On two competing worldviews about the nature of time—cyclical vs. linear—and how they make us think differently about the world and our place within it.
Fascists' political nostalgia — for one instance of how conception of time influences our political thought — could be read in any of these three ways: chaos (caused by Others who must be stopped), linear (because they want to turn the clock back), cyclical (because everything in history and future is always happening now in an eternal battle).
I love that! Another instance of this newsletter being so rewarding to write, because people make me think of things differently when they interact with the ideas. (When I wrote for the Washington Post, the comments were often insults and crazy rants).
To the recycling proponents we can add Joni (and Carl Sagan): « We are stardust . » Although how we think of time is varied, we all share an enduring interest in the concepts of time. Opening your mind to think of time differently (time travel sci-fi, or Martin Amis’ Time’s Arrow, which travelled backward) allows you to see differently. On the other hand, there are those whose rigid adherence to a theological concept like the end times encourages them to torch everything to hasten their salvation. It’s one thing for religious belief to result in a wooden church falling down and quite another when it uses power and weapons to harm others. Your writing opens minds; we need more of that.
Thought provoking as always, Brian! The concept of time is by nature ordinal. People, plants, animals start young, get older. Measured time is an artificial construct for which the underlying reference is the daily cycle of the rotation of the planet on its axis, or one trip around the sun, then broken down into smaller units. The ordinal character of time is circular, one rotation of earth on its axis, one full trip around the sun, and even the laws of thermodynamics as you note at the end (conservation of energy and mass) have this character.
The cardinal or measured form of time looks like an arrow with rotation around that axis (days, weeks, months) of repetitive constructs that looks much like a single helix (you use spiral).
But time, the metaphysical concept of time, is what we make of it. Does the arc of the universe bend toward justice really? Makes us feel better, but would a species ending asteroid be justice? Or is it just a cosmic form of “shit happens” on a catastrophic scale? The answer depends upon one’s perception and underlying beliefs.
How much of time is simply random? You used the term “lottery of birth” and then their is the lottery of life itself at every turn that makes us who we are. Basically, life is a stochastic process or “random walk” around the helix if measured and ordinal time.
Thanks, John - the idea in this piece isn't by any means a main idea in the book, Fluke, though there are a few areas that overlap. I'll be releasing the first chapter in two chunks in a few weeks on here to all you lovely people, so hopefully you'll get a sense of what it's about and not decide to un-pre-order it. Thanks for your support - and for sparing your time to read my writing!
Ah, the warm vast sea of contemplation. A place for those who have the luxury of time to bathe in it and wonder what it may be that lies beneath. The futility of which notwithstanding.
The futility of which is the utility in religion or politics for if anything can be true then truth is what you can coach followers to believe.
Yes indeed, but I think everyone should make time to bathe in it - these are pretty central questions about what it means to be human and that’s worthy of a little bit of spare time, I think!
Oh, I don’t think it is a choice. Contemplation is as essential to being human as is falling in love. You only need to dream once to realize that your consciousness can exist independent of your body or come to the realization that your body can be alive while you are unconscious to wonder if the reverse could be true. Then down the rabbit-hole you go. It is probably more productive to channel that contemplation into art than into reason.
Astrophysist Neal DeGrass Tyson once observed that despite a chimpanzee having 99% of the DNA of a human being, there would be absolutely no way it could contemplate the functioning of the Earth’s moon nor would understand it if somehow an explanation were attempted. He wondered (and I’m paraphrasing) “When it come to the Cosmos, are we even smart enough to understand what the right questions are to ask?”
Thank you for a great discussion. I've always been fascinated by time, since I read my first time-travel story (All You Zombies) on through underlining madly in books on the "physics" of time in hopes I can grasp and remember what they are on about. Is time a construct? Is the time of Space/Time the same time that we contemplate in our daily life? How does entropy fit in? Heat Death or rebudding to another universe or reverse in the Big Compression?
My favorite image at the moment is the idea of Quantum Foam. Reality BLINKS in and out of existence. I figure that Quantum Foam is the universe giggling at all our ideologies and convictions that whatever system we have chosen provides Answers to Everything.
I'm in total agreement that the teleological idea (every day in every way we are getting better and better till we hit the Rapture) doesn't work for me. I'm of the "stuff happens" persuasion. But also of the "still, I can figure out how to deal with it as it comes barreling at me." I'm privileged of course--I don't live in Gaza. And despite the randomness of stuff, it is still possible to look at reasons and motives for why people act as they do. When I was in college Existentialism was the Big Thing, and I guess it rubbed off. The end doesn't matter. The effort does.
And at 79 and a non-believer I'm thinking about it more and more. My vision of the "afterlife" tends to the "gee, maybe a molecule of me will end up in the next Einstein or maybe just a tree that manages to last until that comet hits." Along with "well, I guess I'll find out."
But somehow I do manage to believe in the Rainbow Bridge. Color me placebo-shaped.
And the book is pre-ordered. I'll find time for it.
Fascists' political nostalgia — for one instance of how conception of time influences our political thought — could be read in any of these three ways: chaos (caused by Others who must be stopped), linear (because they want to turn the clock back), cyclical (because everything in history and future is always happening now in an eternal battle).
I love that! Another instance of this newsletter being so rewarding to write, because people make me think of things differently when they interact with the ideas. (When I wrote for the Washington Post, the comments were often insults and crazy rants).
