TEDxAmsterdam - Wubbo Ockels - 11/20/09

[theriznick]

This is one of the most idiotic and vain pretensions to profundity I have ever heard. Time is merely the way we understand movement through space. His banal observation that our understanding of time is particular to humans doesn't have anything to say about this. We are not all frozen in place. What kind of audience was this, just a bunch of credulous citizens or a serious body of scientists? Somehow I doubt the latter.

[theriznick]

What a stupendous QUACK

[SnazzyService]

CONCLUSIONS .....

[blah32123]

The correct term is Micro-Gravity, not weightless......when he says you don't feel the earth, he is wrong. He is really only feeling about 90% of what he used to, that is approximating the average distance the ISS is from earth. I don't know why that bugged me so much when he said that.

[Nloveru]

Just because we have invented certain ways of time and distance measurement that are not universal does not mean we have invented time....

And what the seeing of alien lifeforms has to do with this is a mystery to me.

[Tinuz73]

I think therefor I am!??Descartes said this in ehhh 1645 or something? Wake the F up Wubbo. The 'I am' does'nt come out of thinking.Namely it is the supreme and ultimate reality that IS. ........... Sometimes I think;Sometimes I THINK would be appropiate.Rather tell us what you saw up there in space with the ALL the other lifeforms!!!!

[MrCowboyVincent]

He doesn't make a clear distinction between time-PERCEPTION and time as a PHYSICS fenomenon. He mixes them up and that makes him look like a new-age charlatan. Especially when he started about extraterrestrial contact.

Right? or am I just stupid.

[frankvennik]

This really makes alot of sense !

[TheCrullmeis]

Is Ockels saying that we are too small and live too short to find life out there? Should we observe over generations with larger telescopes outside of earth orbit and then after "filming" for over thousands of years super fastforward the images to actually SEE someting out there? Or drasticly downscale observations (really zoom in) and then slow down the recordings extremely? Or what is he saying? Please explain it again diferrentely Mr. Ockels.

[wolffrankenstein]

I would not want to take physics or art with this guy.

[WOWFPS]

when you sleep time goes faster, when you day dream time goes faster.. when your bored it goes slower. could that be used as any explenation?

[EuroPowa]

Either Im an idiot or this makes no sense.

[oddball111]

Isnt he saying the exact same thing as peter russell in the primacy of consiousness here?

[waltibaba]

The 4 people that didn't like it were the 100kg, 80kg, and 65kg. And the alien that was there that isn't geocentric enough to understand this.

[chichimadi]

wowww

[Snuilp]

I'm sitting on my couch where once stood a tree, walked or swam a dinosaur or will fly a future bird through a mountain pass. I live my life at this moment, just like my ancestors lived their live, and future generations will, from birth until death. They had their time like I have my time now. My now was once their moment of now. The past, present and future is an illusion. Their future is my now and my now will be the history of future generations. No-one can claim time or the 'now' moment.

[seismiq]

wow. This is a very intriguing view on physics. I hope the smart guys amongst us could give it a shot; removing time from the equations in unifying gravity with quantum mechanics. For me it makes sense, perhaps it would too in a physical model.

[ThermalHD]

This is the first lecture i have seen on ted that was crap.

[PseudoHuman16]

Can somebody please explain to me what the significance was of this video. I have a basic understanding of physics but I can't really seem to understand what he is trying to tell. It is totally obvious that our perspective of time is generated by our brain, right? What's so revolutionary about that? Of course our perspective of time is different than, for example, that of a mouse.

Or am I missing the point?

[easyriders141]

@PseudoHuman16 Linear time, as we experiance in a 3th dimension, doesnt exist!

Therefore, There isnt such thing as 'beginning or end' Only transformation. Like the Mayan calander: its round, not linear, everything goes in cycles. Time =illusion

[PseudoHuman16]

@easyriders141 But even that is old knowledge right. Einstein said that time was relative. There is no past, present or future, everything happens all the time. Right now the dinosaurs still live in a different time dimension.

I saw an Interview about him where he was talking about this new idea about time which he was going to present in this presentation. But it isn't that revolutionary.

About that mayan calendar, thats what I've been saying all the time. It doesn't end at 2012, it continues.

[nickharvey7]

Time must also be linked to light and the geometry of spacetime. The observer is only forming his own spacetime geometry because he is a physical object. If he died the process of time would continue it would only be his own spacetime geometry that would come to an end.

[etiennealive]

@etiennealive Christian Huygens created time and now Wubbo Ockels deleted it.

[SporeZoo]

Great idea but you would have to die in order to "step out" time.

[kroikye]

He also is (stil) a firm outspoken believer of Antropogenic Global Warming, I think his views are for a part politically motivated.

I think anyone with brains, wich he has , does not believe AGW, esspecially after recent developments.

[shad455]

1. I make a list

2. I have ideas

3. Mine are right

[TheFerrymanSong]

Great! I think Scott Adams (dilbert creator) made the same case in of his books. He connected this insight with his dyslexia if I am right.

Anyway gotta luf Wubbo ^_^ hehe.

[trashmail8]

Time is a form of spiraling energy; Google:

""The Breakthroughs of Dr N. A. Kozyrev", torsion fields, torsion energy, yes: even the word "aether", etc.

And for those who never heard of his name and read "aether" and dismiss the whole thing: he's an Renowned and honored Russian astrophysicist with plenty of publications and experiments to chew on. :-)

But let me also say: Wubbo is a great and wonderful man! :-D

[Anphase]

Wow..wow!!! I just had an ah ha moment. This is great!

[personzorz]

"the physicists still blieve that if we all die time keeps going"

...uhhh... there was no Earth life at all for nearly 10 billion years...

No humans on Earth for 4.6 billion years...

[YoLninYo]

1. Time is a consequence of the universe.

2. Time as we (biological organisms) perceive it, is a biological construct. It has nothing to do with gravity. Theoretically, life could evolved in a zero g env if the conditions were right.

3. Time is nothing but the "change of state" which happens when the universe goes from "state A" to "B"...

4. Biological organisms need to keep track of time because biological processes have to occur in a sequence.

5. Life is information processing.

[aandecrack]

there isn't any time when there aint any gravity.