Time

Aristotle quipped, “Nothing is what rocks dream about.”

From time immemorial up to this time, people have tried to understand time with about as much success as Aristotle explaining “nothing”.

St Augustine from around the third century had difficulty defining what time was, saying: "What then is time? If no one asks me, I know: if I wish to explain it to one that asks, I know not."

Two contrasting viewpoints on time divide many prominent philosophers. One view is that time is part of the fundamental structure of the universe, a dimension in which events occur in sequence. Sir Isaac Newton subscribed to this realist view, and hence it is sometimes referred to as Newtonian time. Time travel, in this view, becomes a possibility as other "times" persist like frames of a film strip, spread out across the time line. The opposing view is that time does not refer to any kind of "container" that events and objects "move through", nor to any entity that "flows", but that it is instead part of a fundamental intellectual structure (together with space and number) within which humans sequence and compare events. This second view, in the tradition of Gottfried Leibniz and Immanuel Kant, holds that time is neither an event nor a thing, and thus is not itself measurable nor can it be travelled. [1]

Not much has changed since the third century!

Because time is linked inextricably with matter (Einstein called them “correlative”), time cannot be infinite just as matter cannot. Another way of perceiving this idea “correlative” is: imagine a three dimensional object. Inherent in the idea of three dimensions are- length, height and width, it sounds really obvious but you cannot have a three dimensional object without each of those dimensions. They are correlative. You can have a two dimensional object, that is on the plane, with length and height, these things exist on paper and flat surfaces, this may be represented by a drawing of a square. But there exists another corollary of three dimensions. If three dimensional objects are to exist then, it is only possible for them to do so if space exists, these objects can only exist in the context of space. Just as two dimensional objects can only exist if paper exists on which to draw them. Notice that the two dimensions are only possible if the three dimensions exist. And it seems reasonable, based on the pattern, that therefore for three dimensions to exist there must be another dimension.

Now consider this, just for argument sake, what would happen if we assume a three dimensional universe without time? What necessarily follows from this scenario is that all objects in the universe would be static. They would be “frozen”. Time is the necessary correlative to change. For change to happen there must be an “environment” that can accommodate it, and time is the perfect answer to a universe that changes. And if you apply that logic backwards, it becomes clear that our multidimensional changing universe could not come into existence without the dimension of time. It is the necessary precondition for flux. If change were to exist then time had to exist as its necessary precondition. In this way we have seen with broad strokes the necessity and natural relation time has to space, given the changing universe we see about us. It also gives rise to the idea that motion, and the laws of motion are correlative to this time/space continuum.

It is no doubt due to this necessary union of time with space that Einstein for example had in mind when working on calculations for his famous formula.

It is for this reason that the philosophical view that proposed “that time is neither an event nor a thing, and thus is not itself measurable” is erroneous. But it is only erroneous if the prior understanding of the reality of the material universe has not been misunderstood. Time is a necessary correlative of a three dimensional changing universe.

This would seem to pour cold water on the idea that time is “instead part of a fundamental intellectual structure (together with space and number) within which humans sequence and compare events.”

Unless of course, what the writer intended by “a fundamental intellectual structure” was- within the intellect of God.  I am quite prepared to accede that if time and space are to be figments of an imagination then it must be by God’s imagination! In much the same way C.S. Lewis said something like, “They tell me Lord when I pray- there is really only one there, if that must be true Lord, then I must be your dream”

---

[1] Wikipedia

Changing The Calendar- AD or CE

Dear Joanne,

Re. your wish to reset the calendar. (Northern Advocate, Oct. 11)
   
You said:

• “British and Australian authorities have declared the terms BC(before Christ) and AD (anno domini- year of the Lord) are out of date and should be replaced with BCE (before the common era) and CE (common era) to make our calendar more secular.

You said:

• “time is an arbitrary human construct” 

No, you confuse the units of measurement of time with time itself. Most physicists agree time is a part of the space/time continuum, a dimension: Time is what clocks measure, it is the units which are arbitrary- not time itself. Augustine said: "What then is time? If no one asks me, I know: if I wish to explain it to one that asks, I know not." Not much has changed since the third century!

