A venture into special relativity has precipitated an unnerving analysis of the nature of time. Is there any absolute time running independently of an observer, or do we, by our perception, define time? When I say 'High school lasted two years.' I am really saying that high school lasted for the same amount of time as it took for the Earth to orbit the sun twice. A day? The same duration as the revolution of the Earth about it's axis. Well, now we have better clocks, more accurate measurements. So we can define time in terms of the properties of the caesium atom under exact conditions, but really, is that any less arbitrary? It may have less variation, but we are in essence, defining time by a regular unit of change in the natural world. If we considered the day as the definitive unit of time, then we could just as well say that the vibrations of the caesium atom were varying in duration instead of the progression of the day.
Have I then arrived at the conclusion that perceiving time can only be in terms of change? Perhaps, but the change that we define time by must have specific characteristics. Change can be slow, as in the growth of a redwood tree over centuries, or it may be fast, as on that hot summer day of Chapter 7 in 'The Great Gatsby'. So that unit of change that we measure every other change by has to be regular. This also implies that if we cannot perceive change, time does not appear to pass. Clearly, if no energy is being transferred or no particles were journeying on their Brownian paths we could not tell if time was passing. If so, what is time? The observation of change? Does time not exist apart from the understanding of an observer?
In that case, the absolute situation has shattered into a bewildering multitude of perspectives. By the conclusions of special relativity, the only clock that runs regularly to myself is my own. I would see moving clocks in any direction tick off slowly compared to my time. If time is an observation of change, then that means the world in motion is changing more slowly than a stationary one. So every particle, every quanta, every consciousness, is changing at different rates in different perspectives. What an awful subjective mess.
Does change also have to be permanent for time to pass? If a change can be reversed in exactly the same way that it was developing forward, did it change at all? The reality before and after the change would be identical for all practical purposes. Did time pass at all? Did it pass backwards? We would not be able to tell without the ever-present arrow of time and entropic increase.
Of course another point to raise is the role of the observer. If the observer defines time, then did time pass before it could be inferred or observed? In Eldawn, did time begin when Eleyon first stabilised and began a process of irreversible change? In the empty field of the ether, time would pass forward and backward as easily as space until there was a mind, a mind that learned and hoped, a mind that gave time a direction. Perhaps this is what we mean by God existed from the beginning, for the beginning was only defined when God manifested.
This also fits in with the psychological perception of time's passage. When there is no apparent change in our lives, time appears to pass slowly, or not at all. After many months of performing the same routine, we aren't going to look back on that phase and feel like it took a long time. It would seem compressed, nothing changed in that time, everything that transpired could be summarised in a quick description of daily repetition.
On the other hand, if change is rampant, so much seems to have happened in a short span of time that we perceive that period as taking longer than it actually did. We recall details, expressions and gestures with a burning intensity that extends the subjective experience of a reminiscence.
All the mysteries of the world that may never be solved by the odysseys of human endeavour. The more we know the less we understand.
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