|
 I want to preface what I say by first pointing
out [a little long-windedly I'm afraid]
that
it takes a Herculean effort to free
oneself
from the bonds of the notion of *time.*
It
is certainly not easy. The abstraction
is
dropforged into us from the time we
are born.
As we grow older
we become
aware that we are surrounded by clocks,
and
the grown-ups talk incessantly of "No *time* for this,* or "Plenty of *time* for that," and events are indicated or referred to
as having taken place in the *past,* or happening
*now* in the *present,* or assert that some event
will happen in the *future,* and the
folk
around us speak as if the present *now* was in some way *different* from the permanent
*now* of the continuum.
In fact all world languages
contain words and terms which reinforce
the
concept of *time* in complex, insidious and ultimately penetrating
ways which almost always end with the
internalisation
of *time* by all that are exposed to the notion. In
the end it becomes part of the way
in which
we interface with the world, and provides
a cognitive tool which enables us to
structure
our very lives.
For the child school-time
begins when the fast-moving hands of the
clock point to 9, and when the torturously
slow little hand reaches 4 we are free again.
Trains and busses, holidays and birthdays,
reunions and anniversaries, life and death
all come and go in relation to the slow changing
of the seasons, which are divided into weekly
and monthly intervals, and the sometimes
fast-paced and sometimes laggardly strange
abstraction which we call *TIME* seems so real that we take it for granted
as something which must have *existed*
millennia
before life first crawled upon the
earth,
a long *time* before mankind discovered *time* and named it and divided it into manageable
chunks in order to measure, record
and predict
and divide his brief say upon the earth
into
apprehensible temporal separations.
Some might say
that the
concept of *Time* is a triumph of brainwashing which rivals
and even surpasses the fiction of *God* or *Being* for it is truly *universal* in its employment
by human kind. The big difference is that
whilst *Time* is undoubtably a useful even essential fiction,
the other two are useless encumbrances and
hindrances to human understanding.
The American philosopher Richard Sansom says
that it is not a form of brainwashing but
rather:
*The result of accepting norms that have proven
to be indespensible in human activity and
discourse*
Nor does he compare it to a belief in God
or Being, Sansom goes on...
*Since those are not required ingredients
of our daily functions – while dealing
with
Time is a ubiquitous requirement. Humans
have always had a handy metric with
which
to deal with the motions and activities
of
their day – the [apparent] movement
of the
sun and moon, the tides, even their
bodily
functions. Distance was often measured in terms of time
and not miles or some equivalent metric. As for calling it a ‘fiction’ along with
those other abstractions, I cannot
comply
here. It is not a fiction, but rather it is an
acquired instantiation of a physical
reality
– the realitof motion.*
I agree with the first part of what he says
but not the second, for an internalisation
of the notion of *time* is not something
which is forced upon us in the manner of
religion, nor is there a priesthood of incense-swinging
Temporalists with rich robes and rituals and clocks instead
of crosses. Where I do have to disagree with the American
thinker is regarding his belief that
time is not a fiction. I believe that
it is indeed a useful fiction
conceived by human beings, and is not an
instantiation or mental representation
of *reality,* for the abstraction
*reality* does not exist either - plainly
only things which are real [entities]
actually exist
It is characteristic
of any believer whether philosophical,
religious
or scientific, who, when faced with
someone
that disagrees with his belief or position,
to immediately counter the denial by
saying
that the disbeliever's rejection of
his position
is - because of lack of rigour in his thinking,
or a lack of proper study of the subject,
or has demonstrated an inability to
try to
gain access into the inner profundity
of
his system and the *minds* of it founders
or gurus.
If however the sceptical rejectionist replies
that on the contrary, he has been most
rigorous in his appraisal, has studied the
subject in greater detail than the believer
himself, and indeed, he or she has gone to
great lengths over a long period to penetrate
the intricacies, ramifications, contradictions
of the claims inherent in the *minds* of the followers of the belief, and is well
aware of its negative aspects as well
as
its few positive and meaningful aspects.
It is at this juncture that the believer
usually falls back to his last redoubt.
*The reason you reject it,* he snarls through clenched teeth, *Is because you are stupid!*
I said all that
above
because although I am confident that
I understand
that *time* is no more than a totally human created
useful fiction, and I comprehend [though
it is a struggle to describe it] the
atemporality
of the cosmos, I do not expect everybody
else to understand it, or even be interested
in it, and if they try to understand
it and
fail to do so it is NOT because they
are
stupid, but sometimes because
they are extra intelligent, and they
bring
to bear that extra intelligence on
the denial
of *Time* with a plethora of well-thought- out good
reasons to oppose such an abnegation
of temporality
which just happen to be wrong.
Having spent most of this message on
the
preamble - I will *now* address the
question
which is:
*How you figure a 'change' without
the time
concept?*
There is
no need
for the charming Feynman's [I loved
that
man] convoluted QM treatise to disabuse
one
from the notion of *time* - it has
to be
cleared or exorcised from the brain,
and
the only way that that can be done
is for
the body-brain or wholism to be changed,
so that it exists in a different way,
manner
or mode, from the way it existed whilst
it
still *believed* in *Time.*
So how can this
change
take place if there is no *time* within which to change? The answer to this
apparent conundrum I will leave right
to
the end of this piece, but first I
want to
make the point that ever-changing entities
do not *need* a temporal-framework within which to alter,
and the notion of such an alterational
necessity
is merely another facet of the difficulty
of the brainwashed human *mind* to grasp the abstraction. It is only because
we humans associate change with *time* that we find it difficult to think of change
without thinking of *time,* as being
something
constantly and inexorably *attached*
or *associated*
and *dependant* upon *time.*
But what of existential change when
compared with more alterational change, as
when a thing comes into existence, or passes
out of existence? Are such changes real changes
in the things that pass in and out of existence?.
And here comes your answer John - there is
no difference at all between existential
*change* and alterational change, because
*CHANGE* DOESN'T EXIST EITHER - *change*
is just the flip-side of the useful fiction
- it is not *change* that exists - BUT THAT
WHICH CHANGES. Like everybody else I have
changed in appearance somewhat drastically
from the days of my youth - but it is the
changing Jud that exists and whose body and
face registers the changing modalities of
his flesh and bones as the cells degenerate
due to endless renewal and copying. *Change*
therefore is not a *product* of *Time* and
*Time* is not necessary for *Change* because
neither of these abstractions exist, never
have done and never will do.
|
Evans Experientialism 
