hello hello can you hear me yes again

great my name is Aleksandra bard and I'm

a philosopher and the great thing about

being a philosopher is that I'm not a

scientist philosophy is not a science

it's an art form that means it's much

bigger than science and that means for

example that I can propose loads of

things without having even any evidence

for them whatsoever it doesn't really

matter at all actually

the famous French philosopher give

dollars once said science deals with

solving problems philosophy deals with

inventing new problems so I want to

invent new problems and the more

problems there are the more fun the

world is so solving the problems is not

my responsibility a happy leader to

science I rather Ahmet knew problems you

haven't even thought of before that's

what philosophers do so I'm very happy

being a philosopher and uh that's why

when I heard today's theme it's about

time and because I'm a bit of a nerd I

actually took it literally I decided to

give you a short TEDx talk on time a

philosophical talk what is time well it

turns out time is the most everyday

thing who could ever think of and the

funny thing in the world of philosophy

is that those everyday things we just

take for granted but don't really think

much about are really the most profound

ideas of all and the biggest mistress we

could think of so I would even say that

time is the greatest mystery of all if I

would ask you what time is you could

either come up with some kind of a banal

answer like time is something the clocks

measure mmm no it isn't a clock is a

measurement tool we reach a measure time

but it doesn't really answer the

question or what time is at all it's

just a measurement it's like saying that

Oh a distance is where a car drives if I

go from position a to position B so the

car is the distance no it isn't the car

is a transportation method to take you

from point A to point B it doesn't

really explain what distances at all

then if you're a bit more clever and I

ask you what time is you

probably come up with it one of the

greatest thinkers of the 20th century

one of the most influential in he turned

out to be a scientist and also

philosopher and his name was Einstein

and Einstein created this wonderful

thing called space-time upon which we

then created modern physics space-time

is essentially this we always knew there

were three dimensions of space and then

Einstein said what if we just add time

to that and turn time into the fourth

dimension and then we can have

space-time and he thought it was

wonderful and it was for mathematics and

for physics because you could suddenly

start describing the world in the most

intricate ways by putting everything

into a position in space-time and you

could basically freeze the world that

was very helpful in the world of physics

but Einstein made a terrible mistake

that physicists very often make or

scientists often make they think they

become philosophers and the terrible

news is that philosophers are way

smarter than scientists are so we

constantly have to remind these site is

actually I use time just because you

created the mathematics here that made

it easy for you to comprehend the world

doesn't mean it doesn't really prove

that you've proven anything it's not the

time isn't a fourth dimension of

space-time is different from space to

begin with time only goes in one

direction and that's why it's a weird so

a physicist would probably said well in

the world of physics time can go

backwards and forwards yeah because

everything else goes backwards and

forwards because if you take the

metaphor of space and then apply it on

time and say that time is just the

fourth dimension of space then you start

thinking then time should appear the way

space does because the space you can go

backwards and forwards but you can't

time only goes in one direction it's an

arrow now Einstein found is very useful

to show us the time can be relative time

can move faster in one spot that it

moves in another spot at least the time

that Einstein measured with his clocks

but it still only goes in one direction

it doesn't go backwards

and if anyone in here can prove to me

the time in any way whatsoever can move

backwards I would be happy to listen but

haven't seen any evidence for that

whatsoever the mystery has not been

caught yet

so time moves in one relentless

direction and the problem here with

einstein's worldview is that he only

talks about local time he talks about

time in a specific part of the universe

for example the planet Earth and our

solar system and within the solar system

time moves in a certain direction here

yeah it does and it can then move

differently if you're out in space or if

you're on the planet it can move at

different speeds so you age more in one

place than you would age in the other

place so that's correct

for local time but what if there is more

than one time what if there are several

dimensions of time rather than just one

the funny thing is that now when you

deal with string theory these days a lot

of string theories are saying why don't

we just add two time dimensions rather

one dimension of time since we have so

many dimensions anyway in string theory

and suddenly their equations start to

make sense

so if we have a local time we could easy

also have a universal time a time for

the universe itself as a whole and that

time did not have to be relative at all

and actually funny enough it's the kind

of time we could not measure with the

clock because you cannot put a clock

outside of the universe that's the whole

point you can only measure this kind of

time for the universe as a whole and

then you could for example say that the

universe is 13.8 billion years old

it wouldn't be 13.8 billion years in

different places but it could be that if

we measure time as a whole for the

entire universe so why did Einstein

