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Based on the situation described by this earlier question:

recap

If due to some strange phenomena that changed our universe laws, time stopped and can only move if a creature capable of observing is looking at a process. Everything stopped everywhere in the universe, except where creatures with eyes are looking at.

You look at people moving a heavy piece with a crane. The crane cable breaks. If you keep looking the piece will fall towards the ground, but as soon as you turn around and stop watching, that scene stops.

There is no distance limit. If you look at a star 10 ly away from you, time is back running for that star, if you stop looking at it, time stops. Et cetera.

the question

Given the above setting, how to prevent starvation, economic downturn etc?

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Jorge Aldo
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  • "Simon says stand below a falling crane, ah ha I only shut my eyes but I didn't turn around!" – user6760 Jul 01 '15 at 04:34
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    If nobody is looking at a person will he also freeze in time? If yes, would something or someone he is looking at while frozen still count as observed by him? – Andris Jul 01 '15 at 06:24
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    Does time continue inside a cardboard box if the out side is observed? E.g. is putting my computer on my desk enough to make it work or do I have to have the side of the case off and the crystal clearly visible? – Wil Selwood Jul 01 '15 at 12:04
  • Was that a change that was made at "the Beginning of Time"? Or, say tomorrow? – clem steredenn Jul 01 '15 at 13:29
  • The phrase "A watched pot never boils" wound be replaced by "un-watched pot" – Oldcat Jul 01 '15 at 22:10
  • I presume that "can only move if a creature capable of observing is looking at a process. " is not what you meant. Surely you mean that if any part of an object is observed, the entire object continues to experience changing time. Otherwise the sun will extinguish, since the interior (where fusion is occurring) is not visible to us. This also requires some careful thinking about just exactly what constitutes an "object". Is a cloud an object? It has no interior structure and the constituent water droplets are not bound together in any way. – WhatRoughBeast Jul 02 '15 at 11:02
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    I wouldn't want to live in a world where Stevie Wonder couldn't play the piano. – Steve Matthews Oct 04 '16 at 09:14
  • I imagined a world with bacteria that have eyes, thus the time continued. – Skye Oct 04 '16 at 12:01

1 Answers1

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As with anything dealing with time stoppages, the important question is what are the boundary conditions? In this case there is another question: Does the time stop propagate at the speed of light or not?

For example: I look at a start 8 light years distant. When did time stop on that star? Did it stop when I received the light (in which case eight years ago) or will it stop immediately upon me looking at it? If it's the former case then the motion of celestial bodies is very rapidly going to get messed up, if it's the latter then you can send messages back in time by morse code blinking.

Either way: all of these points are rendered somewhat moot by the fact that everyone would very quickly die. If you're not looking at yourself, time stops. You cant move anything. Solitary people are trapped, forever causing time to flow in their field of vision but unable to do anything about it. People in groups fare a little better, as they can keep time going for each other, but they'll have to sort out blinking and sleeping pretty fast or they're all going to freeze too. Even if a person remains in-time the air they're trying to breathe wont be without assistance

But lets ignore that technicality via the power of handwavium. Everything mentioned in this question still applies. How you deal with the boundary between time and not time is of utmost importance if you don't want peoples eyeballs being ripped out of their sockets by tidal stress, gravity failing to work or all creatures with eyes accidentally causing nuclear fusion with their peripheral vision.

Ignoring the purely physical though, lets assume comic book logic. The presence of living beings would be paramount to life continuing. Depending on your definition of 'eyes' and 'vision', our greatest allies here are actually mites and insects. They're ubiquitous in most day to day activities, number in the trillions and look everywhere fairly indiscriminately. Some insects (ants, bees etc) rely on polarised sunlight for navigational purposes, so the sun isn't going to suddenly stop (again, boundary conditions could lead to some hilarity if it did).

I'm assuming that in our comic book logic an 'object' caught in someone's LOS has time, so basically anything that can be seen by an insect, dust mite, tardigrade or Eagle will continue to function. This basically covers... well, almost everything. Automated systems in cleanrooms might have some issues, but you could lock a cockroach in a box and point it in the right direction to fix that.

TL:DR Not much change if you use comic book logic, everybody dies if you don't, watch out for paradoxes caused by the speed of light.

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Joe Bloggs
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  • Most importantly: does a camera count as an observer? – Raestloz Jul 01 '15 at 09:44
  • "Everything stopped everywhere in the universe, except where creatures with eyes are looking at" - I assumed this line to mean that cameras didn't count (and in fact wouldn't work at all unless being directly observed by a living creature) A more interesting question is mirrors and the nature of observation, but hey, comic book science! – Joe Bloggs Jul 01 '15 at 10:11
  • The question linked has mention that only observation by things above a certain level of intelligence... so insects might not count in this question – Sarfaraaz Oct 04 '16 at 07:53