Understanding Time
Most of us conceive of time as something that passes. We tell the time using clocks and watches, Actually according to the philospher Emmanuel Kant, time does not pass, we do. It is not time that passes. It is the change in things that we observe. The change is in the things that are following the alteration according to their form. Since we have learned to calculate our periods of sleeping and waking in terms of time, we have assumed our human condition into a condition that really does not exist as some kind of transparent metaphysical force or time. Emmanuel Kant is one philosopher who can awaken our sense to the infinite truths of our human condition to help us to better understand who we are and the creativity and ingenuity of the human mind.
Objects observe the change that is inherent in their genetic make-up or are being acted upon by things that react with other things.
For example, a baby is first a tadpole, it is later, a human form, and it follows the growth inherent in its genes. A tree is at time host to lichens and other parasites that can change the form or even the existence of the tree. We can observe the change in things and perceive it as a decay of time or a passage of time. We can best understand the concept of what we perceive as time in human terms.
What we observe is the growth of the human and we have developed sophisticated means of determining its demise through normal growth inherent in its genes. What we observe is the tree and the parasitic plants and we can determine the age and the demise of both.
We make our observations and we assess the passage of time. It is not time that is passing; it is the object being observed.
Entities possessing the properties of birth or seeds or manufactured follow a programmed development and demise. Time does not develop or die, it is our observation of existence and not of the concept time.
Time both yesterday and today and tomorrow are a necessary medium that has to be perceived in say human terms as God. It is this conception of time that has led many futuristic writers into the madness of time machines that really are a contradiction of the actual static condition that we perceive as time.
References:
- https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-spacetime/
- https://www.redalyc.org/jatsRepo/5138/513855742003/513855742003.pdf
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