Thinking about Time

This is the last day of the old year and the day before the New Year and this is the best time to think about Labelstime. So, my post will be mostly about time.

Chronos was a Titan god, the beings that were in existence before the Greek gods. He was the god of all time and the universe. Chronos became ruler of the cosmos after he killed his father Ouranos. Zeus, his son, in turn  overthrew him thus ending the reign of the Titans.

       Time  is linear. 

     This is how we normally think of time, a one way movement from one moment to the next moment. There is the past, present and the future. The past is what happened after, the present is what is happening now, and the future is still anticipated. We have knowledge of the past, we have knowledge of the present, but we could not know the future until it becomes the present.

This idea of time is self evident in natural processes from aging to cooking to making coffee. We age from birth to date; we cook by following a process from step 1 to step x until the food is cooked, but we cannot reverse the process. The same with almost everything we do i.e. there are processes that cannot be reversed.

To illustrate:

Linear A.

past                            present                         future

The past is were everything happened or everything we experienced happened in an earlier time. We have knowledge of our experiences from the past through our memory.  The present is what is happening now. The future is what we anticipate. Though we can not know the future, but because of the of causality, we have idea of what the future may be.  (Many do not hold on to the necessity of causality, the skeptic David Hume is one of them. His assertion is that it is not logically justified that the future can be predicted by events in the past. He was criticizing induction, the primary process we use for learning.)

Anyway, if we look at time this way, since the past has reality or has become realized, and though they seemed illusory because we have knowledge of them through our memory, this diagram of linear time shows possibility of time travel but only in one direction: to the past. 

Actually we do this mentally all the time through recollection but we cannot mentally travel to the future because the events are not yet realized. Hence, when we mentally think about the future, we really think of possibilities or of possible worlds. (This is the subjectivity of time, we have different experiences of time.)

Where am I?

So if we invent time machine it could only travel to the past because the future is still blank. But we cannot travel before the invention of the time machine. (Why invent a time machine at all?)

Linear B:

past              present                                                   future

This is like consuming time. It's like a rail road where the future is realized and we are just experiencing the present. Time travel is possible for the future. But time travelling is limited to the time the time machine is invented. (So, your time machine is stuck?)

Linear B.

past                 present                  future

If we are an observer outside of time, reality would look like a tableau. Everything is all laid out, so technically, there is no past, present or future. These tenses of time are mere experiences of time.

Book illustration.

Linear A.

Its like reading a book where the pages are being written as you read but the read pages are preserved.

Linear B.

It's like reading a book where all the pages are written except the read pages are lost.

Linear C.

Its ike a reading a complete book. Pretty much everything is determined.

Time is Circular

Time is circular.

Circular time means the past can be become the future and the future can become the past. The main idea behind circular time is recurrences. This idea of time is dominant in many religions in the Orient. The belief that everything comes around is evident in the belief of karma and reincarnation. many philosophers have taken this idea of circular time especially those who are influenced by Hindu and Buddhist philosophies.

Time is spiral

sorry for the drawing...

This is a sort of a combination of linear and circular time. Yes, we experience time in a linear way, that is we have past, present and future, but this idea also includes the concept of recurrences. Yes we experiences recurrences but we there is a distance or separateness from the previous recurrences.

The Classics

Let us look at some of the great thinkers idea about time.

Aristotle: "Time is the measure of change...but time is not change itself"

                    Pretty much orthodox.

René Descartes : He argued that a material body has the property of spatial extension but no inherent capacity for temporal endurance, and that God by his continual action sustains (or re-creates) the body at each successive instant. Time is a kind of sustenance or re-creation. 

                               

      Descartes idea of time is best illustrated by this 80's Twilight Zone Episode written by Theodore Sturgeon.

Isaac Newton argued very specifically that time and space are an infinitely large container for all events, and that the container exists with or without the events. He added that space and time are not material substances, but are like substances in not being dependent on anything except God.

Time contains event, but time is not dependent on anything but God.

                              So time is like a canvass where events are painted, But even without the painting, the     

                  canvass still exist. This is quite comprehensible.

