Glossary entry (derived from question below)
English term or phrase:
Are we the creation of time?
English answer:
Are we created by time or are we the ones naming/demarcating time?
Added to glossary by
Yvonne Gallagher
Apr 21, 2017 13:03
7 yrs ago
English term
Are we the creation of time?
English
Social Sciences
Philosophy
view of time
Hi,
I was wondering about the meaning of “are we the creation of time?” in the passage below.
Might it mean “are we created by time?”, “are we creatures of time?”. Or might the word “creation” in this case also mean an "active" process: “are we the creator of time”?
My doubt arises from the fact the author seems to share the quantum physics’ view that time doesn’t exist as a separate entity, as he also says in the subsequent part of the passage below (“There is in reality no ‘new year’ anywhere beyond our mind.") and in previous parts of the book, too.
On the other hand, the use of the term "denotation" in the same sentence - which I think might mean “sign”, “indication” in this context - might possibly hint at an interpretation as “creatures of time”...
Thanks for your help!
*************************
Sunrise, New Year’s Day. The oranges, blues, and greens of daybreak along the shore at the edge of North America fill the sky with luminescence. The sound of waves gently unfolding now, as they have for infinite nows, in patterns beyond imagination, creates a gentle soundscape enveloping my mind in a lullaby beckoning me back to bed.
(...)
Are we the sunrise? Are we the lapping waves? ** Are we the creation of time **, the denotation of a passing of something marked as a day, month, year, a demi-decade like these epochs that have organized our journey? The hooting and hollering of celebration for this mind-created edge of a year across the world, the display of fireworks in the skies across Earth, the screens shared among billions of humans across the planet: are each of these some shared construction of our collective mind?
We create meaning from an infinite set of energy patterns and make information come alive. We are the sensory conduits enabling bottom-up to flow freely in our awareness; we are the interpretative constructors, making sense of and narrating our lives as they unfold.
There is in reality no “new year” anywhere beyond our mind. As we’ve seen in a prior now, when we leave the reality of now-here, we move the hyphen and become no-where. That is the risk of believing the mind’s illusion of time existing as some unitary something that flows rather than a facet of our four-dimensional spacetime reality. We can become preoccupied with the past and fret about the future.
I was wondering about the meaning of “are we the creation of time?” in the passage below.
Might it mean “are we created by time?”, “are we creatures of time?”. Or might the word “creation” in this case also mean an "active" process: “are we the creator of time”?
My doubt arises from the fact the author seems to share the quantum physics’ view that time doesn’t exist as a separate entity, as he also says in the subsequent part of the passage below (“There is in reality no ‘new year’ anywhere beyond our mind.") and in previous parts of the book, too.
On the other hand, the use of the term "denotation" in the same sentence - which I think might mean “sign”, “indication” in this context - might possibly hint at an interpretation as “creatures of time”...
Thanks for your help!
*************************
Sunrise, New Year’s Day. The oranges, blues, and greens of daybreak along the shore at the edge of North America fill the sky with luminescence. The sound of waves gently unfolding now, as they have for infinite nows, in patterns beyond imagination, creates a gentle soundscape enveloping my mind in a lullaby beckoning me back to bed.
(...)
Are we the sunrise? Are we the lapping waves? ** Are we the creation of time **, the denotation of a passing of something marked as a day, month, year, a demi-decade like these epochs that have organized our journey? The hooting and hollering of celebration for this mind-created edge of a year across the world, the display of fireworks in the skies across Earth, the screens shared among billions of humans across the planet: are each of these some shared construction of our collective mind?
We create meaning from an infinite set of energy patterns and make information come alive. We are the sensory conduits enabling bottom-up to flow freely in our awareness; we are the interpretative constructors, making sense of and narrating our lives as they unfold.
There is in reality no “new year” anywhere beyond our mind. As we’ve seen in a prior now, when we leave the reality of now-here, we move the hyphen and become no-where. That is the risk of believing the mind’s illusion of time existing as some unitary something that flows rather than a facet of our four-dimensional spacetime reality. We can become preoccupied with the past and fret about the future.
Change log
Apr 26, 2017 20:58: Yvonne Gallagher Created KOG entry
Votes to reclassify question as PRO/non-PRO:
Non-PRO (1): acetran
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Responses
+4
15 mins
Yvonne Gallagher
Ireland
Ireland
Native in English
&
English
Ireland
right word, right place. everytime
Native in: English (Variants: Irish, UK, US, Canadian) 
Works in: French to English, Spanish to English, English, and 1 more.
Related KudoZ points
:
20
Selected
we are the ones putting names on or demarcating time
as explained here:
There is in reality no “new year” anywhere beyond our mind....
animals, nature etc doesn't see a new year or new day/month etc.
"As we’ve seen in a prior now, when we leave the reality of now-here, we move the hyphen and become no-where. That is the risk of believing the mind’s illusion of time existing as some unitary something that flows rather than a facet of our four-dimensional spacetime reality..."
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Note added at 18 mins (2017-04-21 13:22:20 GMT)
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humans have to put boundaries of some sort on time or mark it in some way, hence this feeling of "creating time" is really an illusion, or as you said:
"the author seems to share the quantum physics’ view that time doesn’t exist as a separate entity..."
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Note added at 38 mins (2017-04-21 13:42:29 GMT)
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OK I do understand your doubts. I've reread and thought some more about this
There is a series of questions: are we the sunrise/lapping waves, a creation of time and etc.? In other words, have these things created us?
I find that rather strange and think the author is taking a lot of poetic licence. Does he really want to imply that the universe has created us? Of course, that would link into the philosophy where we are but atoms...
