A recent Horizon programme went deeply into the subject of 'Time'. The guiding questions were 1. What time is it? and, 2. What is time?

Professor Brian Cox, a particle physicist, suggests that the first question is a simple question that sounds like it has a simple answer. But, he adds, do we really know what we are asking? I will,at the end of this article , pose some further questions which seem relevant to students of Krishnamurti. Those are, would a better understanding of what K refers to as 'psychological time' help us to change? Does this study of time in general cast any light on the nature of psychological time? Before talking about these questions, however,. its necessary first to try understand what the current theories of physics have to say about time generally before venturing into the topic of psychological time. And as these theories are rather difficult to understand from a lay point of view, I would ask for a little patience if I don't quite answer all the questions raised in the programme.

As mentioned above, Professor Cox employed two questions to steer his examination of time. The first, 'what time is it?' ,goes briefly into the history of time.

Since time immemorial we have always looked up at the sun to tell us the time. From a scientific viewpoint this way of telling the time involves, in one way or another, measuring the speed of light reaching earth from the sun. I'm going to skip that part of the programme that deals with early civilizations fascination with time. Particularly the Mayan people who virtually worshiped time and invented complex measuring systems, such as cunningly contrived pyramids with 365 steps to measure a twelvemonth period. We of course now have complicated time pieces that are much more convenient to make and accessible to everyone. However, how accurate are these? Over a period of 600 million years it would appear that time has been getting shorter, or longer, depending on how you look at it. 600 million years ago a day, as measured by light from the sun, lasted only 22 hours to our 24 hours. This discrepancy apparently is due to several things, one being an increase in the speed at which our planet spins and another the changing influence of the moon's gravity,

Today, as most people know, we now have atomic clocks which use cesium atoms to measure time. With these immensely sophisticated clocks you have to look at the world of the atom to measure time. How can atoms tell us the time? At the atomic level rates of 9 billion ticks per second make this atomic time accurate to a billionth of a second. This is time now.

Past time. Time experienced as past takes account of the following: light from the sun has to travel 93 million miles to reach earth. This means light from the sun takes 8 minutes to reach earth. So if the sun exploded it would be 8 minutes before we became aware of it. So past time depends upon light reaching earth at delayed rates.

When did time begin? According to Einstein the big bang created space, time, everything. Measuring the expanding universe backwards by use of recently developed photographic techniques puts the universe at 13.7billion years. So if Einstein is correct, time began 13.7 billion years ago.

Slowing down time. Slowing down time at the atomic level makes things look and sound totally different. A small insight into this can be obtained by listening to a fast moving car or a train or an airplane passing us by. The sound changes as it approaches and as it passes. Especially when the sound barrier is broken. But atomic time can be slowed down to incredible levels. Milliseconds, microseconds, nanoseconds and a unit called 'Plank time' which takes account of many millions of micro seconds, These time measures are measured inside the atom. So there is a material basis to this time, even if at a human psychological level we can be deceived regarding the rate of time passing.

What is time? Why does time tick along as it does? Why does it move more slowly or appear to do? It would seem there is no big clock in the sky that ticks away at the same rate for everybody. If we stay with Einstein for a moment (there are other theories to look at. But I will only deal with one, quantum theory.) Einstein's theory of time is that it is a dimension you go through. He says we all move at the speed of light.His theory of 'spacetime' is a mixing of time and space. This causes us to experience time passing. Or, to put it another way, creates the illusion of time passing at a certain rate. To fully understand this would involve a thorough study of gravity, velocity and individual 'observers'. If I fly past you at the speed of light, taking account of not just the speed or velocity but where we are in relation to each other or any other object in the universe, this movement causes us to experience time passing. And this sense of time differs from observer to observer. It would appear, if Einstein is correct, that we each contain within ourselves an individual time clock. So time is relative to and different for each of us.

If time can slow down is there somewhere in the universe where time stands still? Yes. Black holes! The gravity in a black hole is so great that even light is unable to escape. And as time is relative to light, time inside a black hole just doesn't exist.

So the answer to the question 'what time is it?' is there is no simple one-answer. It depends where you are and and your relative speed to others, and the distortive effects of gravity on spacetime.. So Einstein's time is relative to these factors.

Intuitively we feel that the past h as happened and the future is yet to come. But Einstein's time states that all time already exists. Time in this view would be similar to passing along a road -the road unrolls and so also time unrolls as we move at the speed of light through spacetime. So time doesn't pass; there is just a line, a timeline. All life events till exists -and more, the future already exists!

At this point professor Cox introduces another theory, quantum theory. Actually Einstein's theory doesn't "feel right". It would appear that some adjustments have to be made to take account of the 'uncertainty' principle'.

Nothing is certain according to this principle; so the future doesn't exist. At the quantum level that is Spacetime is "bitty" "granular" So if time is granular time could grow, grain by grain. That growth would be our reality. The future is not set in stone. It grows. Merging Einstein with quantum physics gives us a better picture of how time flows..But it would seem that the picture is not yet complete. The quest in science for for a unified theory, a GUT (grand unified theory) which will reconcile Einstein's theory of relativity with the quantum theory. And this has not yet been achieved.