Gottfried Leibniz  argued that time is not an entity existing independently of actual events. He insisted that Newton had underemphasized the fact that time necessarily involves an ordering of any pair of non-simultaneous events.

According to Leibniz time necessarily involves ordering of events...time needs this ordering and without it, time cannot exist.

                                               Remove the painting and you remove the canvass.

Of course, there are those who deny the existence of time and there are those who are not bothered by time.

Immanuel Kant has a very different idea about time. Kant proposes that space and time do not really exist outside of us but are "forms of intuition," i.e. conditions of perception, imposed by our own minds.  To understand this a little bit more, Kant reacted to the theory of knowledge prevalent that the mind is a passive organ that absorbs experiences and through this process we acquire and organize knowledge. the famous motto is Locke's tabula rasa to which Kant opposed. This is his Copernican revolution, sort of.

Kant reacted by proposing that the mind is not a passive organ but an active one. It does not merely absorb impressions but it has the ability to organize these impressions. To do this, Kant proposes a priori knowledge that is transcendental. (Getting lost here... "I call all knowledge transcendental if it is occupied, not with objects, but with the way that we can possibly know objects even before we experience them.";;Kant)

Anyway, to make it short, time and space are a priori forms in the mind that made it possible for our mind to actively organize and grasp ideas or impressions. Ouwardly we experience Newtonian time but also there is an element of Leibniz, the organizing aspect or function of time.  

Anyway... this is way too abstract.

Hmmmm... 


Time and God.

Is God timeless?


This proposes that God is outside the flow of time. To Him, everything is in the present. This means that everything is determined. This view sacrifices freedom.


Is God eternal?


God is subject to the flow of time but he is not affected, as nature is, by time. This sacrifices many of God's omni- attributes. God is limited because God is not in control of time; he is subject to time. God's knowledge is also limited because he can not look beyond the present. This view puts emphasis on freedom.


Anyway...hmmm...

Happy New Year and do take the time to reflect about time...but most of all, whatever our idea and philosophy of time is...I mean...hmmmm... I think a simple Happy New Year is enough :-)

Meanderings on Time: Physical Time

The New Year is significant to most of us because it signifies an end and a new beginning. So for most of us, the ending of an old year means looking back and reflecting or hind-sighting on what happened within the passing year. We take time to take a look at the good things, achievements, and even the failures that transpired in the last year.

We make assessment and we make resolutions for we believe that we cannot change what happened in the past be it good or bad, but we could make changes for the coming 365 ¼ days; every new year is a new beginning.

Of course this is a stupid idea, but who cares...

an hourglass...primitive clock

But what is time?

Time is how we measure the passing of events and how we organize these sequence of events. Time is measured in hour, minutes and seconds, and with today’s technology, time can even measured to smaller units like the millisecond. It is also measured in days, weeks, months, years, decade, millenniums, and etc. We may have different time zones, different clock settings but basically we all have grasp of this definition of time. 

With the invention of the clock, our conception of time has become related to speed. We think of time as directly related to movement like production, schedules, plans, trips etc. Time is a unit just like any other unit by which we measure things like the gram, meter, inches and feet if you’re an American, or as a basis from which we compute things like profit, speed, velocity, etc. This is our shared understanding of time, the physical time. So, this is time for most of us:

      1.       Born on _____________.

      2.       Study for _______________.

      3.       Go to work at __:__ then leave work at __:__.  

      4.       Go to church on ________.

      5.       Celebrate birthdays on _______________.

      6.       Get married on _________________.

      7.       Retire on ____________________.

      8.       Die on ______________________.
    
      Of course we do not know the exact time for all the items in the list, but they are pretty much determined.

      A big schedule!

People waiting for their train schedule in China. Looks like they are wprshipping the god of time.

I think with the invention of the clock, our whole understanding of existence and being changed dramatically: we have become the slave of time. I was reflecting upon the never ending debate about determinism versus freedom, but I think one of the factors that favors determinism (in all its shade) is when we have all become slaves of physical time, hence, even the freedom we think we have is even more belittled by the imposition of schedules upon us by physical time. Though we think we have freedom, but in reality we have lost all that freedom that we think we have when our lives, even to the minutest details, are subject to schedules.

