was also emotionally volatile in a way I haven't been since I was a young child and that hasn't completely gone back to normal yet either. I try to explain to people its like I'm in a different person's head and nobody exactly understands, lol.

Before the break, I probably would have said something more like, "floating down a river" but afterward it feels like some definite "wheels on a track" until I can think of a more developed metaphor/idea.

[John F Kennedy]

Very interesting topic. I hope you get more replies.

I definitely feel time is something to be "used", usu. for creative work or for inquiry and "worthwhile" things. Time is something valuable. But it often "runs away" or "flows away" when I fail to use it. Sometimes I feel like I'm "wasting" time. So there are some implicit metaphors to do with economy: value, use, waste, and possession. I believe those are the dominant metaphors of Western society regarding time.

[stealthfighter]

Like a race of turtles.

[Dru]

in the physical sense time is like particle movement. depending on stimuli, it seems to slow up or speed down... maybe our perception of time is directly linked to how quickly neurons fire in our brain, even. i don't know. something like that. when i'm concentrating on something, the more stimulated my mind feels, the more quickly time seems to go by. not very science-y conjecture.

time is really more of a concept, anyway.

[CrudeHypothesis]

I perceive time as the rate at which events occur with respect to each other. The sun and gravity are fairly consistent, and things around me move at that rate. However, when I think and thus talk faster, I get more done quicker and reality slows down. When my senses are deprived, reality doesn't feel like it exists, and I feel like a disembodied flow of thoughts.

[masterpeach]

To me, time and space are somehow correlated. Therefore, I perceive time as an invisible, infinite, and "magically" structured matter (like a three-dimensional coordinate system) in which I "float". (Needless to say, I usually don't wear a watch... my "floating" approach, however, is not exactly welcomed by all members of society, so I tried to adjust to the more one-dimensional, linear timeline approach of my culture...
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By the way, there's a book called "
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" about the way different cultures around the globe (from the equator to the North Pole) perceive time.

[MechanicalSun]

For me:

Time is just a reference parameter for any given physical/intelligible object(experiences -mostly for acquired through perception). But actually applies to everything, and is tied to space.

To give you a couple examples:

Memory: it acquires, stores and recalls memories/objects. Just like a hard disk. Let's say I ask you: did you eat an apple today?. Your brain first needs to resort to the main ruler/axis/alphabet/coordinates/hard disk sector in order to search for the concepts involved . For instance, the first criteria that the infinite ruler(time) gives you are notions of present, past and future. Without this, you would not be able to recognize that the question about the apple addresses to a past event.

Human communication: What would happen if you didn't use time as reference? Every single word would overlap in your head. Thus making no sense at all. Like when 100 people talk to you simultaneously.

At least that's the way I interiorize the concept of time. This, leaving aside the formal [HIDE="physical definition."]Time is the indefinite continued progress of existence and events that occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future, blah blah blah...
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[/HIDE]

Hope it gives you some insight into the concept of time
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[ManWithNoName]

Most of all I view time not as a river or a track or a gateway or anything else like this but as an intersection. An intersection of events, people, and things that will never happen again.

Like a bunch of lines all criss-crossing each other through a central dot. The dot is a singular moment. Each dot is completely different from all the other dots. The dots are not connected in a linear fashion although a line may intersect multiple dots.

Basically a web so complex and vast that it is beyond comprehension and almost visualization.

[BuShinJu]

	Originally Posted by Kyvan To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	It's like... a one-directional rushing line of washing machines which are interconnected by pipes, and once the laundry ends being washed in one, it goes to another, and so on.

My understanding is that time is the perceived rate of change of change.

Once I had the flu and I was delirious, lying in bed with a fever. I was able to perceive time seemingly down to a frame by frame jump, like a pulse where reality pauses then moves ahead one iota, pause, move ahead and there was a gap, like an old movie reel, between the frames.

I vaguely remember there being a frequency for reality ike a plank frequency, Wikipedia.

Oh, if I understand it right, I agree with Kyvan's post. Cycles within linear.

[DeaconSyre]

Time is the axis along which I view the universe.

