Explaining The Time Triangle

I have a new blog in which my time triangle will have center stage. I will also sign the articles using my real name as opposed to my pen name. Please follow this link to TimeTriangle.com

Humans must have concerned themselves with time ever since they have become aware. A time to hunt and a time to sleep, and dream. A time to fear and fight and a time to love. Ancient burial sites and temples tell us we were deeply concerned with death and the afterlife. Ancient shamans tried to interpret symbols and dreams. I believe religion came about as a way to explain Fear vs. Dreams or Eternity vs. Death. A superior being that transcended time which I have labelled “GOD” at the top of my triangle. Then came early physicists and mathematicians or astronomers who tried to rationalize the world but with their limited knowledge would still rely heavily on mythology. With the first philosophers myth was questioned and room was made for argumentation. This brought on a whole field of philosophy and later psychology that is concerned with what I labelled“MIND”. This left scientist the freedom to explain the physical world or “SPACE”without the constraints of religion or personal perceptions. These 3 distinct approaches give us a very pure and abstract concept of time. From these three come three secondary understanding of time. A quest for “Universal” time, “Transcendental” time or “Empirical” time. My hope is that we can converge from these into a new and better understanding of what time really is.

Time in poetry - Haiku

 
I have been fascinated with haiku for many years. This form of Japanese poetry appeals to my senses. The structure is quite strict; each poem is made of 17 syllables or onji (5-7-5) and tries to depict an impression or an emotion.

In the fields of snow             aoshi aoshi

greenest is the green             wakana wa aoshi

of the new grass                    Yuki no hara               - Konishi Raizan (1653-1716)

Sometimes the emotions they communicate is a sad one like in the two examples below. Both are by Matsu Basho, the first one he wrote just as he left his village for his long tour of Japan; “wondering, sad, if I’d ever return to this cherished village of my childhood. My heart was tight, even if the transitional world is but a dream, my anguish brought me tears.”

The spring is leaving:             yuku haru wa

Birds are crying and tears      tori naki uo no

fill the eyes of the fish           me wa namida            - Matsu Basho (1644-1694)

The second poem he wrote many years later, the subject is a lock of hair from his deceased mother.

If I were to hold it                 te ni toraba

It would melt in my tears       kien namida zo atsuki

Like autumn frost.                 Aki no shimo                - Matsu Basho (1644-1694)

Ah, but do they talk about time ?

Not directly, they are more about a Zen perception of nature, but we can definitely perceive two recurring themes; first a seasonal or cyclical time as opposed to a linear time. In some cases we feel an absence of time a sort of enlightened Zen moment encompassing all time. Second, a spiritual or dream dimension dealing with issues of death and eternity.

Haiku on cyclical time:

In this autumn                        kono aki wa

Why am I so old ?                  nan de toshi yoru

In the clouds, a bird               kumo no tori               - Matsu Basho (1644-1694)

Moonlight:                             shiraume no

The white plum returns          kereki ni modoru

a winter tree                           tsukiyo kana                - Yosa Buson (1715-1783)

returning to see them             kitemireba

in the evening the blossoms   yube no sakura

have become fruits                 mi to narinu                - Yosa Buson (1715-1783)

Haiku on perception and dreams:

Spring rain                             harusame

reflected in bovine eyes         furu to mo shirazu

that do not see it                    ushi no me ni              - Konishi Raizan (1653-1716)

Unseen lark                            furusato no

of my distant home village    mienaku narite

I know you’re singing            naku hibari                 - Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828)

The butterfly is a recurring theme in haiku and often is an allusion to Chuang Tzu’s dream:

You are the butterfly             Kimi ya cho
and I the dreaming heart       ware ya Sooji ga
of [Chuang Tzu]                    yumegokoro                 - Matsu Basho (1644-1694)

“Once upon a time, I, Chuang Tzu, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of following my fancies as a butterfly, and was unconscious of my individuality as a man. Suddenly I awaked, and there I lay, myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.” – Chuang Tzu (4^th Century BCE)

Chuang Tzu also wrote the following around the 4th Century BCE:

By and by comes the great awakening, and then we may find out that this life is really an extended dream. Fools think they are awake now, and flatter themselves they know if they are really princes or peasants. Confucius and you are both dreams; and I who say you are dreams—I am but a dream myself. This is a paradox. Tomorrow a wise man may come forward to explain it; but that tomorrow will not be until ten thousand generations have gone by.

What do I mean by "Time and Religion".

a man decribes his search for "time" on youtube

I've been asked to explain the title of my blog: Time and Religion.

