A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME

Oh, damn! That title is already taken. OK, I cannot compete with Dr. Hawking, nor do I wish to. My approach is less knowledgeable, less scientific than his. Mine is primarily experiential.

First, if I'm to talk about time, a definition might be helpful.

From an online dictionary:

TIME:
1. A nonspatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.

2. An interval separating two points on this continuum; a duration: a long time since the last war; passed the time reading.

3. A number, as of years, days, or minutes, representing such an interval: ran the course in a time just under four minutes.

4. A similar number representing a specific point on this continuum, reckoned in hours and minutes: checked her watch and recorded the time, 6:17 a.m.

5. A system by which such intervals are measured or such numbers are reckoned: solar time.

Is that helpful?

I thought not.

When I was a kid, I used to lie awake at night speculating on what time was. Dad said that would drive me bonkers, no one understands time. He might have been right. I read H. G. Wells science fiction classic, The Time Machine. (As an aside, that opened a lifetime love of the science fiction genre) He called time a dimension


OK, definition time again.

DIMENSION:

1. A measure of spatial extent, especially width, height, or length.

2. Mathematics The least number of independent coordinates required to specify uniquely the points in a space.

3. The range of such a coordinate.

4. Physics A physical property, such as mass, length, time, or a combination thereof, regarded as a fundamental measure or as one of a set of fundamental measures of a physical quantity: Velocity has the dimensions of length divided by time.

I think the one from physics is most operative here. Now I am in deep waters. You know much more about physics than I do, so please just humour me, dear friend.

After reading The Time Machine, I started picturing time as a line, a number line. Could it possibly gain another dimension and curve on itself, with the intersecting points making present and future, or present and past into a single point? Does it maker any sense at all to reference time in terms of spatial dimension. Or is this a gross misuse of the venerable number line?

Somewhere along the line, I came to think of time as having three dimensions, past, present and future. This set the stage for what I experienced in an altered state of consciousness, which I will refer to as a Spiritual Experience (SE) for lack of a better term

Now, back to the mundane. Look at some object that has three spatial dimensions, say your dominant hand. It occurs to me that I don't know if you are right-handed or left-handed, so I'll picture both below. When you look at, you see those dimension, length, width and depth, but you do not - cannot! - see them as three separate properties, you see them as one organic whole, the length, width and depth each distinct and yet inseparable. Are you following me so far? Of course you are, we haven't gotten to the difficult part.

Now we get to the difficult part.

You most likely see your hand in only one dimension of time, the present. Now you need to use your imagination. Imagine looking at your hand and seeing it as it was when you were a foetus, a baby, a child, a teenager. Now, return to the present and, in your imagination, travel in the opposite direction, see your hand in ten years, then as an old person. If you have the nerve, see it as dead and decaying.

If you are following me now, we can move on to the really hard part.

Imagine seeing those three dimensions of time as an organic whole, each distinct and yet inseparable, past, present and future all existing together, so when you look at your hand, you are not seeing our usual three dimensional hand, but rather you are seeing a six dimensional hand.

Now imagine seeing the entire spacetime continuum in that way. That is my view of maya (the spacetime continuum) - when I am aware of maya at all - during a SE.

I am aware that this must sound science fiction, and I suppose it is. It is also something I have experienced and continue to experience occasionally.

And that is my explanation of the three dimensions of time, as best I can give it right now.

Now as I don't want to disappoint, here are parts of my three favourite time
songs, with links to the complete songs.

A Hazy Shade of Winter: (edited)
Simon and Garfunkel


Time, time, time, see whats become of me
While I looked around
For my possibilities
I was so hard to please
But look around, leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Hang on to your hopes, my friend
That's an easy thing to say, but if your hopes should pass away
Simply pretend
That you can build them again
Look around, the grass is high
The fields are ripe, its the springtime of my life

But look around, leaves are brown now
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter
Look around, leaves are brown
There's a patch of snow on the ground...

