what is time?

what is time?

there is no such thing as present. by default the time for our perception of the "now" is always a little bit slower than the actual happening of the "now". and so we view the presence of time always a hindsight, and never as a simultaneous perception of the situation.

Simplicity: as we define our time with seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years, centuries, milleniums, and etc. we have effectively quantified the continuity of time (assumption) into integers. Most watches would have a smooth transition for the minute and the hour hands, but quantumized movements for the second hand. What the second hand does is the repetition of stop, move, stop move and etc. so in this way, time has been split into two types of moments, the stability moments as the second hand rests on whole numbers, and the transition moments as it moves in between.

It influences us on a number of different ways in terms of our perception of time. One is that time is quantified. Another is that time is divided into equal units. The theory of relativity had already discussed the later issue where time is in fact not consistent, that it is not the unshakable contant in our universe. For me the important inspiration from this theory is that time may end with matter, in a way that not only is it not linear nor consistent, it is not even a scale concept. It may be in possession of directions more than positive (future) and negative (past), and it is able to gain and lose momentum and weight. Just like forces.

And then we look at the former issue of quantified time. We all so stubbornly believe that the device of a clock or a watch is a measure of time, and sometimes even equalize the two concepts, whereas in fact all the artificial mechanism captures is a representation of our perceived time, and that perceived time is defined in the first place by our understanding of it. So on the centre of all things the actual time, then the effects of time as it takes place, then our understanding of it based on these perceptions, and then our way of capturing and representing that understanding of that perception.

Hence layers of gaps are created, between our understanding of the equilibrium and the actual happening of reality. The dangerous thing being we are not only constantly influenced by the representation of time, let alone time itself, but also constantly giving feedback to that so called reality by our methods of representation (clock), without being aware of the reciprocal interactions. That's how sometimes strange things happened to our perceptions, like memories of the past versus the memory of yesterday, where one perceives the former as significantly more important and closer than the latter even though the measurement of time suggests the opposite. We have distorted that equilibrium of time by magnifying or diminishing our conception of it, whereas on the other hand still comfortably believing that we are staying faithful to the iron law of consistency. Another example is with facial products. it works by bringing attention to the process of application, hence ritualized these short periods of putting cream on face into performances. That in itself creates a conception or misconception of enlarged time.




m.