Time is the first word in title and is the essence of my research "What is Time ?", "How do we perceive time ?", "is our perception of time changing, evolving ?".
As Dan Falk put it "Time surrounds us. It defines our experience of the world, it echoes through our every working hour. Time is the very foundation of our conscious experience. Yet as familiar as it is, time is also deeply mysterious. We cannot see, hear, smell, taste or touch it. Yet we do feel it - or at least we think we feel it. No wonder poets, writers, philosophers, and scientists have grappled with time for centuries.

Religion is the second part of the title. This is the harder part to explain. Every early religion around the world developed in order to grasp the concept of time. From the early days of Shamanism and burial rituals during the Natufian culture that flourished between 15,000 and 11,600 BCE through Neolithic burials, 'homo-religious' as Karen Armstrong calls our ancestors, has tried to deal with the meaning of time, life after death, and eternity.
Our ancestors must have had a need to track time and seasons. Night must have been quite scary back in the days and harsh winter or summers must have had a determining role in our survival. In fact I believe FEAR and DREAMS were the two factors that led mankind to a spiritual awakening. On the one side fear of night, harsh nature and death, and on the other, dreams of fair weather and food in abundance or dreams of a deceased parent that might have been so vivid as to make us truly believe they still lived in another dimension or that we could somehow communicate with them. Most early tombs functioned as some sort of giant clock/calendar. A great example is the "passage tomb" of Newgrange in Ireland dating back to 3,100 BCE, making it five centuries older that the great pyramids of Giza. The tomb is richly decorated with triple spirals and other geometric shapes. The tomb spans 25 meters in length ending in 3 small perfectly preserved and dry alcoves giving it an elongated cruciform design. One of the most intriguing feature though is that once a year, on the morning of the winter solstice, sunlight reaches into the passage into the deepest burial chamber.

Many of the symbols of ancient religions are inspired on the sun, the moon, the seasons and the cycles of the stars. I am using the word ‘religion’ in my title to mean ancient TRANSCENDENTAL RELIGION. It is the sense of sacred that our ancestors had to try to explain time, death and eternity and that evolved around the world in various forms. If we want to fully understand time we need to have a deep understanding of religion and its evolution throughout time.

The above video resumes the concept quite well. It is unfortunate that the man speaking has beliefs that diverge hugely from mine; he speaks of ill credited scientists, believes in conspiracy theories and in other interviews talks of machines that don’t really exist. But in the pursuit of truth I will not be censoring anyone's ideas especially on a subject like the consciousness of time.

Perceivers and Receivers

I just spent the last 2 weeks reading 1Q84 (Books 1 and 2) only to discover there is a third concluding book. I found the book disturbing and very Japanese (if you'll allow me the generalization, which usually comprises glorification of western actors and films, a fascination with suicide and an overall complicated plot based on traditional Japanese myths that make it difficult for most westerners to comprehend).

Does the book talk about Time ?

Only indirectly, but it does explore the concept of two separate universes in which though one is not free to travel to and fro, one definitely affects the other. (SPOILER) Aomame, has an encounter with Tengo at  the age of 10  then at the age of 30 travels to the second universe, saves Tengo’s life,  commits suicide and is reborn in Tengo’s dying father’s bed as a 10 year old Aomame. All of this through a series of significant coincidences or prophecies that only a few elected people can interpret (Perceivers and Receivers). There is a mention to the fact that, in the past, Receivers were kings and rulers and that Perceivers were priests and the so called Little People were called with different names (spirits or gods?) And that to keep the balance of power, any excess of power on either side, would always create a counterbalancing force within society.

I hope that the third book will enlighten me a little more on Murakami’s vision and give some insights and ideas on Time. I will post something after reading it.

Time in music

The subject of time often comes up in songs either in the lyrics or in a clever use instruments that suggest the passage of time, or often in both. Below I’ve listed 3 examples from around Europe that are vivid in my mind.

What interests me particularly in certain songs is their ability to change our perception of time. We often hear our music as a background sound while we are doing something else but I often listen to music on my stereo or on large headphone, close my eyes and do nothing else. If I like the song I can immerse myself fully in the music and time can slow down or even stop. This sensation could be due to a switch from left hemisphere to right hemisphere and/or dopamine and adrenaline levels being altered and changing my perception of time.

Taking it one step further I would like to speculate that certain sounds or harmonies can actually stimulate our pineal gland to produce Melatonin and possibly DMT.