become so popular it turns out that this

is actually struggle in the world of

philosophy and in the world of science

that has gone on since the Greeks and

within the Greek community they had two

little guys called Parmenides and

Heraclitus and they were like the two

opposite sides in this struggle I would

say that one of them is and I wrote

neurotic guy and other guys a psychotic

guy because

oh sorry the psychotic or neurotic okay

and the personality change alters the

way they think you know Nietzsche once

said that there is no way we could think

outside of our own psychology I

completely agree with him

we're completely incapable as human

beings to think outside of the

personality types you are and that's

exactly what philosopher is so different

for one another because they have

different personality types

so permanently this was the neurotic

here he was way before Einstein he was a

nerd and his idea was this that well at

the end of the day time is an illusion

yeah okay

if time is solution then nothing ever

changes it's a closet family's nothing

ever changes any change we would observe

a solution so everything has happened or

it's not happening whatever at the same

time so there's nothing outside of that

so Parmenion sensor said is that we have

a past and we perceive a present and we

perceive a Fiori think we're going to

perceive a future eventually have these

three aspects of it and they're all

equally valid they're all equally real

because they're all occurring at the

same time in other words there is no

time at all and this turned out actually

weird enough to be very popularly among

the Greeks especially one guy called

Plato who influenced the rest of history

more than any of the other Greeks he

logged prime minis idea he even

mentioned part medicine severals books

even even gave one of the Tigers on his

books after Pearlman eNOS and Plato like

this idea and Plato's session said that

where we live in a world as sort of

miserable dysfunctional kind of stupid

but he felt the real world there is

another world that is more real than the

current or we live in and it's the world

of ideas into the world of ideas we

would see the time is an illusion now

Heraclitus was the opponent of these

guys and he was a psychotic she didn't

write that much it was kind of the lazy

guy you know because the problem with a

neurotic guys is they write they write a

lot of books and they very patriarchal

so people are forced to listen to the

more or less miraculous

we only have a few as those remnants

left in Iraq leaders was the guy who

saved the famous quote you cannot put

the same foot in a river twice what he

meant was that time is change and change

is occurring all

the time every single moment is a moment

of change interesting love there are

always these clever students around

philosophers interact let's had one of

these years of wrack lettuce said you

can never put the same foot in the river

twice on this clever student said it's

not even the same River the point here

is that change is moving on all the time

and the only thing that really exists

are occasions and every occasion that

exists is totally unique

that means there's never two of anything

everything that ever happens is

completely unique so in one moment to

the next the entire universe is changed

dramatically and the question is then

why then did this idea the prominent

percent of the time a solution becomes

so attractive to us well it has to do

with the fact that we could not orient

ourselves in a world with so much

dramatic change as it actually is we

cannot find our way through the world at

all if you actually would observe all

the changes that was going on because

our perception our senses are reached by

so much change at any given moment that

if your brain was preoccupied with

processing one second or perceptions and

process them all it would take it twenty

five thousand years to do that so what

the brain cleverly does is that it takes

in the perceptions and then neatly sorts

out anything that it can sort out and

say okay we can just put this into norms

or into models or anything we use before

or biographies or whatever we have these

different piles we can put this stuff so

I can focus on what's important for me

in what is changing from one given

moment to the next and in the world of

philosophy we call these eternal eyes

ations simply because what we do is that

we take in something which is moving and

changing from a moment to the next

and then we freeze it as if we then

observed something and by observing that

it can no longer change your own ego is

a perfect sample of section

internalization actually at any given

second

all the different potentialities you

would have all the different things your

body could do the name next second all

of those things that your body does not

do or a dead version of you and only

that thing your body actually does is

the only thing that survives from one

second to the next

so your sense of an ego is just your

brain constructing this idea that there

is a timeline from the time you were

born

until today when you meet here with me

at TEDx and how does this go on so this

between these two points there's a

timeline and then your brain afterwards

constructs this idea but there is

something eternal inside of you that's

always the same that occurred when you

were born and is still the same today

but this is the real illusion there's no

such thing it was your parents yelling

at you when you were a kid going after

seeing that you there what are you doing

eventually you internalize that and

you're probably about one years old you

started saying aye aye aye about things

this body we're doing so you took

started taking responsibility for the

things your body does and then were you

a two years old you take loads of

selfies all the time you put them on

