Research Program / Claims / time-9
Time is the effect produced by the system acting upon mental acts that enter its framework; at the fundamental level, time does not exist.
时间是系统作用于进入其框架的意念动作所产生的效应；基本层面不存在时间。
Concept time · Domain Nonlinear Time and Self-Cognition · mechanism · interface 3/3 · testability 3/3 · status untested · ★ fundable
This program treats the Seth Material as a source of hypotheses, not as doctrine to be validated. Lead dossiers are AI-compiled from the corpus with a book-and-session citation after every statement; literature reviews are AI web-search summaries whose references were all DOI-verified against Crossref; the agenda draft is an AI synthesis. None of it is Seth's original text, and none of it represents scientific consensus. English fields are machine-translated; the Chinese text is authoritative.
Seth sources (book §session)
Adjudicating experiment
Corresponding to Question 5: Approximately 480 participants are randomly assigned to prospective timing and retrospective timing groups, and cross-receive 0, 2, 3-back loads; the retrospective group only learns of the timing requirement after the first target interval ends, to avoid repeated measurement turning it into a prospective task. Stimulus rate, motor response, and objective duration are matched; measures include accuracy, subjective-to-objective duration ratio, pupil diameter, and heart rate; pre-registered is the load × paradigm interaction. The project lasts 4–6 months. A pilot study is conducted separately to avoid contaminating the formal retrospective group; the results can only adjudicate the load version.
Suggested paper title
Cognitive Load and Duration Judgments Across Prospective and Retrospective Timing Paradigms
What it would overturn
If, under strictly controlled paradigms, stable load effects are found that cannot be explained by existing attention and memory models, this would revise the resource allocation assumptions of these timing models, but it cannot thereby overturn the existence of fundamental time.
Candidate labs / funders
Peter A. Hancock，University of Central Florida，人因与认知负荷; Dan Zakay，时间判断与注意模型; Dean V. Buonomano，神经动力学计时
Specificity of Seth's formulation
"Mental act" and "system resistance" have no units or functional relationship; "proportional to load" is a researcher-added inference; Seth's original sentence itself does not specify a clear direction of effect.
Note
One cannot count both overestimation and underestimation as verifying "proportional to load"; the duration judgment measures, direction, and paradigm must be specified in advance. The non-existence of fundamental time is a separate independent proposition.
Evidence (2, DOI-verified via Crossref)
Cite: Future Mind Institute, Seth Material Research Agenda, claim time-9, https://www.seth.org.cn/en/research/claims/time-9