The Nature of Time

What is this rigamarol. Its language coveyed nothing to me. If Time is not a reality as asserted by the writer than what is the reality as our `language` says that every thing real exists in Time and Space and even we talk of a real time and a serial time. The latter is thought to be the womb of all existence. When the serial time stops its movie to run, it is called `Qiamat`, meanig a hang in the serial of existence. In fact, we live more in the past than in the present. If we take serial time as unreal all religion would become only a matter of language `Assateerul Awaleen` as the intellectuals of Arabs said about Islam. They also said `` it is the time which brings us into existence and it is the time which ends us``.

I am sorry to put down these stray thoughts when I could hardly read more than half of the article and failed to understand its terminology of `consectual experiences`. This article is perhaps meant for research philosophers when I never read philosophy as a subject but my incoherent experiences say that `Time` is the greatest mystey of existense.

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hey jahangeer not a bad exploration but you could have done with a sharper editing and a less turgid and verbose text......it makes for pretty heavy reading and only serves to justify philosophy`s undue reputation of being obtuse.

Now lets see, your basic argument seems to be that we live in a reality that is configured by the language system we work within, that is, what is real is only available to us through a pre-established grammar...and in acknowledging this we will also allow for multiple narratives of any particular experience/event....and therfore prevent closure in all explanations.

a sound theoretical argument at one level and one that also lives upto to the current orthodoxy of academia, that is, post modernism.

But i have some issues...lets see if there are multiple narratives of any particular experience, then no one such narrative can claim to be true? an argument that is the core of postmodernist theory ....all truth claims are invalid in light of this argument .....for each truth claim exists in a reality constructed by it.

Now lets concretise this argument with a couple of examples:

1) The Holocaust becomes therefore a reality produced by a grammar which is at equal
terms and competing with other realities produced by Neo-Nazis

2)The occupation of Palestine and the various accounts that are produced are thus all production of their own grammar and thus competing equally to be recognised as truth.

Please notice that the two examples i have picked are those which immediately cause a degree of emotion, be they due to the long discourse within which they are embedded in or due to our own particular reality.But can one honestly except any other notion of real other than one exemplified in Auschwitz.

But lets take another example: Iraq...the whole world thought Bush was lying, the whole world know that Bush is still lying....yet in the U.S. it is Al Jazeera that is dismissed as fiction while Fox and CNN become reality...and thus despite everything Bush gets reelected. Was this a competition of equally competing realities?

There were two realties here, but as the late and much lamented Edward Said would have put it, one was Arab and by implication False and the other was Western and thus True.To push the argument to the limit the Arab does not have a chance in a world whose media`s grammar is western. Wasn`t this why Colin Powell could lie in the Security Council and get away?

In a nutshell while there may be multiple realities, they function and exist in an unequal relationship.....and in denying truth claims if only theoretically we also invalidate all arguments politically.....and that is perhaps my central argument....theoretical exploration such as yours are representative of an academia of despair that seeks solace in theorizing for it no longer wants to/can enter the sphere of the political and instead in seeks to depart from it.

Well The person who replied in this article thanks for this.I was wondering about time what is it.After wondering such a long time i found that what i wrote here.But still its confusing for me.As a muslim i believe that one day this world come to an end.But what about time?will it come to an end.And i find answer everytime no.There will be time.
Well would you people help me out the nature of time?

First of all to nikki7777: One who wrote this does nothing in bed!

Now to teshah: You are absolutely right the whole write-up is a rigmarole! And let me add the article is totally meaningless and unintelligible because of the poor control of English language by the Author!! He/she needs to learn English and practise writing under supervision.

To smartsyco: I presume you are Jehangeer.

Now to the subject of time.

Time is not a physical reality. It is a short cut for describing the events that happen in the physical world. Events result due to the changes in the quasi-equilibria that constitute collectively our physical universe. Leave out our mental universes because they are nothing but a collection of our individual imaginations (Mind you, I am not saying they are unimportant.). Our personal experiences are of course transmitted to our contemporaries through oral language (Need we define it?) and, of course, to non-contemporaries by their interactions with the written/preserved records.
Going to physics, of course, I believe (note, not think) that we can develop alternative descriptions in which the concept of time would not be invoked. Necessarily, it will be more elaborate and often unneedfully. Thus, the humans all over he world have adopted the concise technique based on the concept of time.

However, this has led to a lot of false avenues of thinking because many a thinker overspend their energy on the ``fundamental`` aspects of time. They might be better off - in more ways than one - by considering the real things of life!!

Finally, oh yes nikki7777, they would definitely be better in the bed!!!

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adyapant

..... what you described as realities.....are conceptions not reality....
somewhere down the line.... even the advocate that particular line of thinking....
Like Colen Powel lying in the security council .... Knew... he is lying....... for him the only consideration is the result it will achieve for his country USA... perfectly in line with their policy.... what ever that may be....
So .... He is trying to portray something which is not reality.......But ....with the weight of a super power behind it.......making it an acceptable alternate....