Last night, after I practiced singing overtones for an hour, I went to sleep and dreamt I was levitating. The feeling I had was much more vivid than a dream about flying. I was very conscious in this dream. In fact I was very happy to see that I could really fluctuate above ground like I had dreamt so many times in the past. When I woke up it took me a few minutes to realize it was all a dream.
I will write a post on the pineal gland and it’s possible link to astral travelling in the coming month.

Time by Pink Floyd

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it’s sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but you’re older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the english way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say

Tempo – Giovanotti (I’m only listing a part of the song’s lyrics)

Tempo
Comunque vadano le cose lui passa
E se ne frega se qualcuno è in ritardo
Puoi chiamarlo bastardo ma intanto è già andato
E fino adesso niente lo ho mai fermato
E tuttalpiù forse lo hai misurato
Con i tuoi orologi di ogni marca e modello
Ma tanto il tempo resta sempre lui quello
L'unica cosa che ci è data di fare
É avere il tempo da poter organizzare

Tempo
Centonove battute al minuto
Quando finisce forse ti sarà piaciuto
La chiave per capire questo genere di suono
Che a molte orecchie può sembrare frastuono
E liberare la tua parte migliore
Chiudere gli occhi e aprire bene il cuore

Tempo
Quando stai bene lui va via come un lampo
Quando t'annoi un attimo sembra eterno
E il paradiso può diventare inferno
Tempo ti frego e con il ritmo ti catturo
E ti chiudo in una ritmica di aspetto molto duro
E t'organizzo in battute in quattro quarti
Allora non avrai tempo di liberarti
E con le gambe muovo anche il cervello
E allora il tempo sarà mio fratello
E come lui mi darà sempre una mano

La dernière minute – Carla Bruni (the song actually lasts one minute)

Quand j'aurai tout compris, tout vécu d'ici-bas,
Quand je serai si vieille, que je ne voudrai plus de moi,
Quand la peau de ma vie sera creusée de routes,
Et de traces et de peines, et de rires et de doutes,
Alors je demanderai juste encore une minute...

Quand il n'y aura plus rien qui chavire et qui blesse,
Et quand même les chagrins auront l'air d'une caresse,
Quand je verrai ma mort juste au pied de mon lit,
Que je la verrai sourire de ma si petite vie,
Je lui dirai "écoute ! Laisse-moi juste une minute..."

Juste encore minute, juste encore minute,
Pour me faire une beauté ou pour une cigarette,
Juste encore minute, juste encore minute,
Pour un dernier frisson, ou pour un dernier geste,
Juste encore minute, juste encore minute,
Pour ranger les souvenirs avant le grand hiver,
Juste encore une minute... sans motif et sans but.

Puisque ma vie n'est rien, alors je la veux toute.
Tout entière, tout à fait et dans toutes ses déroutes,
Puisque ma vie n'est rien, alors j'en redemande,
Je veux qu'on m'en rajoute,
Soixante petites secondes pour ma dernière minute.

Tic tac tic tac tic tac

PRECOGNITION – the problem of free will

I must state before I start this particular story that I am quite a sceptic at heart, mathematically and scientifically inclined.

At the age of 9 I had a feeling that I gained some superpowers. I could make kids in my class trip up at a distance and things of that sort. I told my closest friends in class and decided I was going to prove to them my immense powers by creating an earthquake. I gave them a specific day; “in 3 days time”... then for three days before I went to bed I visualised a quake. On the 4th day I showed up at school thinking I had failed but instead I found all my friends freaked out, one of them holding a newspaper. The previous day one of the largest quakes of the century had struck a few hundred miles from us. On the front page they wrote of victims in the hundreds. I can still remember the shock and the guilt I felt. From that day I decided I would never use my powers again to hurt people even if I got very angry at someone.
Looking back I can certainly give the more mundane explanation; that most kids at that age think they have superpowers and most will try them out. I can imagine there are thousands of kids out there who feel they might have caused a quake, a flood or a crash. Many kids might have had a so called premonitory dream and felt responsible for what happened after. In both these cases we can see how a bad understanding of probability and selection bias might mislead us not to see the obvious; that these are COINCIDENCES.

The problem I have with that is that I had in the years that followed many cases of Precognition. Flashes of near future events (often not linked with what I was doing at the time) that would come true. I decided to read a few SCEPTIC books (Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermes, Viaggio nel mondo del paranormale by Piero Angela, etc.) but though they made sense on
most things, I wasn’t 100% convinced.

