Humans must
have concerned themselves with time ever since they have become aware. A time
to hunt and a time to sleep, and dream. A time to fear and fight and a time to
love. Ancient burial sites and temples tell us we were deeply concerned with
death and the afterlife. Ancient shamans
tried to interpret symbols and dreams. I believe religion came about as a way
to explain Fear vs. Dreams or Eternity vs. Death. A superior being that
transcended time which I have labelled “GOD” at the top of my triangle. Then
came early physicists and mathematicians or astronomers who tried to
rationalize the world but with their limited knowledge would still rely heavily
on mythology. With the first philosophers myth was questioned and room was made
for argumentation. This brought on a
whole field of philosophy and later psychology that is concerned with what I labelled
“MIND”. This left scientist the freedom to explain the physical world or “SPACE”
without the constraints of religion or personal perceptions. These 3 distinct
approaches give us a very pure and abstract concept of time. From these three come three secondary
understanding of time. A quest for “Universal” time, “Transcendental” time or “Empirical” time. My hope is that we can converge from these
into a new and better understanding of what time really is.