Psychological time.What about my questions about psychological time? Well, I have always gone along with the notion that there are two quite distinctly different kinds of time, chronological time and psychological time. This is how Krishnamurti divides time. However it would seem, from the angle of relativity and quantum theory, that neither chronological time nor psychological time are unproblematic. From a certain perspective, indeed, the differences between them may not be so great.To begin with, chronological time also has a subjective or psychological aspect to it. It would be tempting to regard chronological time as entirely a mechanical thing. Arbitrary. Something we could make adjustments to, putting the clock back or forward etc, and having no connection with the feeling of time passing. Any feeling we do have been entirely illusory. But is it? Einstein's view of time suggests there may be a physical basis to such subjective feelings of time passing. This is what he means by relativity.This relativity would be connected to the velocity at which we are traveling through spacetime. And perhaps the drag of gravity and distortions in spacetime which we're hardly aware of at a conscious level. The paradox of Einstein's time is that we each have an individual 'clock' which ticks away at an entirely individual rate. Although, for us earthlings, because we share the same gravitational pull, the same space, that is to say we are usually not separated by great distances by earth's gravity, these time discrepancies are minor. In other words, although we do have personal body clocks the time differences are slight. Not noticeable in normal circumstances. Nevertheless they are measurable and have been measured, the results bearing out this part of Einstein's theory. Yet, if we were to travel away from earth at speeds approaching the speed of light these time differences would become much greater. In some instances measuring years rather than seconds. The point is what bearing if any does this theory of time have on psychological time?

Psychological time is considered to be imaginary time, an aspect of thought, a psychological tool which enables us to 'look before and aft',to draw lessons from the past and make plans about the future. The key point seems to be that, unlike chronological time,psychological time is not 'real'. It has no relation to the present moment, to 'what is'. And therefore, its 'down side' is that it can lead to delusion and unnecessary suffering. Nevertheless, psychological time , like the arena of thought in which it takes place, is a material process. That is to say it has a material basis and as such perhaps it is as real as any other material phenomenon.This 'reality' however, may be an illusion which is qualitatively different from the illusion that we all share the same time. Its difference seems to lie in certain aspects of thought such as inappropriate thoughts; or persistently re-living a painful set of thoughts,. Morbid or pessimistic thoughts, thought which damage the organism via psycho-somatic channels. So in this sense psychological time is real enough, though it may be labeled an 'illusion' . Perhaps one question might be, if psychological time has a material (atomic) basis perhaps its negative effects might be approached from a practical materialist angle? Of course this is already happening in the fields of psychiatry and psychology This might raise questions which lead us to revise our objections as to the validity of the current psychological therapies, including drugs and other physical intervention techniques. I'm not saying that this is desirable. I am just asking what would be the objections to such an approach? Would they be 'religious' 'mystical' 'spiritual'? What do these words really mean?

edward morrison

There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will

Well done Edward- for a concise description.thanks. What about the "time" in our dream-state -of consciousness& deep-sleep-state of conscioiusness(being non-cognisant of it) ?

Life is like the tamarind fruit bound in its shell

Some interesting literature on the subject of "TIME" is here:
Davies,Paul:About Time,Touchstone 1996.
Davies, Paul:How to build a time machine, Penguin Books 2002.
Davies, paul:The physics of Time asymmetry, Surrey University Press 1974.
Favrholdt,david(ed) Hvad er tid? Gylendal Filosofi, 1999.DANISH Language.
Flood,raymond& Michael lockwood(Eds):The nature of Time.Basil Blacwell Ltd.1988.
Hartnack,justus:den ydre verdens eksistens.C.A.Reitzel 1997-Language:Danish.(philosophy)
Lockwood,Michael:The Laybrinth of Time.Oxford University Press2005.
Novikov,Igor:the River of Time Cambridge University Press 1998.
Poidevin,Robin Le: Travels in four dimensions.Oxford University Press 2003.
Veneziano Gabriele:The Myth of the Beginning of Time.Scientific American,May2004.
WellsHG:the Time Machine.Penguin Classics 2005.
Wheelere,John Archibald: A journey into gravity and spacetime,Scientific American Library,1999-
Gleick,James:FASTER,Abacus 1999-
UGGERHØJ,ULRIK: Tid-Den relative virkelighed,Univers, Århus Universitetsforlag,2006-(DANISH LANGUAGE.)

Life is like the tamarind fruit bound in its shell

Way to go guys..you have now managed to use the rest of my time on earth trying to figure out how to speak Danish and learn what time means..lol....

this stuff is great and now no one can complain about my long posts. I like having this so I can go back over it and read it. Edward has also, told me that he worked on Bohms Implicate Order and came out with a resonable understanding of it and I am hoping he shares some of it after he gets back from holiday. Before time runs out, I would like to see if I can understand some of this physics. I saw an interesting thing on the HBO series on Alzheimers where this nun whose postmortem brain was observed to have huge amounts of plaque that is a marker for advanced stages of alzheimers in most patients, but she had such a high social network of many people and interactions that she was having no outward signs of dementia before her death at 90. And of course the most amazing example of the brain is Stepehn Hawkins..the physicist with Lou Gehrigs disease who is reduced to a brain in a chair. Food for thought as to how much we use our powers of thinking and observation and interaction as we go on in years.

Yes Phil, there are many wise things hidden in many languages like ancient Tamil as well as the Viking´"s language Danish. It is a pity many of the world"s languages and -cultures are fast disappearing to become one MEGA- AMERICANA!
Another thing you mentioned above about the nuns activity in life and her disease (Alzehemeres) and that is often noted. Persons who are very dynamic and active in their social &professional life, abruptly end in brain-blood-disorders!`At the same time ,doctors advise the elderly ,to be active using their brains to the maximum. The mysteries of the physical brain are slowly revealed by science&technology.Recently scientists have found a memory-molecule! Amygdala seems to play far greater role than imagined before--- so on.

