The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli - Quick Hitters

  • (43) Our "present" does not extend throughout the universe (!)

    • It's like a bubble around us

  • (83) Three discoveries of quantum mechanics

  • Granularity

    1. Indeterminacy

    2. Relational aspect of physical variables

  • (83) Planck Time = 10^-44 seconds

  • (86) Planck Length = 10^-33 cm

  • The minimum limit below which the notion of length becomes meaningless

  • (97) Destruction of the notion of time in fundamental physics

  • (98) Things are actually long events

  • We live in a world of events

  • 108 - An objective global present does not exist

  • 117 - To describe the world, the time variable isn't required

  • 167 - Only source of difference between past and future is the low entropy of the past

  • 178 | "Our present swarms with traces of our past"

  • 179 | "Memory solders together the processes, across time, of which we are made"

  • 186 | Heidegger: "Time temporalizes itself only to the extent that it is human"

  • Heidegger: Internal consciousness of time as the horizon of being itself

  • 189 - Memory + anticipation is the source of our sensing time as time, and ourselves as ourselves

  • 190 - Time is the source of our identity, and our suffering

  • 205 - Greatest of all mysteries: "Every day countless people die, and yet those who remain live as if they were immortals"

  • 208 - Fearing death is like fearing the sun; or, reality itself; whatever for?

  • 209 - We are more complex than our mental faculties are capable of grasping

  • Ingredients that combine to produce our identity:

  • We all identify with a point of view in the world

    1. We reflect the world

    2. We organize the world into entities

    3. We've formed an image of a unified entity by interacting with our kind (other humans)

    4. Existence is linked to past memories