by idtm

Created on: August 16, 2008

Reflecting on the passage of time is properly a contemplative activity. Consider, if I had to write a history of three minutes, which three minutes would I choose?

In a sense it is not for me to choose. The three minutes would always be the history of the next three minutes as I wrote it and the same three minutes as you read it. The facts as I write them and you read them are the same. The facts are the words I write. The truth is the words as you interpret them. The fact is that, as I write the words and you read them, the time is "now" for both of us. The truth is that your "now" is my then and my "now" will become your next three minutes, as you read this. So my "now", as I write this, is your past and your future. Your "now", as you read this, is my past and my future. In a version of syllogistic logic this means that your future is my past.

We already have so much in common; we are inextricably linked in these three minutes, to our past, present and future.

Is it really the same three minutes?

Perhaps not.

A young man journeying on foot crests a hill on the road and encounters an elderly man coming from the other direction. The young man asks him how long it will take to reach the next town along his way. The elderly man replies "Walk!"

The young man, thinking the old man has misunderstood repeats the question, evoking the same response.

In frustration the young man says "it is of no help to me if the only response I get from you Walk'".

The elderly man explains that "My reply is an instruction to Walk!' because I cannot tell how long it will take until I can see how fast you walk."

Just as the old man did not know how quickly the young man walked, I do not know how quickly you read, so this may have taken you longer to read than three minutes. In which case, you lived longer for your "now" than I did. There is more to your future than my past. Conversely, if you read this in less than three minutes there is more to my past than your "now".

This is a journey through time but where does this take place?

In the journey of the young man and the old man, their "now" matched in time and place. Their status in place, apart from their meeting, is unclear. It will remain forever unknown if each man's starting point was the other's destination and whether each man's future was the other's past. To meet in person requires the coincidence of time and place, which is not required in our shared three minutes. It would seem that while we share a past, present and future we do not share the dimension of place.

How long is three minutes?

Measured time is deceptive because real time owes more to its perception. To watch a watch tick away three minutes, seemingly takes more than the three minutes it empirically represents. Compare this with the time between sleeping and waking, which seems like mere seconds even though it may actually be hours. Ironically, perception of time is often an inverse function of enjoyment so the more you enjoy something the shorter the time it appears to fill. In pursuit of immortality you can cheat time while reading this if it seems to take longer. The immortality is the time that it appeared to take beyond the three minutes. The price for this is ennui, just as the price for excitement is that your three minutes will have passed as if in an instant.

So the "now" of you the reader may seem longer than the "now" of my three minutes. Even so, our "now's" will remain the same, inescapably linked by the same words but your past which is now my future, when you have read this, will no longer appear to be the same. The truth of this is in the deception of perception, not the facts of the words.

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