Midterm Essay: Experiences Alter The Perception Of Time.

Although many may not believe it until it happens to them, time can pass by so swiftly that one won’t even register it at first. Yes, time passing is a part of life, but the realization of it is another story within itself. “Forgetfulness,” a poem by Billy Collins, and an excerpt from “Once More to the Lake” by E.B. White both provide a clear example of how fast time can go by. In Collin’s piece, he puts together many various ideas one can forget as their life moves incredibly fast. Likewise, in White’s “Once More to the Lake,” the narrator struggles to understand how quickly time really passed and how his son is so similaralike to him. Both of these pieces of writing use X syntax and X diction to develop the common theme of annihilated time.

Many physicists believe time does not exist. Einstein proved through the theory of relativity that time is not an absolute quantity(Jones). Things do not change because of time; time passes on. Change occurs internally. Meaning things change themselves. Humans use time as a measurement of the perpetual change. People say time is not real because clocks exist, but clocks are just rhythmic objects(Lanza). The rhythmic ticking of clocks to measure events that occur, such as, day, night, and the rotation of the sun are used to make sense of life(Lanza). Since these devices exist in our everyday life it becomes difficult for people to grasp the concept that time is not real(Lanza). This moment right now is what is believed to be present, but when the sentence ends the moment is gone. The “now” never stops(Callender). So how could time have a flow if you can not pinpoint an exact moment? The past is just a memory; the future is yet to happen. Not every moment is perceived the same by another person(Meijer). Our brains and mindsets are not identical.

Let us begin by saying that time cannot be stopped nor slowed down but must be followed. Meaning that on some occasions we

Time, from one person’s experience to another, from day to day, from emotion to emotion, varies more than the individuals who experience it. Yet time still can be measured. People, almost from the earth’s inception, have had a desire to regulate time. This is still seen today, with all the watches, phone clocks, wall clocks, analog clocks, digital clocks, grandfather clocks, atomic clocks, timers, and stopwatches. Unfortunately, while it is possible to measure the actual emissions from an atom’s atomic transition, it is impossible to measure time perception in different circumstances. Both the poem “Time Is”, and the statue “Father Time”, portray the integral role of time in humanity.

Timing is everything they say, well what exactly is time? So I decided to do some research and look up the definition on Oxfords Dictionaries to see what the exact meaning of time is. Time is the “indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole” it also means “a point of time as measured in hours and minutes past midnight or noon” (Oxfords Dictionaries). The thought about time and the concept of it came to my mind today because it actually happened to be the last day of daylight savings. It made me wonder what is time and does it really exist and why do we have daylight savings. Is time something created by man or nature, or could it all just be an illusion inside your brain.

Time, as viewed in this framework, is not only defined as the time on a clock, but the way culture perceives time. Time can be viewed by the calendar; furthermore, some cultures use different calendars or have varying number of days in their week. Some cultures also see clock time as less strict. There are certain cultures where it is normal to be late and others where the time decided is the time one is expected to be there.

The structure is a catalyst for understanding how the perception of time is

Theme: Time can be the perception of each person at each different event in their life

David Lewis defines time travel as the distance in time among the arrival and departure that is not equivalent to the duration of the journey. In other words, time travel takes place when there is an inconsistency with internal time, the time of departure versus the time of arrival, and

We ignore it, we do not realize it and we certainly do not want to come to terms with it but at the end of the day, irrespective of how we, humans, feel about it, the passage of time is inevitable. Time is taken for granted, it is not something we pay much attention to in our everyday lives – most of us cannot even afford to do so. Our lives are slow, as is the process of realizing that we are gradually being absorbed into oblivion, disappearing bit by bit in our own time and turning ourselves into mere memories that in the grand scheme of things are virtually irrelevant. The Swimmer by John Cheever is a short story that, in an incredibly accurate manner, illustrates how the neglect of reality can impair a person’s judgment and understanding of time, and negatively influence their lives. Perhaps, the larger idea the

The three problems that arise with this theory is the assumption that the notion of time is non-existent and that a thing can never represent itself at any one time because by the very definition of this theory it would be insufficient in representing itself. The time issue is a consequence of a thing not being a whole thing unless it’s dispersed over time therefor a thing is only itself when time is one “frame”. Using algebra to explain what I mean I can say that an object “Q” is equal to Q only when the sum of all times “t” is equal to 1 because Q is equal to the sum of all Q’s corresponding to all times “t”. The third issue is that it denies that anything changes (by our definition of change as a function of time) because it denies that time is ongoing. This theory is not empirically supported because obviously we see time as being ongoing and infinite also it is an overly complicated explanation for what we seek.

Time is a self-evident perception of intangible human construct. A week consists of days, which consists of hours, which consists of minutes, and so forth infinitely; However, time is much more than a measurement or fleeting notion given to each living organism. It is an existential entity that resides outside of the human mind and its attempted comprehension. Its fundamental nature is not one of transience, but one of forward motion, where it not the past that is prepared for, but the future. The passing of time is continuous, with the arrow of time always pointing ahead. But what exactly happens when time passes? The rock band, Chicago, asks this question in their hit song, “Does Anybody Really Know What Time it is?” in order to protest the human tendency to live for the future, and the trivial character of the time-driven capitalist structure.

This is to say that the brain works on the information even after we store it in our memories.

To that, I ask you to consider the following: A child pricks his finger with a pin. Crying out, he learns not to prick himself again, as it would cause him continued pain. Consider another scenario: A mother cradles her baby in a new blanket. The blanket, being soft, comforts the baby. The baby, from that point on, associates that blanket with comfort and pleasure. In both cases, the initial sensation the children received from the experience was enough to form an impression of each object; stored as a memory, these impressions are recalled by the children, thereby affecting their future interactions with the objects that caused the initial sensation. Even if the memory of the impression is not the same as the initial impression, the memory still accurately reflects the nature of the impression; the child does not need to continually prick his finger to know it will cause him pain.

It could argued that our common-sense notion of endurance through time is incorrect. That this mistaken self-conception lead us to experience the passage of time. If so, this would be illusory no? And if this enduring ‘me’ is an illusion then so is the passage of time.