Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Does Now Exist?

Faster than you can perceive it, it's over. We are always thinking and processing at least a few milliseconds behind a moment that is already gone. Even if time is not linear, there is no question that it is moving.

Okay, scratch that. Suppose it is actually us who move through time. Perhaps it is some sort of Brownian motion we experience through the temporal dimension, colliding with certain moments head on then rocketing onto a straight line crash course with another instant. It would make sense for the same forces that govern basic molecular motion through space to jumble and jostle us through time.

Imagine that from any given position in the time-dimension, two people are headed toward the exact same time frame. Arriving at the moment, they would bring a different perspective since, quite literally, they would come at the moment from a different angle. Interpretation would then be based on dissimilarities of location within the expanse of time.

This pinball game portrayal of time seems to assume that the moments already exist to bump into on the playing field (not to mention the question it raises of who set the marbles in motion). If this is the case, moments, experiences are predetermined. Something in me violently protests this thought. I would much prefer to think that time proceeds, or rather, we proceed with time, on a more interdependent level. Much like the apical meristem of a plant's roots, the very tip, the forefront of a growing force, where each cell depends on the growth of the others - time emanates from a past basis but instantaneously changes direction, alongside those who experience it.