Tom Jonard's Mind Time Page
We
are all familiar with the measurement of time. Pick any regularly
recurring event and count each cycle. Cycles of the sun and moon
were early and easy to count. To improve the precision select
events
that recur more quickly like the swing of a pendulum or the quiver of
an
atom. So the flow of time is evenly divided into units and
mechanically
counted for us by devices we can place or carry just about any
where.
Indeed the micro-electronics that control so many devices today so
depend
on this principle that providing a read out of hours and minutes is
both
cheap and easy. So it is that it seems almost as if no gadget can
be bought that does not also have a clock.
The
time we measure is but one form of time. It is the time of
scientists
who seek to divide the world into ever smaller pieces to discover its
workings.
It is the time of technology with which we regulate our lives and
assure that planes and trains* and we ourselves
arrive
"on time". But there is another kind of time. It is the
subjective
time of our experience that we have dutifully trained to submit to the
regulation of our measurement devices. Sometimes it seems we have
become slave to these devices which were meant to serve us as when we
find
ourselves resetting all the clocks we own after a power failure.
And in a real sense we have slaved our sense of time to our
measurement
of it. As a result we are surprised when that sense asserts
itself
or when we explore it more closely.
Our
bodies also have clocks although certainly not of the mechanical
kind.
All of us are familiar with the highs and lows we experience both
through
the day and especially for some seasonally. We are also aware
that
some of us are "morning" people and some are not. Careful
physiological
monitoring reveals variations in response, attention and hormonal
levels
that parallel this anecdotal evidence of our natural variability.
Nor are these variations dependent solely on external queues like light
and temperature. Subjects isolated in caves display a natural
circadian
cycle -- albeit of 26 and not 24 hours (probably evidence that this
rhythm
was set during the evolution of our species when the length of the day
was longer).
The
cycles of our biological clocks certainly set the rhythm for our mental
experience of time though that is not the whole story. The
subjective
experience of time can be vary considerably. We say that "time
flies"
or "time drags" to express the sensation that we feel less time or more
time has passed than shows on the clock on the wall. If our
interest
is aroused time flies. If we are bored it lags. When we
review
the past on the other hand periods of little activity seem short --
think
of a lazy summer day -- while others that were full of activity seem to
have taken more time. Emotional state also effects how we view
time.
We both experience and retrospectively view times of heightened emotion
as being both more vivid and longer -- veterans of combat report the
period
of their service being the time the felt most alive and recall most
clearly.
Our
experience of time basically consists of the events that happen to
us
enhanced or suppressed by our accompanying emotional state. It is
not at all like the uniform ticking of a mechanical clock. Some
"researchers"
into so-called "alien abduction" make a big point of "missing
time".
It seems that we can't all account for where we have been all the
time.
These "researchers" say that this is a sign that we (or at least a
large
number of us) have been abducted by space aliens. The missing
time
is when we were in the custody of these aliens which the aliens have
caused
us to forget to hide their activities. This scenario simply
misinterprets
how we perceive time. Time we forget where we've been is more
likely
to be simply time when nothing much happened worth remembering.
Nevertheless
missing time of another kind does provide a window on the mental
processes
behind our experience of time. Amnesia is a deficit not just of
memory
but also of time. Its victims are not only missing memories they
are also are unable to place themselves in time. Without memory
there
is no context in which to determine when is now. Neither is there
any personal historical narrative to even give hint as to the current
era.
Victims of amnesia may not know the date, the year, their age or even
the
decade. Still if they can remember from the onset of their
amnesia
their sense of time passing from that point -- their experience of time
-- is unaffected.
Some
victims with specific brain damage also are unable to put each
successive
instant into its place in their history. These victims have not
only
lost the past but their inability to form new memories causes them to
continue
to lose the past instant by instant as the future becomes
present.
They have no sense of time at all -- neither the hour, day, year or
decade.
They exist only in an eternal now. In their ability still to hold
on to the current instant we perhaps see the minimal functioning of
their
biological clocks. But without the additional processing involved
in memory formation present time does not become remembered
history.
Such an existence in the eternal present is also a timeless existence.
Another
effect sometimes seen in amnesia is a person who knows their own
history
only atemporally. They may know for instance that they are
married
but not be able to say for how long much less recall the date. Or
they may know they have families but not recall the ages of their
children
or their birth order. Damage to the mechanism that creates
memories
can also effect the mechanism of their recall so that events that
predate
the onset of amnesia are also lost in time.
Such
deficits show a clear link between memory and the experience of
time.
But they do not yet reveal how the mind goes about structuring memory
to
produce that experience. Clearly sequence (simple ordering) as
well
as significance (emotional content) have some contribution in
converting
the simple biological experience of time into a sense of
personal,
historical time. The result is just as surprising -- our
experience
of time is in fact a narrative story of our selves. Like a book
or
movie this story is authored and edited. Perhaps unlike either it
may not be fixed but revisable given subsequent experience. We
certainly
know that brain damage can alter it fundamentally.
Books
and movies offer us another insight into our experience of time.
Consider the way the mind is able to construct a clear temporal
sequence
out of a book or movie plot that uses flashbacks, parallel plot lines
or
similar devices. Even the simplest plot is likely to have gaps in
time in order to tell a longer story in the time allotted and to omit
irrelevant
events. If they are not too intrusive we think nothing of these
devices
and are able make sense of the story. Events do not have to be
presented
to the mind in sequence for it to be able to build a experience
of
time in sequence. This ability of the mind is what makes it
possible
for authors and movie makers to use these devices in telling stories.
Physicist John
Archibald Wheeler once said that, "Time is nature's way of keeping
everything from happening
at once." I'm not sure what it would mean if everything happened
all at once but maybe it would be like experiencing things
randomly.
In his novel Slaughterhouse
Five, Kurt Vonnegut's protagonist Billy Pilgrim involuntarily
experiences
his life in a seemingly random order -- time tripping between present
and
future or past under the guidance of aliens from the planet
Tralfamadore
who do not experience time sequentially as we do. Perhaps our
experience
of time keeps us from randomly shuffling past, present and future -- at
least in our minds. Without the temporal structure provided for
us
by the mind we might like Billy Pilgrim all experience all of our times
mixed together.
Though
we believe we experience time as a quality of the external world that
experience
is in fact a construct of our minds. As long as our constructed
temporal
experience matches the external world as commonly experienced by others
this is not evident. When through accident the mechanisms of our
temporal experience are disrupted we are set adrift in a timeless
world.
We are temporal beings dependent the ordering abilities of our minds.
.Return
to Tom Jonard's Consciousness and Mind page
*Systematizing the measurement of time was a key component in the development of a nationwide rail system in the 18th century -- specifically in keeping trains from arriving in the same place at the same time.
Created April 9, 2003,
© 2003, Thomas A. Jonard