Time: An Illusion or An Existential Definition

Date: 30^th June 2019

Time: 07:00 p.m. India time

         : 05:30 a.m. Colombia time

         : 02:30 p.m. England time

         : 06:30 p.m. Pakistan time

Now time is supposed to be constant, but the above time zones beg to differ. An average Indian would be watching the India v/s England world cup match and gorging on some hot pakodas in the gloomy monsoon weather. To a big contrast, an average Pakistani must be praying that India wins the match today for them to survive in the world cup and Colombians will be getting up with some major hangover after the salsa laden alcoholic party the previous night. The time is the same but humans are engaging in so many activities that even a Cartesian co-ordinate system won’t be able to measure on its axis. At the same time, somewhere in Australia, a star will be shining in the bright night sky which has traversed millions of light years before. Now sitting on the couch with some nice pakoras and the lackluster Indian bowling performance induced me to ponder: “What exactly is time?”

Now Engineering and Masters in Marketing has a unique way of playing into your imagination with reverse psychology. Within no time the thought process goes from “What exactly is time?” to “What if there was no time in this world?”

The World of Sports:

Without time to glorify his achievements, Michael Phelps would be working in a Beer manufacturing company in Australia. The other Michael (Schumacher) would be getting a doctorate in Automobile Engineering and joining as a Management trainee in ‘Volkswagen’. Usain Bolt would be taking a chill pill on his hammock sipping beer on the quaint beaches of Jamaica where he would be a bar tender.

Usain Bolt's Life in a Timeless dimension

The World of History:

Innocent students would not be required to mesmerize if Harappa civilization was in A.D. or B.C. Major events like the Indian Independence Day and the Boston tea party would be lost to history and memories of people. There would be no stroke of mid night hour for the world to sleep and India to wake up to life and freedom. Martin Luther King would not have the dream that one day the nation would have risen.

The World of Astrology:

Well there would not be a world of Astrology! Without birth dates and the time keeping practice of Sun passing through the constellations, who would say that you are a Cancerian or a ‘Manglik’. You could choose to be Sagittarius or Scorpion. How would the Pandits determine whether the husband will die after marriage or the women will be blessed with 100 children. Astrology has a funny way of messing around with people’s lives solely based on time.

Einstein would have retired as a patent clerk

World of Science:

To the distress of my Science teachers, there would not be kinetic equations for velocity and acceleration. Einstein would be patiently retiring from the patents office without bothering his relativity theories of time dimension. How would you even differentiate equations with respect to time 😊? In your face Galileo: If you did not have the concept of time then how would you have invented Calculus!!! Stars would just be shining objects without Gravitational force differential equations troubling them. Doppler would be a normal guy with a normal life and wife.

The entire locus of Life would have changed if we do did not have time. But the matter of fact is that we are defined in every second of our life with time. Yet we do not grasp the true nature of time. Is it bound by seconds and years or is it the definition of experiences of Men or Saturn or Andromeda galaxy.  How did time start and when will it end? Is there even a concept called time in the universe or is it just the normal human idiosyncrasy to get law and order to the universe. Break up parts of our life and of the surroundings into small bits which would be process able by the human brain. Is ‘time’ the invention or curse of the recently evolved pre-frontal cortex of the human brain. 

Apes convening on when to evolve into 'Humans'

Let’s rewind to the year 100,000 B.C. I can’t imagine the Neanderthal man putting up an alarm of 06:00 a.m. to go for his morning jog. Did the Apes gather around their Planet of Apes Sarpanch and decide in the year 10,000,001 B.C that we should now evolve into humans? Did the virus have a telecon to discuss on the exact time to disintegrate into newer cells and parasitize onto other living beings. In fact, the Moon would have decided with Satan to have 8 phases and allow the Werewolves to come to life once in those phases.

The concept of time came with the periodicity of the Sun and Moon. This bought the concept of seasons for man and the animals. Now like every greedy foolish human on the earth, we wanted to capitalize on the knowledge of seasonality to get tamed by agriculture. Animals have their mating rituals on the seasons which are defined. Now humans had that special bug in a special place to have the audacity to define or rather run the entire world on one parameter ‘Time’.

William Shakespeare put it across so succinctly:

“Time is slow for those who wait, very fast for those who are scared, very long for those who lament, very short for those who celebrate, but for those who love, time is eternal”

We all go through these emotions in our lives. How can one emotion slow the time and other emotion fasten the time. Ask any elderly married couple about ‘time being eternal’ and you will get the most defensive expression. Only humans can define and feel their emotions as a function of time. Ask the squirrel or Hippopotamus about what time they get up or sleep or run around their life. No sane animal (except humans) would pay heed to the concept of time.   

It's actually 'Time' watching you!!

‘Time’ as a concept defines our existence but it is nothing but a figment of our imagination. Rather a collective imagination of 7.5 billion people on this earth. Time is what defines us and even governs us. Like every 1.3 billion Humans in India, I shall listen to my master(time) who is saying that 45 minutes break is over and it’s time for India’s batting in the match.

Just like the ‘Big Brother’ in the novel of 1984, we have our master ‘Time’ who has enslaved us and who shall rule us for eternity!!