1.11.11

Earworms and Talking Heads, An Accessible Simile to Time

Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground
Into the blue again, after the money's gone
Once in a Lifetime, water flowing underground
same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was
--From Talking Heads' Once In a Lifetime, Lyrics by Keith Urban

The Quran encourages us to reflect on natural phenomena in order to conceptualize God without the ability to make a direct observation of 'God' while we are alive, since just like envisioning a hyperdimensional object in a lower dimension it is near impossible to phathom an Infinite Being when we are limited by the 4-Dimensional Spacetime we are born into.

In 'A Gardner Like That One,' following the geometry of how spacetime evolves from 'spin foam' led to the conclusion that Time does not exist near the Planck scale, that it is discontinous and changes abruptly from one tick to the next.

While the observation and the math is correct, the analysis is skewed by the fact that Time's apparent disappearance is akin to 'water flowing underground' (an allusion is made to this effect in Sign 6:6, Time/like water flowing beneath them like a River) where we can't directly observe it, rather than its popping into and out of existence. The conclusion that something (Time in this case) goes to Nothing and then emerges from Nothing just doesn't make any sense (ie., that Information is Lost then Wanders back out of the Void, with the memory to pick up where it left off?).

The apparent discontinuity may better be explained if we look for an accessible similitude (As Above, So Below), the same way we can intuitively comprehend an Infinite Being (God) with our limited Human faculties, Time can be understood in a similar fashion as we observe the Earth's Water Cycle. Actually, the Water Cycle is mentioned quite often throughout the Quran, and Time is alluded to as flowing like a River (the homonym Days/Time/River).

PS Before I forget:
He Says: The Smartest Thing I Ever Did My Whole Life Was Never To Say A Word To That Girl.
She Says: That's Why Telepathy Was Invented, Dear.

No comments:

Post a Comment