Of course physical time is concerned with measurement and measurement is limitation. Anyway, time has become a factor in measurement and this is the common conception productivity: production x labor x time x interest x etc. : time is money.

Since the industrial revolution...our conception of time.

This, I think, is one of the reasons why the study of the humanities, the arts, the process of reflection, philosophizing, all other creative and conceptual activities are treated with contempt by people who understood time in terms of physical and financial productivity. This fact is lamented by educators because most of the curriculum created today focuses on production and productivity thus relegating the arts and the study of the humanities into the backseat. It can be said that the soul of human study is slowly being killed by the study for the quest for the continuing improvement of productivity. Introspection, reflection. philosophizing, conceptual creativity...creativity, they are second to useless in this age utilitarianism.

Anyway…where am I?

So, Time is something (for lack of better and understandable term) that is outside us. Its invention,  mean the measurement of  physical time, is a way for us of understanding and relating to the physical world around us, from going to school to observing atoms.

Time is a factor.

I imagine time as a conveyor belt that moves us from one place in time to another place in time. 

So for me (or for us) time is linear, ever moving forward but our consciousness of it is measured by the present.

Time is a conveyor belt that brings us to the end of our journey: death. Of course we believe that death is a way of bringing us outside the conveyor belt into timelessness or into an infinite conveyor belt but is not subjected to the physical deterioration of the movement from one point to another. You know, I think, sometimes annihilation is much, much better.

And what is that present?

Day? Hour? Minutes? Seconds?

Paul Tillich said it very well:

  The moment we say, “This is the present,” the moment has already been swallowed by the past. The present disappears the very instant we grasp it. The present cannot be caught; it is always gone. So it seems we have nothing real—neither the past nor the future, nor even the present. Therefore there is a dreaming character about our existence…

Dali's painting says it all...

 Crazy ha...

New Year's Meanderings...

2011 is about to end and just like most human beings I am thinking or trying to make a list of what I would like not to do this coming New Year. The emphasis is on not because I think I did a lot of good things this passing year, but I also think that I did a lot of bad things.

Hmmmm…thinking…hmmm…I would like to have things!

 1. Buy a Laptop computer.

I think I am the only one who does not have a Laptop Computer. So, this year, I am going to buy one. A good laptop costs about 30-40 thousand pesos. So, to buy one, I would have to buy on credit which means that atop from the 30-40 thousand pesos principal cost, I have to shell out another 20% for the interests for a one year installment plan. (I had no Credit Card so I have to ride.) At teacher's salary, this means cutting my take home pay by around 30%. Take out the bills, my daughter’s tuitions, medicines, what’s left… that mean we’ll be eating…hmmm…tuyo, kamatis, sardinas, itlog, talong…a whole year of deprivation just to have one damned laptop! 

Come to think of it, our old HP Pentium 4 desktop  is still ok it may not be that fast, but it still gets the job done.

2. Buy a new fancy cellphone!

I am not much of a cellphone guy. My fascination with CPs stopped when I bought my very first cellphone, Nokia 5110. My 5110 cost me 5 thousand pesos then, which was a lot of money during the 90s. I then thought that I had the best cellphone in the world only to find out the next day that a new model 3210 was already out. I had a 5110 while everybody else had 3210s which cost twice as much as my 5110 but it basically did the same thing except the 3210 had more games. Then after 3210 came, theres 7110, 3310, 5210, 8210...all phone did the same thing, basically. But the flood of celphone models made me realize that theres something wrong here: its not about communication, basically!

Anyway, I am going to buy myself a fancy celphone. One with a touch screen, camera and other fancy stuff that I might not need but will impress the hell out of people. I now could eat in fast food chain and text people as if I have acute myopia keeping my celphone near my face and flashing the Apple logo to all the fastfood customer...I mean I could do that!

But then that could mean eating camote the whole year...

Anyway, my Nokia still works fine. This phone was given to me by the church's youth almost a decade ago. It still works fine; the only part I replaced was the battery. May not look much but still does the same thing, basically: communicate. This phone has one feature that is absent from all fancy cellphones: it never gets lost.