You said:

• “History is figments of opinion…” 

No, one of the surest ways to differentiate history from opinion is to listen to those whose own worldview is not sympathetic to the worldview of those whose history she is speaking of. The words of the historian W.E.H. Lecky, who was no believer in revealed religion, have often been quoted: 'The character of Jesus has not only been the highest pattern of virtue, but the strongest incentive to its practice, and has exerted so deep an influence, that it may be truly said, that the ample record of three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and to soften mankind, than all the disquisitions of philosophers and than all the exhortation of moralists. This has indeed been the wellspring of whatever is best and purest in the Christian life." If you reduce all history to opinion, you would never write your opinion pieces, because, once written, they become history- have I not historically assessed your opinion accurately?

You said:

•  “But where to begin [the calendar].Certainly not with any partisan religious figures.” 

The trouble is your suggestion of Galileo shows an extreme partisanship of your own. Scientism, the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning, is hardly neutral. The Dawkins devotee’s dogmatic embrace of scientific methodology would reduce all knowledge to only that which is measurable!

You said: 

• “Galileo… was sentenced as a heretic…for daring to suggest that, contrary to scripture, the earth orbits the sun.” 

No, in fact Galileo was in support of scripture that uses grammatical convention as we do to this day. In everyday discourse we still speak of “sunrise” do we not? I share Galileo’s view that there is no conflict between faith and science. It was hardly the fault of scripture or Galileo if they are misinterpreted.

It is for good reason that the advent of Christ has had such a lasting impact and this is reflected in the Western calendar.

L.T. Jeyachandaran writes: 

Jesus lived in an obscure part of the globe under Roman rule 2000 years ago. He did not travel more than 200 miles on a single journey in his lifetime; he never wrote a book and did not speak a foreign language. He lived under the stigma of an illegitimate birth, was in public ministry for only three years, and died a criminal's death. Yet his influence has spread far and wide throughout the world. Christians claim that this man was unique, and the evidence seems overwhelmingly to sustain it. Even those who would rather dismiss him have difficulty denying his incomparable mark on human history. As biblical scholar F.F. Bruce notes, "Some writers may toy with the fancy of a 'Christ-myth,' but they do not do so on the ground of historical evidence. The historicity of Christ is as axiomatic for an unbiased historian as the historicity of Julius Caesar." Jesus’ life in and of itself is distinctive; that he remains a life of influence is truly exceptional.

As a “journo” you ought to distinguish between “spin” and truth, renowned fellow journalist Malcolm Muggeridge said:

“We look back upon history and what do we see? Empires rising and falling, revolutions and counter-revolutions, wealth accumulating and wealth dispersed, one nation dominant and then another. Shakespeare speaks of ‘the rise and fall of great ones that ebb and flow with the moon.’

“I look back on my own fellow countrymen ruling over a quarter of the world, the great majority of them convinced, in the words of what is still a favorite song, that, ‘God who’s made the mighty would make them mightier yet.’ I’ve heard a crazed, cracked Austrian announce to the world the establishment of a German Reich that would last a thousand years; an Italian clown announce that he would restart the calendar to begin his own ascension to power. I’ve heard a murderous Georgian brigand in the Kremlin acclaimed by the intellectual elite of the world as a wiser than Solomon, more humane than Marcus Aurelius, more enlightened than Ashoka. I’ve seen America wealthier and in terms of weaponry, more powerful than the rest of the world put together, so that had the American people desired, could have outdone an Alexander or a Julius Caesar in the range and scale of their conquests.

“All in one lifetime.All in one lifetime. All gone with the wind. England part of a tiny island off the coast of Europe, threatened with dismemberment and even bankruptcy. Hitler and Mussolini dead, remembered only in infamy. Stalin a forbidden name in the regime he helped found and dominate for some three decades. America haunted by fears of running out of those precious fluids that keep her motorways roaring, and the smog settling, with troubled memories of a disastrous campaign in Vietnam, and the victories of the Don Quixotes of the media as they charged the windmills of Watergate.

“All in one lifetime, all gone. Gone with the wind.”

“Behind the debris of these self-styled, sullen supermen and imperial diplomatists, there stands the gigantic figure of one person, because of whom, by whom, in whom, and through whom alone mankind might still have hope. The person of Jesus Christ.”

The great value of history is found when we remember it in order to avoid repeating its mistakes, for that reason alone our calendar should remain firmly pegged to Christ.