Life is like the tamarind fruit bound in its shell

As english takes over, certainly the meaning of the other languages will be lost entirely because there is meaning that can only be understood in the language itself. I think there is a great deal of subject matter for discussion in talking about languages and I am hoping Merlin Leach joins us soon and starts a subtopic as this is his field.

I have to say that I think the amygdala is probably responsible for almost all of our negative conditionings. The memory molecule is intriguing and dangerous at the same time as if science is not tempored, one can erase memories it does not want in others by altering the enzymes involved in making the memories. K actually talked about having lost most of his memories from the past and, also, was very much interested in not forming negative memories (which I would say would be memories formed in conditioned states using the amygdala). He said can we in relationship not form hurt or be aware of the formation of hurt or something along this order. I am wondering if our own brains can end these memories using some of the powers of attention they may then act on the enzymes? It seems though that if a conditioning is dropped that the memories attached to the emotion begin to dissappate as they are no longer used and reinforced in the moment.

I am presently observing how my mother has reached that state where she is no longer forming new memories and is for security, I think, repeating stories from her past over and over. It seems that her stories are trying to reinforce her self image as they are a lot more presented as "Look what I did in the old days and look how important I used to be." It seems the loss of the ability to reinforce her self image with new experiences has caused the need to do what she still can do and that is talk about the past. You are told as a caregiver to let them just do this because it is all they have left.

I had a thought this morning that I would like to talk about. I was watching my brains activity after I woke this morning and the observation revealed as usual that the past thoughts will arise and fall, if thought does not interupt and start thinking about them. On my way to Tai Chi the thought 'Mind dies to thought' arose and then a memory of a process that occured when a friend died. She appeared to be seeing all the memories that were stored and she talked to what she had registered and recognised for a long period of time as the cells where these memories were stored appeared to die,although, she had lost all consciousness or awareness of the people at her bed.

All this happenned in my consciousness over seconds and I wondered if that was the dying of thought to the mind that happens physically and maybe what occurs to an alzheimers patient.

The conditioning of memory is to register and recollect what it registers but somewhere we have developed a strange habit of identifying this recollection with language and not the experience registered. I think about what I have recollected not what I have registered. We stay with what is registered and we can act or not act as is required.This maybe a death too.

Dying to that registering maybe the last thing we do as the body dies. It appears that language has its place, but if a brain disease occurs before the dying process, the ability of the brain to put thought in its right place is lost and the experiences that are registered and which will still arise are now extremely disordered without reasoning and logic to put language in its right place.

I guess I still like how Krishnamurti and Bohm saw that we are stuck in a program that causes disorders of the brain and rather than wait until they discover a medication, (which I think they will), I would prefer to find the root cause of humanities insanity.

A really interesting book is Susan Blackmores Conversations on Conciousness and one sees that they (the scientists interviewed )cannot even agree on 'what consciousness is' although Susan Greenfield who has been a part of the videos that you recommend Phil sees it as subjective. The contents are who we are and I think the rest is probably in the physics domain.

Averil

Averil....what happens to the Alzheimers people is that they have damage to the hippocampus which is the part of the brain that seems to code new memory when it is important. It is not activated until we are attentive or have some critical emotion that helps the hippocampus go in to action. My mother remembers nothing that happens yesterday unless it is of the critical nature but she even is losing those things within days. Neurology really has no clue yet what is going on here so we can only hope we stay with undamaged brains to this extent to talk about these things as once the ability to form language and get to our language memory is lost, we will be of no use to society. Alzheimers patients can still live for years and years...I think Ronald Reagan made nearly 12 years. The problem is they become totally dependent on others at a certain point if it gets severe but that varies from patient to patient.

Our recollections are totally distorted because of the elements of attention which you can see in that one video where the two guys switched places and because we cant really remember the order of things for certain.

I doubt we will find a medication to straighten this all out but maybe we will have "soma" someday so we dont really care...lol...I too prefer to figure it all out first.

I am not going to touch the consciousness discussion yet because it is beyond me at this point but just one statement. I absolutely dont think you are the contents of your consciousness as then you would be a whole of a bunch of fragments. I think this is just another illusion of the self trying to find meaning to something that just isnt there.

Phil,I do not know what you mean by a whole bunch of fragments.And maybe we need to ask 'What is conciousness' I think that is what we actually are and as you said the self illusion presents it to us as a self that is whole not a bunch of fragments.

Science has shown us that it is within the capacity of the brain to fill in what is not actually there to our senses, a function that makes it possible for all animals to survive in this natural world. This suggests that we are just fragments of experiences, as Krishnamurti in reading 'The book of oneself' says that when we are with all our senses, where is the 'self'' and that it is just thought recollecting. David Bohm and Krishnamurti point to the fact that we are still like the animal and that our evolution is still very much an instinctual reaction as we have not got our head around the fact of the 'wrong turn' we keep making with language.

The discussions in 'Coversations with Consciousness' clarify that the question that scientists are asking is a different question from Krishnamurti's. How did these atoms, particles, create a conscious animal and Douglas Hoffstadter gives I think the most plausable theory as to how consciousness is a material process explained by physics and that it is the outcome of cause and effect, a physical phenomena.They are not questioning the outcome of a self as I think they may believe that the self as an entity is a natural outcome of thought. They maybe right!

Krishnamurti's is describing the whole of the content that has developed from that material process including all our animal past and the problem that human beings have in relationship to the natural world.The belief that thinking is seperate from thought and that there is a seperate entity that can survive a physical death.

Is it possible, that the mistake we make is continually occurring, "the beginning is the end" that I exist seperate from my experiences and this is because we have a program that allows us to fill in space to survive in the natural world. The delusion that I exist appears to be observable when there is no time/space (I know you have a problem with physcological time' but this is what occurs when 'I' which is the illusion moves from the actual fact of experience.

