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This series of articles were posts to the Exegesis email list, a list dedicated to the discussion of the theories and philosophies of Astrology. I have not edited them: they appear as they were submitted between March 22, 2000 and June 26, 2000. They are provided on this site for the convenience of those who requested their availability.

 

Introduction

In this series of articles, I attempt to explore the nature of time as we experience it. It is within that context that we interact with our environment and develop our interior reality, creating such understanding as serves to further our survival. There, then, is where we must create the tools to generate that understanding.

None of the concepts I present here are original with me, nor, I suspect, are the applications to which I put them. I merely submit my own thoughts to add to the already extensive material extant. Therefore, I must refuse credit for the ideas expressed herein; I gladly take responsibility such shortcomings as may be discovered in this particular application.

March 22, 2000

 

We all seem to agree that time is a major part of astrology, and from a cursory inspection of historical documents, it appears that this has always been the case. I suggest, then, that time is an appropriate subject to consider here, so that we can attempt to determine whether our knowledge and understanding of time is adequate to the task of developing a theoretical base for astrology. As you have already guessed, I'm going to put forth some thoughts on the matter; the purpose is not to pontificate, but to inspire discussion.

I propose that time is a metric, a proper measure, of process. In order for that proposal to make sense, it's probably appropriate to consider the concept of process, and return to time when we've looked more closely at process. So we turn to the subject of process.

The word itself derives from 'proceed' which is from the Latin meaning 'to go forth'. Implied here is action (go) and direction (forth), which express the idea of change with purpose. Action expresses change, and direction demonstrates an intention arising from purpose. This may seem like dealing with matters that are irrelevant and/or immaterial, but that is an assumption that may not be well founded. What we've done is to identify the fundamental attributes of 'process'. This will make it easier to be clear about what we are discussing here.

Process, then, is a means to effect change with intent. Now, one thing that has been proposed about change is that no change takes place instantly, that all change must possess the dimension of time, if only as simply as duration. When we add intent to change, duration become too simple, I suggest, because it only describes a comparison to some chosen common standard, like a day or a year. It does not address the specific source of the intention, which seems of primary importance, and so the measure of that dimension must take into account not only a common standard, but some expression of the source's relationship to that standard as well. We can see that time is not a simple matter to define, although we are not yet saying what sorts of considerations must be involved.

In order to make these matters clearer, let us imagine what sort of action might warrant simple duration as a measure. We can conceive of a simple movement, where the purpose of that movement is irrelevant. When we look closely at this simple movement, we find that it's not so simple after all: the movement has a beginning and an end between which the motion takes place. Now, we've already suggested that no change takes place without a temporal dimension, and since a beginning (of anything, in fact) is a change, it cannot occur instantly; the same is true of the end, of course. This means that the simplest movement we can imagine entails at least three distinct periods, two of which connect the movement to what went before and what happens afterwords.

We can understand these as the mechanisms by which the movement acquires context, and creates significance within the environment in which it took place. Hence, at least potentially, there is *no* activity that can be said to be completely described temporally by a simple statement of duration. We can make that determination for our own convenience, treating that activity (the movement) as a "black box entity" that we don't need to investigate in the normal course of things. But, at least within a certain cosmic scope, we can change that determination and address the movement itself as a complex entity.

Therefore, all activities within that cosmic scope or human modular, must be assumed to warrant a more complex temporal description than that of simple duration. Further, because all such activities exist within some environment, they must be assigned intrinsic significance: they are the expression of some sort of intent and have some sort of purpose, and this is true whether or not they are a part of human activity!

So we must assign certain basic attributes to the notion of process, and one of these, as we've shown, is that no process can be a simple entity, that all process(es) are complexes of at least three parts, two of which involve change. Another of these is that all process(es) exist within (an implied) environment, from which they originate and into which they are resolved. There are probably more basic attributes that are intrinsic in the concept of process, but these two are sufficient for the purpose of laying out the basics for the temporal dimension thereof.

There are some insights here, and one of those is that the environment within which a process takes place must also be a process: the environment itself is changed by the existence of the process of interest, and so must at least to that extent have the attribute of action, which itself must be defined as process. So we see that, at least within the human modular, we are forced to consider the notion that any process exists within a larger process. Further, said process also must contain at least two subprocesses. This makes our subject here rather more complex than we might have first imagined, and it also implies that there exists the potential for having to consider some indeterminate number of super and sub processes as well!

Hmmmm..... well, if this is so, then we are best prepared to address these matters immediately when we begin to develop the nature of the temporal dimensions involved. Otherwise, we'll risk trying to build our understanding on an obviously incomplete basis, and that's a waste of time and energy we would do well to at least try to avoid, I think.

Back to time.

We can see that the simplest manifestation of that dimension, as measured by duration alone, is inherently inadequate for any rigorous use. We can use that by itself for our own convenience, but it seems evident that we are not well advised to forget that we have done so, lest we be unprepared and so unable to look more closely at any given process; for example, we never know when we might have to have a more detailed and precise understanding, such as might be required if we have to tinker with and modify the process of interest.

If simple duration is inherently inadequate, we must ask what sorts of other properties or attributes must time (as a metric) possess in order to be useful.

