Friday, January 17, 2014
Perception of time
I sat in an off-white room. the walls the floor the baseboards. Up over the doorframe is a clock. Clocks have symbolized time for a while, now but a clock's pace is unlike real time, unwavering. Maybe everyone experiences two separate time zones. The one that they actually experience and then the one that we imagine the world as a whole going through. Time seems like a constant unwavering thing, but our perception of it is very scheduled to change. Time is also relative, and a given amount of time will seem different based on the level of enjoyment that the person is having. So maybe it is best not to think of time like a train that only knows where it has been and goes at a constant speed, but perhaps as a thing that is dependent like many things on viewpoint. There is also the issue of the future, past and present. One might say that simply, the past is what has happened already, the future is yet to happen, and the present is what is happening now. However, I you think about the concept of these three things simultaneously existing, you have to realize that as soon as the future happens, it becomes the present, and the present becomes the past in the same instant. So that in a way, the past is the only thing that really exists. But as soon as the past exists, it is gone, never to happen again. So in a way, neither past present, or future ever exists. Then, one might ask, what is time? Time seems indisputably to exist, or else, how do events progress to other events? Maybe the present is the only thing that exists. If one thinks about the concept of time as one constantly changing time, instead of infinite static instances, the answer becomes quite clear. We have no choice but to live in the moment, for the current moment is all that ever exists, and all that ever will exist. Or we could simply not think so deep into it, not rustle the figurative undergrowth of the philosophy ecosystem. The current way of thinking about time has never lead us astray before, and events keep happening like they always have, so maybe it's not such a big deal after all.
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My brain is spinning a bit after reading this. Your thoughts on time made me stop and consider what time really is. You also have some very nice wording. This is my favorite: "...not rustle the figurative undergrowth of the philosophy ecosystem."
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