     I have left it in classrooms, seminars, church pews... always when I come back to look for it, it is there where I left it. My celphone is also immune from comparison and envy, and I have no worry about snatchers and it could also be used as a defensive missile.

    

    3. Buy a new motorcycle

      Naaahhhhh....no eating for two years.

    4. Buy a decent classical guitar

     This one I am thinking seriously. But then again buying myself a good classical guitar is like buying a bad guitar player a good guitar.

    5. Buy good books

      This I could afford but second hand books are just as good.

      Anyway, what I plan for this year is a year free from debt. I plan to save, if that is possible at all.

Island Hopping Christmas

I had a good time with my family this Christmas break. It would have been a perfect Christmas holiday if my missionary brother and his family were here with us. But I know that their absence was more than made up for by the knowledge that they were doing God's work, and they were with us in spirit. Of course it would have been better if we were able Skype with them, but the broad band signal in Alaminos was so poor that it was not made possible.

We went island hopping at the Hundred Islands Park in Alaminos, Pangasinan. This was not the first time I had been to Alaminos, I had visited the place a couple of times since my sister and brother in law started their ministry at Alaminos Baptist Church; this was my first time to go island hopping.  

Though the waves were a little rough when we left the shore, the bobbing and the water splashes added thrill to the ride. I was a little concerned because I do no know how to swim, and I was thinking if ever the boat capsized, what would I do or who would I save first, to think that I do not even know how to swim! Of course my fear was unfounded because we all had life vests, but I could not help thinking about it.

I was really amazed by the natural bonsais that I saw on the rock ledges. Though I didn't know what kind of tress they were, their size, shape and proportions impressed me ( a non bonsai guy, may I say). Anyway, I am thinking of buying binoculars so that next time I go on an eco-trip, I would be able to make the most of the sights. Of course a DSLR camera would be fine too, but that is way, way beyond my salary. 

My sister was pointing to an island and she was telling me that it was shaped like a turtle. This was another way of enjoying the hundred islands, looking at them and letting your imagination run wild as to what they were shaped to look like. But here was the problem, the boat's engine was so loud that it made it impossible to have a conversation.

This made it almost impossible to think and to share ideas about the sight. The shared experiences of the moment were virtually lost, drowned by the engine's noise. What remained was your own impressions which would have been enriched by the shared impressions of the others. Once on the island, away from the boat, it's futile to talk about a particular sight that had passed because looking and sharing your impressions were not the same as describing and talking what you have seen...just not the same. 

My sister and nephew covering their ears because they were sitting near the engine.

The trip was enjoyable except for the noise of the boat's engine. I wondered why nobody ever though of putting mufflers on those engines. Of course, to some tourists, the engine's noise maybe a good thing...

Anyway, we all had fun. God be thanked. Next year, the family is planning of going to Thailand to celebrate Christmas with my missionary brother's family...that is, Lord willing.

GMA Over Acting

Please...ambivalent is how I will describe what I feel about her. 

I was not that interested with the Gloria Macapagal Arroyo drama. Though the news was filled with updates, I was really just a passive listener to what’s going on in the country’s colorful political arena. But what is happening to GMA is an irresistible topic of conversation and it matters not whether you're interested or not because everyone has a say about it.

Anyway, as we were having our grade six teachers meeting, the discussion drifted into the GMA incarceration. Most of the teachers (others were silent) expressed disgust at how Gloria Macapagal Arroyo played into the people’s emotion. The former president and her spokespersons made the common Filipinos believe that she was suffering from a life threatening illnesses what with all that special effects like neck brace and wheel chair.

GMA’s lawyer, a man called Lambino, defined life threatening as dying of old age and if I follow his logic, all of us have life threatening illnesses. Well, that’s what you get when lawyers speak about medical condition: lawyers playing doctors and doctors playing lawyers. Only in the Philippines!

What is sad, and not unexpected if I may say, about Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is that she is not getting any sympathies from the common Filipino with the exception of paid sycophants, drivers, maids and others who directly benefited from her. Senator Ping Lacson said it very well, “nakakaawa si GMA kasi walang naawa sa kanya.”

