Finite and Infinite History

An Alternative Look at Modern Time

It is possible that time, as we have come to believe it, is a purely human defined construct. We believe that we have a grasp on the concept of time because we can tie it to the physical world, using such useful techniques as general relativity. However, the very important possibility remains that time as a linear, forward-pressing presence is simply wrong.

History, or finite history, as would be a better name for this notion, is a cultural fabrication that we have created to let us endure the belief that time is something quantifiable. History, in most respects, can be defined as a vast collection of past-data, aggregated by the human race, through a startlingly small amount of years. Consider these years in contrast to the lifespan of the earth, solar system, galaxy, or universe. I am infinitesimal. You are infinitesimal. And that is just it, isn’t it? The word that qualifies the phenomenon; infinitesimal, infinitely small, the approach to zero, without ever an arrival.

We can approach a finite history, but we can never approach the infinite history that is most necessary to reconcile the rise of the construct known as culture. In fact, the closest that we can get to infinite history is a finite history.

A finite history is asymptotic to infinite history. It is the widely-held illusion that is maintained because there is no ability not to maintain this illusion. To dissipate such an illusion is to unlink the signifier from the signified, to borrow a helpful notion from Saussure.

To express this another way: it is to… dissociate the concept of the tree, from the physical tree itself.

Just like finite and infinite history, this is an asymptotic relationship. The closest we will ever arrive to the tree is the concept of the tree, connected to our corporeal existence by the physical entity that we only call ‘tree’ out of a necessity to name.

Is it in our nature to name, to wrap layers of abstraction around our energy-rich world? Is it possible to dissociate ourselves from this symbology, to acknowledge the infinite history, that is to say, to acknowledge that time moves omni-directionally, at best, and it is only the scope, the scale of time, that fools our own finite selves, existing as mere shadows in a setting sun, that we have a grasp on this concept.