[One of the main reason's I decided to move the site over to Pajamas Media was so that I could post some of my Afterburner video commentaries as mini-essays. Some of them are more timeless than others, and this one -- literally -- is the most timeless of all. It has been slightly re-written to bring it to the printed page. The "printed" page. We need more new words!]
Now just for the sake of this discussion I’ll tell you that I’m writing this on the afternoon of Friday, December 19th, 2008. It will get written to some sectors of a hard drive somewhere, to remain hopefully forever, a precious, precious gift to future generations.
I mention all this crap because I thought I might say a few words about time.
Humans may be the only animals on Earth who really perceive time… did you know that? I have heard that animal researchers say that dogs and cats have short-term memories of about 5-30 minutes or so. But I’m told – and I hope this is true – that when you leave your pets for the day or a weekend, they don’t have any real idea of how long you’ve been gone, and they don’t seem to be capable of the idea that you are coming back at some point.
No frontal lobes, you see?
But they clearly are sad when you are gone, and happy when you come back. But if you could ask them how long you’ve been away, they’d probably answer, “You’ve been away?”
They live in the now. You’re either there, or you’re away. And I can tell you, by the way, that as someone who experienced complete amnesia for about an hour, that for humans, the inability to tell when and who is about as terrifying an experience as you are likely to have, short of being shot at or chased by wolves or whatever.
The problem with reading the future is that it hasn’t happened yet. Sounds flip, but it’s actually pretty profound. For instance, on any date prior to September 11, 2001, the date September 11 – nine / eleven – had no more meaning than say, May fifth, or June 30th. There’s that awful worry that amateur historians like myself have, and that is: what will the next black day be? Will I live to see it? Will April the 17th become four-seventeen, exceeding nine-eleven in horror many times over? I hope and pray not. And I am daily grateful to the men and women in uniform and in the intelligence services who live in daily discomfort or obscurity trying to prevent black days, when they should be glorified and praised to the rafters.
Science has a problem with time, too. In fact, many cosmologists say the entire idea of time is an illusion. This stuff around us is four-dimensional matrix called “space-time.” We perceive it as the dimensions of space, and a separate one of time, but that might simply be a limitation of our three-dimensional perception. What we perceive as time may simply be us traveling along an axis we cannot see. When you get up and walk to the kitchen, that is likely just one very short segment of the four-dimensional ‘worm,’ that flowing outline of your body’s movement through space and time. If you imagine yourself walking through a tunnel filled with Jell-O, the shape of the hole you make would be what your body looks like in four dimensions. Since we cannot perceive the fourth dimension directly, we see individual three-dimensional snapshots run in sequence through the fourth dimension, which we perceive as time.
Both the past and the future feel like an illusion, but that’s just because we can’t perceive them directly any longer. The best scientific analogy of time I’ve heard for this effect was this: time is like a record groove. Remember those? Grooves on records? It’s like a track on a CD – oh, wait – they’re obsolete too. Anyway, for you old-timers like myself: the song would be etched into a piece of vinyl, and the needle would vibrate to those little waves and then produce the sound.
Now, which part of that record groove is real and which parts are illusions? Silly question – the entire groove is equally real. Well, that may be what time is like: the entire past and future of the universe exists, has existed, and will always exist. What we call the “now” is simply where the needle is. So what happened in the past is no more or less real than what is happening right —now! — Oh, you missed it. See, that’s the thing about the now. By the time you say now, that now is gone. It’s a new now, now.
So that’s how I choose to look at time: my free-will decisions have cut, have always cut, and will always cut, my own little groove into the four-dimensional fabric of space-time. And so I am determined to make my groooooooove as rich and exciting and interesting as I can. Because whatever I do in my life – according to this theory – has always been there and will always be there. That’s a profound thing to think about when you have nothing better to do.
Anyway, here I sit – where I have always sat, where I will always be seated – on December 19, 2008. And in that big groove of the Universe, and that little track on a hard drive back in the back of an office someplace, this is where I will always be.
Come back anytime. I could use the company. It gets lonely in here.
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36 Comments
1. Professor Guvinoff:This essay evokes some curious tokens in the language of mathematics.
For instance, the collection made of 1, 2, 3, etc… has received the pretty name of “The natural numbers”. Natural? If they are natural, they must be some part of nature, right? So, where in nature precisely do you find these “natural” numbers?
