Numbers as mental states. Time as an illusion of perception limitations of the mind. Math a language invented by the mind to describe the mind.

Numbers as mental states. Time as an illusion of perception limitations of the mind. Math a language invented by the mind to describe the mind.

What does this paragraph mean? At first glance it might seem ridiculous, silly, even crazy. Let's explore the profound implications by breaking it down. The big questions:

• Is time real or is it just an illusion? In other words is time something which physicists can detect in some way? It's a major problem with implications on all sequences if time is an illusion. The current data seems to point to time being an illusion. So what exactly is time? Some say time is a measuring system derived from light speed and I think this is right. This would mean time is not physics and is actually part of mathematics. For the mathematical types here is the quote from Wikipedia:

[local time is a stochastic process associated with diffusion processes such as Brownian motion, that characterizes the amount of time a particle has spent at a given level. Local time appears in various stochastic integration formulas, such as Tanaka's formula, if the integrand is not sufficiently smooth. It is also studied in statistical mechanics in the context of random fields.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_time_(mathematics)
Don't ask me what that quote means because I can't even decipher it.

• If time is an illusion, then what are the numbers? If sequences of events are meaningless outside of our minds? If time only exist to be experienced by our minds then time exists only for our minds, and so what if it's simply an invention of our mind along with math?
• If math is invented, then again what are numbers? Numbers exists for sure as mental states. Numbers exist in brains. For a universe which has no end or beginning then numbers have no distinction.
• Loop Quantum Gravity puts forth some interesting ideas such as provoking the question of whether time is quantized (is there a fundamental unit of time?). This is the biggest and deepest question in physics in my opinion. It's this question which is key to answering many other questions. Loop quantum gravity works even without time being quantized but then there has to be a minimum volume instead which again hasn't been shown to exist. Does time exist in a physical sense or is it just in our minds?

So what do I currently think? Time is real for us because it's part of us. It's part of how our mind works, how our brain works, how we experience reality in these slices within a finite sequence so that numbers can make sense. This does not mean reality without us would be required to be experienced as individual slices within a finite sequence. It's possible that everything at once all the time with no beginning or end, with no change, in other words a constant unchanging stable endless beginningless state could be the most fundamental. All possible events are always happening.

Completely meaningless and confusing right? With no causal chain of events, no sequence of events, no logic, no math, then we can't make sense of anything about the nature of what the universe might really be. Of course we are trying and Loop Quantum Gravity is an example of this. String theory is another example. But if we don't solve the problem of time, and figure out whether math is real or not, then how can we know which reality is real? The reality made up by our perceptions as a sequence of events, or the reality beyond perception, detection, perceiveability, etc? If we go the solipsism route then nothing could be more real than our own minds. In other words for it to be real it has to be perceived or capable of being perceived.

References

Anderson, E. (2012). Problem of time in quantum gravity. Annalen der Physik, 524(12), 757-786.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1009.2157

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_time
2. https://welovephilosophy.com/2012/12/17/do-numbers-exist/
3. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-time-quantized-in-othe/
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternalism_(philosophy_of_time)
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_presentism
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreality_of_Time