The gift of time

To escape the daily frustration of wondering what Manchin/Sinema will do I spent most of the morning yesterday finishing The Order of Time by physicist Carlo Rovelli. It's a beautifully written little book, almost poetic at times, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. But it doesn't completely answer the question of what time is because, well, it's not completely understood. 

Even on a quantum level where it is known to be nondirectional (!), granular, and to require heat, among other things, there are still diverse opinions. Gravity plays a role, of course, in how fast or slow time moves. But time has essentially disappeared in the quantum world, replaced by interactions between variables and entropy, i.e. change. Constant, inevitable, ongoing, never ending change.

Without change there is, apparently, no time. No past, no present, no future. We cannot comprehend that because there are no words to encompass the idea. We move forward day after day knowing there was a yesterday and will be a tomorrow. But on the quantum level, where everything is born, those words are meaningless.

Interestingly, hundreds of years ago the length of an hour depended on the season, because they were spread across the 12 hours of the day, sun up to sun down. So in winter hours were short and in summer long. I suppose that works if you rely on sundials.

But we have clocks now, lots of clocks, all busy measuring this period of great change and frustrating, awful, confusion. The level of trauma that exists across the globe cannot be measured, but it is certainly felt by all, if only on a subconscious level.

The Global Consciousness Project has tracked global events for 15 years. Events like 9-11 and the George Floyd killing influenced the 70 random number generators around the world to become subtly structured, measurable events of coherent consciousness, with one in a trillion odds against chance. The ongoing consistency of our current unease probably doesn't qualify as an event but the idea that humanity's consciousness can be coherent enough to reveal itself is fascinating.

Unfortunately science can't tell us how consciousness works or just how the brain plays a role, since it can't explain what consciousness is. Rovelli wisely avoids that problem but he does link to it:

[The way we humans view time] "is suitable for our daily life but it's not suitable for understanding the world in its minute folds, or in its vastness. In all likelihood, it is not even sufficient for understanding our own nature, because the mystery of time intersects with the mystery of our personal identity, and with the mystery of consciousness."

I feel lucky to be alive as the world explores and awakens to new understandings and new visions of such mysteries. Hooray for the Webb telescope! I can hardly wait to see what it reveals. Life is a fascinating, endless source of amazement and beauty, and of constant, surprising change.

"The entire evolution of science," says Rovelli, "would suggest that the best grammar for thinking about the world is that of change, not permanence. Not of being, but of becoming."

This is a hopeful statement coming from a scientist. Becoming means opportunity for improvement. It means it's no longer enough to just be. We and our world must inevitably—sorrowfully or joyfully—change, grow, become. What a gift that is.