Well, there are part of nature alright, but not nature at large, just human nature. These numbers are in fact artificial, a creation of the human mind.
Calling them “natural” could have been a wise precaution, to retard the day when mathematicians will run out of labels every time numbers of a higher abstraction level are invented. Foresight!
Bill Whittle, you are a groovy fellow. I hope you don’t mind me trying to hike a ride along your groove.
Apr 23, 2009 - 12:30 pm 2. johnm:Not to disillusion you Bill, but some dogs can perceive time. Not as complex a fashion as humans, of course, and at varying ability (just as humans, some people wouldn’t even be able to grasp your record analogy).
I will give you two examples from my own dogs:
1) Clementine, the basset hound. Completely in the now, just like you describe. No idea what just happened, no idea what will happen.
2) Cooper, the german shepherd. Who does in fact, keep track of time, how I don’t know, i suspect by the amount of daylight. He knows what time I come home and acts differently if I’m early or late. He knows the difference between work days and weekends and gets confused when I’m home on a weekday. My GF attends college out of town and comes home of friday. His behavior indicates that he knows that it’s “Time” for her to come home, though I don’t think he understands “Friday” as such.
Apr 23, 2009 - 2:45 pm 3. ~Paules:Bill,
Let me groom your metaphor a bit. Think of time as a spoked wheel. Humans reside on the rim, a place in motion, a universe in manifestation. We look behind us on the rim and call it “past.” We anticipate a place ahead of us and call it “future.” But any exact spot on whatever 360 degree wheel you like is called “present.”
What we need is a different perspective. Let’s just say for the sake of argument that you could travel down the spoke of this wheel (or along your LP needle) to a point dead-center, a place where all time and motion stops. You would then from this position experience past, present and future as a simultaneous moment looking from the hub at a universe in motion on the rim. God’s eye perspective.
Lonely in here? Not. Waxing a wee bit metaphysical? You bet. Time for a pitcher of Margaritas. Cat time? That, too. Time to feed, time for affection, time for sleep. Cat’s are time masters. What the world needs is a race of cats that can tell time and mix the required dose of Margaritas at the appointed hour. I would call that “progress.” But that’s just me.
~Paules (out)
Apr 23, 2009 - 5:31 pm 4. Unquiet:Bill,
Swallowing hook, line and sinker… as I consider my particular groove for my day off tomorrow – I have a request. As I will be quite busy in the days further down my groove would you mind, kind Sir, skipping a few tracks forward, grabing you next great essay and throwing it out to be caught up in the web of space time where I can percieve it with my moring java? I like the idea of doing away with this whole issue of having to sync up individal space time perceptions. Just consider this a warped extension of the “While you are up…” rule into the twilight zone.
Oh, and Mr. Paules, have you been adding that ole janx spirit to your Margaritas? I hear it makes them unforgettable… at least for the first three, or was that four, I forget.
Apr 23, 2009 - 7:27 pm 5. MuscleDaddy:Couple of things:
1) “Silly question – the entire groove is equally real. Well, that may be what time is like: the entire past and future of the universe exists, has existed, and will always exist. What we call the “now” is simply where the needle is.”
So what happens when you jump up-and-down on the cosmic living-room-floor?
2) “what will the next black day be? “
Is he allowed to say that? I don’t think he’s allowed to say that…
3) You can’t use Ol’ Janx Spirit in a margarita, because you’d need to add Santraginean sea water in order to keep the tequila from going unstable – and everyone knows that combination would turn to salt on the rim into strontium-90.
Then you’d have some total-perspective for your vortex.
– MuscleDaddy
Apr 23, 2009 - 10:33 pm 6. Svinrod:Bill,
Apr 24, 2009 - 3:16 am 7. Bubba:Tralfamidor just called on the ansible. They have found the car keys that you lost tomorrow.
Cheers!
Svin
This whole concept of free-will decisions coinciding with our pasts and presents having always existed throws me for a loop everytime. The Calvinists and Arminianists read Vogon poetry at each other over this stuff.
Oops. I think I just ate the piece of fairy cake from my vortex.
Apr 24, 2009 - 6:18 am 8. Chavo:“Now, which part of that record groove is real and which parts are illusions? Silly question – the entire groove is equally real. Well, that may be what time is like: the entire past and future of the universe exists, has existed, and will always exist. What we call the “now” is simply where the needle is”
This brings up the interesting conundrum of pre-determination vs. free will. If past, present and future are equally real and exist simultaneously are my decisions really mine or are they already worked out in advance? Or are there infinite parallel possibilities that exist for each possible decision I might?
