movement of time

the "movement of time" is in the same category as "free will" -- a simplification
of reality that's built into our brains to allow the relatively-simple systems that are our
brains, to deal with a reality that is massively more complex and interconnected than
we can appreciate ...

it's all very well to say this intellectually, but, to appreciate this phenomenologically is a different thing. try to stop experiencing time as moving. just experience each moment as its own entity. the moments can be arranged in a linear order, but they could also be arranged in other ways too. each moment gains some meaning from the ones before and after it, but also from other moments that are distant in time.

does perceiving time in this way make life any different? the problem is that many of our cognitive heuristics don't work with this mode of perception. so we are unable to employ the handy inductive biases built into our brains unless we accept the illusion of time moving and flowing.

but still, it's amusing to stop time now and then.