Curious question:
Our concept of time as a model of reality has served us well when developing technology. There is something much of our technology is based on, and so closely related to time I hesitate to bring it up, and that is frequency. The beating of the heart, the number of times you eat between sunsets, the sunsets themselves, the dripping of water, etc. are all rather direct things in our perceptions, maybe more direct than time itself, and in some way a relationship as @mughat quotes.
Did you find out or hear anything from the Aboriginals about frequency as a concept?
Technology is just a manifestation of our shortcomings. For example a cat doesn't need a house because it has fur. We develop much of our technology instinctively much like a bird knows how to build a nest to procreate. Technology is just our games to play along and survive while we try to juggle our rather elongated memories. A peacock is quite useless if you just see it but evolutionary is as successful as we are. This is all that matters at the end of the day.
All the things you mention are patterns. Loops. We choose to related to specific loops as stepping stones. Everything is a loop including life itself. Everything eventually creates a pattern. The only thing that changes is the point of view. This is how aboriginal people see time. This is why it becomes pointless.
They often laugh at western culture because we are stuck in loops. We do the same mistakes in relationships, we want to do the same things over and over again. We create rituals much like a bird performs a mating dance or a male spider sacrifices to the female for the sake of procreating.
I don't think they even have the word "frequency" in their lexicon. It is rather obsolete if you think about it. It is as useless as the word "nothing" since there is always something.
Had a bit too much whisky for this, but I'll have a go:
Offhand, I think "our" model of time is the preferred one because it predicts better and because it is more enabling in building other models that predict well. I do have an engineering job to consider, you know 8-). But if everything is loops, you wouldn't feel much need for predictions, I suppose.
Their model wouldn't yield much technology, not sure it even includes all causality, but it sounds superior when it comes to contentment and happiness, not criteria we are used to applying to models of time, or any other scientific models, for that matter.
But it is still interesting. Many physics theories are time-symmetric. There could well be another, higher-level model using one or more extra dimensions with many loops, with "our" model having rolled out all loops as a special case.
Somebody who can observe the extra dimensions could make slices through the model that project time as moving backwards, standing still, looping, etc.
Other than that, it is very hard to get my head around the Aboriginals' concept of time, but I'm going to have a try.
Are we really that good with predictions though even though they make loops? Take the stock market for example where trillions are poured for this very reason. Most people that work there at top engineers but still they can't predict anything really.
Aboriginals of the Northern Territory of Australia are considered to be the happiest people on earth based on 3 different indexes. Check my post about depression here
https://steemit.com/health/@kyriacos/depression-is-a-disease-of-civilization-aboriginal-australians-hold-the-cure
Knowledge and making everything automatic doesn't necessarily make people happy since it gives them much time for contemplating which is the beginning of doubt, self reflection, search for purpose. Progress and happiness have little to do with each other. Now, if someone else has the means and you don't and you can compare then you are more likely to be more miserable. Ignorance IS bliss after all.
Their way of thinking i similar to quantum physics. Everything is 3D concentric circles that intersect. If you try to think about everything this way you will get a headache.
I was thinking of predictions in physics about the behaviour of physical systems, mechanical, electrical, chemical, etc., the models engineers use to design and build things. Engineers working on models to predict the stock market, well, I do have an opinion on them, but it's not relevant to this conversation. The word "top" isn't in it, I can tell you that.
Quantum physics for me is just a model, and I can do the math and translate the outcome into something I can use, but I always avoided interpretations of the model, as I don't find metaphysics very useful other than as a passtime. Still, the idea of particles being in all states at the same time and those states' only collapsing into a single state when you observe them seems related enough to the Aboriginals way of thinking, as are theories where a number of extra dimensions are introduced to build a model and "rolled up" again when the results are interpreted to arrive at the 4 dimensions we use in every-day life.
The models and math don't give me headaches, but the metaphysical interpretations do, as does the Aboriginals' way of thinking, another thing they have in common 8-).
Don't get me wrong. I am not buying for a second the parallel universes theory or the connection of the macro with the micro world. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence and I need a lot more convincing to buy the whole thing.
I don't even think aboriginals believe in extra dimensions. They rather believe that each person constructs their own version of reality which I believe is extremely true even by engineering standards. If you perceive each human as a separate tank where all laws of thermodynamics take place then each and every human that every lived on this petty rock, has a unique view and interpretation about the world.
When we agree with some rules of communication, whether those are mathematics, language or any other discipline we compromise in a way in order to communicate something. Consider how 2 lovers in a way see each other completely different but end up sharing one thing because they simply want to be loved and found each other by aspiring to their own desires.
Take another example. Cosmology. We have all those constants but nobody knows where and how they came to be. Yet we base so many predictions on those models that often fall short.
Engineering works so well on earth because the time-space which they are tested is confined to specific rules. It works much like a rock works when a monkey drops a coconut from a specific distance on it in order to brake it open. The monkey knows the rules even if it doesn't understand physics. We are not far from their level. The difference in perspective of humans and bonobos is similar to bonobos and orangutans.
Its easy to see our futility when we add a couple of new variables for the same problem, e.g designing a simple toilet for the space station.We suddenly need to take into consideration a completely new set of variables for the very same tool. Also consider the fact that 99.999% of humanity has no idea how any of all these toys work whether on space or earth.
Sure engineering has helped us build toys to make life easier but all those toys came as a result for our shortcomings. There is a quote from the book "Hitchhikes guide to the galaxy" that covers this whole thing up.
". For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much — the wheel, New York, wars and so on — whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man — for precisely the same reasons."
ps: Engineering is the only respected set of disciplines that can be considered scientific based on my standards. It is the only one that has replicability at high rates and follows epistemological principles.