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How long is five minutes?
Jeffrey
Veteran
Is it an event in consciousness that can seem different lengths?
Is it a literal time length measured by an atomic clock?
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It's arbitrary to begin with, but we have chosen how long a second is (and it has to do with some element's wavelength), so "five minutes" is literally a set value.
However our experience of "time" is different. We may be having fun and think that only 5 minutes has gone by when it's actually been 30 minutes, or the other way around.
I think they're really two separate questions or issues.
I'm not sure that our minds really marked time consciously prior to when we started marking time into units (though our bodies surely did, we have an underlying biological rhythm based on day/night). We can get out-of-sync with objective time quite easily!
And then we need to take time dilation into account.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation
Is time in the mind or the brain? Or both or neither?
@Jeffrey Define time! I sound like a broken record, because every time these ineffable, ephemeral, just plain confusing concepts comes up, I want to know what people are talking about.
AFAIK "time" is no more a real thing than "distance" is a real thing. It's a measurement... but what it measures should be what we're talking about.
The point isn't, for me, to define time and commit an exact answer though I guess I would define time as two separate things: objective and subjective. The confusion is a good sign and I feel that such questions when taken lightly can help us question our assumptions and even sharpen up the mind.
@Jeffrey I agree. I already questioned time a long "time" ago, so I know what you mean. :crazy:
If we say an hour has passed, what are we really saying? We're just saying that 1/24th of a planetary rotation (our planet Earth) has occurred. That's all we're really saying. We've broken it down into hours, minutes and seconds (with seconds being based on an arbitrary atomic wavelength)... and even broken down our rotation around the Sun by fitting as many days as possible into that (which isn't even even, it's 365 +1/4th days).
I've yet to encounter any definition of time that makes time other-than a marker for change, and we don't quantify the change at all.
I once heard a quote that I liked.
"Time was invented so that everything didn't happen at once!"
10:16 PM....Time is our ego's carving up imaginary turf from the chaos...10:17 PM
This is not a Buddhist theory. Marcel Proust happens to be my favourite writer and whoever has read all seven volumes of his "In search of lost time" (or "Remembrance of things past," as it was formerly translated into English) is aware of the writer's theory of time being strictly a subjective notion.
My favourtie quote by him is:
"The time at our disposal each day is elastic; the passions we feel dilate it, those that inspire us shrink it, and habit fills it."
Five minutes is an eternity when you're bored or anxiously waiting for something to happen. Five minutes fly by when you're basking happily in the present moment, no strings attached.
We have Chronological time, and Psychological time.
The first makes sure that everything we live through on a practical daily basis, has a schedule to adhere to.... (Can you imagine being advised by a Doctor's clinic that you can turn up whenever you want? By that premise, so could the doctor... you'd probably never meet!)
The latter is precisely what it is: Purely psychological.
When you consider how many chronologically-measured years you have been alive, then realise that it seems to have all passed in the bat of an eyelid, you realise that chronological time is a pile of bat-poo....
Exactly! It's just a number, the difference between "Point A" and "Point B", in rotations of the Earth instead of between cities on a map. You were here, now you're here. Big whoop. You could've been in a coma that entire time, if you weren't doing things to change the world and hopefully make it better.
("Oh dear God, change the world! Begin, I pray thee, with me.....")
How many moments are in 5 minutes...? How many me-ments? lol!
what's the distance around the island? there's cool book called Gödel Escher Bach that explores fun meta-questions.
So if you are measuring with a yard stick, you get a number of yards. But what if you measure every grain of sand on the perimeter of the island? The more precise your measuring stick, the longer the circumference of the island gets.
What about every nook and cranny?
Sl
Before you can ask how long five minutes is
you must necessarily ask
what is the briefest time-moment possible?
People who resort to google to find this out miss the point of the question and reflection completely.
Ask your most genuine questions in stillness
How soon is now ?
Cue guitar intro by Johnny Marr.
As long or as short as you want it to be.
Kia Ora,
How long is five minutes?
As long as the mind can stretch it, or as short as the mind can shrink it !
Metta Shoshin
I stretched 5 hours 15 minutes over 280 miles today with 3 kids in tow. I deserve a bloody medal!
Thanks for the pat on the back in advance; no really it was nothing; really.
ok then.
Yep Karma! When does it end?
When I die? Are you sure? ... \ lol / ...
"How long is 5 minutes?"
Twice as long from the middle to the end.
Really really long if someone is in the only bathroom...Bob
Time is an interesting phenomena.
