How long has it been since you saw the movie Arrival?


 

If I recall correctly, Memento takes events:
1-2; 3-4; 5-6; 7-8; 9-10

and tells them:
9-10; 7-8; 5-6; 3-4; 1-2

So time is still moving forwards, but in a chopped up backwards way. 

I wouldn't even begin to be able to tell you how Arrival tells time.

My initial thought about your first post reminds me of what I faintly remember LJ saying a while ago in the old Callar about Eckhard Tolle.  Something along the lines of there is only the present, and the past doesn't exist, and neither does the future. So live in the moment.  In the here and now.  Be present.

Different than Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow"

Our experience as a conscious being in the present has developed around adapting to the entropy in our lives. Perhaps reversing entropy would diminish or eliminate awareness of the present since adaptation would no longer be necessary. YMMV.

The movie Tenet has characters living backwards through time. I found it kind of tricky to follow, plot-wise, but I admit I wasn't trying very hard.

As someone born in the 60's every day is an exercise in future shock. As a kid, getting people to the stars was an unalloyed good, progress was inevitable, the biosphere was going to get healthier, and humans were going to be better educated and connected across the globe. In 2025, I don't even know if I should be advising young people at all. Physically I'm at the stage where injuries take longer to heal, exercise has to be formal, and eating needs to be intentional. Everything is focused on entropy rather than growth. It is both humbling and freeing being closer to a dirt nap. 

Since the OP is about experiencing the flow of time, my post (#6 above) was more about the psychological aspect of entropy than the thermodynamic aspect. An explanation is too long to post here; so, here’s a link to one:

What Does Entropy Have to Do With Psychology?
The Second Law of Thermodynamics is the First Law of Psychology

I’m considering that experiences in the reverse flow of time may not quite be what we would expect from our experiences with the forward flow of time, similarly to the behavior of the extremely small turning out to not quite be what we would expect from our experiences with the macro-universe.


 

Your original post seemed to be focusing on the micro level, and we are getting all macro.  I wonder what you might learn from spending some time watching videos playing backwards?

The ball quickly flies up from the ground and decelerates into the hand, which gently wraps the fingers around it, instead of being released and accelerated by gravity to hit the ground when the video is played forward.  Every action and thought would be played in reverse in a timeline that runs in reverse, and a being in that timeline would also think in reverse, and perceive things in reverse.

I can't even begin to understand what that would feel like, to think in reverse.

glatt wrote:

I can't even begin to understand what that would feel like, to think in reverse.

To them*, it would feel exactly the same. *Denizens of a perceptual universe where the flow of time moves FROM high entropy TO low entropy.
The equations of physics work exactly the same in either direction, humans have a time/entropy bias that is not required or suggested by anything.

Now what IS confusing is, how to WRITE about it.
Ground Rules:
1) story is told from a human perceptual perspective
2) story is told chronologically (no Tarantino/Memento arrangement)

Minimum required to describe the bizarro-consciousness:
1) We remember the past .. They remember the future
2) We can change the future .. They can change the past
3) We were born in the past .. They were born in the future
4) We will die in the future .. They will die in the past
5) The present, "NOW" is the only thing possible to experience

The problem comes from picking a verb tense/nomenclature. One example:
We WERE born in the past.
A) They WERE born in the future. <-- their verb tense + our nomenclature
B) They WILL BE born in the future. <-- our verb tense + our nomenclature
C) They WERE born in the past. <-- their verb tense + their nomenclature
D) They WILL BE born in the past. <-- our verb tense + their nomenclature

You could say, "their birth is in the future" and avoid specifying a tense, but I don't think you can tap-dance around the problem in every situation.

I think A) or B) make the most sense, C) is impossible to implement (does not distinguish from normal grammar), and D) conveys nearly the opposite of the intended meaning.

Diaphone Jim wrote:

You can't change a thing you have done so far this morning. 
Yesterday is even harder.

But if something could, I think the effects would be equivalent to, "the universe I experienced this morning has retroactively been altered, effectively both ceasing to exist, and being replaced by a different event which subsequently produces a different present world" --and the real question is, how do you write about this experience? Do you remember that anything happened or is it a seamless phenomenon which is simply how the world always works? Could causality hop back and forth across a central point, and if so, would there be any way to exploit this information? Would you assume a protagonist/antagonist relationship across the opposite sides of temporal causality? Is there any consciousness which has a neutral temporal perspective?
 

I agree with what you're saying, but whether it's the first thing is a confusing proposition.

I've known for about two years how I want the characters to feel, and change over time based on the emotional experiences of the main story beats*. It's the first thing, in that I couldn't care about writing the story without that.
*Even though I hadn't decided what the story/setting/conflict was going to be!

But the central conflict is something like "Man versus Nature/Fate/God" so I have to define the world-building, or else I can't understand what the antagonist is. In that sense, mechanics has to be "first"  before I can draft anything.

Clodfobble wrote:

whether the characters' emotional states are part of the effect-and-cause timeline or not (which is basically like asking whether they have a soul, or whether they are bags of chemicals devoid of free will.)
 

At the beginning of the Hero’s Journey, we’re in the normal world. We have regrets, secrets, and guilt from the past, but also memories that we cherish. We can dread the future, but also, it’s where anything is possible.
Our arc plunges into the unknown world. OUR FEELINGS ARE VERY CONFUSED because unknown forces interfere with reality. The threads of fate are tangled into knots. If something supernatural were able to alter temporal causality, would our dreams be haunted by the ghost of un-created memories? Would our visions of the future feel like memories? What would Deja Vu feel like, for something that hasn't happened yet?
Our grasp/perception of reality is stretched to the breaking point, and our feelings are torn apart, disintegrating everything familiar, even our own identity.
IS this a deterministic world, and if so, what do our tortured efforts hope to achieve?
 
In Jacob’s Ladder, Meister Eckhart is paraphrased, “The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of life-- your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you, he said. They're freeing your soul. So the way he sees it, if you're frightened of dying and... and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth. It's just a matter of how you look at it, that's all. So don't worry, okay?”
 

Last edited by Flint (3/06/2025 5:47 pm)

It's funny you should ask, because in that regard, they're presumably exactly like us. After all, we have the ability to travel into their past and make changes beyond their control, just as they do in respect to us.

Knowledge only lies in the past, and change only comes in the future, these never can meet.

eta: okay I just realized what you were saying. I guess it's not exactly the same.

Last edited by Flint (3/06/2025 8:43 pm)

More coherent answer to Clodfobble: the characters have the feelings about changed events, but not the knowledge of them. The fact that something supernatural has occurred is only evident because their feelings don’t match the world we can see. Believing in something which is not in evidence is what guides them-- an initiation into the underworld.
 

griff wrote:

Whoa, that's a cool thought.

I know this, as certainly as I know anything:
There is a central scene of maximum dramatic tension. The characters, some intimately involved, some strangers drawn together by coincidence, are there when it happens—the terrible mystery that lies beyond understanding. There is a central character, integral to the event but whose identity is unknowable.. either they cannot see his face, or his identity does not correspond to any known person.
 
The scene takes place in an area of maximally strange distortion of reality, space and time. Memories/prophecies of this event radiate out from a central point in time, sending ripples into both the past and the future. Characters who were there when it happened may experience a vague sense of unease, an alarmist call to action, or a maddening plague of prophetic visions, horror-filled dreams, and intrusive internal monologues.
 
Each of these characters, in their own lives, is driven to answer the burning questions. Across human history, these same people are repeated, RE-incarnated and PRE-incarnated, with the same faces, personalities, and relationships. Their dramas and conflicts radiate outwards, from “?”