If you’re like me you wonder about things, a lot. You think about strange things, silly things, mundane things, and things that really matter. One of the stranger things I’ve wondered about for years, which have become decades {no exaggeration}, is the nature of Time.
I recently posted this comment on Twitter, in response to a question on the nature of Eternity.
Can linear beings comprehend cycles which neither begin, nor end?@olwage
— C.G.Ayling (@CGAyling) October 4, 2015
Can linear beings comprehend cycles which neither begin, nor end?
The following are a few of my thoughts on Time, taken from an even more recent conversation in which I was asked to explain how I can believe that time does not exist.
What is time… if it can be measured but cannot not be modified then can it even be?
Life is a linear construct in a cyclic universe. Universal cycles do not have a beginning and an ending, they are perpetual. Yet life has a beginning and an end, and our way of grasping how we transition through our beginning to our end is to measure something that does not exist. We create numbers that are quite literally meaningless when compared to the scale of our existence. What difference does it make if another solar system is 10 million light years away, or 100 million when such scales are compared to a lifetime of 100 years? All 100 years is, is a measure of the life of a linear being who needs measurements to comfort itself that it means something on the cosmic scale.
Yet why do we even need scales? We have souls, and our souls are not bound by time.
{P.S. In case you’re interested in some of my other thoughts on time, here are some other posts on the subject:-
“Streams of time”
“Perceptions, of Time”
“on Now“}
at lunch & get notification that @CGAyling has posted one of my pieces:
https://twitter.com/CGAyling/status/651844142687985664
and the beginning of the post i wrote begins w/a quote from the movie “Lucy”:
“Humans consider themselves unique, so they’ve rooted their whole theory of existence on their uniqueness.
“One” is their unit of “measure” — but its not. All social systems we’ve put into place are a mere sketch: “one plus one equals two”, that’s all we’ve learned, but one plus one has never equaled two — there are in fact no numbers and no letters, we’ve codified our existence to bring it down to human size, to make it comprehensible, we’ve created a scale so we can forget its unfathomable scale.”
and as synchronicity would have it…check my e-mail & this post is sitting pretty in my in box.
ahhh…but how our ego’s LOVE to measure & calculate…
..the incalculable.
irony that ALL the “time” we spend measuring it…our “linear beings” time trickles thru like sand in an hourglass…
Excellent post,
@DaveGrigger
Is it the fate of every thinking being to ponder whether they actually matter in the grand scheme of things? Perhaps the next step from that questions is to determine that simply by the act of thinking we do indeed matter. And from there the next step would be to justify how we matter, and what better way to do that than to compare ourselves to something. The thing about comparisons is that when we make them they require a scale. And a noteworthy thing about scales is how they are as linear as we, they have a beginning and an end. Which is indeed the very thing that seems to trouble us most… the certain knowledge that we will end.
Which brings me to another thought. We humans incorrectly think we are the only species that truly thinks, an erroneous thought that grants us the ability to discount the worth of every other from of life. Prove this for yourself by watching any living creature, evidence of thought exists with any movement they make.
Regardless of its possessor life is a precious thing, we should treat it with the dignity and concern it warrants.
Thank you for your comment Dave, and also for your blog post which strikes me as the simple yet unpalatable truth.