Let's think about what is implied by these attributes of process that time must describe. First of all, we have identified at least two types of subprocesses that we can understand are part of any given process. To that extent, at least, all processes have a similarity, and this gives rise to another insight. For any given process, we can conceive that on a very basic level it is comprised of a series of similar processes, some of which are connected serially, such that the end of one marks the beginning of another. Of course, it's probably wise to observe that not all subprocesses have to be serially connected, that indeed there may be some number of other process series also taking place. But we have identified (for our purposes here) the first attribute that time must have in order to be a useful measure of the temporal dimension of process.

Before we do that, let's stop and make sure we understand what these various things we are considering are, or have become in our discussion. 1) A process is a complex of activity that generates some sort of change, and we have shown that all activity can be defined as process according to the meaning of the word itself: the aggregate of considerations involved in "going forth". 2) On the assumption that no change takes place instantaneously we can say that process requires a temporal dimension, the measure of which is some sort of time. Here, we see that temporality and time are two distinct concepts, that the first is the context in which the second is said to exist; an analogy is the notion of spacial dimensions (length, breadth, and width), the metric of which is distance: this analogy is the source of the concept of 'metric', incidentally. 3) The concept of process itself implies the existence of an hierarchy of super and subprocesses, here organized vertically according to the definitions of cosmic size: macrocosm and microcosm being in general the vertical extensions of the concept of cosmos itself. Thus, any given process is embedded within a larger process, which can be said to be macrocosmic, and so must also be comprised of smaller embedded processes, which can be said to be microcosmic.

There may be other matters that should be listed here, but let's go on.

This first attribute of time is one we already understand fairly well, and we call it the attribute of cyclicity. We say that time, at least to be useful to us, is well considered to be cyclic in nature. We say that as astrologers, because astrology teaches us something of the nature of cyclicity, and so we have a special understanding that cannot be expected of all people. For most people, time is simple duration, it is a measure of progress from the past to the future; we call this linear time and we can suspect that linear time is an incomplete perception of cyclic time, in that linear time does not describe a process, which must have context, and which is complex in fundamental nature, possessing some number of subprocesses. Cyclic time does all these things.

When we say that we, as astrologers, have a special understanding of the cyclic attribute of time, we do not mean to imply that everyone else is unaware of that attribute, but that they may not have the depth of understanding thereof that astrology has taught us. Clearly, the concepts of the day, the month and the year are well known as being interconnect in some number of ways, and that the day, the month, and the year constitute some sort of vertical hierarchy of embedded processes. The concept of cyclicity is well known in the turning of the seasons throughout the year, the phases of the moon, and the morning, daytime, evening and nighttime hours of the day.

I suggest that some fundamental part of the sorts of wisdom acquired by people as they grow older is an appreciation of cyclicity as an expression of embedded processes, and a growing understanding of life in general that results from such an appreciation. Such wisdom is said to comprehend the larger scope of things, the bigger picture, if you will. It seems evident that such comprehension can result from the insights accessible from the cyclic view of time, and we might argue that such a view may well be necessary to that comprehension; we learn that patience becomes more appreciated by the older wisdom, and that's very likely the result of having seen some number of basic or fundamental aspects of life repeat themselves in various guises, leading to the expectation that all things will come to he who waits in an intelligent and aware manner.

But we can argue that the recognition of cyclicity doesn't await the attainment of years, that even the young achieve that recognition. And I think the argument is valid. The question is, then, what is it that does await the attainment of years and experience? I would answer: understanding of what is recognized, understanding of what cycles are all about and of the fundamental role they play in our life's experience. The next question is: what is it that is missing in that initial recognition? And the answer, I suggest, is a useful conceptual structure, such that makes possible the acquisition of real time useful wisdom as a result of ongoing experience. Without such a structure, it seems that that acquisition process must achieve some sort of critical mass in order to produce useful understanding, and that simply takes time to occur. Which is why we hear the lament that we grow too soon old, and too late smart (supply your own cultural context here... the original is German, as I recall..).

If we can agree with these ideas, then we can perhaps agree that the cyclic attribute of time is a valuable thing to understand in general, and that the fundamental assumption that time is cyclic and not linear might be very worthwhile in our lives. Here, astrology, as we currently understand it, has the potential to have a very great value for modern times, I suggest. So far, it seems that this potential has not been significantly realized by astrology (astrologers?), and it seems appropriate to place a real emphasis on the development of a more useable astrological technology in this regard, such that might have better success in making a general understanding of temporal cyclicity readily available to all.

I suppose that I should close this post at this point, as it's probably already longer than is convenient for most readers. So I'll do so, with the statement that there is more to say on the subject, and so there should be at least one more segment that follows this post. This is not so much of a commitment to make a follow-up post as it is a warning that there is more to come.

What I've done in this post is to lay out the basic nature of time as we experience it, and give some ideas about the hows and the whys involved. For those who would observe that I've only stated the obvious, I can say that I've learned that what is obvious to one person may not be so to another; what we're trying to achieve here is a common understanding of the issues, if not a consensus concerning their nature (too much to expect... ah, well...). So I've here taken the task of starting the endeavor to build such an understanding.

Comments?

wtallman

© 2000