The Subjective Experience of Time: A Four-Component Framework
We usually think of time as something external - a universal clock ticking independently of us. Seconds pass, minutes accumulate, and the universe unfolds regardless of whether we pay attention to it or not. But what if experienced time is not something that flows around you, but something your system actively constructs? What if time, as you experience it, is not fundamental - but emergent? Where This Began? This hypothesis didn't start with physics or philosophy. It started at a party. I met someone, had a conversation I clearly remembered afterward - the exchange, the ideas, the connection. But when I encountered that person again after few months, they had no memory of it at all. For them, that interaction simply did not exist. The event had physically happened. Entropy had unfolded. Time had passed for both of us equally. Yet it existed in my timeline and not in theirs. That asymmetry made me think about the very nature of subjective experience of time. If time were simply a ...