Apr 24, 2009 - 6:37 am 9. Bill McNutt:I don’t think Bill has an ansible. He uses an interociter.
Also Bill, But the Other One
Apr 24, 2009 - 7:21 am 10. Bill Whittle:http://willstuff.wordpress.com
Chavo,
IF this theory is true, this is where the limits of human perception fail. My guess (and my hope) is that free will still provails, and that all of my choices form the four-dimenstional shape that I am. That shape has always been there, and will always be there, and that “when” I made those decisions is an irrelevent question since they, like everything else, have always been there.
One the other hand, the whole idea may be kerflooey, in which case I had better give more thought about what to wear to work today.
Apr 24, 2009 - 8:51 am 11. JohnBoy:Bill, I love the fact we are getting more from your fertile mind and being able to post “Afterburner” in print is great – BUT, the essays will not come up in the archives. Help, help, I may have to stop referring my idiot relatives to EjectEjectEject for enlightenment. A simple question; will you be bringing them back?
Apr 24, 2009 - 12:28 pm 12. Tony R:Ok, if I read this right then there is a “me” that will always be back in London during the Summer of ‘98 with a certain fiesty and scorching hot lady friend.
Prior to this article that was just a very fond memory but not now……now I’m jealous of that SOB. I mean me. Him. Me. Damn it.
Apr 24, 2009 - 12:54 pm 13. MuscleDaddy:Chavo,
“If past, present and future are equally real and exist simultaneously are my decisions really mine or are they already worked out in advance?”
What diffrence does it make if your past, present and future exist simultaneously?
They’re still your decisions… you may have just made them already.
Svin,
Dang! That means we can’t tell how fast they’re moving anymore!
– MuscleDaddy
Apr 24, 2009 - 1:46 pm 14. ~Paules:I take odd pleasure in knowing that most of what I see in the night sky from my hot tub happened millions of years before my birth. Now how cool is that? The zodiac is a fraud. It passed away millions of years before humanity raised a head from the primeval muck.
Meanwhile, I think my cat is catching on to the Margarita thing. The little sh*t is now dipping his paw into my drink for a furtive slurp. Maybe he just likes the salt. The only thing better than a Margarita after work is her sister. But that’s just me.
Apr 24, 2009 - 5:49 pm 15. Overload in CO:Records have only one groove.
Apr 24, 2009 - 7:47 pm 16. hap0206:Bill, nothing mystical about time — reality is in the orbits — earth around the sun, the sun around the center of the milkyway, the milky way around its neighboring galaxcies — everything in motion at thousands upon thousands of “miles per hour” as measured by our known time/distance around the sun which, as you know from your E6 circular computer, will give you “speed”. “Speed/time/distance” — that is observable reality — All new creation every second of existance of all matter. The energy that drives it come from the “big bang” — heavy hitters are working on that critical point in “time” — in the meantime just remember the odds of us being here — that one in millions of sperm that connected with one of thousands of mother eggs — that begat the genius of minds like yours.
life is good
Apr 25, 2009 - 2:36 pm 17. Deano:Bill,
Help me! My record is skipping!
Apr 25, 2009 - 5:29 pm 18. M. Report:We all knew the answer at birth, but forgot when the angel touched our lips and said “Hush”. You can still see the mark she made.
Some try to revive the memory, say thru the
Kabbalah, but you know the Rabbi’s rule of 3
for that: one dead, one mad, one enlightened;
I do not like the odds.
My personal favorite is Heinlein’s solipsistic
Apr 25, 2009 - 6:38 pm 19. Otto Gass:“All You Zombies”, featuring a transgendered
time traveller who was her own mom and dad.
I was just gonna… huh?… shoot, time’s up.
Apr 26, 2009 - 4:31 am 20. Brett:As most scientific consensi are soon overturned, I’ve always been skeptical of the recommendations of scientists and refused them automatic deference.
In the case of space-time, I think the proposition that time is a dimension just like the three spatial dimensions to be at best an assertion. The math may demonstrate a pleasing symmetry, but it never once led us to an idea of what time looks like, as we have of space. I still think time is different from space, but no less real.
