Time

“Time is the life of the soul in a certain motion, namely, in passing from one state to another.” — Plotinus

“I … consider space, as well as time, to be something purely relative, space being an order of coexistence and time being an order of succession.” — Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.

“By observing what happens in our mind and how in it by a continuous chain some ideas disappear and others appear, we arrive at the idea of succession.” — John Locke

“[F]rom the succession of ideas and impressions we form the idea of time… [T]ime cannot make its appearance to the mind, either alone, or attended with a steady unchangeable object, but is always discovered by some perceivable succession of changeable objects.” — David Hume

“Time is a subjective condition of human intuition and is not an objective property of things in themselves. It is only objectively valid in regard to [phenomenal] appearances…” — Immanuel Kant

“In itself, outside the subject, time is nothing.” — Immanuel Kant

“I do not feel alive, psychologically alive, except insofar as a stream of feeling — perceiving, imagining, remembering, reflecting, revising, recategorizing runs through me. I am that stream — that stream is me.”— Oliver Sacks

Since the only empirical reality that is ever given to us directly within the framework our individual existence is that of phenomenal consciousness, the idea/concept of time could only have arisen in humanity as a consequence of the experience of a stream of successive changes in phenomena, including changes in intersubjective colorforms, sounds, and sensations (gustatory, olfactory, tactile, etc.), the synthetic unity of which we call the “real world.”

Consequently, each particular “moment of time” is nothing but a particular state of consciousness that is succeeded by another “moment of time” in the stream of causally interconnected states of consciousness.

Hence, every “thing” is a process of consciousness, a stream of its particular, successive states.

The fundamental process of consciousness is light, whose change of particular states corresponds to the change of particular “moments of time”. This explains the key role of light in the theory of relativity: a change in light is the basic “signal,” the basic change relative to which all other changes in the intersubjective “real world” occur.

How does each “moment of time” (each particular state of consciousness) appear and disappear?

The nature of phenomena is transcendent consciousness-in-itself (Light), whose nontemporal “superposition” (infinite potential described by the mathematical “wave function”) is “collapsed” by transcendental consciousness — transcendental (inter)subjectivity (freedom/Existenz and structures of causality) — to a stream of particular states (hence particular “quantum states” of mathematical descriptions) of phenomenal objectivity, including intersubjective colorforms, sounds and sensations, the synthetic unity of which we call the “real world”.

Thus, every phenomenon is the transcendent Light reduced by transcendental (inter)subjectivity to a stream of particular states of phenomenal objectivity. Everything is the Light.

Now we can answer the most important question of physics about what exactly collapses the wave function: it is transcendental (inter)subjectivity, which is the process of emanation of the transcendent into the immanent (transcendental and phenomenal), the non-dichotomous into the dichotomous, the infinite into the finite, the nontemporal into the temporal, the one into the particular, the supraindividual into the individual.

We conclude that the successive change of causally interconnected particular states of transcendental (inter)subjectivity and phenomenal objectivity is the unfolding of our existence/consciousness or, in other words, “time”. It is not existence/consciousness that unfolds “in time,” but “time” is the unfolding of existence/consciousness. “Time” and the unfolding of our existence/consciousness are one and the same process.

Buddhist thinkers partly realized this in their meditations already thousands of years ago:

“The doctrine of momentariness follows directly from the first thesis of the universality of impermanence. It asserts that each [phenomenon] and, accordingly, the whole complex of [phenomena], i.e. [empirical subject and empirical world], exists for only one moment and is replaced in the next moment by a new [phenomenon] caused by the previous one. … In essence, each new moment is [a new empirical subject and world] connected with and [causally] conditioned by the previous one. Thus, according to the theory of instantaneity, the stream of [phenomena] constituting [empirical subject and empirical world] is not only continuous but also discrete at the same time. Using the modern metaphor, it is best compared to a movie film: it consists of individual shots, but we do not see them when we watch a movie and perceive them as a continuum, whereas the differences between two adjacent shots are absolutely insignificant and the shots appear to the naked eye to be almost identical, while the differences arise and appear gradually.” — Eugene Torchinov

“Throughout the entire Buddhist philosophy, time is not conceived in a Newtonian way, i.e. as a homogeneous, continuous medium that can be splitted into various intervals, but, rather, in a relational manner, as a series, as a succession of moments. The moment (kṣaṇa) should not be understood as a certain length of time, as a determined period of time. The moment is not a very small temporal interval but, rather, the minimal unit of which time consists (as a series of moments). Time exists only as a relationship between moments. The moment itself is not in time, since the sequence of moments is what creates time. Thus, the moment has no duration in time. There is no temporal beginning and end of the moment, but it simply constitutes an indivisible temporal unit. The passing of time means the succession of moments; the Universe is the sequence of momentary appearances. Any appearance is a momentary appearance.

