TIME
LINE
and
the
Temporal
Aspect of Brain Function
Historical Discussion
Is
TIME just a concept or is it real?
Time has been debated throughout philosophical and scientific
literature. Time affects how we organize experience and
perception. It is central to how we assign meaning and it
affects thoughts, emotions, and planning activities.
Latin -
"tempus" from Greek "temno" = to cut off
Greek - "chronos"
and "aion"
About
TIME the philosophers said:
Permenides and Zeno of Elia argued time and motion and
becoming are unreal, irrational illusions
Heraclitus said "there is no permanence and change
characterized everything"
Plato
defined time as "the moving image of eternity"
Aristotle
defined it as "the numbering of motion with respect to before
and after"
Aristotle
also talked about Linear or Mechanical Time distinguished
from Organic Time. He noted that mechanical time
seemed to be a "point in motion along a line."
A (past)
--> NOW
--> B (future)
Aristotle
wrote, "It is only after we have perceived a before and an after
in motion that we say time has elapsed." He went on to
say, "What is bounded by the NOW is TIME." There has to be
a before and an after for there to be time.
Organic
Time in Aristotle's view was more about natural movements or
cycles and particularly as they affect human affairs.
About organic time, Aristotle said time is a " natural movement
of coming into being and passing away" represented by circles or
cycles to make up "circular" or "cyclic time."
People in
the Balinese culture, for example, perceive time as
"cyclic" and they determine and plan social functions and
ceremony around these cycles and intersections between cycles.
These overlapping cycles are of 2 days, 7 days, 72 days, etc.
The perception of reality among the Balinese is therefore
different from the Western view.
The Hopi
of the Southwest United States have a different view of time.
Everything tends to be in the present. If you talk about
things way off in the future, or back in the past, you may get a
confused look in response. In reference to your
great-father, they might say, "Oh, he's right over there behind
that tree," "or "just behind that cloud." When referencing
the Kokopelli Kachina, who very likely was an historical figure,
you might hear something like, "I know him." (present tense)
Although the
Hopi have rock carvings marking out prophetic points along a
time line of the divided "two paths" of man, there is a
predisposition in the Hopi culture for everything being "right
now." And of course, there is attention to the
moving of the seasons and the solstices and equinoxes of the sun
and moon among many indigenous current and ancient cultures on
our planet.
William James, "String of Beads"
In the 1890's William James tackled the issue of
time in his "Principles of Psychology (1890, pp 369-420).
James said that time is related to "stream of consciousness."
and that the constitution of consciousness is like a "string of
bead-like sensations and images, all separate..." So, time
in his view is the function of the position of consciousness amongst
the string of beads.
Further, he postulated that the string may be
manipulated, wrapped or bent, so that the beads (memories) can come
into contact with beads at a different time along the continuum.
In other words, the past can come into contact with the present.
Ask a friend to remember his or her favorite song
in high school? When they remember the song, it is likely that
person will remember some specific event and the sounds colors,
smells, and tastes that were present then as if they were in the
event. It is likely you will see your friend's face light up
as if they were back in that moment. This is called
"regression." Your friend regressed back to the time and is
remembering it as if the event were the present as if he or she is
the same age they were then, now.
James noted that "direction" along the "string of
beads" or "time line" is important. Like a ship, there is a
"bow," and a "stern," a forward and backward direction. He said that
time has no single significance. Our perception is what
determines relationships and significance of events.
Einstein and His Thought Experiments
Albert Einstein
sat on the train station platform on the way to his job at the US
Patent Office an contemplated time, space, and gravity. In
school, his thesis paper had received criticism from his college
professors. In 1924, he published in a very short period of
time, four (4) papers that have changed our world and our daily
lives in the most fundamental ways.
One of
Einstein's 'Thought Experiments' as he called them involved
imagining the clock at the train station striking 8:00am.
Einstein wondered what would happen if he could be on a train
leaving the station at the speed of light.
A part of
Einstein's theories included the idea that time and space can 'bend'
or 'fold' around gravitational bodies. Recent research made
possible with the space shuttles finally confirmed the concept that
was already well accepted in quantum physics circles.
String theory is
one offshoot of Einstein's work and it has been postulated that the
deminsions themselves were once strings 'folded' or curled up
infinitely dense that unfolded or unraveled across our universe.