We apparently dont grasp this and finish with it, as the seduction of solving problems is a strong conditioning of the thought process and a requirement for the self's survival.

The scientists, like us, are missing the point, and i would put Douglas Hoffstadter in that generalisation.Proving how the 'I' came into existence is the beginning of an inquiry because even when they acknowledge that it is an illusion of thought they do not question the deeper question that this dellusion is the root of human conflict. This inquiry is necessary to see if this is actual.

Averil

averil harrison wrote:
Science has shown us that it is within the capacity of the brain to fill in what is not actually there to our senses, a function that makes it possible for all animals to survive in this natural world. This suggests that we are just fragments of experiences...

I think this statement of yours answers my own view on the fragments issue. I would also add that the fragments of observable memory as in the things we can be conscious of as I say I did this or that yesterday or I will do this or that tomorrow are merely fragments too. My whole purpose in posting this forum is to see if the neurological information about this process is enough to help people understand at least the left brain self. I think we have the scientists showing us all this neurological stuff and making statements like Gazzaniga who has studied the brain for forty years now say that he has no idea how he comes up with anything he says; I though this might affect people as much as K's statements. Obvioiusly, except for you and Max not many people have been too interested in the subject. By the way, the videos were new to me, and I was really happy with them as they have totally reinforced all this.

The problem that I knew would happen would be when I brought up the right brain self as I see it and that discussion flopped miserably but needless to say the ego does not like to be confronted as not existing and it protects itself with all of the bodys emotions. I think the way you stated all this in the rest of your post is absolutely excellent. I, however, find a discussion of consciousness not to be necessary as a precursor to ending the "selves" or conditionings as such. I have put up the "classic conditioning" topic as a last ditch effort. I have no clue about consciousness and only speculations at this point and think others speculations who have thought about it more are certainly more qualified on the subject so I pretty much just read what they say. Funny thing though, while I am writing this the postman brought Hofstadter's "I am a Strange Loop" and Dossey's "The Power of Premonition." So if you dont hear from me again....I may have reached another plain of conscioiusness!!!!!!!

One thing though from brain research and from K, I think most of what K was looking at was the left brain verbal consciousness. If you remember the person J.W. I think he was called in the number 6 video who did not feel any change in consciousness after his corpus callosum was cut but he still had a consciousness which is pretty much I think what psychology likes to call the unconscious still continued to contribute. Gazzaniga called the right brain "stupid" which I thought was funny and really not fair as it is the reason for our musical abilities, sports performance, spatial understanding and so much more. Even Gazzaniga along with most all left brain scientists have to play up the area of the brain which they have so built up over the years. I would love to hook up Gazzaniga to an MRI and see how his right brain reacts when he calls it "stupid."

Krishnan Srinivasan wrote:
Krishnan Srinivasan
Fri, 10 Jul 2009, 9:36am

Well done Edward- for a concise description.thanks. What about the "time" in our dream-state -of consciousness& deep-sleep-state of conscioiusness(being non-cognisant of it) ?

Krishnan, Sorry for the delayed response: I've been away for a week.

Yes, your question about dream state time is very interesting. I've never come across anything on it or thought about it myself before you mentioned it. In dreams time seems very arbitrary. There are shifts between locations and times that seem not to affect the dreaming state. The dreamer doesn't seem cognizant of such anomalies.

I would guess that, as far as the dreaming state is concerned, one could regard this kind of time 'psychological'. It occurs, like day-dreaming, when the brain is in an unconscious or semi-conscious mode. This would distinguish it from 'clock time' or 'subjective time'. Not that such time couldn't be measured, it could. But only under special circumstances such as by a psychologist who was measuring the REM periods. But I suppose that you are meaning the question of what sort of time is it that occurs, to the dreamer, during the dreaming state.

It would be interesting to pursue this topic in inquiry. Do you want to do so? edward

There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will

Krishnan Srinivasan wrote:
Krishnan Srinivasan
Fri, 10 Jul 2009, 9:36am

Well done Edward- for a concise description.thanks. What about the "time" in our dream-state -of consciousness& deep-sleep-state of conscioiusness(being non-cognisant of it) ?

Krishnan, Sorry for the delayed response: I've been away for a week.

Yes, your question about dream state time is very interesting. I've never come across anything on it or thought about it myself before you mentioned it. In dreams time seems very arbitrary. There are shifts between locations and times that seem not to affect the dreaming state. The dreamer doesn't seem cognizant of such anomalies.

I would guess that, as far as the dreaming state is concerned, one could regard this kind of time 'psychological'. It occurs, like day-dreaming, when the brain is in an unconscious or semi-conscious mode. This would distinguish it from 'clock time' or 'subjective time'. Not that such time couldn't be measured, it could. But only under special circumstances such as by a psychologist who was measuring the REM periods. But I suppose that you are meaning the question of what sort of time is it that occurs, to the dreamer, during the dreaming state.

It would be interesting to pursue this topic in inquiry. Do you want to do so? edward

There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will

edward morrison wrote:
But I suppose that you are meaning the question of what sort of time is it that occurs, to the dreamer, during the dreaming state.