“All the [phenomenal] composites (saṃskāra) are momentary (kṣaṇika)…” — Asaṅga

The question regarding the duration of an appearance does not make sense because of its momentary, non-temporal character. Buddhism claims that, in case of any manifestation, its appearance (utpāda) and disappearance (nirodha) are simultaneous, as both relate to one and the same moment. Given the indivisible character of the moment, which lacks any “duration”, it is absurd to claim that birth occurs at the beginning of the moment and destruction at its end.

“Each moment (pratikṣaṇa) [takes place] both the apparition (udaya) and the disappearance (vyaya) of the [phenomenal] composites (saṃskāra).” — Vasubandhu

Everything that manifests, all the [phenomena] (dharma) exist only for a moment, representing minimal appearances, lacking persistence, “point-like” appearances which, once ceased, will never reappear. … The appearances are rather fluctuating than active; there is only succession, not transformation.

“…How could there be the activity (kriyā) of transient things (asthita)?” — Asaṅga

Any entity represents an absolutely new appearance, which lasts only for a moment, and which, once it has been destroyed, never reappears.

“Entities (bhāva) … are not old, but ever new.” — Asaṅga

Mahāyāna considers that the causal flow that represents the manifested Universe consists of the sequence of momentary appearances (kṣaṇika); the importance of this theory lies in the fact that it eliminates the possibility of the existence of a persistent object, involved in the series of dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda) as the substratum of sequential transformations. According to the theory of momentariness, the series of dependent origination does not represent the successive causal transformation of a persistent object, but consists of the succession of ever-new momentary entities, of [phenomena] (dharma).

“Mahāmati, the entire existence (bhāva) is devoid of own nature (nisvabhāva) since it is considered as a continuous (prabandha) series (santati) of momentary apparitions (kṣaṇa), as [passing] from a way of being (bhāva) to another way of being (anyathābhāva).” — Laṅkāvatārasūtra

Through all these, the theory of momentariness (kṣaṇikavāda) turns into a denial of the persistent objects envisaged in ordinary human experience and which also make up the entire human drama and bondage. What, to the human mind, appears as a continuous, persistent object is only an illusory construction of the subjective imagination. Beyond this imagined aspect, there is no persistent objective manifestation, but everything is momentary.

However, the appearance of continuity is not entirely random, since the series of appearances do not happen randomly but determined by specific causes (hetu), by specific conditions (pratyaya). Because these conditions remain, to a certain degree, constant, the various successive appearances also share a certain degree of similarity; stirred by this similarity, human imagination engenders the illusion of the persistent object.

Conceptually structured human experience thus becomes devoid of objective referent. Human thought finds no counterpart at the level of the ever-changing flow of dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda). The conceptual reference to a momentary appearance would make no sense, since such an appearance fades until the next moment. A momentary referent could not be the subject of any transformation, could not be the stable, persistent object assumed by ordinary human experience. Any discussion or reasoning about such an appearance would be superfluous.” — Ovidiu Cristian Nedu

Buddhist philosophers were independently (?) echoed by Arab thinkers. According to their concept of temporal atomism, time consists of a succession of atomic moments, each of which is devoid of temporal duration; the latter arises as a succession of atoms of time, each of which is constituted by two events — “emergence” (hudus) and “annihilation” (fana). Phenomenon arises and annihilates at every moment of time. In Sufism, the world is understood as an instantaneous dissolution in the eternal side of Being and a new incarnation in its temporal form.

In the twentieth century, temporal atomism became obvious to many of our recent contemporaries:

“The existence of an objective lapse of time means that reality consists of an infinity of layers of ‘now’ which come into existence successively. But if simultaneity is something relative, each observer has his own set of ‘nows,’ and none of these various layers can claim the prerogative of representing the objective lapse of time.” — Kurt Gödel

The mistake of much of modern humanity regarding the concept of “time” is that “time” has been turned into an abstraction (e.g., Einstein’s abstract mathematical “fourth physical dimension”), whereas in reality “time” is the unfolding of our existence/consciousness.

“Einstein’s revolutionary innovations concern the formulae through which the idealized and naïvely objectified physis is dealt with. But how formulae in general, how mathematical objectification in general, receive meaning on the foundation of life and the intuitively given surrounding [phenomenal] world — of this we learn nothing; and thus Einstein does not reform the space and time in which our vital life runs its course.” — Edmund Husserl

Now, why do our subjective opinions about the duration of the “same objective interval” of “time” often differ?

Because “time” is not one but two streams of states of consciousness, the synthetic unity of which we call “time”: the subjective stream (thoughts, emotions, memories, fantasies, dreams, illusions, and hallucinations) and the intersubjective stream (colorforms, sounds, and sensations conceptualized as the “real world”) of states of consciousness that obey different “laws of nature.”