The connection
we make with Expanding Folded Time(c) Patterns is that the human
brain is already geared to bend time back on itself. People
routinely re-experience events from the past as if they were being
experienced in present time. Just think of your favorite song
when you were at younger age and notice how you remember where you
were, what you were seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling
both a the tactile external level and also at the internal emotional
level, for example. If you pick a strong example of a past
memory, it is as if you are reliving the experience. That is a
wonder ability.
Now connect that
resource or ability to the notion that the past is a 'myth.'
The past may have happened the way you remember it, or it might not
have happened that way. Eye witness testimony, for example is
extremely unreliable based on psychological research on the subject.
You have probably had the experience of telling about something when
you were much younger and a friend or sibling says, "No, it didn't
happen that way at all." And they will tell you how it
happened from their point of view and through their own unique
perceptual filters.
Wouldn't you say that who you are is made up of your memories of the
things that happened and the decisions you made about them?
Well, some of those decisions have not been serving you. What
if you could just change the memory or the message you learned from
the memory. Wouldn't that be useful? That could change
your whole life.
That is the
basis for Expanding Folded Time(c) Patterns and the magic that can
produce in your life.
The Mayan Time
Counting System and Calendar
I visited
Chi Chen Itza on the Yucatan Peninsula last year and climbed the
90 steps to the top of the pyramid from the plaza below.
The steps were at a very steep angle. There are four (4) sides
with 90 steps, so that is 360. At the top, windows on
three sides open out to a view of the surrounding terrain.
A fourth chamber comes up in the middle of the pyramid.
There was a line go up into the middle chamber. That is
364 and I understand there was another chamber on the top that
is not easily accessed today. That is 365; a year.
The Maya were involved in counting time.
A search on
the internet told me that the ancient Mayan civilization was
counting time 26,000 years. There is a lot of excitement in the
metaphysical community as the cycle ends in 2012 at the winter
solstice. Of course, there are those who are convinced the
world will end at this time. The best I could get from the
people who are descendants of the ancient Maya is that it just
means that the cycle starts over. Anyway you look at it,
this is a major mile-marker in Mayan culture and thought. Some
people believe the Mayan Shamans could travel through time and
space. Others believe that the Quetzquatl was a space traveler
from another place.
Why would a
people be measuring time in 26,000 increments? We tend to think
of ancient cultures as less sophisticated in some manner.
However, when you consider the accomplishments of astronomers of
that time, they were quite advanced. The Maya had a
counting system that included the concept of 'zero.' Their
calendar is more accurate than the western calendar in use
today. It is based on a 13 month system and is a prophetic
calendar. Events have occurred through time that seem to
validate the prophecies. At Chi Chen Itza there is a
building that looks like a modern day observatory including the
domed top and a slit that would have made a tiny sliver of the
night sky appear with all the southern sky objects passing
through the slice.
Were the
ancient Maya involved in space travel or even time travel?
The story of the Incan Emperor King and scholar, Montezuma,
would seem to indicate that it was so. Montezuma could
apparently read the ancient Mayan texts from the thousands of
books or 'codices' still existing in his time in the libraries
left by the Maya. As story goes, Montezuma learned about
the departure of the Quetzquatl character. Quetzquatl as
some tell the story, was a light skinned being who lived among
the Mayan people. Described as a 'feathered serpent,'
Quetquatl announced he would return to the sun from which had
come. He flew away and said he would return at a
particular time. Montezuma deciphered the time and
realized it was the time for the return of the "great white
brother." Montezuma sent runners down to the ocean and,
according to one story, on the fourth day, Cortez sailed into
Vera Cruz to fulfill the prophecy.
The rest of
the story is the history of the Spanish explorers searching for
gold, silver, and other treasures and trying to get close to
Montezuma as they were outnumbers thousands to one among the
Aztec warriors. The incredible sublimation of the Aztec
culture was the result of the Conquistadores meeting the four
main prophecies required as proof that they were the Great White
Brother. Within a period of 30 some odd days, Montezuma
was captured, held prisoner for ransom, and then beheaded by the
Spaniards. The Great White Brother returned and that was
the beginning of the end of the great Aztec culture.
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Bill Thomason
Your NLP Success
Coach
and Certified NLP
Trainer
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