It’s mid-July, now and, like others who teach at universities around the world, I am putting the finishing touches on courses for the Fall term. I am also getting ready for the next singing season as well; getting the music, putting the finances together for our European tour next summer and, at the same time, doing all of my “normal” consulting work. It is, when you sit back and look at it, a somewhat strange existence and it has led me to do some thinking about the subjective perception of time.

There are several basic perceptual categories that all people deal with; “time” and “space” being two of the most important and, at least subjectively, two of the most malleable. In general, we tend to use three spatial metaphors for time:

• time is cyclical
• time is linear
• time is a spiral

The perception of time as cyclical is probably the oldest. It is based on a repeating of patterns of actions, on the perception of a regularity of change in the environment (e.g. phases of the moon, seasons of the year, etc.), and on the predictable start of a seasonal activity such as, for me, teaching or singing.

Time, perceived as a linear continuum, is probably more recent. Christianity, with its conceptualization of time as having a beginning and an ending, is usually credited with the spread of this metaphor, and it influences many areas of our culture from physics (Big Bang to heat death of the universe), through religion (millenarianism, eschatology, etc.), to how we organize work (e.g. PERT charts, clocks, assembly lines, etc.).

Time as a spiral tends to be used by people who take a long view of history. When you do this, and I’m talking in thousands of years not decades, you can easily see repeated patterns and forms (cycles), but each repetition is slightly different leading your sense to demand an additional dimension, one in which change can happen.

This idea of dimensionality, applied to examining our metaphors of time, can be quite useful. Of the three major metaphors we use, the first two, cyclical and linear time, are two-dimensional while the third, spiral time, is three dimensional. Each metaphor has its utility and each has its structural requirements for coming to the fore in our personal or group perceptions of time.

Cyclical time requires that the dominant personal and/or group “ground of being” (in the phenomenological sense) be cyclical. Examples of this would be the Seasonal Round of hunting & gathering, pastoralist and agricultural groups. Ideological/Religious examples would include the Christian “Church Year” cycle and the Wiccan Sabbats. The key behind this is the personal (and social) importance attached to particular cyclical events in the environment such as planting and harvest, or migration patterns. Cyclical time includes an assumption about “what should be” and “what happens together” (aka Mutual Arising in Buddhist thought).

Linear time, on the other hand, allows for the concept of cause and effect. “Events” do not happen because “it is time” but, rather, must have some antecedent that sets the conditions for them. Linear time holds the structural option and, in some cases, the requirement, for constructing the “universe” in a mechanical manner, something that is impossible (or at least extremely difficult) in cyclical time. It also opens up the possibility for “breaking a cycle” or (re-)constructing component parts of “reality”.

Spiral time is an intriguing concept that, on the whole, has never really “caught on” with any particular culture as a dominant form. In part, this is because the structural requirements for it are somewhat peculiar - specifically the requirement to notice patterns of regularity, patterns of change and, also, the vector (for want of a better word) of those patterns of change. It tends to be the province of certain mystical schools (check out the Corpus Hermeticum for example) and of those whose business it is to examine the past and look to the future (e.g. Historians, Anthropologists, etc.).

Metaphors of time have an effect on how people perceive many things. One of the most important is what in the West is referred to as the “Free Will vs. Predestination” debate. Cyclical time is inherently predestinarian. Individual actions may enhance or disturb the flow of the cycle but, eventually, the cycle will be completed and return to its start.

“Action”, within a cyclical conceptualization of time, is always justified in relation to the cycle, and all conceivable (both permissible and impermissible) actions are located in that cycle. Consider, by way of example,

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Cyclical time conditions perceptions of reality into binary oppositions, each of which has its place in the cycle, and the “rightness” of any given action is based on the cyclical phase in which it takes place. This last point, that the “rightness” or moral value of an action is determined by the current phase of a cycle, has some very important implications when it comes to interactions between cultures based on cyclical time and cultures based on linear time.

Linear time, on the other hand, is inherently based around some form, either individual or social, of Free Will. Linear time parses out duration not into phases of a cycle but, rather, into individually discrete units of time that, once past, may never be experienced again. This leads to the conceptualization of “time” as a “resource” that is scarce (cf Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, for the social evolution of this concept).  At the same time, it also implies that the future is mutable and may be changed by human actions.

Francis Bacon, in Novum Organon (Latin original, English 1863 translation), points towards the mechanical nature of time

There remains but one course for the recovery of a sound and healthy condition — namely, that the entire work of the understanding be commenced afresh, and the mind itself be from the very outset not left to take its own course, but guided at every step; and the business be done as if by machinery.

