"There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."--Leonard Cohen Listen carefully, and you can hear a ticking sound in the background, faintly ticking at a regular pace slicing off quanta of time...ticking.... It doesn’t sound like a clock, but more like a musician’s metronome-- it is some kind of chronometer ticking away. The words come to my mind, "...a false clock tries to tick out my time To disgrace, distract, and bother me And the dirt of gossip blows into my face And the dust of rumors covers me But if the arrow is straight And the point is slick It can pierce through dust no matter how thick...." --Bob Dylan in “Restless Farwell” This is a false clock, not because there is anything wrong with the chronometer mechanically, but because we now know time is a relative, rather than an absolute concept. Even if this chronometer broke down, time will continue. Relativity of time is the first clue our clock is false. We must be like a persistent detective investigating a crime to get to the bottom of this—we can’t ignore time any longer. Worship all you can see and more will appear.” –Dr. Dysart in the movie ‘Equus’ (video at 20 minute mark). And there is another very odd clue that something is seriously wrong here. The second tip-off is as human beings, we cannot think of any object that isn’t in time. This fact should give away the true origin of time as not something that is “out there,” but instead emerges from our own consciousness. Consciousness is time consciousness. Consciousness cannot have any sense experience--like observing an object--without this necessary category, or viewing lens, of time. Consciousness to be consciousness must have an object. Time is the necessary condition for the possibility of all experience. Yet, there is a third clue. When we sleep, time slips away until we awaken. No memory of time remains...but then time resumes again as consciousness pulls itself together to re-emerge...it’s still ticking. Chronological time, or Chronos, (the Ancient Greek word, Χρόνος,) is linear time, or clock time of science contrasted with the other Greek word for time, kairos, meaning lived time. Chronos is quantitative time, but Kairos is qualitative time. Personal psychological lived time is just as valid as scientifically measured time. We all have experienced how time quickly passes when we are busy, but slowly drags along when we are bored. I have experienced radical changes in time consciousness from a life long habit of staying awake at night from my college days and employment. I would go to bed at, say 11 pm, and try to sleep. While lying in bed, trying my very best to sleep, I would end up thinking of the day’s activity. I would then turn to look at the clock reading 2 am, but I didn’t remember actually sleeping. Puzzled by this fantastic acceleration of time, I would after what seemed a short moment of time look at the clock again and it would read 4 am. The only explanation for my experience I can deduce is I was sleeping with my eyes open. More often than not when the alarm rang, I would feel just fine. “6.3611 We cannot compare any process with the “passage of time”—there is no such thing—but only with another process (say, with the movement of the chronometer).”—Ludwig Wittgenstein, (Tractatus.) We have three hints that something strange is going on with time: 1.)Time is a relative concept, rather than an absolute concept; 2.) We cannot choose to have any experience without time; 3.) Time’s progression is experienced differently depending on our circumstances. So maybe there really is something wrong with our chronometer. We don’t need a small human made clock; we can use another process such as a planet’s movement as it falls through space. This process of stones falling through space for time keeping, as you already suspect, is not new. This is a difficult point in the discussion because I want to setup yet another problem-- a fourth problem-- with this categorical lens of time through which we have experience. This category called “time” doesn’t give the answers we expect when applied to large cosmological questions like, “When did time begin?” “How old is the cosmos?” “Did the universe always exist, or was it created?” The best place to start is humanity’s first theories about time, creation, and the cosmos. Titus Lucretius Carus (died c. 50 BC), simply called Lucretius, is known for his theory of Atomistic Physics that has four principles: The first rule is “...that nothing is ever begotten of nothing by divine will...more rightly...shall discern that...all things come to be without the aid of gods.” In other words, nothing is created. Lucretius was not an atheist, but more like what we today call a Deist because he denied that the gods interfered causally in the physical material world. The second rule of Lucretian physics is “...nothing is destroyed...it must of already endured an infinite time....” Lucretius can be called one of the first empiricists because he tried to explain the world as it appeared without the aid of theological explanations. The third Lucretian rule is “...there is empty space.” This is an important principle because motion is not possible without empty space. And lastly, the fourth Lucretian rule states that space is infinite. The Lucretian Motion of Atoms: This is where Lucretius’ theory of atoms gets very interesting! Actually, Lucretius borrowed heavily from Epicurus’ theory of the motion of atoms and there