Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
T. S. Eliot, Burnt Norton
Time is a strange affair. I swear it’s elastic: the past is sometimes far away and at other times near-to-hand; the future is generally unknowable, but always informed by what we comprehend of our past. In time’s elasticity is the very source of its fascination, for it is endlessly interactive with the very vessel which contains and gives it shape – the cognitive mind. Each of us constantly attempts to re-write the past to suit our present needs and mental images; and each of us constantly seeks to control the future through our present actions and beliefs. And to the extent that time can be said to have no meaning absent interaction with cognition, we are far more successful in these attempts than would be otherwise suggested by the concept of “fact”.
In theoretical constructs, facts are supposedly immutable. But outside of the scientific world, many so-called “facts” are, in reality, shapeshifters. While a given “fact” may have had one meaning in a prior incarnation, it may well assume a subtly different meaning in another to become a fulcrum from which the courses of a life, both past and future, might be altered. Mind you, such shapeshiftings are not lies. Far from it. They are merely the result of fusion, of the interaction of a cognitive mind’s current chemistry with the factual substances which give it form and content in the first place. And in this manner, time demonstrates its elasticity – time, and time again.
Does “time” have a meaning outside of a cognitive mind? Inanimate objects give it little heed, although it may be the cause of their gradual disintegration or transmutation into something new or different. Within a given scientific theorem, time may well be a vital dimension which gives form to a universe composed of animate and inanimate matter. In this context, time must have meaning absent an interaction with cognition. But within its interaction with cognition, lies the source of its power. For, lacking cognition, inanimate objects don’t care if they change over time; only animate objects do. And animate, cognitive objects are fascinated with the limitations upon their being; limitations placed upon them by the passages of time.
So what does all this mean? Only time may tell, but only if there is a different sort of time lying beyond the boundaries of that which we cognitively enjoy.
It is early on the morning following my retirement from forty-three years of practicing law, so forgive me while I ponder aloud about the meaning of time and if my pondering is meaningless. For with one major tranche of my life complete, I am trembling on the brink of another, wondering the while whether the truths that informed my past are sufficient to inform my future.