 In contrast to what happened to Estrada, when the news that the presidency was taken from him by GMA, the masses showed their support to him to the point of threatening a revolution.

Karma is what the common Filipino think about what is happening to her.  But, I think, the more appropriate concept is "gaba."

Short Circuit

My classes were over for the day. I was resting in the multi media room ,which is beside my homeroom, when a pupil approached me and told me that one of the electrical outlets in my classroom “blew up.”  I asked what happened and she told me that one of boys inserted a pair of scissors into the socket.

I was puzzled because PO2 Robert was in my room conducting a DARE class. Anyway, I stood up and went to my room. The DARE class was over so I did not catch PO2 Robert to asked him what happened.

I asked for the culprit and when he was brought to me, it was Christian. I asked him what he did and he just looked at me and gave me the most (hmmm…) innocent look that I have seen since I started teaching.

Some of the boys were behind me giving Christian the scare.

Anyway, I was exhausted and I didn't want to add to my stress by losing my patience. So, I just smiled and told Christian, in a serious teacher voice,  to sing me a Christmas carol to cool my anger off. He looked at me with disbelief. “Okay,” I said, “either I am going to report you to the principal, or ask for your parents to come on Monday to have a word with me, or you can sing me a Christmas carol to cool my anger off.” The boys behind me were laughing while egging him to sing.

I was upset, but I didn’t want to be angry at something that had already happened. I was relieved that he was not electrocuted.

Christian didn’t sing but he did laugh; we all had a good laugh.

Anyway, one of the Master Teachers dealt with him more properly, I should say.

So, I had to go to school today, a Saturday, to change the fuse.

Fernando Amorsolo

Fernando Amorsolo y Cueto (May 30, 1892 – April 24, 1972) is one of the most important artists in the history of painting in the Philippines. Amorsolo was a portraitist and painter of rural Philippine landscapes. He is popularly known for his craftsmanship and mastery in the use of light. Born in Paco, Manila, he earned a degree from the Liceo de Manila Art School in 1909. 


Amorsolo is best known for his illuminated landscapes,  which often portrayed traditional Filipino customs, culture, fiestas and occupations. His pastoral works presented "an imagined sense of nationhood in counterpoint to American colonial rule" and were important to the formation of Filipino national identity. 

Sketch of a woman, whose unfinished style is representative of Amorsolo's sketching.

He was educated in the classical tradition and aimed "to achieve his Philippine version of the Greek ideal for the human form."^] In his paintings of Filipina women, Amorsolo rejected Western ideals of beauty in favor of Filipino ideals  and was fond of basing the faces of his subjects on members of his family. 

"[The women I paint should have] a rounded face, not of the oval type often presented to us in newspapers and magazine illustrations. The eyes should be exceptionally lively, not the dreamy, sleepy type that characterizes the Mongolian. The nose should be of the blunt form but firm and strongly marked. ... So the ideal Filipina beauty should not necessarily be white complexioned, nor of the dark brown color of the typical Malayan, but of the clear skin or fresh colored type which we often witness when we met a blushing girl."

(From Wikipedia)

Sad Day Today

Mrs. Nora Echalas one of the principals from the district of Taytay 1 passed away yesterday. She was the principal of Hapay na Mangga Elementary School. Her passing was a surprise for all of us because when she observed our classes a couple of weeks ago, she looked well. 

According to Mrs. Lulu Gerardo, our principal and district supervisor, Mrs. Echalas was alone in her office when she had an asthma attack. She called out for help but she did not make it to the hospital. She was 42 years old.

It was a sad day for all of us. I did not know her well because she was new to the district. But I was acquainted with her during the district school journalism seminar because she was the district consultant in Filipino.

I and the teachers of TES  give our condolences to her family.

Amaya

 Amaya is a popular epic-historical TV series shown on GMA Channel 7. 

To show that GMA is serious about the cultural and hsitorical aspect of the series,  a documentary special was shown to show to the viewing public the effort the network had gone through to make sure of the historicity of the series.

