I'm not going to get into the relativity of it, because we did all that recently. All I'm going to say is that it's bloody cold out! I've been off today, so, predictably enough, I've spent the day in town again. As the day has progressed, though, it's become substantially colder, and it wasn't all that warm to begin with. Around three-quarters of an hour ago, I made it into 'work-town' Wetherspoons, and I'm now luxuriating reasonably close to a nice, warm (gas) fire, pleased to announce that I can now feel my fingers again!
I had a longish and interesting chat with my daughter while I was on the bus coming over here, starting with a discussion around the 'nature of time' speculations I blogged about yesterday - she leans in the direction of time being an invention rather than a discovery, too - and ending with the fact that she finds many of her coevals irritatingly unintelligent and immature. Being bright can be a double-edged sword, as I know all too well - I would never want to wish my intelligence away, and neither, I think, would my daughter, but it isn't necessarily an attribute which many find admirable, which can make it as much a burden as a blessing. Sometimes it's easier to be part of the crowd, but, ultimately, it's far less interesting or rewarding, in my opinion.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
I agree wholeheartedly with your thoughts on this. Been there, done that, now, in this job, sort of on the other side - not so intelligent, just part of the crowd at times.
ReplyDeletePeace <3
Jay
Hello Jay
DeleteIt's ironic, in some ways, that so many people seem to sneer at the idea of intelligence, given that it's the attribute that makes our species most distinctive, when compared with the rest of the biosphere. Maybe there's an inferiority complex at play somewhere.
Love & best wishes
Sammy B
Hello Sammy,
ReplyDeleteForgive me for break my self-imposed banishment from your comments section.
But I find the discussion of "the nature of time' you and your daughter had to be most interesting.
And since she is a musician, I find myself reminded of the following passage from the George Steiner novel, "The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H.":
"Music is freedom in/from time. All other human activities and sensations have in them a temporal axis. A linear thread of time sequence runs through them. But it is a thread from outside, from a system of coordinates already established and often alien to their nature.
Even a dream, even a bout of delirium does not create its own time. It merely compresses or distorts an outwardly determined temporality. Time pulsates in a crystal and flattens space in the center of the galaxy.
No reality is accessible to human understanding outside the a priori grid of time, says Immanuel Kant. No reality except one. That of music…A piece of music takes time but not in the ordinary sense, not in reference to the clock. It sets itself a cross the general flow of time in which we conduct our regimented lives with a specific assertion of freedom so absolute as to dwarf other pretenses at liberty be they political, private, orgiastic. Music is the only reality perceptible to man that governs time. It draws out of our flesh that arrow of past-present-future implanted at the instant of birth and speeding away from us in outrageous anonymity at the moment of death….
When we listen to music we are at once within and wholly outside the banal sovereignty of our clocks."
Perhaps you could share this with her.
Cheers,
-Andy
Hello Andy
DeleteYou are welcome here, as, indeed, everyone else is, and welcome to agree or disagree with what I post, but I reserve the right of reply, to agree or disagree with what you might say.
That aside, the nature of time is one of those subjects, like the first three minutes after the Big Bang, that are endlessly interesting, very difficult and, at least in the current state of human knowledge, possibly unknowable. The quotation is interesting, but written from the perspective of someone on 'the other side of the fence' from me, as far as this subject is concerned, the belief that time has some real, concrete existence in the universe, which I don't subscribe to. It's a psychological artifact, something learned rather than innate, as I see it. The idea that music somehow transcends time strikes me as slightly odd, too, in that music is a deliberate ordering of sound within a rhythmical structure, the number of beats in a bar, to put it simplistically, which seems to me to require the use of the perception of time passing, whether time itself is real or illusory, to make any sense. There's no doubt that music can take people to places that they wouldn't normally go, can have a dramatic effect on moods and emotions, both on an individual and group level, but can it take us outside of time or our idea of time? I don't believe so. Food for thought, and for further discussion, though. Thank you for sharing this.
Love & best wishes
Sammy B