TIME IS ON MY SIDE: (edited)

The Rolling Stones
(Meade)

Time is on my side, yes it is
Time is on my side, yes it is

You're searching for good times
But just wait and see
You'll come running back (I won't have to worry no more)
You'll come running back (spend the rest of my life with you, baby)
You'll come running back to me

Yes time, time, time is on my side, yes it is
Time, time, time is on my side, yes it is
Oh, time, time, time is on my side, yes it is
I said, time, time, time is on my side, yes it is
Oh, time, time, time is on my side
Yeah, time, time, time is on my side

Time In A Bottle: (edited)
Jim Croce


If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that Id like to do
Is to save every day
Till eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you

If I could make days last forever
If words could make wishes come true
Id save every day like a treasure and then,
Again, I would spend them with you

But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
Ive looked around enough to know
That you're the one I want to go
Through time with

The Fighter Still Remains - BRENDEN FOSTER 1997-2008

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33ASQhDvfGs



The body of Brenden Foster has died. No longer is this bright, shining soul encased in a shell wracked with leukemia. No longer is he lying in a hospital bed with tubes coming out of his body and oxygen being pumped into his lungs.

I woke up yesterday morning to the news that he is no longer among us. He breathed his last while being held gently in his mother's loving arms. You may notice that I am avoiding saying that he is dead. This is on purpose. I am not in denial; I am not pretending that he is still among us. Sadly, he is gone.

So, for those who may not know, who is Brenden Foster. He is a boy of 11. Until a couple years ago, he was a little boy like many others, running around playing, just being a kid. Then he was diagnosed with leukemia. Since then he was been fighting and fighting, a true, small warrior, an inspiration to us. Is superimposing his face on a supernova a bit over-the-top? I think not.



It is always poignant when a child dies, whether little Zinna Linnick, kidnapped, raped, murdered or Ryan White, who died of AIDS some years ago after a very public battle or Sandeep Singh who achieved shaheedi in Delhi in 1984. Those have names. Equally touching is the death of the nameless child killed by American or Taliban bombs in Afghanistan or the little girl, unwanted, murdered preborn in Punjab (or British Columbia!) or the much-loved child that dies of starvation in his mother's arms or a lonely child crawling slowly toward food and shelter anywhere on earth.



What moves me most about Brenden Foster is the picture I saw of him on CNN. Tears streaming down his chubby cheeks, he was asked, "What makes you sad." He took a breath and responded gently, "When someone gives up." Brenden never gave up. His last wish was to feed homeless people.



He saw a story on TV about homeless people living in tents in Nickelsville, which I have already written about. Unlike me, however, Brenden did more than write and feel bad about it. He inspired others to get together sandwiches to feed these people. Not just peanut butter and jelly, he told workers, but ham and cheese as well, since some people are allergic to peanuts.



Last week, there was a huge local food drive to get people to donate food to the hungry. Brenden was awake and conscious and was able to see his last wish of feeding the homeless realised. Truck after truck was filled with food donated by people inspired by this extraordinary eleven year old child.

And this seemed to have caught on. I have heard about food drives around the country in his honour. This is wonderful. But I know Brenden would say that this is not enough. Feeding people once is good, but it's just not enough.

Here in Seattle recently, a very large, inclusive Food Bank had to shut down for lack of funding. This place not only fed the hungry but also aided immigrants, helped people find jobs and ran a free food bank. In addition, they sold refurbished computers with free Internet access at rock-bottom prices. Yes, this very computer that makes it possible for me to talk to you was bought there. I expect to hear about a Brenden Foster Memorial Fund to aid in such circumstances. If I hear, I'll let you know.

Seattle's professional football team, the Seattle Seahawks has offered to pay for his funeral, relieving his mother, Wendy Foster, of at least one worry.

I have found this website that should give the latest Brenden Foster news.

When I die, I suppose my friends and family will insist on having a funeral. There is a song I have requested be sung there, the last verse of Paul Simon's "The Boxer." It is how I want to be remembered.

It is how I will remember Brenden Foster.

In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade,
And he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down,
Or cut him till he cried out in his anger and his shame,
I am leaving, I am leaving.
But the fighter still remains.

Yes, indeed, the fighter still remains!