....... ..If you still consider at an reality...then maybe.... this example would do....
.... supose there is a creature....which exist only in two dimentional space......that is his vision cannot comprehend the third dimension.... for him a CAR or any object will appear different.... every time....he enter the next two dimensional space.....Like if he views the car from front.... he will see....the Mudgaurd....frontscreen.... and front of tyres...etc..etc.....for him that will be reality.....
and he somehow manages to go sideways...and then views the car from side ways...
His reality will now be the doors.... round typres... door handles...and the side shape of the car...
Now that again is reality.........Then only if some how he manages...to synthesise these two views..... He will get another partial incomplete reality..... consisting of the front part and the side part...... ( still leaving.... the top...bottom...back....and the other side...
of the reality....of the CAR.....)
Similarly maybe Time provides us a somewhat broader view.....maybe still partial ...of reality.........composing of the starting point ...... somewhere in Past.....and then Present....... somewhere Midway.....in the actual reality.... Only ....when we reach the end......and have a synthesis of the whole process..... we can comprehend reality...

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To AQUARIS
i agree that reality is a product of frame of reference(though i could not understand your example) but yet there are some realities that we exist with...and that is a POLITICAL statement.....a sphere we (both in Pakistan and India) have allowed to be hijacked .........

But as for the nature of time ...it is a very philosophical question.....within Hindu philosophy there are many currents and one of them holds time to be circular...with numerous cycles within cycles.... a circularity so long (one philosopher tried to count it and ended up with mindboggling numbers) that the notion of circularity is lost......

Yet if we go beyond the mystical.... one has to look at the colonial experience....I live in Bombay a city that has numerous clock towers...in the heyday of the Bombay based textile industry these clocks and sirens served to create a disciplined workforce....imparting the notion of working hours and working days(ask anyone who leaves university life to work ...weekends assume an entirely different meaning)....a notion of time radically different from one in the countryside ....agrarian time or seasonal time .....which is governed by the crops (and which cuts across political boundaries...please notice that Basant is first and foremost an agrarian festival)....most of the Hindu festivals are infact agrarian in their origin.....unfortunately the unbashed consumerism that accompanies them today in urban India serves only to erase that...........and finally Time and History ....for the latter cannot be withhout the former....a notion of time informs History....though there are varied notion ....but i will end with the words of the master ....Karl Marx with reference to Napoleon III ``History repeats itself, the first time as a tragedy and the second as a farce``....no prizes for guessing whom we could apply this to today.

To AQUARIS
i agree that reality is a product of frame of reference(though i could not understand your example) but yet there are some realities that we exist with...and that is a POLITICAL statement.....a sphere we (both in Pakistan and India) have allowed to be hijacked .........

But as for the nature of time ...it is a very philosophical question.....within Hindu philosophy there are many currents and one of them holds time to be circular...with numerous cycles within cycles.... a circularity so long (one philosopher tried to count it and ended up with mindboggling numbers) that the notion of circularity is lost......

Yet if we go beyond the mystical.... one has to look at the colonial experience....I live in Bombay a city that has numerous clock towers...in the heyday of the Bombay based textile industry these clocks and sirens served to create a disciplined workforce....imparting the notion of working hours and working days(ask anyone who leaves university life to work ...weekends assume an entirely different meaning)....a notion of time radically different from one in the countryside ....agrarian time or seasonal time .....which is governed by the crops (and which cuts across political boundaries...please notice that Basant is first and foremost an agrarian festival)....most of the Hindu festivals are infact agrarian in their origin.....unfortunately the unbashed consumerism that accompanies them today in urban India serves only to erase that...........and finally Time and History ....forthe latter cannot be withhout the former....a notion of time informs History....though there are varied notion ....but i will end with the words of the master ....Karl Marx with reference to Napoleon III ``History repeats itself, the first time as a tragedy and the second as a farce``....no prizes for guessing whom we could apply this to today.

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Nikki: No comprende! English, please.
Why do I feel that your response is not to my fourth paragraph!
I wish somebody would respond to that.

..... Yes you are right....a frame of reference is needed.... Both in political term....and physical term...

... Like... I said. ..... Colin powel when says..... their objectives are chasing terrorists...... concealed beneath it... is their long term.. political objective.....
the world accepts it as a REALITY.... A super power reality..... Like you said...Or may be i misunderstood...

The second point about the physical frame of reference....
We Life in a system defined by Space-time ..... and though my own concept so far is not clear..... But I understand..... they both started.. at the same moment or simulteneously...
the path could be circular....like the hindu philospy.....you mentioned..

But my point is .. its still what we preceive.......
Another example.... Can a Fish know ... whats on Mount everest....for example..
Yes..... if she/he can be taken to the top of mount everest some how.... then it could see what up there.....
But there will be at least two limitations......
One..... its own concept of reality..... even if see it agrees to our concept of reality...
then . .. it will need some means to go up there. ... Like a water tight carrier full of water...... with some sort of glass to see through....
What if the Glass is coloured RED... or Blue....
is so.... then every thing that it will see will appear RED or Blue... even the Ice....which appear White to us... will appear ..... RED or Blue to it...
So the Fish`s reality will be different to ours... EVEN if it agrees to our reality...

Comming back to the two dimentioanl question...... you can... experiment it yourself...
Look at the car from front.... then from back or sideways... .. its shape will be different...
its only.... you place yourself.... at enough a distance.... where you can see.... atleast some partial view of atleast two dimentions of a CAR you can say what exactly is it shape..

.......

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First of all i would like to tell you.That you need some manners to criticize sorry for that but you need anyway now i come to the topic

Well as exist in language without language we are nothing.Simply suppose there isn`t any language which exist then what will you do?
how will you communicate?
how will you make yourself able to do any conversation

you just only be able to explain you but it will take hell of time