Time

The Metaphysics of Time

The term time can be used to refer to a number of different, though connected, concepts. The concept of change is a central one; one often refers to time when, in fact, one is thinking of the events occurring within time. This is most obvious with regard to utterances such as, “Time is the great healer,” or tempus edax rerum (time the devourer of things). Strictly speaking, time has no causal powers, either of healing or of destroying; what a speaker is really referring to in such cases is the succession of causally related events whose occurrence is noted as the passing of time. Whether time is something in itself, rather than merely the relationship between events, is one of the main questions dealt with in the metaphysics of time.

Questions about the reality, the nature, the shape, and the origins of time are often bound up with more general cosmological theories. Such questions include: Did time have a beginning? Is time linear or looped? Is time real? Is time something in itself, over and above the events that occur within it? Generally, cultures only develop answers to questions of this sort when the questions have been asked, which usually involves the development of a philosophical tradition. As with the perception of time, many writers try to develop a metaphysical theory of time from the literature and languages of cultures that have produced no explicit, worked-out theory of time; they face the problems described below.

The Perception of Time

The phenomenon of subjective time perception is familiar: At its simplest, when one is engaged in pleasurable activities or is concentrating, time can seem to speed by, but when one is bored or waiting for something, time seems to drag: “Time flies when you're enjoying yourself,” and “A watched pot never boils.” Other factors relevant to perceptions of time may be age (time seems to pass more quickly the older one gets), the season, the weather, the time of day, and so on. It has been argued that these and similar factors lead to a larger-scale cultural phenomenon: that members of different cultures experience time differently.

Since it is impossible to directly compare the experiences of two people, evidence for such theories must be circumstantial; much reliance is placed upon the linguistic patterns—and especially the writings—of the cultures being compared. Two major problems face the researcher. First, it's important to distinguish between the way someone experiences the world and the theories of the world that person develops. For example, I believe that an oar remains straight when dipped into water, but I still see it as bent; however strong my belief that the oar doesn't bend, I can't see it as straight. In the same way, many cultures have developed the theory that time is cyclic, but no one has ever perceived time as cyclic. The way that time is talked and theorized about need not reflect the way that it is experienced.

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