But I read it as we, humans, are the ones "creating" the time by naming it as periods or units...New Year celebrations etc.
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Note added at 42 mins (2017-04-21 13:46:43 GMT)
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I agree it is rather confusing and ambiguous and can be read in various ways!
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Note added at 1 hr (2017-04-21 14:05:35 GMT)
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More reading for you!
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time/
https://www.scientificexploration.org/forum/is-time-a-concep...
All concepts, like society or beauty, are created, ... Just like mathematical concepts (more human inventions) help us come to terms with, or help us explain, reality, ditto our artificially constructed concept of time. You certainly don’t hear cosmologists talk about the Big Bang creating concepts like mathematics, society, Wednesday, birthdays, beauty, atheism or velocity. Concepts like these have no tangibility – you can’t weigh them or put them under a microscope..."
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Note added at 5 days (2017-04-26 20:56:12 GMT) Post-grading
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Glad to have helped
There is in reality no “new year” anywhere beyond our mind....
animals, nature etc doesn't see a new year or new day/month etc.
"As we’ve seen in a prior now, when we leave the reality of now-here, we move the hyphen and become no-where. That is the risk of believing the mind’s illusion of time existing as some unitary something that flows rather than a facet of our four-dimensional spacetime reality..."
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 18 mins (2017-04-21 13:22:20 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
humans have to put boundaries of some sort on time or mark it in some way, hence this feeling of "creating time" is really an illusion, or as you said:
"the author seems to share the quantum physics’ view that time doesn’t exist as a separate entity..."
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 38 mins (2017-04-21 13:42:29 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
OK I do understand your doubts. I've reread and thought some more about this
There is a series of questions: are we the sunrise/lapping waves, a creation of time and etc.? In other words, have these things created us?
I find that rather strange and think the author is taking a lot of poetic licence. Does he really want to imply that the universe has created us? Of course, that would link into the philosophy where we are but atoms...
But I read it as we, humans, are the ones "creating" the time by naming it as periods or units...New Year celebrations etc.
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 42 mins (2017-04-21 13:46:43 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
I agree it is rather confusing and ambiguous and can be read in various ways!
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 1 hr (2017-04-21 14:05:35 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
More reading for you!
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time/
https://www.scientificexploration.org/forum/is-time-a-concep...
All concepts, like society or beauty, are created, ... Just like mathematical concepts (more human inventions) help us come to terms with, or help us explain, reality, ditto our artificially constructed concept of time. You certainly don’t hear cosmologists talk about the Big Bang creating concepts like mathematics, society, Wednesday, birthdays, beauty, atheism or velocity. Concepts like these have no tangibility – you can’t weigh them or put them under a microscope..."
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 5 days (2017-04-26 20:56:12 GMT) Post-grading
--------------------------------------------------
Glad to have helped
Note from asker:
| Thank you so much, Gallagy, for your help. My doubt derives from the fact that “the creation of” seems to be often used to mean “we are created by”... and also by the fact that the author says: there is ** in reality ** no new year beyond our mind. It seemed to me that the author could have asked a general question before - “Are we the creation of time”? (as many of us think...)..and then he gives the answer..."in reality there is no time" |
| Gallagy, thanks for being so kind and so empathetic, too! In the meanwhile I’ve reread the passage, too and I agree with you: the sentences “Are we the sunrise...etc..” seem to hint at our “constructor’s mind”, as the author defines it...: our capacity to build concepts and schema, to create meaning... Also I’ve found out that the word “denote” is used again in another passage of this part of the book in the sense you said, of “demarcating” or "marking", for instance a day, a month... Thanks again! |
| Thanks for these really uselful links! |
Peer comment(s):
| agree |
philgoddard
: I don't think the text makes sense. Maybe they meant are we the creators of time.
13 mins
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Thanks. Yes, that's the way I read it. We are "creators" rather than "created"
|
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| agree |
Tina Vonhof (X)
: I think we are both. First we create time as a framework for our experience and once we have that framework, it in turn creates our experience. We're being really philosophical today!
1 hr
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Thanks Tina! Yes, the eternal argument:-)
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| agree |
Yasutomo Kanazawa
1 hr
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Thank you!
|
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| agree |
Terry Richards
: Remember that this is a question. He is asking whether time creates us and then going on to answer his own question by saying that, no, it doesn't, we create [the illusion of] time.
1 hr
|
|
Thanks! Yes, you're right, it should be framed as a question. You might also be right in that he's looking for an excuse to go back to bed LOL!
|
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer.
Comment: "Thank you so much, Gallagy, for your help!
Thanks also to Veronica and to all other participants for their contribution!
"
+1
4 hrs
Veronica Allievi
Specializes in field
university studies in transl disciplines
Native in: Spanish
Works in: English to Spanish, Spanish to English
¿Es el tiempo una creación nuestra?
This idea of time being inexistent beyond ourselves and in opposition to Newton's physics, comes from Kant is his Transcendental Aesthetic, where he states that Time and Space are just molds through which we process impressions of the sensitivity. Through Space we process "quality", and through Time we process succession. In this sense, we would be the "creators" of time.
Note from asker:
| Thank you, Veronica! I think the author draws more on quantum physics in this case, but you're right: these concepts are certainly not new! Have a nice weekend! |
Discussion
Have a nice weekend!
As Gallagy said: "Does he really want to imply that the universe has created us?"
Sigh...
May I ask a question about your "agree"?
You said "He is asking whether time creates us and then going on to answer his own question " so you think that "are we a creation of time?" literally means "does time create us?"...or am I mistaken?
Thanks for your patience