Life is like the tamarind fruit bound in its shell

Yes Edward, what is the natutre of time in dream-state, and deep-sleep-state?.Are there different persons(different "I"s) experiencing the dream&deep-sleep?Why is it that only in the waking state we are aware that we have been dreaming,sleeping-deep and not vice-versa i.e. we are not cognisant of what happened in the waking state when we are dreaming or in deep-sleep. That means , in these two states of consciousness we are not having the same reality as in the wakeful-state.So in dreams,"durations" are patchily perceived sometimes-such as daylight or moonlight or night with darkness around etc. Wheras in the deep-sleep, we are almost equal to the "death-state.
These are my observations, may be, wrong.
Is the "REALITY" same in the 3 states of consciousness or is the"perceiver" with his sense-organs apparently intact without any change, is changing into different individuals?
And who is this"individual" anyway?
Edward, maybe, we are going astray from the original topic"about Time"
Await your comments.
Regards
Krishnan

Life is like the tamarind fruit bound in its shell

Just a couple of things from my studies and observation. In the left/right brain area split brain patients originally reported that they no longer dreamed but at later dates scientists were able to get them to start remembering. Possibly here this gives the more experiential brain the right brain the seed of dreaming and would answer why we dont remember dreams well as the "talker" doesnt know they are happening. Much more in that area needs studying. We can also wake up during REM sleep but we are paralyzed. This has happened to me once and is not a pretty picture. Your body is totally paralyzed if this happens. Apparently this is the bodies way to cut off the connection between thinking and acting. Example sleep walkers dont have their dream cut off from action.

Another thing is called Lucid Dreaming and is actually a practice taught by some psychologist to help people with nightmares. There are books on how to do it. In Lucid Dreaming you can wake up the thinker so that you are conscious that you are dreaming and actually be able to join in as a separate person in your dream. I think this would indicate there must be different states of consciousness and probably add to any theories of separation of left and right brain in the process of dreaming. One last thing is the latest I read on the reasons for dreaming were that it may be a primitive form of reviewing the dangers in our life. Now this would get down to K, I would say. He saw no need for dreaming. Obviously, if you dont have conditioned fears, you would have no need for dreaming to solve them. You would only dream if you lived maybe in dangerous neighborhoods. I guess if this theory by these scientists were true that studying your dreams would be essential in gaining self knowledge.

As far as the time part of this, I would only say there would be some proof to our ability to keep track of time all the time because of how many people manage to wake up just before the alarm clock goes off. How would this phenomenon been represented before clocks though? Is it time that is important here or the event as I have to get to work or catch a plane so I am anxious all night. I have always thought that time is held on to by anxiety which is stress/fear. So this would mean we set a goal and then start our "stress" clock. There is a lot in this topic and I have now read Edwards main post twice but it is going to take several more readings.

I'm not sure that posting the long article on Time was appropriate for the format of the forum. The theme may have been OK but maybe a shorter version which didn't attempt to cover so wide and so specialist an area would have been better. In short, I may have bit-off more than could be chewed in a friendly, informal way given the nature of dialogue in forums.

Whilst it is true the subject of the forum is about science and the brain and the perception of time does to a large extent depend on the human brain, perhaps the article was overbalanced towards the quantum elements involved in time rather than to the brain itself. Oh well, what's done's done and cannot be undone! What can be done perhaps is for me to try to provide some shorter posts on what the article was essentially saying about time, not so much summaries as examples of the insights I gained from taking the copious notes from the television programme and attempting a sort of summary review.The mechanical aspects of this labour did, for me, lead to a few creative flashes of insight into time and the way it is measured and perceived by thought and feelings, as well as a recognition that time is both finite and relative. In short, there is no big clock in the sky.

Anyway, if the article has bored anybody or gone over their head (I only just managed to keep my head above water) or due to my personal communication failures, I apologize and hope that some jump-off topics might be derived for discussion. I note already that ....,has connected dreaming states and time and this might prove more relevant to the forum. After all K did claim not to dream at all! Which seems to support his notion of the ending of time being inseprable from the ending of mechanical thought. In short, of Jiddu transformation of the brain cells.

I will post the "shorter version" shortly.
Edward

There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will

A shorter version of the article 'About Time'

One of the things I gathered from writing the article is that, not only is there no big clock in the sky, but that the word 'time' seems to cover a mix of approaches to understanding it. In my article four approaches were considered. To simplify, I''ll review these briefly

First, there is the common understanding of time which have been termed 'chronological time' or clock time. Everybody understands this, though it may not be generally appreciated that this kind of time may not exist outside the instruments we use to measure it. Time is not a constant. It came into being along with space, energy and matter at the moment of the Big Bang. From sundials to atomic clocks the idea behind clock time is simply a practical aid to mankind. A way of dividing things up for the purpose of his organization of work, leisure and other activities.

A second approach to time is Einstein's time which arises from his theory of relativity. We are all moving along with the expanding universe. That means we are moving at the speed of light! If, within that movement that is the velocity of the universal expansion at which we are all travelling, I move in a different direction to you, or simply move at a different speed to you, time changes for each of us. It is relative to our individual body clocks which ar in some way I can't quite grasp are connected to the speed of light and gravity. The faster we move within that given speed of light the greater will be the time differences between us. Einstein called this "spacetime". Another baffling feature of Einstein's spacetime is that there is no past or future time. All time actually exists on a sort of continuum. Don't ask me to explain that!

The third approach to time is quantum time. This approach depends on the "uncertainty principle". Nothing is certain according to this principle; so the future doesn't exist. Nor does the past. It's gone. At the quantum level that is Spacetime is "bitty" "granular" So if time is granular time could grow, grain by grain. That growth would be our reality. The future is not set in stone. It grows. The two theories, relativity and quantum theory both have aspects which seem valid. However on this question of time (as with several other matters) they don't agree. So the current mainstream science is looking to discover a theory which unites the two theories. This is often referred to a GUT or Grand Unified Theory or TOE, Theory of Everything. I must point out here that David Bohm in the much talked about book Wholeness and the Implicate Order, completely disagrees with the idea that a once-for-all theory can ever be arrived at. His main point being that this misguided hope is based on a fundamental error of thought that divides things up into parts, whilst in reality they are not divided but are interconnected and whole.

