Time (Thesis #6)

Time is objective insofar as sidereal time is based on the un-willed movement of unthinking objects around the sun. In essence, sidereal time is the 'peg' to which humanity sets a standard in order to maximize synergy and minimize inefficiency. Objective movement within the solar system is measurable by devices which produce results that are replicated. Consistent data fosters, but does not guarantee, a consensus. Nonetheless, the movement is measurable and is associated with an objective movement, which is causally linked to the cosmic mechanics of gravity limited, in our case, to those objects within our solar system. Time is not universal and only resembles a universality, because it functions coherently absent a consensus. It nonetheless inspires a consensus, because it is rational and applicable to our experience of the universe, limited as our experience is to our solar system.

The persistent use of a variety of calendars does not necessitate inefficiency, but no less inspires it. Today is February 12, 2021 in the Lunar calendar; it is Muharram 20, 1442 AH in the Umm-Al-Qura calendar; it is August 6, 2020 in the Juilan calendar and September 8, 2020 in the Gregorian calendar. The list continues from place to place, because each civilization's calculation of time begins with a seminal event and/or pegs the year's length upon an object, which is other than the sun or oriented differently to the sun (based on the location on the earth). Is it 2020 After the Death of Jesus or is it 2020 of the Common Era?

Calendars are less a measure of time as they are timelines of traditions. In the case of the "Western World" it follows that secular-minded people still use the Gregorian calendar, but also use the moniker "Common Era" to appease a non-religious sensibility. On the one hand, the tradition associated with the year is maintained, but the name and event inspiring the first year is erased. We can chop this up to a rational way to promote consistency and liberal secularism without creating a new calendar, which would also have to be set to some day or event. What would it be? The signing of the Declaration of Independence? The signing of the Emancipation Proclamation? How about it begins with the approximate birth of the universe?

If calendars were rationalized to meet the approximate age of the universe we would obviously be in a much later year. Though our estimates are far from perfect, one estimate says that the universe is 13.8 billion years old. That would mean that it is Earth's Summer 13.8 x 10^9. With a heavy belief in science, it is not unreasonable to foresee a world so cataloged.

So calendars are like time in that they promote synergy based on a constant, which promotes predictability, planning and consistency. Calendars are not like time as we mean here insofar as the name of the day, month and year do not change the length of the day or alter the nature of earth's place within the universe.

Time is subjective insofar as the individual perceives the measurable objective components of sidereal time. If I was stowed in a closed off space deprived of any access to the day or night, then I would have nothing to understand time by, but my sense of time. Perhaps I can count constantly, but eventually my count would grow more and more off from sidereal time. Why even count? What purpose does time serve absent seasonal hunts and harvests or collaborative efforts and obligations?

Alone, time is void of utility. The body would do as it requires and follow a circadian rhythm which befits the energy of the person from one moment to the next. (I would like to see an experiment in which a person is boarded in a stimuli-deprived space absent outside contact to see how much a circadian rhythm would change. I would like to see a follow-up to that experiment where contact was made but only on irregular intervals following a randomly determined model.) That person's experience of time would not be exact insofar as it was not synchronized with sidereal time. The basis of exactness is contingent on, again, the sidereal consensus.

Another element of mankind's sense of time focuses on the way time seems to pass. Namely, our sense of time changes with our mood or with respect to how we like or dislike the activity at hand. When we do something that we find interesting, time seems to pass quickly. When we do something that we find boring, time seems to pass slowly. The individual experience is not totally unattached from sidereal time (or one sidereal time somewhere in the universe), instead it is heavily influenced by the interest of the mind involved. An individual experience of time may lose synchronization with our sidereal time, but could gain synchronization with another solar system's sidereal time. We cannot dismiss the possibility that the 'fast' or 'slow' experience of time is any more or less true relative to cosmic time- the one true time, which is not relative to any object, but, is in itself, constant-existence.

If we peg cosmic time to the theoretical Big Bang, then time began and must end. If time is eternal, then it neither begins nor ends, it just is, forever, changing and unchanging, like the Abrahamic God or the Heraclitian Paradox. If time is pegged to the solar system, then it begins with the star's formation and ends with its combustion or extinction. I hesitate to accept the latter as a satisfying conception of time. It is fair only insofar as it serves to peg the temporal sense of time to something which is measurable and predictable.

The theory that time has a different effect on physical objects which are at different places in the universe is only possible insofar as the chemical composition of different areas in the universe may differ, and in that variety-like a lake's temperature or how the hard elements of the Earth are spread about it in clusters or streaks- may have a different effect on the surroundings. Our bodies decay or falter more or less quickly given the elemental surroundings. Toxic air or polluted water affects the longevity of the body. Time of life is affected, not time itself.

There is a universal time, but it is shrouded by (or embodied in) sidereal time. Sidereal time is not universal relative to the cosmos, because sidereal time is measured using human instruments that reflect our perceptive limitations, which are causally linked to the planets bound by the mechanics of our unique solar system, ultimately unified by humanity's perception of an objective fact, that which is right, thus fostering an objectified time. Of course, sidereal time will be different elsewhere, but will the circadian rhythm change with it? Can the object of time be pegged to a larger more significant objective mechanism like the expansion of the universe?

I don't like the philosophy of time, but I decided to take a small swing at it, because the implication of its 'truth' is profound for the study of ethics and morals. Everything I wrote above is a indirect conversation about the foundation of objective truth and how much something is universal.

Sidereal time is the peg to which all of humanity operates. It is the 'right time' insofar as there is utility in having one time table that is consistent and predictable.

With that I conclude that morality is like sidereal time: (1) it is unique to our solar system (more likely than not), (2) is cataloged in calendars that reflect a tradition and place on earth, (3) serves to maximize cooperation and minimize aberration- or- serves to maximize conformity of foundational values and minimize the caprice with respect to individual subjective values, (4) is based in part on humanity's limited capacity of sense and perception, (5) legitimizes a criteria for 'right' and 'wrong' respective of objective mechanisms of the solar system, including circumstances of nature, while also accounting for, in that statement of nature, the sensibility of man to feel one way or another about a causal phenomenon and reckon 'a way' to live which is satisfying, synergistic and predictable, but not necessarily peaceful or meaningful.