The intersubjective stream is subject to the laws of transcendental intersubjectivity described mathematically and known as the “laws of physics”. That is, the “laws of physics” are the laws of transcendental intersubjectivity which constitutes the empirical world of intersubjective phenomena, including all scientific observations. In refutation of the metaphysical mythology of materialism/physicalism, dualism, and panpsychism with their naive belief in the existence of mythical “physical matter,” it should be said that the only reason for the stability and predictability of intersubjective processes of consciousness are the laws of transcendental intersubjectivity, whose elementary structures of causality are known to us as “elementary particles, waves, etc.” and are described mathematically.

The subjective stream is subject to the laws of transcendental subjectivity.

This explains all the discrepancies in our “perception of time”, because although we are united by an intersubjective stream, we are also subjective streams that flow individually, which is what makes our “perception of time” as a whole individual.

Finally, why is “time” possible?

Change is only possible relative to that which does not change; the flow of “time” is possible because the nature of our consciousness — transcendent consciousness-in-itself (Light) — from which the flow unfolds is nontemporal. In other words, the temporal flow of the “river” of our existence is only possible relative to the nontemporal “shore” — Transcendence.

“In the extension of time, athwart its endlessness, lies Being.” — Karl Jaspers

“By saying ‘unborn,’ we mean that absolute nature is not something that has ever arisen and can ever cease. This nature abides beyond arising and cessation. It is not something that is outside of us that must be sought somewhere. It is something that is present as the fundamental nature of our own consciousness.” — Dilgo Khyentse

“Being … lies not in time beyond death, but in the depth of present existence, as eternity.” — Karl Jaspers

Following Buddhism, which asserts that “saṃsāra” (individual existence) is beginningless, we can assume that the flow of our existence is beginningless and endless.

“This world flows on without beginning.” — Vasubandhu

“Continuously sliding forward without stopping, I get the idea of time as an endless, in the sense of beginning and end, progression. I pass in my conception in both these directions every time to another time. Every beginning is only a beginning in a series, and is preceded by another, every end is followed by another end, so that I cannot conceive of a future end.” — Karl Jaspers

We cannot think of the absolute Beginning of “time” in the past, since nothing happens without a cause, and for every cause there must be a cause, and so on into the infinity of “time” past. Hence, we, transcendental subjects, our transcendental intersubjectivity and intersubjectively constituted/projected phenomenal worlds with their hypothetical Big Bangs and Big Crunches repeating cyclically is the eternal (beginningless and endless) perspective of Consciousness, which is opposed by its nontemporal perspective — Transcendence.

We cannot think of the absolute Beginning of “time” in the past, but we can think of it in the present — we can think of each particular “moment of time” (each particular state of consciousness) as an eternal act of emanation-creation.

“The concept of creation … is broader than the concept of emanation, it includes it, so that creation is emanation plus something new created by the creative will! The absolute is superabundant, it is the inexhaustible source of the superabundant being, which is the outpouring of its richness and fullness, and this is the truth of the idea of emanation, which is entirely included in the idea of creation.” — Sergei Nikolayevich Bulgakov

Thus, if the Beginning is thinkable, it is not in the past, but in the present. Now. Eternally now.

“Mind is by its very nature a singulare tantum. I should say: the over-all number of minds is just one. I venture to call it indestructible since it has a peculiar timetable, namely mind is always now. There is really no before and after for mind.” — Erwin Schrödinger

“In temporal existence … I can never be directly with Transcendence; I can only approach it as I rise, and lose it as I fall. If I were with Transcendence, all motion would cease; perfection would have been attained; time would be at an end.” — Karl Jaspers

“Man cannot seek to know what the Godhead could know. Such knowledge would put an end to his existence in time, whose activities are the purpose of his knowledge.” — Karl Jaspers

“It is one thing to be carried through an endless life, another thing to embrace the whole presence of an endless life together, which is manifestly proper to the divine Mind.” — Boethius

“Can we escape from time? The mystics answer this question in the affirmative. Breaking out of time, we experience eternity as ‘stopped’ time, the eternal ‘now’, nunc stans. The past and future are transformed into the illuminated present.” — Karl Jaspers

“We do not experience eternal Being outside of that which is empirically manifested to us in time. Since that which is for us must be manifested in the temporality of the world, there can be no direct knowledge of God and Existenz. There can only be faith.” — Karl Jaspers

Those who once have had the good fortune to transcend their individual existence into Transcendence (Light) report that Transcendence is nontemporal, it has no successive change of states, it is inexpressible and inconceivable nontemporal Being. However, the transition of consciousness from temporal individual existence to nontemporal Transcendence and back to temporal individual existence is itself a successive change of states. Hence, just as individual existence and supraindividual Transcendence (Light) are two relative perspectives of the one divine Consciousness, their temporality and nontemporality are two relative perspectives of the one divine Eternity.

Transcendence is the spectator, Existenz (freedom) is the actor, phenomena are the costumes and scenery. “God does not play dice” (Einstein), for divine Play is individual existence.