The last approach to time that I want to look at is that which Krishnamurti referred to as psychological time. The simplest way I can describe this time is to say it is imaginary time. That is it doesn't take place in the world of material 'things' nor does it depend on physical events. From a purely practical viewpoint psychological time seems to have a good use value in that it enables us to plan ahead or remember things that are needed to be remembered without actually having them there in front of us. We do it all within the brain in a sort of second system of thought which allows us to model reality in our imagination. The problem with psychological time is when it is used, not to aid our activities in the real world, but to confuse them. When we think mechanically from our conditioning we produce images of 'ourselves' which conflict and this causes stress and 'suffering'. There is much more to say about this important approach to time but that will have to do for now if I'm not simply going to produce yet another long article.

Hope this is a bit clearer. Edward

There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will

Khrisnan, I haven't read most of the books you list. I have read a lot of Paul Davies. You probably guessed that my title 'About Time' was cribbed from Davies' book of that name. I have the book but it is several years since I read it. I must do so again. I didn't like the title of the documentary 'What Time is it?' so I plumped for the Davies' title.
I hope he doesn't mind:-)

As you have noticed, there's a lot written on the subject. Including of course Stephen Hawkin's 'A Brief History of Time' which I have read and which prompted a lot of interest when it was first published. But the article was based entirely on a summary review of the documentary I watched, so doesn't look at these other sources.

Since I posted the article, I've been thinking about how these theories of time might 'fit' with David Bohm's theory of Wholeness. It might be interesting to go into this, but it would mean a lot of reading by the inquirers. So I don't think this is a practical proposition. Yet I do not know if it has been done, even by Bohm. I mean I don't know of any book by him that deals with time in relation to wholeness.

Anyway, thanks for your attention to the article. I guess an intensive look at the theories of time is not at the top of most people's agendas. I understand that and, hopefully, will learn from it. edward

There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will

phil K wrote:
Obviously, if you dont have conditioned fears, you would have no need for dreaming to solve them. You would only dream if you lived maybe in dangerous neighborhoods. I guess if this theory by these scientists were true that studying your dreams would be essential in gaining self knowledge.

Yes, you and I have discussed this in earlier posts. K's claim not to dream, we speculated, was, if true, related to his ending his conditioning.

Regarding your point about studying dreams to gain self-knowledge, I suppose it depends on what is meant by 'self knowledge'. In our society the self is regarded as something to cultivate rather than to end. So there is the often heard desire " I want to know who I am". The idea seems to be that people want to discover their "true self". Of course, in K circles, we hold the opposite view that the self is a bothersome illusion which causes psychological suffering. So the ending of the self is the goal. When we say we want self knowledge it is with this in mind rather than the common goal of bolstering or changing the self image for a more suitable one.

'Self knowledge', for us, really means an understanding of the the process whereby the self or centre throws up these conflicting images and brings about destructive psychological time. Edward

There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will

Krishnan Srinivasan wrote:
Edward, maybe, we are going astray from the original topic"about Time" Await your comments.

Krishnan, I take your point. I have posted a short version of the article which I think captures the main points without confusing people with too much detail. Let me know if you think it is helpful. edward

There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will

Thanks Edward for your summary on Time. As you mentioned, this specific area may interest only physicsts or persons well versed in the topic.But" self-knowledge" ,as you
explained its" misnomer" too,occupies the mind of everyone.I am fascinated by Sri Ramana maharshis advice to "ERASE THE EGO" If one goes deeper into this inquiry, one comes across"fourth dimension" wherein, time, space do not count at all.Let me not go into a discussion on this here. I am happy that you provoked our thoughts on TIME & SELF-KNOWLEDGE. Many thanks.
Warm regards,
Krishnan

Life is like the tamarind fruit bound in its shell

Ouch....Help me....I have a simple mind but am totally stimulated by all this and your smaller explanation..edward..is really close to something I can possibly comprehend. Yet....I am an expert in the ego not in time. The ego does not exist in time. It exists now. Self knowledge in the K sense is the understanding of the functioning of the mind and its neurological construct right now. Bohm did not understand K. I met him, interviewed him and can tell you that is true whether you believe me or not. K was simple and I am simple but I want to get all this so I wont be so stupid.

Well, I'm glad my smaller version helped, phil. Perhaps you understand more than you protest otherwise:-)

Actually the ego only exist in time! Well according to K this is so. It exists in psychological time. Which is why the long dialogue between Bohm and K was titled 'The Ending of Time'. This time has to be brought to an end before the brain's "intelligence" can bring about a rational functioning. So he may be saying that the organism then, when time has ended, exists in the 'now' . The right brain and the left brain working together in harmony, to put it another way.

As far as my own research goes, I understand 'psychological time' in the K sense, is limited to that mental space in which the ego operates. When memory is operating in practical matters and the ego is in obeyance, psychological time is a valid operation of the mind. Of course K might not have called that kind of memory psychological time. But it needs to be understood and accounted for it we are to be clear about the meaning of 'self-knowledge'

And as you say, self knowledge is a sort of observing of the functioning of the self rather than the usual psychologists approach of delving into the background of one's life and conditioning. Though, K -perhaps somewhat contradictorily - did seem at times to refer to the need to be aware of everything in the 'content' of thought!

