Saint Augustine said, "What, then, is time? I know well enough what it is, provided that nobody asks me; but if I am asked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled."
Is time linear? I'd have to back up a step and ask if time actually exists. Might it be an articifial construct of our meager minds? I also think we'd be hard pressed to actually find much in nature that is linear.
The notion that time does not exist is one of the hot topics in physics these days. See The End of Time : The Next Revolution in Physics by Julian B. Barbour.
I had started it but laid it aside for other pursuits. I intend to get back to it as time permits.
if I am asked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled
According to Prof Urban Chronotis, of St Cedd's, Cambridge (UK) time is something that humans invented in order to stop everything happening at the same time.
"If you’d like to know, I can tell you that in your universe you move freely in three dimensions that you call space. You move in a straight line in a fourth, which you call time, and stay rooted to one place in a fifth, which is the first fundamental of probability. After that it gets a bit complicated, and there’s all sorts of stuff going on in dimensions thirteen to twenty-two that you wouldn’t want to know about. All you really need to know for the moment is that the universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of thinking it’s pretty damn complicated in the first place."
I don't dispute this point at all. To assert that something cannot have a certain attribute defies conventional rules of logic and proofs. I don't mean to defy probability by saying that time is not linear. I merely point out that we'd have a heck of a time proving anything about something we aren't sure exists in the first place.
But then again, after rereading a little Rene Descartes, I think perhaps this Internet/internet is just a boogeyman and the great master is tricking me into thinking I'm typing.
the concept of time existing--at least in abstract terms--is as integral to our existence as it is receptary. i'm not sure i understand, though, what time could conceivably be if *not linear? is it ever not quantifiable? and even if we do buy into the many worlds theories, would it not still be a [myriad of] linear function[s]?
btw, being partially of native american descent myself, i once read about an [N.A.] indian culture whose language included absolutely no provisions for the concept of past, present or future... anyone know something about this?
Brandon PM'd me to clarify my previous statement in this thread, and after reviewing my answer, I thought it best to regurgitate it here for ya'll, and I wanted our Bean to know that my intent of "thanking her for making my point" was with tongue firmly planted in cheek (the first time, anyway).
In a recent thread called "Defining the Beatles", Bean offered a number of (pardon the pun) "examples" of how music may be interpreted by mathematics (and I'm not sure why since she was really "proving" my point, not the one she intended), and that music is not an application of mathematics but a reflection.
The idea is about the same... that mathematics reflects that which exists... a way for us to understand... a definition for us to exist in... time is how we understand it. Of course, time actually is defined by the relativity of the planets within our solar system, the relationship of Earth to Moon orbits (with some minor mathematical adjustments every four years) blah, blah...
BTW - as a performer there is little point to reflecting music as mathematics, but as a teacher or student it is invaluable to do so. However, it is always definitive of a humans concept of time.
Time is a context is this case, one of many. There are "times" (all puns intended) when the value of this reflection is stronger, requires more concentration, communicates more intensely... as a performer fighting it or losing it is more obvious (to me) than a wrong note (not that there are any... but that is a whole other thing).
I thought it was possible that I was not clear in the formation of that little word construct, especially the "(amongst others) which was referring to: there are more functions than only perspective that effect its definition, not that the being amongst other (things/peoples) perspectives is part of the function of time (even so much as it actually is).
I love this line of thought and would be happy to hear about it more....
"What time is it?" someone asked Yogi Berra, and he replied, "You mean now?"
And this from legendary baseball pitcher Satchel Paige, who some claimed broke into the Big Leagues from the old Negro Leagues when he was close to 50 and still pitched his way to a Hall-of-Fame career!:
"How old would you be," Paige asked, "if you didn't know how old you was?"
Source: "Living Legends," Sports Illustrated, July 30, 2001 (current issue)
Thanks, Musick, for the public post. I'll respond in kind.
Musick writes that the value of this reflection is stronger, requires more concentration, communicates more intensely....
Maybe this is why it is so difficult to actually discuss. I'm also a devil's advocate who learns more fleshing out arguments by taking opposing views. One could doubt the existence of time because there isn't any empirical proof that it exists. Yes, what we measure as time is tied to the order of celestial bodies, but nature knows no time, really. Think of Heracleitus' idea of the omnipresence of change. Doesn't that only exist in our minds? Isn't it our memory alone that preserves the past and nothing physical?
<<a nonspatial continuum that is measured in terms of events which succeed one another from past through present to future>>
In other words,
"a non-spatial continuum that is measured in terms of a spatial continuum," or "a non-spatial continuum that is measured in terms of a spacial continuum which is itself susceptible to being measured through its existence in time"
*As I remember, with reference to time, Augustine allowed for the measurement of time--of "its" passing. He considered the present moment, in which time *passes, could be measured and time (at least the *concept") of time to be impossible.