Historians were consulted to make sure that the character had some historical parallel.  Anthropologist, archaeologists and other experts were interviewed to add authority to the claim of historical accuracy to the settings and the implements etc.. Ancient Filipino languages experts also contributed their knowledge of ancient Filipino language so that the dialog would be appropriate for the time setting. Hence, the dialogs are anachronistic.

DepEd and National Historical Institute even promoted the program for its historical and cultural value. Blah,blah,blah...But they missed one important and obvious detail.

For heaven's sake, she is a meztiza. I have nothing against Marian, but she looks like a Spanish seniora, an alien (not that alien).

The fictional epic (as in epically inspired by Korean epic historical TV series featuring epic historical women) was supposed to be set in the Visayas before the coming of the Spaniards. Hence, common sense, or logic, or my brain, tells me that  pre-Spanish Filipinas should look like pre-Spanish Filipinas. 

This is how I imagine a pre- Spanish, pre-Vicky Bello, pre-Glutathione Filipina should look like. 

What I mean is that I believe, even historians, anthropologists, archaelogists, biologists and lobotomists would agree with me that meztizas were not supposed to exist before the Spanish era.

 Of course, they have artistic and creative freedom...I am just asking!

Friday Blues...(not that Blues)

Friday and feeling a little down. It’s because of money, lack of it. No matter how I try to be a little aloof, or stoical (?) about money, still  the lack of it could sometimes put me down. Hmmm… The feeling is quite natural especially in this age where the temple of materialism and consumerism abounds promoting materialism and consumerism, what else? One pastor calls them SM or Satan’s Mall. But I wouldn’t go that far…maybe Satanic Malls would be better. Just  kidding. Malls are amoral, they have no idea what is right or wrong or evil or good, etc. They are just buildings filled made up of matter for heaven’s sake.

SM Mall of Asia (MOA) is a shopping mall owned and developed by SM Prime Holdings, the largest mall developer and owner in the Philippines. SM Mall of Asia is the 2nd largest mall in the Philippines after SM City North EDSA, 3rd largest shopping mall in Asia and the 4th^[1] (Ref. Forbes' World's 10 Largest Shopping Malls) largest shopping mall in the world.

We just received our Christmas compensation and even before the money could land on the table (I put my salary on the table in front of my daughter and wife, and we all do the budgeting to let my daughter see how every cent is accounted for). Before the money landed on the table, it already went to bill enevelopes. But there were still some debt unpaid, waiting for the next compensation before finally being settled, I hope. At least I have given my wife and my daughter their Christmas money. But as my co-teachers and master teachers always tell me, “at least there is money that passes by your hands” (Sounds better in Tagalog).

Money sure can't buy happiness but at least they could buy stuffs.

I was planning to buy two sets of guitar strings, nylon and steel, for my guitars, but I guess it will have to wait for hmmm…ever. Good guitar strings are quite expensive. I hope instrument makers will develop strings that do not break or lose their  tone.

Guitar strings, especially nylons, lasts long but they tend to become dull and lose their tones because of the stretching and the contracting.

One of the reasons I miss my childhood is that I missed the naiveté (not the nativity) of Christmas. I grew up during the martial law era. Life was quite simple then because there were not that much stuff around. There were no TV lifestyle, or reality shows that promotes hedonistic living; shows that makes one want to rob a bank so that he/she could get money and at least get a taste of high living. Most of the TV shows then was Marcos proclaiming something on the TV, all stations both TV and radio. Even Voltes V was banned from being shown; may corrupt the youth’s mind. I suspect Marcos was afraid that some genius would create a robot or something that could challenge his security force.

Out you go...you Japanese invader. I think one of the reasons why many Filipino supported Cory Aquino was because they despised, deeply hated Marcos for pulling Voltes V out of air . The family was not forgiven and the act not forgotten. Voltes V is a cult here in the Philippines.

Compared today, there are a lot of stuff everywhere. Of course its not that I miss the martial law days. What I really miss is the childness of Christmas.

Anyway, I am thankful for Christmas because, really, Christmas means grace…and I should be writing my lesson plans!