Time as Philosophy
The Cairn: Self-Awareness
The Web: Cosmology, Philosophy, History
Time is a mystery that human culture hides behind its capacity to measure. Clocks, whether mechanical or celestial or seasonal or atomic or regional or cultural, give humanity the illusion of time’s consistency and of its normalcy. But clocks in any form or fashion are not time. The ticking of a second hand is not time. The comforting chimes of a grandfather clock are not time. The passage of the seasons are not time. The tinny pitch of a school bell is not time. The radioactive decay of atoms is not time. Time, in short, is a Mystery that we have failed to recognize as such because of scientific and engineering advancements.
This ability to measure time makes us believe that there is a world of forms, a Platonic realm, which defines time as an unchanging and invariable aspect of experience which we can attain precisely through scientific pursuit. And in this belief there is a danger: we trap ourselves within parameters that may not truly exist. Luckily, science itself is also showing us that time is not so consistent, not so permanent, not so solid as it appears to us here and now. Some, like Carlo Rovelli, are seeking to explain the connections between biology, thermodynamics, and the experience of being human to explain time. Some, like Julian Barbour, have questioned whether time exists at all. And some, like Lee Smolin, are questioning whether there is a fundamental law of time at all. And there are many more brilliant minds peering into the Mystery of time.
Perhaps, in this light, science can not lay sole claim to the study of time. Perhaps time is more a philosophy of material engagement with reality.
Throughout time, different peoples have engaged with time in different ways. Adam Frank, in About Time, explains this connection between material engagement and scientific theorizing about time beautifully. The neolithic people engaged temporally through the heavens. Agricultural societies engaged temporally through the seasons. Industrial societies engaged temporally through ever minute measures of efficiency. Even Christ engaged temporally through the presence of The Kingdom of God.
In this new digital age, we are engaging with time in new ways. Perhaps it is time we looked more consciously at our temporal philosophy both as a society and as individuals. Because time is the only thing we have to live through — the only canvas upon which we can paint our human experience even as we are painted into the experience of others. Time is what makes our own lives inseparable from the Mystery.