[Nightmare]

Originally Posted by masterpeach To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

To me, time and space are somehow correlated. Therefore, I perceive time as an invisible, infinite, and "magically" structured matter (like a three-dimensional coordinate system) in which I "float". (Needless to say, I usually don't wear a watch... my "floating" approach, however, is not exactly welcomed by all members of society, so I tried to adjust to the more one-dimensional, linear timeline approach of my culture... To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ) To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. By the way, there's a book called " To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. " about the way different cultures around the globe (from the equator to the North Pole) perceive time.

Well it isn't called space-time fer nuthin'.
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[nashburn8]

I think time has always existed and always will exist. Therefore, is it really useful to measure time? Perhaps time is a loop where events keep repeating themselves. Perhaps I've lived this life an infinite amount of times- maybe this explains deja vu? Waves, cycles, frequencies represent many aspects of nature, so maybe time is also a vibrating loop (similar to superstrings). So many questions to ponder...

---------- Post added 05-05-2012 at 10:53 AM ----------

Originally Posted by ManWithNoName To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Most of all I view time not as a river or a track or a gateway or anything else like this but as an intersection. An intersection of events, people, and things that will never happen again. Like a bunch of lines all criss-crossing each other through a central dot. The dot is a singular moment. Each dot is completely different from all the other dots. The dots are not connected in a linear fashion although a line may intersect multiple dots. Basically a web so complex and vast that it is beyond comprehension and almost visualization.

This sounds like the mysterious fourth dimension...Nice thought.

[drake2]

Time for me is just never enough.
Never enough to get the tasks completed or the study done.
Too many distractions and interferences.
I pack a heap of expectations into a sector or timeframe but always underestimate the time resources required.
To alleviate this self imposed pressure, I no longer carry any time keeping device and my constraints are therefore only the ones imposed by the society in which I must live.

My preference is to view time as an abstract concept that has had too much importance placed on it in western society as if it were an object to measure one's self worth against.

[CaelestisPeste]

I liked the idea that time is measured into segments, like snapshots, but it can be distorted, as the perception of time for every individual is different, relative to distance and motion.

[BlSH0P]

a giant dick that keeps screwing everyone

[vampyroteuthis]

Loose flapping rubber on a tyre of a rampaging bus driven by someone who got a fake license, with too many people sitting/standing/balancing on the bumpers. Thwack thwack thwack.

[Rationality]

Time is an endless march, except for those of us who say fuck it and break formation altogether, marching to the beat of our own drum and at our own pace, going backwards and sideways in addition to merely forward.

[wizardblues]

Did not read any of the posts, so not sure if anybody already said this here.

I don't think there is such thing as time. It is an illusion, or just a means to explain motion of matter, or decay of matter. According to the first law of thermodynamics, matter/energy cannot be created or destroyed, only switched between various states.

So in that sense, all matter has existed infinitely. Or it just exists. And what we call time is just the perception of the various states of changes that matter is in while we perceive it.

Perception of time while completely sensory deprived is extremely distorted after a while, as with while sleeping. Anyone who sleeps a dreamless night, and sleeps undisturbed can agree that it seemed as if they went to sleep and woke up and no particular amount of time passed.

Not sure what else to say, just my thoughts.

[blm9161]

On earth in the human body time is constantly moving forward. The speed is constant but it is in how it is perceived that is different for everyone.

[Ender]

Just off the top of my head: Time is an extension of memory, serving as a way to understand the difference between what has occurred, what could occur, and what is occurring as I type these thoughts. The last part will, of course, be in the distant past to those who read it.

So in that sense, I guess I view it in kind of a linear way - A to B to C - but there is some difference in how I view past vs. future. Future I tend to view as a range of possibilities that constantly change in probability due to the combined actions of every single thing in the universe. The past I view as simply a documentation of the "done." What actually happened.

History classes show me that past events are not easily definable, but there are still recorded events that are difficult to challenge: Things like the holocaust or 9/11 where countless people are still alive who remember it distinctly.

[Scrotus]

The measurement of how many complete-cycles of one event may occur relative to the complete-cycle of another event!

Metaphor: How many times will the water wheel spin compared to the bright orange/yellow thing in the sky (the sun) being directly above this tree with me standing at this specific spot, moving, and then appearing back above the tree with me still standing here.

In this sense, the short hand of clocks has been tuned (over time by many peoples' great minds) to make the short hand undergo 2 complete rotation for every complete experience of "sun rise to sun down to sun rise" = " A -> B -> A"

[ppu6502]

memories, observations, predictions