“Does anybody really know what time it is?” As I progress to complete my 68th year and start on the 69th, it is hard to look at it all and ask “where did the time go?” There are some years, days, and events that seem to be (recognizing that memory is a tricky thing) crystal clear. And there are other segments that I have no recollection of. I do know that everyone around me keeps getting younger and younger.
But the song that hits me hardest is “Time in a Bottle” by Jim Croce. Change is an absolutely unavoidable aspect of life. So, if you take a “snapshot” at any period of time, you will be entering into a unique set of circumstances. Perhaps your parent, or child, is no longer around and you want to be able to spend more time with them — to retreat to that time period that was preserved. Perhaps it was before the development of television and the era of radio and the stage was leading the way. Freezing time does no good but being able to go back into a specific set of circumstances can allow new decisions and new paths. As an optimist, one could always hope that “this time” it would be better.
Time is part of the way our minds interact with our physical environment. For some cultures, it is perceived differently than for other cultures. For some, the perception of time is highly structured with everything done in its segment and all to be done exactly as designed. For others, “in a while” may mean anything from five minutes to five days. Neither is right, neither is wrong.
What about those who believe they can see directly into other parts of the “time stream” — the past and future? As is true of many things in life, such cannot be “proven” one way or another. Comparing time to the realities of entropy in physics, time should be a single direction and happen at a (averaged) constant rate. But, locally, it is possible to reverse entropy. For a specific contained situation, would it possible to reverse time? Great for speculation, not so great for coming to conclusions.
We are all aware that (even for highly structured cultures) our perception of time can slow down or speed up. I have not yet been in a death-threatening situation so I cannot speak about “seeing one’s life go by” in a few moments. But some do report such. I was in a car accident once upon at time and the time seemed to go very slowly but — at the same time — I was unable to do anything to change anything. I was trapped in a slow time bubble. On the other hand, unless I spend the time meditating, time can seem to extend a lot while I am waiting for something I anticipate.
I have always been a fan of “the Flash” superhero character. You may have noted that his speed is a matter of relativity. He goes fast, everything around him goes slowly. Unlike my situation above, he IS able to do things within his accelerated time bubble. An unresolved question for him is whether his time in the accelerated time bubble subtracts from his lifeline in the regular time world.
And so we go — into methods of time preservation. Cryogenics anyone? In this situation, you have had your body placed into very slow, very cold, circumstances — you continue your life as if in a very slow bubble. You shouldn’t age. But no one is completely certain that you can be brought back to normal time. If you are successfully revived, it is a type of time travel — in one direction only. Potentially the longest preservation is also part of changing time scales. Digitalization of the mind is presently fantasy but, if possible, it would lead to time scales of nanoseconds instead of seconds. Better have a hobby to stay busy during those LOOOONNNNGGG periods of inactivity.
Tick, tick. Tock, tock.
