Pylimitics

If human life spans were just a few months, we would think about the world entirely differently. Events we now ignore as too minuscule, if we even notice them, would take on far more importance. Projects that take a year or more would be enormous undertakings, like building a cathedral in Europe centuries ago. 

In the same vein, although at the other extreme, imagine our lifespan lasted for centuries. It would change the things we notice and find significance. Astronomical and geological events would be things we could observe, maybe in their entirety. “Remember back in the day, before the continents drifted back together?”

The way we experience time changes within the confines of our real lifespans, too. When I was a child, I looked forward to Christmas morning, but it felt like it took forever to arrive. In midlife, my own children grew up at an astonishing speed; how could each of those years have sped by so quickly? Now that I’m retirement age, some aspects of time have continued to speed up. A year now doesn’t feel like much time. But other experiences of time simultaneously slow down. My body takes longer to heal now. I can concentrate for longer than I once could, and those times of close concentration both expand, passing more slowly, and somehow also speed past. It’s not something that easily fits normal, logical description. And while it’s subjectively true, I suspect it’s not objectively verifiable. 

It turns out to be harder than I thought to objectively verify some things about time. In physics — not the high-school-level physics of levers and forces, but advanced theoretical physics, time is described like Einstein did: “For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” 

I don’t know quite what Einstein meant by “believing physicists,” but the phrase makes me think about the role of belief in science. I’m not talking about religious belief; but belief itself. For one thing, we observe our own solar system, and  believe it to be a stable, predictable system. But our observations are inextricably intertwingled with our own personal time. The length of our lives. The limits of our attention. Because depending on your point of view — or you point in time — our solar system is both stable and wildly chaotic. 

And so are many things. The mad buzzing and complex flight path of a housefly is chaotic to us. On the other hand, looking back at my own life, it seems a mostly stable process in a reliable medium. But change the time scale and it would be a madcap, herky-jerky clown show. It’s both. And so are many things.