Instagram and you're just waiting for

somebody to look at you do you finally

get some attention that's a rego

okay the ego is an illusion there's no

such thing but of course these guys

played on par monedas the neurotic guys

they have huge egos they don't like this

so they like to defend their ego and the

way to defend their ego is by insisting

the time is illusion and that becomes a

very popular idea for example we then

have a society where we have churches

that preaches truth every Sunday and we

have an ability that owned land and we

have to work for them as slaves as

peasants and then we have monarchs who

are symbolic creatures and they're in

contact with the gods and these guys

rule the world for us and eventually we

replace them we replace them with

politicians we replace them with

university professors and we replace

them with industry owners so we've all

worked in the service of these

patriarchs for the past 2,000 years and

they have every interest in the world in

making us believe that have an ego

because if they make us believe we have

an ego we have something to be

responsible for and then they can take

us to court and then they can say if you

don't follow the law we lock you up

because you're responsible for your

actions as if there was you inside of us

that was permanent and ever changed so

it serves power so Heraclitus is what we

call a minor Italian thinker he set the

margins of things we tried to ignore him

because nobody else that can really see

need for recklessness because you cannot

construct a power structure based on

rock loaders even if the guy turns out

to be right so we move on and we come to

modern times the thing is that after

Plato we got the play-doh modernity it

was name was conked count was another

one of these sort of neurotic guys he

lived in a German town called Kern

expect

he never even left connects back his

entire life he spent his entire life

writing these six books on discourse and

this is how the world works and

essentially was the philosopher who

created modernity we live in the shades

or shadows of count ever since and count

was another platanus he also claimed

that time is an illusion and it's just

it's just something that the brain makes

up it's a form it's something at the

time time is something the brain makes

up to then make sense of sensory

experience but there's no time outside

of us okay no time outside of us as if

there wasn't a time before human beings

existed as if there wasn't 13.8 billion

years kind of weird huh so we move on to

count and he turns out that Einstein

despite all the formidable work he did

with special relativity and general

relativity he really believed in count

and really believed in Plato and Eve's

of course another one of these neurotic

eyes yeah he worked at the Postal

Service in Switzerland what the do

you think you know so we have these guys

here the question is then is there an

alternative what happened to rack

leaders and the heritage after rock

lettuce what could we do after him well

it turns out there's a funny way of then

approaching this and that's a guy who

occurred in the 19th century called

darvid and Darwin came along with the

idea of evolution like everything

changed

over time and he transforms from one

thing into something completely

different and the funny thing with

Arvind is that that requires the time is

real and the idea of evolution has now

become as popular as Einstein's

metaphysics so these two guys are now

struggling it out and then the funny

thing comes in behind Einsteins back in

the 1920s there's a whole new part of

physics called quantum physics have you

ordered that okay in quantum physics

there was a danish guy called niels bohr

and in the 1930s he was one of those

guys who started talking time Stan say

I'm Stan you're actually fundamentally

wrong you don't get the lesson real

quantum physics because if time is an

illusion then everything is determined

and that means that everything has ever

happened was pre-programmed inside the

Big Bang it wasn't the Big Bang happened

first

I don't Big Bang came physics out of

physics we got chemistry chemistry was

not pre-programmed inside physics it

just suddenly happened in out of

chemistry we got something called

biology on this planet here by Aldi was

not pre-program he said chemistry

suddenly just emerged in our biology we

had something called consciousness and

we human beings and all seven billion

people walking around the time the

consciousness in our brains that was not

pre programming the Big Bang that means

the future is not determined the futures

in deterministic there are chances

happening all the time and that means

time must be incredibly real

Einstein is wrong and erectus was right

all along this brings us down to was

there anybody before Heraclitus have got

this the other was in Iran three

thousand seven hundred years ago we find

a spooky little sac called the server

nights the server nights were hated by

all the other religions everybody else

what the server that's really crazy the

server nights worship the God called

Zorba and serve on altitude is ancient

Persian for time they believe that time

is God himself

you know what looking at the entire

history of time over the last 3,700

years I think these guys in Iran got it

right because if there's anything we

haven't solved yet all you ate this out

there if there's any religion I'd be

really scared of if I was an atheist

today isn't when somebody would come

along and say that wait a second what if

time and God is the same time or since

we've had these four singularities the

Big Bang chemistry biology and

consciousness maybe a fifth singularity

would suddenly happen and if something

is striking as these other things would

suddenly just happen from out of nowhere

we have no other word for that thing to

happen except the word god thank you