I was speaking to my in-law in Ireland, who, like yourself, has met both K and Bohm and his memories seem to be similar to yours. K came across, when of stage, as a simple person, not very talkative and without an obvious sense of humour. Bohm was, considering his massive erudition and status in the scientific world, very modest and approachable. Whether or not he understood K I don't know. He did seem to agree with him on fundamental issues. But I have spotted differences of views which I wouldn't yet be able to go into. They would take more study and research and I'm not sure I have the time these days.

There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will

Edward, I am interested more in your observation of psychological time and how the ego is involved with that. The ego to me is an illusion created by conditioning based on the self protective instinct and is poofed away once one sees the conditioning as would Pavlov's dog realize how stupid he was for salivating at a bell but of course dogs dont have much awareness and are hard to untrain, I would imagine.

This is the statement I am having trouble with and would appreciate a more in depth explanation: "When memory is operating in practical matters and the ego is in obeyance, psychological time is a valid operation of the mind. Of course K might not have called that kind of memory psychological time. But it needs to be understood and accounted for if we are to be clear about the meaning of 'self-knowledge'"

I agree about self knowledge in the latter part of your post. It seems it is viewing the actions and reactions in the moment. Our history doesnt matter except to understand maybe why we developed a concept. I find that seeing how parents, culture and our society has developed our specific concepts helps break that attachment to our language.

Oh, maybe it would be good to state what my understanding was of psychological time but i pretty much got taken down for it when I stated it in another post and I had to admit that I had no clue what it was. But here it is. I had thought that psychological time and I take the word psychological to mean an action of the mind means that when the mind conceives of the past, present and future, he by the very fact this is active thinking believes in the reality of the past, present and future as being a substitute for real time which is not static but moving or the things you are saying in your post that I cant understand yet. Basically, I took it that there is no such thing as psychological time because there is no past or future and even the present is a construct of thought. There is only the now which thought cant touch at all because at the moment of thought, you are always in the past even though that thought is actually happening now; therefore, the term psychological time...the time created by the mind.

I will watch for your response tomorrow. Thanks.

phil K phil K
Wed, 22 Jul 2009, 7:02pm

Edward, I am interested more in your observation of psychological time and how the ego is involved with that. The ego to me is an illusion created by conditioning based on the self protective instinct and is poofed away once one sees the conditioning as would Pavlov's dog realize how stupid he was for salivating at a bell but of course dogs dont have much awareness and are hard to untrain, I would imagine.

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I think it is necessary to pin-point what Krishanmurti meant by psychological time before talking about my own comments. So, with your patience, I'll quote from The Ending of Time:

K: "We are saying that psychological time is conflict, that time is the enemy of man........Psychological time is not time of (time of day). Time is the 'me', the ego..."

I take it from this statement, and from others like it, that K is limiting his notion of psych. time to that movement of thought in which the self is active. His usual word for this is "becoming". Does that accord with your own understanding?

What I was trying to do was to distinguish from K's very specific description of the operating of thought which include memories of the past or future. For example, one can use memory to plan a future fishing expedition. Later, after the fishing has taken place, recollections of that fishing expedition (the size of the catch, the weather, etc) can b e spoken of without necessarily bringing in psychological time. If the descriptions are purely factual no psychological time in the K sense of the word will take place. But if pride enters the picture (Look at this photograph of this huge fish I caught) then psychological time is activated. I don't think this is rocket science. But I think it necessary to point out that simple recollections and projections in mental time might be confused by K students for the psych time K was meaning. That's all.

Regarding the instant "poofing away" you speak of. I suppose there are people for whom this instant ending of psychological thought happens. Eckhart Tolle, for example, claims it did for him. But, I don't think this happens for the majority of people. For them it is a gradual erosion or "withering away" to use a K phrase.

There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will

Edward, I guess the problem I am having is that I will have to say that in me the ego did poof away.

My issue is trying to figure out what K meant.

You said: "I take it from this statement, and from others like it, that K is limiting his notion of psych. time to that movement of thought in which the self is active. His usual word for this is "becoming". Does that accord with your own understanding?"

I just dont get K's approach in this. I wonder if when he was talking to Bohm near the end he started to go in to areas of the brain I just cant comprehend. Yes I know what becoming is. It is merely this problem that thought thinks that over chronological time that it will become something which of course it cant become because no matter how much knowledge you have, you remain what you are in the moment which is nothing. Thought combined with emotion creates this wonderful human being in the mind of the beholder as you have stated with your example of the guy who caught the fish.

I just dont see how time has anything to do with the ego. If the ego is an illusion, then what does all this talk about time which is also not what the mind thinks it is have to do with it. Maybe K just didnt get the idea that time is stress as feeling which is how it is represented in the body. Have stress over chronological time, then you certainly think that time is real. Don't you? I dont know. Just trying to investigate on this one.

phil K wrote:
Edward, I guess the problem I am having is that I will have to say that in me the ego did poof away.

Edward, I guess the problem I am having is that I will have to say that in me the ego did poof away.

