Bound Existence: Part 2— Two-Way Time [TWT]
Are we bound to the present?
In Part 1 we explored how both Space and Time are the forms through which we necessarily experience existence. To have a human experience, is to have a spatial-temporal experience, an experience Bound by Space and Time.
In this section we will explore the limits of our perception of Time and the nature of this Bound Existence.
The Single Dimension of Time
We are third dimensional beings, that is, we are Bound by three dimensions of space (length, width and height), and one dimension of time.
This single dimension of time is simple, we experience Time as succession; as Kant proved in Part 1, different Times do not exist all at the same Time.
We can only ever experience the now (present), we are Bound to the now, while all moments inevitably slip through our grasp of the present, some moments are remembered as memories.
We anticipate the future to become the present, and just as soon as the next moment becomes the current, it is lost to the past.
We are Bound to this realm of change.
The sands of time are unkind to all.
Bound by time or not?
Enduring Beings
In our foregoing discussions we have been assuming a theory of time and personal identity known as endurantism, which is a fancy way of saying that we endure through time.
Endurantist's claim, that I am a person who is wholly present here and now and will be wholly present the next moment, and the moment after that.
I am the same person that I was when I was ten years old, and I will be the same person in the next ten years.
I move through time.
Two Directions of Time [TWT]
Though we are Bound by the experience of succession of time, we are able to conceive this change in two directions, known here as Two-Way-Time.
There are two directions of time taken from the perspective of the Present, of how we relate to the Future.
- We can imagine ourselves in the present moving towards the future.
- We can imagine the future moving towards the present.
The first is simple and the most intuitive: I am moving closer to midnight, I am moving closer to tomorrow, I am moving closer towards my death.
The second is a little more tricky: life is coming at me, next week came so fast, death has arrived.
Wow this sucks, whichever way I conceptualise my experience of the movement of time, I am either approaching death or death is coming towards me. What can I do to stop this?
Does it always have to be like this?
Perduring Beings [PB]
It does not always have to be like this for all beings.
We are puny third dimensional mortal beings, but we can (try to) conceive a fourth dimensional being, one who can experience being unbound by this single dimension of time.
These beings could be called perduring beings — unlike us who endure through time stuck in the eternal present — perduring beings could move around the plane of time just as we can move around the plane of space.
They can travel through time just as easily as we can travel through space.
Perduring beings would not experience time as flowing like us. They would be able to see that time as flowing is just an illusion.
This would be a bit weird for us, but they would experience their entire lives laid out in front of them, able to access any moment within their existence.
In their perduring perspective of us, they would see you extended in time rather than a whole self that endures and moves through time. They could experience your life as stretched out like a worm in front of them, seeing each part of time that your body inhabits: the you from yesterday and the you from today (and every moment in-between) would be laid out in front of them all at once. Time is not moving for them, they can see all of time all at once.
A cool way of (trying to) imagine this is looking at the image just above.
Many refer to this perspective of time as Worm Theory, as perduring beings stretch out in time like a worm.
Perduring beings are cool and all, but we still endure! What can we learn from this thought experiment?
Philosophical Salvation
We can conceptualise ourselves as perduring.
We may not be able to experience what it is like to perdure, but we can reflect on our own selves as third dimensional beings within a fourth dimensional framework.
That is, you can look back at your life and see that your 10-year-old self is only a part of you, and the you now is too but a part of you. In simple terms, each part of you equally exists even if you do not have access to it in the present.
In an endurantist experience you will still die, BUT each part of you has always existed. Each part of time has always existed and will always exist within a perdurantist perspective.
So do not be too wound up in the present! Though our experience of reality is Bound in the present, our reflection of it can be freed.
Basic Summary: For all Readers
You can contract and dilate time but you cannot freeze or reverse the constant succession. Just as sand passes through the palm of your hand — duration forever moves. Our experience is truly Bound in time. BUT through the power of our minds, we can conceptualise our lives within a larger framework, a fourth dimensional framework where we forever exist unbounded by time.
Technical Summary: For those Interested
We explored the concepts of enduring and perduring beings, demonstrating how our phenomenal experience is an experience of succession, and that we are wholly enduring through time. In a perduring perspective, the person extends in time rather than a whole self that endures and moves through time; the temporal parts remain stationary and the perduring self stretch’s out in time like a worm, having both spatial and temporal parts. Once we come to this realisation that we are not moving through time but rather stretching out spatiotemporally, we can alleviate much of our despair of the finitude of our being.
Onto Part 3—Where we will explore what lies beyond our bound existence, the limits of our total experience. We will explore the nature of our world (the experiential world) juxtaposed with the world (the world beyond experience).
| Originally Published (29/06/22) |
| Next Publication (06/07/22) |