is academic debate about this philosophical relationship, but these details are not relevant in the context of this discussion. The picture that Lucretius draws is that of an infinite number of atoms eternally falling down in a straight line within infinite space. The great variety of existence results from “collisions” of atoms that form groups of new material attributes so that there is qualitative variation in the cosmos. All creation is a result of some single atom not staying in its lane and colliding with another atom. The atoms “fall” but Lucretius is unable to explain what causes the falling or what is “up” or “down” because there is no up or down within infinite space. Once there is a collision of atoms they are deflected from their original straight path “downward” so there is a pile-up effect causing more “complex” motions of atoms. The question now is “How did the initial collision of atoms start?” There must be a cause of the collision of atoms because the first principle of Lucretian’s atomic physics is “nothing is ever begotten of nothing.” At this point Epicurus offers a way out of this difficulty with the doctrine of “The Swerve.” The collisions of atoms start with the swerve of falling atoms and that swerve triggers the formation of a massive pile-up of debris you and I call cosmological history. But the doctrine of the swerve only moves the question back one step to “What caused the swerve?” Unfortunately, the swerve has to be a spontaneous event in a wholly materialistic mechanistic universe: in other words--created out of nothing. The theoretical difficulties do not stop here. There are more serious problems with postulating a purely mechanistic universe. The atomists rely on the logical principle of non-contradiction in their arguments. The problem here is the laws of logic are not the laws of mechanical motion. When a valid logical argument is formulated by inferring from the premises to a conclusion, one cannot say that the premises “caused” the conclusion. This isn’t a mechanical cause and effect relationship of the motion of atoms. In other words, epistemology and knowledge is not possible is a purely materialistic and mechanistic universe. The Absurdity of Applying the Category of Time to Metaphysical Questions. Lucretius’ attempt to explain how Being came into existence and ended in a contradiction—reducito ad absurdum. He applied what are really finite categories of time and space to explain an infinite universe. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) calls these kinds of contradiction “antinomies” from the Greek “ἀντί,” antí, meaning "against,” and νόμος, nómos, meaning, "law," (“ἀντί” isn’t always used politically!). For Kant, all the traditional arguments for the existence of god fail for this fourth reason: categories can only be applied to experience for they are “the forms of finitude.” I only identified one of four antinomies for the sake of brevity; however, time is our particular concern. Whenever one asks, “What was happening before time?” any given answer will always face the same retort, “What was happening ‘before,’ that time?” triggering an infinite regression. In logical rationality there is no highest number. One cannot catch oneself not looking into a mirror. One cannot claim everything must have a cause then claim a first cause that has no cause for itself-- whether it is a personal god, or a non-personal cosmos. “Mystery,” or myein, in Greek literally means,“closing of the mouth.” “7. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”(Tractatus) Time And The Existential Threat of Death "6.4312 The temporal immortality of the soul of man, that is to say, its eternal survival also after death, is not only in no way guaranteed,but this assumption in the first place will not do for us what we always tried to make it do. Is a riddle solved by the fact that I survive forever? Is this eternal life not as enigmatic as our present one? The solution of the riddle of life in space and time lies outside space and time." (Tractatus) Finally, there is a fifth, but indirect problem with the finite category of time. Behind every ticking of that chronometer is the implied threat of our own non-being, or death. Time constantly reminds us of our own mortality—we cannot live forever, which creates a great despair (“without-hope”) within us. Theologian, Paul Tillich, said this despair is one of the “demonic-tragic structures of individual and social life.” Martin Heidegger wrote, “Language is the house of Being.” Language is meaning itself and empowers us to ask what it means, “to be,” but language is objectifying on its own, and has been itself objectified by positivistic science. Language is viewed by modern philosophy as an object itself—a tool for calculation—just another instrument of scientific investigation and lost its redeeming power as Logos. Paul Tillich wrote, “Cognitive dehumanization has produced actual dehumanization.”(Tillich, Vol. II, p. 99). However, language is connected intimately to our understanding of Being. If we lose language as a tool, we cannot address this hopeless despair, or sickness unto death. “6.44 Not how the world is, is the mystical, but that it is.” (Tractatus) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *In regard to my critical friends: “kynes gar kai bauzousin hon an me gignoskosi,” “They are like dogs, for the dogs bark at everyone they do not know.”(Heraclitus Fragment 97.) Pagan Poetry
