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TIME, AWARENESS AND EVENTS
Enigma and Dichotomy of Time
The enigma of time has been central to human inquiries from
their inception and stays today as unsettled as 4000 years
ago. Nobody expressed it better than Saint Augustin:
**What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is.
If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.**
In other words, we have an intuition of time, which, when
analyzed, becomes transparent, vanishes and opens into the
void.
Introspection tells me that I intuit time as continuous,
uninterrupted setting of foreground events, whether percepts,
emotions, images or intellections, as their perpetual and
universal, but unattainable and inscrutable background.
Foreground events discretize the continuous background flow
of time. Particular, periodically recurring events may
function as clocks, the frequency of their occurrences or
"ticks" indicating the speed of time flow. Time and clocks
appear as Aspects of the Dichotomy Continuum/Discreteness (CD).
Clocks integrate time into discrete periods, bounded by the
ticks and conserving in between the continuous fabric.
Values of time are necessarily affected by fuzziness
determined by tick intervals of involved clocks.
Einstein calls the intuitive, continuous time "subjective"
and it's discrete "clocks" complement - "objective". However,
both are experienced by the same "subject" and thus
"subjective". In order to avoid "subjective-subjective" and
"subjective-objective", which would appear when defining
"Space-Time" ("Natural Model"), we prefer to call the
continuous time aspect "Intuitive Time" and the discrete -
"Eventtual Time".
Intuition stays unaffected by philosophical, scientific and
other models, so that considering "time" of different models
we really examine their clocks, i.e. the eventtual time.
Considering intuitive time by itself, neglecting its
eventtual clocks complement amounts to empty speculations
such as arguing about the sex of angels.
Investigating time we have brought to light its CD Dichotomy.
We shall find it hereafter as the universal structure of
human Universe. For instance, physics reduced its domain of
inquiry, viz. the Cosmos, to the CD Dichotomy, whose
continuous aspect consists of Field (P-Equivalent with SPACE)
and the discrete of its quantized divergence areas.
NOTE: By "P-Equivalence" (Phenomenal Equivalence) we mean
the relation among observable aspects of a not directly
observable phenomenon. For instance, continuous wave and
discrete photons are P-Equivalent aspects of the phenomenon
"light".
Enigma and Dichotomy of Awareness
The continuous, universal, but inscrutable time, which sets
discrete events appears analogous to the intuition of the
thematic awareness, as propounded by Descartes, Heidegger
and Sartre. In our opinion it is not an accidental analogy,
but equivalence.
We postulate it as the
FUNDAMENTAL EQUIVALENCE PRINCIPLE:
INTUITIVE(CONTINUOUS) ASPECT OF TIME
IS EQUIVALENT WITH AWARENESS.
As we said above, intuition stays unaffected by scientific
philosophical and other models, so that considering
"awareness" as seen by different models we really examine
their views of events. Considering awareness as such,
independently of its eventtual complement would be an
empty speculation.
All events, all attainable eventtual elements of human
Universe point to the unique background, intuited as
awareness and time.
In that light we may formulate the Postulate of Relativity:
POSTULATE OF RELATIVITY
ALL ELEMENTS OF HUMAN UNIVERSE ARE DISCRETE AND RELATIVE,
EXCEPTING AWARENESS, ITS ABSOLUTE CONTINUOUS FOUNDATION.
And the corollary 1:
THE DICHOTOMY CONTINUUM/DISCRETENESS IS THE
BASIC STRUCTURE OF ALL ELEMENTS OF HUMAN REALITY
WITH THE FOUNDATIONAL PREPONDERANCE OF THE
CONTINUOUS ASPECT.
Corollary 2: Meaningful assertions may express only the
attainable relative elements of Universe in their
interrelations. Thus, nothing can be asserted about the
absolute, directly unattainable awareness. Awareness is
thematic and may be only indirectly attained and expressed
via its theme, the relative events.
Example: Saying "I am aware" posits some element "I" having
the property "awareness", which contradicts the Postulate of
Relativity, according to which awareness founds and precedes
all elements, including "I". "I" is founded in Awareness and
not the other way round. Instead of "I am aware", one could
perhaps say "aware", but that does not assert anything.
Actually, even "aware" would not pertain to the concept.
When I perceive a tree I'm not aware of being aware of
perceiving a tree, but I'm aware of the theme "tree", so
that the only way of expressing Awareness would be "Tree".
One cannot assert anything about awareness, one can only
hint it intuitively.
NOTE: As justified in "STRUCTURES OF MIND" (Reflection and
Meaning) words don't carry meaning, but more or less vaguely
point to it. Very vaguely indeed when concerning general and
intuitive concepts such as "universe" or "awareness".
Particularly misleading are then possessive adjectives like
"my", prepositions like "of", etc. "My awareness", or "I am
aware" misdescribe for instance some "I" having "awareness".
Yet, such forms are unavoidable when using a natural language.
Sartre introduced a convention to put misleaders in brackets,
like in "conscience (de) soi". We shall use it in especially
confusing cases and write: "(my) awareness", "awareness (of)
tree", or "(my) universe". Not that it's any more precise,
but at least it gives a warning against misinterpretations.