On the other hand, Kant rejects time as a concept, a faculty of understanding, and describes it as an intuition, or, rather, as one of intuitions two forms of appearance--the other is space--which form the *subjective possibility of appearance. Time and space are the possibility of objective appearance: of events, both in terms of the object in flux and the flux in the object.
On the other hand, subject/object is itself concept.
Extrapolating from some Neoplatonism, time is not only linear and non-linear, it is a reciprocation of time and not-time.
Dear caradea (tautology of not) looking for your word "receptary" I found a bunch of contrived definitions that are mildly amusing:
PRAVITY: physical deformity ("no amount of make-up can help you defy the Law of P.") PREANTEPENULTIMATE: the fourth from last ("please hand me the p. bottle from that shelf") PREPUCE: foreskin ("the protein was painstakingly isolated from 10,000 kilo of p.") PROLEGOMENA: preliminary remarks; long introductions ("writing original p. to an article is quite difficult") PROTEAN: infinitely variable ("there are indications that protein folds are not p.") PSILOSOPHER: superficial philosopher ("... and someone who has limited knowledge of protein folds is a phi-psi-losopher") PTARMIC: snot-promoting, sternutatory, errhine ("this protein causes the p. symptoms in allergic reactions") PURPURACEOUS: purple, purpurescent ("the heavy-metal derivative had a deep p. colour") PYGOPHILOUS: buttock-loving ("she's the living proof that fat is a p. substance") PYRIFORM: pear-shaped ("p. women get pregnant more easily than apple-shaped ones, I read in the newspaper") QUADRIGAMIST: someone who has married four times ("I say, is that fellow really a q. ?") QUAESITUM: objective; true value ("the ultimate q. is to measure the q. of this quantity") QUANTULUM: small quantity ("I always add a q. of BOG to my crystallisation solutions") QUASIHEMIDEMISEMICENTURY: one 16th of a century ("a typical PhD takes a q.") QUIDDITY: essence or nature of a thing ("once you've built your skeleton, you've uncovered the q. of your protein") QUIRE: set of folded sheets fitting one within another; collection of 24 sheets of the same size ("the structure can best be described as a beta-q.") RECLIVATE: sigmoid, S-shaped ("if we plot X versus Y, we obtain a r. curve") RECREMENT: waste product, impurity; something secreted from the body, then reabsorbed ("saliva is the best example of a r., for most people anyway") REDARGUTION: refutation ("if there doesn't exist a r. of a receptary (unproved fact; postulate), that doesn't mean it's true") REDDITION: translation, explanation ("could you render a r. of this paragraph ?") REPAND: having a wavy or undulating outline ("look how nicely r. my mask has turned out") RETICULUM: network ("thanks to Castor the whole bloody r. is down again") RETRAD: backward ("dummy, you've traced the whole chain r. !") RETRORSE: bent backward or downward ("two of the sheets were r.") RETROUSSE: turned up ("two of the sheets were r.")
<<I wonder what kind of shadow *time would cast on the cave wall. And could somebody please loosen my chains, they are getting a little uncomfortable. >>
<<There you go, dear...>>
Hold it, Wow! Brandon's teasing us! Since *he's the one in chains, perhaps he should tell us all about the shadow of time... But I can tell him *this, sooner or later it is cast on each of us.
<<I wonder what kind of shadow *time would cast on the cave wall. And could somebody please loosen my chains, they are getting a little uncomfortable. >>
<<There you go, dear...>>
Hold it, Wow! Brandon's teasing us! Since *he's the one in chains, perhaps he should tell us all about the shadow of time... But I can tell him *this, sooner or later it falls on each of us.
some of those are not so contrived. for an example, the root for protean (defined here as infinitely variable) is Proteus, a lesser god who had the ability to change form. quasihemidemisemicentury, on the other hand....
And the symptoms of syphilis are said to be Protean, because they can suggest so many other diseases. The guy who wrote those was a scientist specializing in crystallography. Regrettably it is over a year since his last update.
What is time? The shadow on the dial, the striking of the clock, the running of the sand, day and night, summer and winter, months, years, centuries - these are but arbitrary and outward signs, the measure of time, not time itself. Time is the life of the soul. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Modern man thinks he loses something--time--when he does not do things quickly. Yet he does not know what to do with the time he gains--except kill it. - Erich Fromm
God exists in eternity. The only point where eternity meets time is in the present. The present is the only time there is. - Marianne Williamson
"Time takes too much time" - 'The time is now', Moloko
The scale of things can make unexpected changes. First it was learned that Euclidean geometry was not reliable in infinite space, then it was found even less applicable in the ultraminute.Perhaps something similar applies to time. in our lives it is linear, but if we try to go backwards towards the beginning of time, we see it is impossible to speak of a beginning of time, because if there had been a "time" when there was no time, how could it have been created out of nothingness The same applies to God. If He has not always existed, how could He have been created? No use thinking about it.
Oh, but Dr. Bill, it's such fun to think about it. I love wondering about things. Especially if I can't imagine myself getting the answer in the near future.
