The Cistern

Time

Generally, we take our time for granted. When we think of time, we probably think in terms of entropy in the sense that a fallen glass that breaks doesn't unbreak itself. Entropy, in a scientific sense, is thought of as being measured "toward disorder". It overlooks that something, somewhere, put everything in immaculate order as a starting place.

Then, maybe we should think of time instead not as a piece of entropy, but rather the apparent forward motion consistent with a choice. We experience a forward momentum on the basis of making a choice. We do not experience a "backward momentum" on the basis of making some other choice. We marry this person, not that one. There is no "what if" unless there is a divorce or an affair. These are discrete, time-based events that have definite outcomes.

In a sense then, we are really measuring faith, or what we believed in that led us to make a choice, versus fruits or the outcome of the choice itself. A tree can develop new fruits per a given harvest, but it does not make fruits from the previous harvest next year. The harvest is done.

It is possible, however, to examine many harvests over a given interval. Time is still present here, but the experience is different. If one were examining say, a 200 year spread, then 200 years would be instantaneous from that perspective. That our consciousness can do this trick shows that our consciousness experiences time partly due to its placed markers on reality. There is, of course, a hypothetical number which no human consciousness could meaningfully extra any useful data from since it would be too vast. This would be the limitation of human consciousness in a given period to perceive an interval of time.

Therefore, we could say we experience a tendency toward order in the passing of time in that we experience many types of harvests in our lives. The absolute frame of reference is that there is always a harvest. The relative frame of reference is "how much time you can meaningfully and usefully make sense of".