ephemerism

part I - ediface

The sand passes from the top of the timekeeper to the bottom, it is regulated by the median area - the narrow point. So, it can be reasonably posited that the upper globe represents the future, the median represents the present, and the lower globe represents the past.

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However, a confrontation with the uncomfortable leaps to the fore: The future, as an idea, visualization, or imagination is easy to grasp. The past is likewise effortless to know. The problem lies in the definition of the present.

As science has illuminated our world, it has cast the light of a thousand suns upon all manner of magic and lore. Strangely, and perhaps ironically, this enlightenment has (through its contrast) cast a heavy shadow over the most inherently and instinctively ingrained experience of all people - the passage and definition of time itself. So central to our being, all attempts to describe its form become redundant and self-referencial. One of my chief joys in life, as one foot totters in the grave, is watching anyone attempt to define what time actually is. I’m not sure who does a poorer job - the physicist or the philosopher. Both are left struggling, until they trail off and change the subject. That’s the point of the diatribe: Chronos doesn’t keep time as his domain - it’s the other way around. The true author and finisher of all faiths. That ubiquitous thing.

“The planck time is the time it would take a photon, traveling at the speed of light, to cross a distance equal to the planck length. This is the quantum of time - the smallest measurement of time that has any meaning, and is equal to 10 to the negative 43 seconds. No smaller division of time has any meaning. Within the framework of the laws of physics as we understand them today, we can say that the universe came into existence when it already had an age of 10 to the negative 43 seconds.” -- Dan Summons - University of Southampton

Ergo, the present tense becomes a more difficult assumption. As such, a supposition is in order: That what is known and perceived as the present is the planck time, and is not actually perceivable in it’s moment. For example: As you are reading these words, say to yourself “This is now.” By the time that thought travels through your mind and is verbally expressed, it is already in the past. So, in essence, the present is, for all practical purposes, an illusion. There is no present.

And what of the future? If the present is an illusion, then the future is actually unattainable. The future will always be the future. It can be likened to coins falling into the cushion of a couch or chair. As you reach down to grab them, they fall further down. The same can be said for the future. It’s an eternal striving for something that can never be captured. If the present is an illusion, and the future is unattainable, we are actually creatures of the past. To paraphrase William Faulkner “You may be done with the past, but the past is never done with you.”

This carries a heavy load of implications.