Of course, the cosmologists and secular layperson I are probably talking past each other, as usual. They and I parted ways years ago when I realized that they were using the term “universe” in a way most people to do not take the word. Cosmology refers to the “observable universe,” which I take to mean the bubble of space and time in which we and everything else we can perceive exists. When thinkers refer to that as the “universe,” they are implying that their ruminations regarding the bauble of our bubble have universal application. The question of what’s outside of the universe is dismissed as a meaningless question on the order of “what is north of the North Pole?”
That is not a forgone conclusion, as most people understand universe metaphysically: the universe is everything that exists, observed, unobserved, and unobservable. By this thinking, the term “multiverse” is absurd.
Apr 26, 2009 - 7:13 am 21. hap0206:do not know why “time” is elevated to this status — it is a measuring stick — our measuring stick — distance/speed/time around our sun — there are billions of galaxcies — with billions of suns — with billions of “earths” — all with their own “measuring sticks”
maybe we will meet some “day”
compare notes
life is good
Apr 27, 2009 - 5:03 pm 22. INCITEmarsh:This is what really bugs me about the hedonistic lifestyle. “Living in the now” sounds groovy and all, but when you get right down to it, there is no such thing as “now.” As George Carlin put it, there is only the very immediate future and the very recent past. As soon as you even acknowledge “now,” it’s gone.
I have nothing against living in the moment, mind you; I’m not that uptight and dull. But it’s far safer and far more fun to get completely hammered when you’re responsible enough to have a designated driver.
But that’s just the problem, isn’t it? Too many people are living only in the now without thought to anything else. Living in the moment is reasonable if you have no other options (you haven’t eaten in three days) or the future is taken care of (you have five million bucks in an offshore bank account). But in the middle, there’s problems. When rent is due on Monday and you only have a few bucks to spare, splurging for the surf and turf is probably not a good idea.
On an individual basis, there will always be childish and immature people. In a free society, they’re allowed to screw up, and I’d rather have it that way than the alternative. But, generalizing it because it’s not exclusive to one party, there seems to be a great many people who practice the politics of now, and that’s very dangerous on a societal level. We just spent $1 trillion of the future’s money to pay for a problem occurring now. On a certain level, that’s the wrong way of looking at problems even if it works (to keep things objective).
Next time you watch a political debate, take yourself out of moonbat/wingnut, red-state/blue-state nonsense and just ponder who wants to live in the now and let the future take care of itself and vice versa. The “future” people are generally more sober and level-headed, whereas the “now” people are usually more more impulsive and reactionary.
The future very rarely takes care of itself; there is no such thing as now. I’m with the plan-for-tomorrow camp. If we plan for it well enough, we can all get drunk tonight.
Apr 27, 2009 - 8:29 pm 23. INCITEmarsh:I forgot to mention that I once wrote about “the politics of now,” but that was a long time ago and I was (as I usually am) punch-drunk from writer’s block slapping me around.
I can’t wait to see what Bill can do with this when he can well and truly grok it the way he did for the themes in Silent America.
Apr 27, 2009 - 8:32 pm 24. Yackums:M. Report:
There were 4; you left out the heretic. Them’s even worse odds.
(Or maybe the version you heard considers the heretic and the enlightened the same thing? Wouldn’t put that past someone…)
Also,
I like the way this analogy potentially resolves the free-will vs. G-d-knowing-the-future conundrum.
And finally,
Would time travel be accomplished by scratching?
“Uh-oh, Zoot skipped a groove again!”
Apr 27, 2009 - 10:36 pm 25. ninjafetus:– Sgt. Floyd Pepper
Prof. Guvinoff>
I’d like to respond to this: For instance, the collection made of 1, 2, 3, etc… has received the pretty name of “The natural numbers”. Natural? If they are natural, they must be some part of nature, right? So, where in nature precisely do you find these “natural” numbers?
Well, there are part of nature alright, but not nature at large, just human nature. These numbers are in fact artificial, a creation of the human mind.
Really? I’d say the existence of distinct objects or events is fairly independent of human interpretation, and if we’re going to bother talking about them, it’ll probably be more efficient if we can label them in some way. If 1, 2, 3… is how the language evolves to enumerate members in a set, I’d say that’s a pretty natural choice for the label of ‘natural.’
Yackums> I like the way this analogy potentially resolves the free-will vs. G-d-knowing-the-future conundrum.