I still get flashes of precognition and with my super sceptic analysis of statistics, probabilities, and mind selection bias, unconscious perception, etc. I can discard most of them. But there are still some that are so strong that they test even the hardest sceptic, such as “oh I’m going to be shocked to see a green Ferrari around the next corner and then seeing one and being shocked (it wasn’t a pretty sight!). Or at the casino, having a flash of getting two consecutive numbers right at a roulette, declaring it out loud to my friends next to me and proceeding to win the next 2 bets with 2 en pleins. (no, I hadn’t been 1296 times to the casino stating “I will get 2 numbers in a row” each time).

At this point I decided to research a little and ask about a possible parapsychological explanation (those were pre Wikipedia days, so I asked an esoteric bookshop owner in France). Of the various theories and explanations, the one I prefer is that our “soul” is made of a few subatomic particles that centre around our bodies, in the present. These are free to move a little away from our body and also (following quantum laws of physics) a little away from the present into the past or into the future. Then upon returning from, say, the future, some of the “memory” of what they perceived is passed to our consciousness. This is usually just a flash or a sensation due to the limited number of particles carrying the information.

The “soul” could be made of Tachyons or psitrons, time travelling particles with imaginary mass. Or more simply our awareness could be fundamentally trans-temporal as discussed by Dunne (1927) and Saltmarsh (1938) and while we are only ever consciously aware of some limited temporal range, unconsciously a much wider temporal range of information is sampled and used for the benefit of the organism.

Besides the fact Tachyons have never been observed, violation of causality and temporal paradoxes all seem to point to their non existence. But even supposing that somehow precognition was possible, what fascinates me is the concept of free will.

Is what I see in the future going to happen no matter what I do ? If so free will is only an illusion created by our limited conscious awareness that only allows us to see one frame at a time instead of the whole film stock. More on free will in a future post.

Distortions in time perception.



The above drawing is derived from the one below. Whereas I devised the one above, the one below came to me as a clear vision. The line of ‘consciousness of here and now’ is my way of seeing the Time line or at least our perception of Time. In other words when we are inside that line we are conscious of the passing of time. Then as we start thinking of something we move down into the realm of thoughts, though some of our consciousness remains in the ‘here and now’, so our body doesn’t lose track of where we are. When we are immersed in the 'thoughs' area we can perceive time differently. We can also become "lost in thought", whereby we are so absorbed in our thought that when we come back we feel we’ve lost track of time (I’ve labelled this ‘gap’).

I was wondering whether our thoughts could have multiple branches (multitask), which would have conflicted with my drawing below but science seems to point in the direction of one thought at a time.
Neuroscientist Earl Miller of MIT states “When people say they can multitask, they're deluding themselves What we do is shift our focus from one thing to the next with astonishing speed.”
Neuroscientist Daniel Weissman at the university of Michigan came to the same conclusion. By using MRI to scan brains of subjects that were assigned 2 different tasks. The subject would be shown two numbers of a certain colour. If the digits are one colour, say red, he would decide which digit was numerically larger. If the digits are a different colour, say green, the subject decides which digit is printed in a larger font. The brain was seen to pause each time the colour was changed. In my picture this would be the equivalent of coming back to the conscious time line to round up all the information it had about the other task and then branch off to give the answer. The part of the brain that acts as a conductor and decides how much flow goes out (as thought) and how much stays in the ‘conscious here and now’ is called the ‘executive system’ and lives in the brain's frontal lobes, basically above our eyes. The executive system also helps us achieve a goal by ignoring distractions.

Many years ago while, travelling in Amsterdam, I stopped in a coffee shop and had a smoke. Whilst under the influence, my thoughts would start normally but be extremely intense and focused. I would start to focus all my conscience on it. I felt I was accelerating down a spiral and as I approached the centre everything regarding that thought was becoming clear to me. So much so, that the feeling of being overwhelmed by this total understanding would make me jump back to the ‘here and now’ but with quite a large ‘gap’ of time. A few seconds later I would think of something else and spiral down the next thought before again jumping back to the ‘here and now’ line. While all this was happening I had a very clear visual image of what was happening. The picture below is how I saw it:


my vision in 2001

Many years after drawing my spirals I found a text by Charles Baudelaire written in 1860 describing the effects of hachich on time perception. He writes of a stream of thought hurling you down a living vortex for what seems like eternity followerd by an instant of lucidity in you realise only one minute has passed. Then the next thought current drags you into your next vortex;

"Un autre courant d'idées vous emporte ; il vous emportera pendant une minute dans son tourbillon vivant, et cette minute sera encore une éternité. Les proportions du temps et de l'être sont dérangées par la multitude innombrable et par l'intensité des sensations et des idées. On vit plusieurs vies d'homme en l'espace d'une heure". - Charles Bodelaire - Le poème du haschisch