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

RUSSIANS

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING! THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING! (1945-1991)





THE RUSSIANS AREN'T COMING! THE RUSSIANS AREN'T COMING! 1980

A few days ago, I met with the gentleman who is making my partial plates

to aid both in chewing and my appearance, a man with the noble name of Victor. I noticed that the magazines in his waiting room were all in the Cyrillic alphabet,
so, not knowing if the language was Russian or Ukrainian or possibly something else - , I asked, politely, 'Are you Ukrainian?' The good Victor burst out laughing and said, 'No, I'm Russian. Why do you ask if I'm Ukrainian.' I explained that my next door neighbour is Ukrainian and he had advised me that if in doubt, always ask if the person is Ukrainian; if the askee is Russian, he'll just laugh at you and tell you he's a Russian, but if you ask a Ukrainian if he's a Russian, you might get assaulted, ie, hit. It seems that my neighbour was right on the money, eh?

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO MAY BE GEOGRAPHICALLY CHALlLENGED ABOUT THIS REGION - and who isn't? - HERE IS A MAP OF THE RELEVANT COUNTRIES:

The Russians and I go back a long way, way back into the dreariest days of the Cold War, when we were still quite nervous about the Soviets, more commonly called the Russians, who, after all, threatened to 'bury' us.

My first memory of Russians was standing outside with my family during a pleasant night in 1957 watching a new star move across the sky, a new star put in the heavens by these wonderful people called Rush-Ins. At least that is how my five-year-old mind saw Sputnik One.

I made the mistake of voicing this thought out loud and was forcefully and physically admonished not to say nice things about Rush-Ins ever again. Nonetheless, this romantic vision of Russians as 'wonderful people who put a new star in the sky' has somehow become part of my psyche.

That was also the birth of my love of space and the space program. I reminisced a bit with the good Victor about Laika, the first dog in space,

Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space and Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, decades before Sally Ride. Indeed, the good Valentina was in space when NASA told a devastated little Me that I should 'be a good girl and go home and bake cookies.' I also learned that my denturist hates Dostoevsky - 'too dark' (hmmm, a little sparse on top, but nice beard. I adore facial hair on men, very masculine)

- whom I adore and loves novels about the American Old West. Next time I see him, I'll ask about Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour.
Nowadays, of course, in the immortal words of the immoral Ronald Reagan, 'the evil empire is no more,' but that Cold War legacy remains. I think of the last stanzas of Bob Dylan's With God On Our Side.

I've learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war starts
It's them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.

But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we're forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God's on your side.

In a many dark hour
I've been thinkin' about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss

But I can't think for you You'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.

So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God's on our side
He'll stop the next war.

Copyright ©1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music

Whoa. Come to think of it, that particular war never happened. We keep trying though.

Georgia, The Republic of Georgia, formerly the Soviet Socialist Republic of Georgia, tough little Georgia has decided to face down Russia over the disputed territory of Ossetia. I think of this line.

Our captain has a handicap to cope with, sad to tell.
He's from Georgia, and he doesn't speak the language very well.

Oh, sorry, wrong Georgia.


Bad idea, though, little Georgia. Let a friend/adversary, from Dust My Broom explain:

Would you poke a sleeping bear with a sharp stick?

Written by Krazy
Saturday, 09 August 2008
I don't know what it is about bears - but I for one have a healthy respect for their territory and their ability to tear me limb from limb. I wouldn't even think of poking one with a sharp stick

Mikheil Saakashvili - the western puppet president of Georgia has done just that. By attacking the Russian peace keepers and Russian citizens in the break away republic of South Ossetia he has awaken a rather large bear who would like nothing better than to sink its teeth in such a clown.

Prime Minister Putin has returned from the opening cerimonies of the Olympics and headed strait for the area.

Don't mess with bears, eh, little guys. George W., of course wants to use his usual method of settling disputes to settle this dispute: Send in the troops! What else. Again I think of Tom Lehrer:

Fortunately in times of crisis just like this America always has this number one instrument of diplomacy to fall back on. Here's a song about it.

When someone makes a move
Of which we don't approve,
Who is it that always intervenes?
U.N. and O.A.S.,
They have their place, I guess,
But first send the Marines!

We'll send them all we've got,
John Wayne and Randolph Scott,
Remember those exciting fighting scenes?
To the shores of Tripoli,
But not to Mississippoli,

What do we do? We send the Marines!

For might makes right,
And till they've seen the light,
They've got to be protected,
All their rights respected,
'Till somebody we like can be elected.

Members of the corps
All hate the thought of war,
They'd rather kill them off by peaceful means.
Stop calling it aggression,
O we hate that expression.
We only want the world to know
That we support the status quo.
They love us everywhere we go,
So when in doubt,
Send the Marines!

Hey, two Tom Lehrer references in one post. I ought to win some award, eh?

I have no idea how this will turn out. I'm no psychic, just a proKhalistan dissident, of sorts. (Somebody I respect called me a political dissident today. Love it!)

I don't like Putin, that slimy old KGB head,

Yeltsin was just another drunk, I dislike Gorbachev, that slimy old traitor, too. The new President, wassisname, Medvedev, I think, is just Putin's lapdog; I won't bother with an opinion of him. Russia is a rising economic power, soon to be a rival of the power of the United States of America. I have no doubt that for quite some time, this country will remain the biggest bully on the block, but at least it won't be the ONLY bully on the block. I think that would be a good thing. Inside me, I have discovered that there still lives that little girl who sees the Rush-Ins as those wonderful people who put a new star in the sky.