Hey, if we feel like it’s free, that’s free enough for us. If free choice is a result on our filtered perception, there’s no conundrum at all. All we need to have a choice is to not already know what we’re going to choose
Apr 28, 2009 - 7:24 am 26. Jrod:Bill,
Apr 28, 2009 - 10:56 am 27. David M:you write for Lost don’t you?
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the – Web Reconnaissance for 04/28/2009 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
Apr 28, 2009 - 11:01 am 28. Cain:Cinco de Mayo? No meaning? ¡Ay, caramba!!!
Apr 28, 2009 - 7:01 pm 29. Presbypoet:We are finite, contemplating infinity. No wonder we have trouble. Einstein had it wrong you know. He said “God doesn’t play dice with the universe”. Not only does God play dice, he plays with loaded dice.
Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle explains you can never have enough information to know the future.
Uncertainty is built into creation. God designed a universe with free will. Yet is intimately involved with everything. To understand reality, grok both theology and quantum mechanics. Both consist of paradoxes. For example, an electron is 100% particle and 100% wave. Not 50 – 50, but 100 – 100. Have Communion every day, and once a month.
Time is relative, depending on where you are. Speed, gravity, each can slow down time. Near a black hole, space becomes more time-like, and time becomes more space-like.
Regarding cats knowing time. Bill, I am staff to a cat. He is quite aware of time. He knows when I should get up. If I lie abed too late, he pushes objects off the dresser. One afternoon, he insisted he was hungry, (too early). I told him, “Not now”, and said I would feed him when my son called from the train to be picked up. An hour later the phone rang, it was my son. As I hung up, the cat said “Now?” He knows time, and English.
Apr 29, 2009 - 4:20 pm 30. Professor Guvinoff:25. ninjafetus:
Really? I’d say the existence of distinct objects or events is fairly independent of human interpretation.
How would you know? You contest my point and prove it at the same time.
Imagine a brave math teacher earnestly trying to explain the negative numbers to a classroom, when suddenly, one of the kids objects vociferously: “When I grow up, I will be a farmer, and when I am a farmer, I will not bother to have three cows fewer than none!”
Like the rest of us, this child has internalized the culture, to a point. If negative numbers are not as natural as cows, in which way are the natural numbers really natural?
Apr 30, 2009 - 9:40 am 31. perplexedenglish:Tony R you’ve really made me upset now, I was getting serious and philosophical and was about to make some profound meaningful comment but now….all I can think about is Jacqui…oh Jacqui whwre are you now?
Apr 30, 2009 - 11:16 am 32. MLP:I have always believed that change (growth) is proof that the passage of time is real. We travel not “through” time, but with it. That’s why we can’t go back to the past. Time is no longer there. The fact that no one has traveled to the past yet is proof that no one ever will.
May 2, 2009 - 7:23 am 33. IB Bill:I love this stuff.
Thread is over, but I thought I’d chime in my two cents. Many years ago, I had something of a mystical experience wherein, for a brief moment, I had a vision that showed me that time is an illusion and is a function of space. I couldn’t explain in afterward and soon didn’t understand it myself… the only remnant of that experience is when people say things like Bill did, I get it. Time is a function of space. He explained it better. Very weird, though, that this came up.
Anyway, thanks, Bill.
May 2, 2009 - 1:22 pm 34. Level_Head:I’ve just watched, and tremendously enjoyed, your commentary on John Stewart and the use of nuclear weapons. Bravo!
Heinlein was mentioned by a writer above, but there’s one of his stories with a much better connection here: Where you have a march though jello. Robert Heinlein used “a long pink worm” extending through time.
I think you’ll enjoy (and feel a connection with) the grand master of science fiction’s very first published short story. It’s online and free here:
http://www.webscription.net/chapters/0743471598/0743471598___2.htm
Best wishes!
===|==============/ Level Head
May 2, 2009 - 10:08 pm 35. Stephen R:Bill –
This is unusually Den-Beste-y for you. I like it!
I don’t know how much science fiction you read, but in the vein of this post I would recommend a novel called “The Light of Other Days”, by Arthur C Clarke and Ste(v/ph)en Baxter.
May 19, 2009 - 7:53 am 36. M. Simon:Time is in fact real. Ask anyone familiar with statistical thermodynamics.
Ah. I see your problem. You don’t know anyone familiar with statistical thermodynamics. Pity.
May 30, 2009 - 11:30 pm