I just finished reading Sophie's World, and it made me start wondering about a lot of old things that I'd forgotten about.
i once read about an [N.A.] indian culture whose language included absolutely no provisions for the concept of past, present or future...
I've been passively searching for a language that is without tense. I've found several references that show that Chinese / Mandarin does not have tense in the way we think about it. Anyone here know about how Chinese handles tense?
I've also found references that the Hmong language has no past or future tenses and that ancient Hebrew has no tense. There seems to be a lot of research floating about where linguists search for tense markers in tenseless texts (whereas readers of my writing are looking for sense markers in my senseless texts).
And if you want to learn more about detensing languages (tensed language, this site notes, is responsible for this mistaken metaphysical picture of temporal reality; therefore we ought to divest language of tenses so that we may conceive of temporal reality as it really is), check this site out: http://www.otago.ac.nz/philosophy/459/oldBtheory.html
i saw this in a magazine today, thought it was interesting:
"Has it occurred to anybody yet that ours may be the last generation to die? What a gyp! But think about it: We know what makes cells die, we know of cells that resist death (example: cancer), and we're learning fast how to manipulate cells. How long can it be before some bright MIT dork[sic] strings all that together and produces the line-edit in our genetic code that lets us theoretically live forever? Could be less than a generation away. Amazing. Our immortal descendants will be fascinated by us, will wonder what it was like knowing your story would have to end, what it was like to have to squeeze your entire life into just 100 years...then again, it may be the very imminence of death that forces us to step up the pace. Would you learn all earth's languages if you had an extra millenium, or would you play more Play-Station 2? Tortoises live significanly longer than we do, and look how they squander their extra time. Giant redwoods live for centiries, and what could be more sedentary? Death may be the best thing that ever happened to us...."
so much for "time is the fire in which we all burn" (who said that first, anyhow??)
Interesting post, caradea. I might brag to these immortal descendents that we enjoyed living in a world of plenty, whereas unless this MIT dork [sic] comes up with interplanetary travel, all these billions of timeless tenants will be living in Hong Kong-like apartments crammed to the limit.
Death may be the best thing that ever happened to us
I know I am deathless, I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter's compass, I know I shall not pass like a child's carlacue cut with a burnt stick at night.
I know I am august, I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or to be understood, I see that the elementary laws never apologize, (I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by, after all.)
I exist as I am, that is enough, If no other in the world be aware I sit content, And if each and all be aware I sit content.
One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself, And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten million years, I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.
My foothold is tenon'd and mortis'd in granite, I laugh at what you call dissolution, And I know the amplitude of time.
--Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, verse 20, lines 404-421
There is no stoppage and never can be stoppage, If I, you, and the worlds, and all beneath or upon their surfaces, were this moment reduced back to a pallid float, it would not avail in the long run, We would surely bring up again where we now stand, And surely go as much farther, and then farther and farther. --W.W., Song of Myself, 45: 1191-95
from Song of Myself (6-What is the grass?)
And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
Tenderly I will use you curling grass, It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men, It may be if I had known them I would have loved them, It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out of their mothers' laps, And here you are the mothers' laps.
This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers, Darker than the colorless breasts of old men, Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.
O I perceive after so many uttering tongues, And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.
I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women, And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps.
What do you think has become of the young and the old? And what do you think has become of the women and children?
They are alive and well somewhere, The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it, And ceas'd the moment life appear'd.
All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.
from Passage To India (8: 185-211)
Ah more than any priest O soul we too believe in God, But with the mystery of God we dare not dally.
O soul thou pleasest me, I thee, Sailing these seas or on the hills, or waking in the night, Thoughts, silent thoughts, of Time and Space and Death, like waters flowing, Bear me indeed as through the regions infinite, Whose air I breathe, whose ripples hear, lave me all over, Bathe me O God in thee, mounting to thee, I and my soul to range in range of thee.
O Thou transcendent, Nameless, the fibre and the breath, Light of the light, shedding forth universes, thou centre of them, Thou mightier centre of the true, the good, the loving, Thou moral, spiritual fountain--affection's source--thou reservoir, (O pensive soul of me--O thirst unsatisfied--waitest not there? Waitest not haply for us somewhere there the Comrade perfect?) Thou pulse--thou motive of the stars, suns, systems, That, circling, move in order, safe, harmonious, Athwart the shapeless vastnesses of space, How should I think, how breathe a single breath, how speak, if out of myself, I could not launch, to those, superior universes?
Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God, At Nature and its wonders, Time and Space and Death, But that I, turning, call to thee O soul, thou actual Me, And lo, thou gently masterest the orbs, Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death, And fillest, swellest full the vastnesses of Space.
--Walt Whitman, all selections from Leaves of Grass.
Disclaimer: Wordsmith.org is not responsible for views expressed on this site.
Use of this forum is at your own risk and liability - you agree to
hold Wordsmith.org and its associates harmless as a condition of using it.
).