A poem that helped change my experience of time.
Decomposition
I don't know
and I don't know
what to do about it.
I simply hit a point
where I lost the heart for judgments
and was swept
into the voluptuous, harrowing complexities
composing a single breadth
Jim Dodge
Beautiful! Thanks for sharing.
To the recycling proponents we can add Joni (and Carl Sagan): « We are stardust . » Although how we think of time is varied, we all share an enduring interest in the concepts of time. Opening your mind to think of time differently (time travel sci-fi, or Martin Amis’ Time’s Arrow, which travelled backward) allows you to see differently. On the other hand, there are those whose rigid adherence to a theological concept like the end times encourages them to torch everything to hasten their salvation. It’s one thing for religious belief to result in a wooden church falling down and quite another when it uses power and weapons to harm others. Your writing opens minds; we need more of that.
Thought provoking as always, Brian! The concept of time is by nature ordinal. People, plants, animals start young, get older. Measured time is an artificial construct for which the underlying reference is the daily cycle of the rotation of the planet on its axis, or one trip around the sun, then broken down into smaller units. The ordinal character of time is circular, one rotation of earth on its axis, one full trip around the sun, and even the laws of thermodynamics as you note at the end (conservation of energy and mass) have this character.
The cardinal or measured form of time looks like an arrow with rotation around that axis (days, weeks, months) of repetitive constructs that looks much like a single helix (you use spiral).
But time, the metaphysical concept of time, is what we make of it. Does the arc of the universe bend toward justice really? Makes us feel better, but would a species ending asteroid be justice? Or is it just a cosmic form of “shit happens” on a catastrophic scale? The answer depends upon one’s perception and underlying beliefs.
How much of time is simply random? You used the term “lottery of birth” and then their is the lottery of life itself at every turn that makes us who we are. Basically, life is a stochastic process or “random walk” around the helix if measured and ordinal time.
How is that for making your head 🤯?
Well I checked and I guess I did preorder your next book. So I am anticipating enjoying it already.
I have been interested in recurrence since dabbling in buddhism and Nietzsche - “True Detective” season one also referenced this thematically.
“Will the circle be unbroken” is a bit of an American classic too. Here’s Iris.
https://youtu.be/1RIn-ov1yJM?si=s-gqty_6exjSKctP
Thanks Brian.
Thanks, John - the idea in this piece isn't by any means a main idea in the book, Fluke, though there are a few areas that overlap. I'll be releasing the first chapter in two chunks in a few weeks on here to all you lovely people, so hopefully you'll get a sense of what it's about and not decide to un-pre-order it. Thanks for your support - and for sparing your time to read my writing!
Ah, the warm vast sea of contemplation. A place for those who have the luxury of time to bathe in it and wonder what it may be that lies beneath. The futility of which notwithstanding.
The futility of which is the utility in religion or politics for if anything can be true then truth is what you can coach followers to believe.
Yes indeed, but I think everyone should make time to bathe in it - these are pretty central questions about what it means to be human and that’s worthy of a little bit of spare time, I think!
Oh, I don’t think it is a choice. Contemplation is as essential to being human as is falling in love. You only need to dream once to realize that your consciousness can exist independent of your body or come to the realization that your body can be alive while you are unconscious to wonder if the reverse could be true. Then down the rabbit-hole you go. It is probably more productive to channel that contemplation into art than into reason.
Astrophysist Neal DeGrass Tyson once observed that despite a chimpanzee having 99% of the DNA of a human being, there would be absolutely no way it could contemplate the functioning of the Earth’s moon nor would understand it if somehow an explanation were attempted. He wondered (and I’m paraphrasing) “When it come to the Cosmos, are we even smart enough to understand what the right questions are to ask?”
Thank you for a great discussion. I've always been fascinated by time, since I read my first time-travel story (All You Zombies) on through underlining madly in books on the "physics" of time in hopes I can grasp and remember what they are on about. Is time a construct? Is the time of Space/Time the same time that we contemplate in our daily life? How does entropy fit in? Heat Death or rebudding to another universe or reverse in the Big Compression?
My favorite image at the moment is the idea of Quantum Foam. Reality BLINKS in and out of existence. I figure that Quantum Foam is the universe giggling at all our ideologies and convictions that whatever system we have chosen provides Answers to Everything.
I'm in total agreement that the teleological idea (every day in every way we are getting better and better till we hit the Rapture) doesn't work for me. I'm of the "stuff happens" persuasion. But also of the "still, I can figure out how to deal with it as it comes barreling at me." I'm privileged of course--I don't live in Gaza. And despite the randomness of stuff, it is still possible to look at reasons and motives for why people act as they do. When I was in college Existentialism was the Big Thing, and I guess it rubbed off. The end doesn't matter. The effort does.
And at 79 and a non-believer I'm thinking about it more and more. My vision of the "afterlife" tends to the "gee, maybe a molecule of me will end up in the next Einstein or maybe just a tree that manages to last until that comet hits." Along with "well, I guess I'll find out."
But somehow I do manage to believe in the Rainbow Bridge. Color me placebo-shaped.
And the book is pre-ordered. I'll find time for it.
I thoroughly enjoyed this piece. It definitely gives pause for thought. As always, thank you :)