(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Time [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-12-28
Welcome to the Street Prophets Coffee Hour cleverly hidden at the intersection of religion and politics. This is an open thread where we can share our thoughts and comments about the day. How do you envision time?
One of the characteristics of language is that it has enabled humans to live in a four-dimensional world in which time is the fourth dimension. In the Scientific American publication, A Question of Time: The Ultimate Paradox, John Matson writes:
“Physicists often describe the fabric of the universe we inhabit as four-dimensional spacetime, comprising three dimensions of space and one of time.”
In another article in A Question of Time: The Ultimate Paradox, Paul Davies writes:
“All of eternity is laid out in a four-dimensional block composed of time and the three spatial dimensions.”
Language allows humans to talk and to think about the past and the future as well the present. Paul Davies reports:
“In daily life we divide time into three parts: past, present and future. The grammatical structure of language revolves around this fundamental distinction.”
As human societies became more complex and early civilizations—societies with agriculture, cities, and writing—developed, there was a need for a more formal way of organizing community activities, religious ceremonies, and other public events. By about 5,0000 years ago, the early civilizations in Babylon and Egypt had developed calendars based on the natural cycles which they had observed. In A Question of Time: The Ultimate Paradox, William Andrews reports:
“They based their calendars on three natural cycles: the solar day, marked by the successive periods of light and darkness as the earth rotates on its axis; the lunar month, following the phases of the moon as it orbits the earth; and the solar year, defined by the changing seasons that accompany our planet’s revolution around the sun.”
Open Thread
This is an open thread—all comments are welcome.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/12/28/2210707/-Time?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