Strange stuff be careful . . .
http://tmxxine.tumblr.com/quantumbiology
However just for mild contemplation . . . it may be that only a four dimensional being has the capacity to understand time along its entirety. Would that be a Buddha? An entangled AI?
http://tmxxine.tumblr.com/page/3
“The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common.
They don’t alter their views to fit the facts.
They alter the facts to fit their views.
Which can be uncomfortable …
if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering”
_ The Fourth Doctor Who_.
'Time is an interesting phenomen ON .'
Singular.
Phenomena' is plural, as in "Astoundingly huge number of weird posts about not much at all...."
Let me play the Devils attorney for a bit and just point out that every word in the above statement has been chosen arbitrarily by us humans to have a set value... Just ponder explaining that to a dog. (I want the emoticons bahahahack buhuuu!)
Anicca! Plain and simple. Anicca. (Now I was being serious)
/Victor
@Victorious Yeah you're right, of course. And "time is change" is what I'd say. It's just not like other measurements we make; we aren't quantifying the amount of change, only its steady progression. Woooooo hehehe.
And on a more serious note than my last post (which can seem extremely serious lol) heres a favorite of mine Brian Cox explaining the arrow of time, entropy....
Don't humans have an "internal" clock?
I think you're referring to 'Alpha Waves'....? (And Beta, and Theta....)
There is research which shows that shift-workers die younger because it messes up their natural rythmns.
I think I remember something about "clock" neurons.
http://www.buzsakilab.com/content/PDFs/Buzsaki2013Neuron.pdf
It's all just processes, time is a mental construct and a relative one at that.
Yepp. Its just neurons all of it. The entire world perception. Different neurons in different heads. Anybody want to argue an objective truth? Good luck!
I would add- Time perception is a mental construct. Of course everything perceived by the senses is a mental construct and ultimately unknowable, however there are " levels of certainty that can be used for prediction and action" . Bob
It's like smoking a pack a cigarettes a day, in terms of your overall health and longevity and it sucks as well, typing this as I work night shift.......oh the irony!!
Hmm, I don't think that excuse would work if one turned up late for a job interview...
It is a useful construct, it has it's place but in the end still just a construct.
It you are waiting, 5 minutes is long enough to set off the atomic clock.
Kia Ora,
How long is five minutes?
This would depend on the speed of the mind
Metta Shoshin
It amazes me how I can watch 25 mins of TV without effort, but doing zazen for that long feels like ... forever.
@Daozen, I feel the same way. Why does that happen?
@Jeffrey, I think because TV (despite the noise) is a largely 'passive' activity which disengages us from passing time, whilst meditation (despite the silence) is intensely 'active' mentally which makes us aware of each moment. That's my theory anyway
@Daozen and @Jeffrey
I find time seems to speed up when I meditate? Only after about 10 minutes. I read somewhere it has to do with breaking the fight or flight response.
How often I've numbed myself with electronics! Scary stuff.
We wait an interminable time, which drags and drags, as we anticipate the joy and fun of a holiday abroad - then those two weeks fly by in the bat of an eyelid.... and here we are, back at the desk, with the rain pouring outside....
Measurement of time perhaps, but time itself?
Good point...despite a rash of posts to the contrary not everything is a construct.
To those who insist that it is I would suggest sending me their next month's income..
Because after all, money, need, hunger and the rent/mortgage are just constructs too.
This idea that everything is a construct has its logical outcome on a certain ' Zen ' site where a minority of posters conclude on a regular basis that they don't exist.
Time is not a construct..but it does arise dependently along with everything else. And our experience of time is subjective and leads to various constructs.
quiet sitting in open awareness, reflecting directly the reality of life.
Merv Fowler on shikantaza meditation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikantaza
The difficulty and time dragging arises from fighting, discipline, constraining . . .
Most of us unless particularly unsettled, have no difficulty chilling after a busy day or being still with a partner wrapped around us.
Too tight guys. Take it easy. Attentive yet passive. Alert but not a tight arse.
Tell the arisings, body tension, worries it is OK. You have to stroke the mind till it purrs . . .
You are here assuming that everything that is a construct is not real. That is one of the extremes that the Dhamma avoids. The other one is that fabrication is real. Neither of these is right view.
/Victor
What @lobster says.
When you relax and realise that meditation is "Me"-time and a pleasant time at that then you start to yearn for it and cant get enough. This is the samadhi trap actually, also to be avoided.
.
Neither to Push nor to Sit Still.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn01/sn01.001.than.html
"I crossed over the flood without pushing forward, without staying in place."[1]
"But how, dear sir, did you cross over the flood without pushing forward, without staying in place?"
"When I pushed forward, I was whirled about. When I stayed in place, I sank. And so I crossed over the flood without pushing forward, without staying in place."