How the mind trips on time.
This message was set to appear live on the web at 11 AM GMT on Saturday, October 16th 2010. If all went well with so many machines and algorithms, at precisely the planned moment a bit was flipped* and this message appeared before the world. I was sleeping (one can only suppose but the odds are very good) and perhaps dreaming about things I’ve already forgotten as the present moment passes — you reading these words.
It’s remarkable that we could have this conversation, you in my future and I in your past, while the fact remains that neither of us has ever travelled beyond the realm of now. Or so I suppose. Yet I am thinking about you here and you are thinking about me there, and this is all occurring at two separate points along a continuum of time by means which we hardly comprehend. I trust you are there nonetheless, and your act of reading these words may provoke a reasonable suspicion of my being here. Or perhaps these words have always existed? And perhaps they are naught?
So when I sat down to continue this message I thought, “what might I tell you of wisdom past?” And the question brought this brutal fact to mind: I know nothing more of the past than the next guy. This despite our so-called advanced brains and technological tools. So little “past” has flown between you and me, only an instant more between us and Turing, and even his great mind could recall little more than the haphazard readings of a recorded history which is itself but a vanishing moment in the course of unknown ages.
Yet all is foreplay to this moment.
It’s been such a long time
I think I should be goin’, yeah
And time doesn’t wait for me, it keeps on rollin’
Sail on, on a distant highway
I’ve got to keep on chasin’ a dream
I’ve gotta be on my way
Wish there was something I could say.Well I’m takin’ my time, I’m just movin’ along
You’ll forget about me after I’ve been gone
And I take what I find, I don’t want no more
It’s just outside of your front door.It’s been such a long time. It’s been such a long time.
If you’re over the age of forty, these lyrics may have just transported you back in time. If you knew these lyrics were Boston’s then you might have made that trip when you read the title of this post. Isn’t it amazing? We carry so much of the past just out of reach, until something nudges a part to the surface where we examine it for a time, just long enough to feel an intimate connection to who we once were.
And to more fully feel what we’ve become.
Babe, tomorrow’s so far away
There’s something I just have to say
I don’t think I can hide what I’m feelin’ inside
Another day …
— —
*A term used almost exclusively by software engineers, referring to the change of a 0 to a 1 in the form of a switch. I could just as well have written “a switch was flipped” but in this case “bit” is more accurate. :)
NOTES:
- The Image – A simple screen capture of widgets arranged on the desktop of a MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard. A future moment in time isolated my means of system clock manipulation. Power to the people.
- Resources – Special thanks to the third and ninth tracks of Boston‘s most excellent album … I imagine that these tracks were sent as messages to the future. Also to all of my colleagues here on Doves & Serpents: your phenomenal ability as writers and editors is an inspiration to me — may we learn from each other’s mistakes.
- About – Cipher on a Wall is a weekly column and forum here on Doves & Serpents which explores the realm of mind, memories, and dreams. You can find an introductory post for Cipher on a Wall here and a full archive of posts here. My name is Matt, and I’ll be your host for the duration.
- Updates – the approach we’ll be taking with Cipher on a Wall is to encourage lively and ongoing discussion throughout the week between each Saturday edition. To help with this I’ll be returning to each post and adding updates in the form of additional thoughts, observations, related news, elevation of comments, links, additional resources. etc. To easily show that an update has been added, I’ll revise the title to append a “>” for each update. For example, three updates on this post would look like this: “Foreplay/Long Time >>>” I’ve changed my mind about this because the title shouldn’t be munged. Just know there will be updates so it’ll be worth checking back occasionally throughout the week.
Update 1:
Check out the following graphical representation of the earth’s history; just a portion of that “long time” which is foreplay to this moment. And there we are singing along with Boston at the vanishing edge. A click on the image will take you to a larger version. Go, zoom-in and explore. Read more at Wikimedia Commons. (via Kottke)
Geographic Time Spiral - out of 4.5 billion years
I love the sensation of immediacy that this post evokes… the double hyphen at the close of the post leaves me in a place of silence: and of course: who can really speak the present moment?
The song that came to my mind (I’m well under 40 – read into it what you will) was Led Zeppelin: ‘It’s been a long time, been a long time, been a long lonely lonely lonely lonely lonely TIME.’ :)
Thank you, Andy. Of course Led Zeppelin is timeless.
I love these posts. Thanks for blowing my mind! :)
Anytime! Once a car starts to backfire it may get worse and worse until it seems backfire is an essential part of its character. There’s a correlation here to my mind. :P
Good stuff.
Boston’s Tom Scholz had incredible sustain, rivaled only by Nigel Tufnel.
Nigel Tufnel: The sustain, listen to it.
Marty DiBergi: I don’t hear anything.
Nigel Tufnel: Well you would though, if it were playing.
And Led Zeppelin is to timeless as Spinal Tap is Armadillos in trousers.
Time… the notion lends itself so much to music, poetry, philosophy… what a lovely blend of these. Thanks Matt.
Thank you, Claire! I love thinking about time. It really is just an abstraction of the mind, one we can’t live without. :D
Matt, have you read Edward Hall’s The Dance of Life: The Other Dimension of Life? You’d like it if you like thinking/reading about time.
My husband and I were just talking last night about dimensions. He casually asked my 7 year old if she knew what the 3 dimensions of 3D were. I guess we’re going to expect a certain level of abstract thought around here as well as advanced-for-age mathematical knowledge :) Do you know any good resources for understanding our 4D world better? My husband just “gets” this stuff, but I have to dissect it all a bit longer to comprehend. How is time a dimension?
Corktree, how did your seven year-old answer?
I’m always inclined to start any query with Wikipedia. But I think Heather has a great book selection: Edward Hall’s “The Dance of Life.” I’ll be checking it out myself.
Take a look at the image in my “Update 1” at the end of the post. It’s a second-diminsional abstraction of both the third and forth dimensions. See how both space (the earth, its position in space, and its geographical features) and time (marked by the positional and geographic events as earth moves through space) are symbolically represented upon the 2D plane of your screen? Time (4D) is a matrix of space (3D). Space (3D) is a matrix of planes (2D). A plane (2D) is a matrix of points (1D).
Based upon this sequence, what might be a matrix of time? What might the fifth dimension be?
She responded as she usually does: “How should I know?!” – I think my husband is determined to give her the resources in order to remove any excuse for that response ;)
It looks like I have some reading to do. Something about it doesn’t quite click and I really want it to. What’s the point in having a strong desire to know and understand something but lacking the mental capacity to do so? I find myself questioning stuff that I’m pretty sure I understood innately in HS and college. Maybe I should come back to these subjects when “mommy brain” no longer plagues me.
The only thing I keep thinking when I look at the image, is that it reminds me of the fictional ability to “tesser” from A Wrinkle in Time. I can easily understand the universe folding so that one point in time and space can be next to any other point. I imagine this is how God would exist *outside* of time and be able to see all events as one, but there is still something I’m missing. Off to wikipedia I go…