Wow! That is an enormous statement in so short a sentence! It sort of takes the breath away. I guess I would like to talk to you about that in another separate post. Meanwhile, I'm not sure why you say you're having a problem with this. Maybe I've been conditioned by K's notions of transformation to think all problems end with the demise of the problem-maker, the self? I'd appreciate a short explanation about the nature of your problem. I suppose, once again, this is a word problem...

phil: "I just don't get K's approach in this. I wonder if when he was talking to Bohm near the end he started to go in to areas of the brain I just cant comprehend. "

edward: You're right. The language in The Ending of Time is difficult. I know very intelligent people for whom it has led to them leaving this dialogue alone in disgust. Whether at themselves or at K I'm not sure:-). And I'm not sure I can go much further in clearing up your lack of comprehension. Given your first sentence, I would guess this stands somewhat in the way of comprehension rather than making it clear. What I mean is, that it would seem, from where I'm at (saddled with a self) that different 'enlightened' people seem to have different notions about what has happened. One such person spoke of "Jiddu Transformation" as if to distinguish it from other forms of enlightenment. The very word 'enlightenment' I would think gets in the way of any kind of clarity about this topic. Certainly the Buddha speaks of 'paths' (ie the eightfold path, for example) and different approaches for Bodhisattva's to approach different groups of people in their teachings. All this goes against K's notion of the "pathless land" and "no gurus", doesn't it? Or am I mistaken?

phil: "I just don't see how time has anything to do with the ego. If the ego is an illusion, then what does all this talk about time which is also not what the mind thinks it is have to do with it."

edward: I think the question of the ego being an illusion is a tricky one. I'd like to go into it in another post, if you're keen to do so. Regarding 'real time' 'and imaginary time' I would just pose a question: Is there any such thing as 'time' in general? Doesn't thought invent all forms of time? I mean there is no big clock in the sky. This suggests all perceptions of time depend on the perceiver ie the perceiver is the perceived, as K would say. This is not a conclusion. I simply pose it as a question for investigation.

There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will

Edward, I totally apologize for that confusing statement. I think I know what happened. I write my posts on word and then cut and paste them on to the reply section of kinfonet. That statement was at the top above what I had edited and I did not edit it. I was, I think, trying to combine my second sentence with the problem I was having was with the time issue not with my poofed ego....lol..I certainly will talk about that anytime and by the way, I have never considered enlightenment to have anything to do with the dissolution of the illusionary ego. I think it is one of the hard parts of understanding as people want to become something from the understanding and you cant become anything...becoming is a concept in the realm of ego.

I am glad to hear you tell me about how many people have been confused by "Ending of time" and I notice Max has just posted a statement about his frustration over on the other time subtopic about it. Maybe we just "waste our time" talking about it when the issue is ending the ego as such. Afterall, psychology thinks this is ridiculous as they think it is real...we have to have a good self image..not end it....we have to have good self esteem..not realize there is no such thing.

Well the big clock in the sky would have to be time that existed without humans or anything to interpret it, I guess. That is the part I cant grasp yet so when I say I cant grasp it, that means I cant commit it to memory as a concept, the word not being the thing of course but an attempt at explanation. We have in thought done a pretty good job of creating the big clock in the mind. I have an appointment to take my mother in ten minutes to her hair appointment and this will all work out. The thing is I have some anxiety always to getting to places on time. I dont think this is desireable but cant seem to figure it out. It causes me all sorts of problems in other places too. I know I could use my big clock in my mind better if I didnt have anxiety attached to it.

So I cant say that thought invents all forms of time maybe because the physicists seem to call the other time something that I dont understand yet. Maybe if I understood it, I would say it is just thought. More important, though, is I am just trying to figure out how this stupid thought is working in my own mind with the big clock in my mind.

phil K wrote:
I have never considered enlightenment to have anything to do with the dissolution of the illusionary ego. I think it is one of the hard parts of understanding as people want to become something from the understanding and you cant become anything...becoming is a concept in the realm of ego.

Now you're entering into something difficult for me to understand - which makes a change from you protesting your difficulty in understanding time and other aspects of quantum theory! Whilst I can understand the second part of your sentence, the first part evades me. It seems to be a valid point you're making, that if something is an illusion, it is an illusion; and illusions don't exist outside of imagination. This being so, you seem to be saying, it can't be dissolved, except, perhaps, in the imagination that conceived of it in the first place. But isn't that something that can happen? I see a snake, which turns out to be a rope, and the moment I realize this the fight/flight function begins to calm down and with it the fear that imaginary danger conjured up. So the snake may be an illusion but the physical reaction, the fight or flight mechanism jumping into action is real.

Is that right? And so illusory or not the mental processes that are set in motion by the brain mistaking the false scenarios thrown up by thought are 'real', are 'what is' and the resultant 'suffering' is experienced as' real'. This is the reality of thought, according to K. On the other hand, that which is beyond thought - a different kind of 'what is' might be termed truth or the 'actual'. Have I got that right? Or is it a distortion of what K said. Not that we need to stick to the words that K used, but there seems to be a certain meaning behind the words that one tries to get at. And I'm trying to grasp that.

Phil " I have never considered enlightenment to have anything to do with the dissolution of the illusionary ego. I think it is one of the hard parts of understanding as people want to become something from the understanding and you cant become anything...becoming is a concept in the realm of ego."

Edward :Now you're entering into something difficult for me to understand - which makes a change from you protesting your difficulty in understanding time and other aspects of quantum theory! Whilst I can understand the second part of your sentence, the first part evades me. It seems to be a valid point you're making, that if something is an illusion, it is an illusion; and illusions don't exist outside of imagination. This being so, you seem to be saying, it can't be dissolved, except, perhaps, in the imagination that conceived of it in the first place. But isn't that something that can happen? I see a snake, which turns out to be a rope, and the moment I realize this the fight/flight function begins to calm down and with it the fear that imaginary danger conjured up. So the snake may be an illusion but the physical reaction, the fight or flight mechanism jumping into action is real.

There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will

Sorry phil, I did the same as you. I typed it in a word programme and cut and pasted. Unfortunately I pasted the same section twice. Ah well, will I ever learn?!

There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will