And, later on (Book 1, aphorism XLVIII), towards the dangers of assuming general patterns

The human understanding is unquiet; it cannot stop or rest, and still presses onward, but in vain. Therefore it is that we cannot conceive of any end or limit to the world, but always as of necessity it occurs to us that there is something beyond. Neither, again, can it be conceived how eternity has flowed down to the present day, for that distinction which is commonly received of infinity in time past and in time to come can by no means hold; for it would thence follow that one infinity is greater than another, and that infinity is wasting away and tending to become finite. The like subtlety arises touching the infinite divisibility of lines, from the same inability of thought to stop. But this inability interferes more mischievously in the discovery of causes; for although the most general principles in nature ought to be held merely positive, as they are discovered, and cannot with truth be referred to a cause, nevertheless the human understanding being unable to rest still seeks something prior in the order of nature. And then it is that in struggling toward that which is further off it falls back upon that which is nearer at hand, namely, on final causes, which have relation clearly to the nature of man rather than to the nature of the universe; and from this source have strangely defiled philosophy. But he is no less an unskilled and shallow philosopher who seeks causes of that which is most general, than he who in things subordinate and subaltern omits to do so.

All of these patterns, the “final causes” that Bacon mentions, are actually those rooted in cyclical time.  They are not “true causes” but, rather, explanations or “stories” produced by the “nature of man” that serve to stifle the examination of the “nature of the universe”.

Bacon’s Novum Organon sparked much of the Western conceptualization of linear time.  By separating out “time” from a cycle and placing it in a line, time becomes not only a “scarce resource” but, also, something that may be manipulated and exchanged.  Indeed, the concept of time as a resouce underlies much of past and current economic thinking and practice.  By way of example, think of sayings such as “time is money” or “invest your time wisely” and, also, for the practice of hourly wages.

Linear conceptualizations of time allow for the commodification and quantification of time.  Commodification allows for exchange, e.g. hourly wage labour, and quantification allows for the development of predictive models.  But, once such models have been achieved, and regardless of their efficacy, inherent within them is the concept that, with some tinkering, the “future” can be changed. But, if the “future” can be changed, then “that which is” is merely a story that “we” tell ourselves and, with the appropriate tinkering, we have the ability to compose a “new” story.  Such thinking is apparent in the revolutionary movements of the 18th century in both the United States and in France.

By the early 19th century, this thinking gave rise to concepts of social engineering in the works of such thinkers as Henri de Saint-Simon and his protege Auguste Comte (founder of Sociology).  Comte, in an act of plagiarism that rivals that of many modern undergraduates, used a stage model for social progression that he stole from Turgot.  These stages are worth looking at since they actually deal with shifts in the perceptual metaphors of time.

1. Before men understood the causal connections between natural phenomena, what was more likely than that they should have supposed them to be caused by supernatural spirits, which, though invisible, were like themselves?”
2. When philosophers recognised the absurdity of these deistic fables, but before they had won an understanding of natural history, they sought to explain the causes of these phenomena with the help of abstract expressions such as essence and quality.
3. Only later were hypotheses evolved on the basis of observing the interdependent mechanical influences of bodies, hypotheses which were developed by mathematics, and subjected to experimental verification.

This third stage, which Comte called the Positive Stage (hence the term Positivism), later gave rise to F.W. Taylor’s concept of Scientific Management (Wikipedia) and the rise of the Fordist model of mass production.  This application of parsed and engineered linear time changed the general social perceptions of time for most of North America.  There are some other, much more subtle, influences that this mass adoption and imposition of linear time placed on the culture of North America (more heavily in the United States than in Canada for a variety of reasons that I won’t go into here).

First, it engendered an exteriorization of the flow of time.  That’s a fancy way of saying that the sense of time/duration felt by an individual was/is being regulated by something outside of that individual - a clock, a whistle, a bell - in “work” related settings.  The problem is that “objective time”, as measured by a clock, does not always match “subject time” (i.e. individually perceived duration).  Subjectively, “time” (actually perceived duration) can “speed up” or “slow down”; think about quips like “where did the time go?” or “I spent a couple of months in Toledo one night.”.  One of the effects of exteriorizing the flow of time is that it interferes with the sense of what psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi calls “flow” by constructing an artificial and external interference with activity.  For many in North America, the experience of “flow” is limited to what we call “play” or, occasionally, certain other well understood activities with clear “rules”.  But, for people operating with a primary metaphor of cyclical time, “flow” is a constant; it is how you “know” where you are in the cycle.

A second influence is more related to conceptualizations of constructing the “future”.  In particular, if the future is mutable, and the causes of effects can be known, then it should be possible to bring about almost any future if you can a) understand its causal pre-cursors and b) develop the necessary technologies (including technique) to cause those pre-cursors to happen.  Or, to put it more colloquially, there is always a technological solution to any problem if only we can find it.

The third metaphor of time, “time is a spiral”, requires some unique and difficult to develop psychological attributes.  First, you have to be able to switch back and forth between cyclical and linear time which, speaking from personal experience, can be a very tricky proposition.  Second, you have to be able to stand “outside of time” so that you can observe that third dimension.  Finally, and this is a structural requirement, you have to have a socio-economic environment (actually a recognized and supported social role) that will let you get away with this.  In the modern world, this tends to be some form of academic - Historian, Anthropologist, Physicist, etc.  Probably the classic stereotype in the modern world is the “absent minded professor”.

The differing cultures produced by dominant metaphors of time have a certain amount of difficulty in communicating with each other, for pretty understandable reasons.  If time is cyclical, then the future is ordained and the goal of living is to keep the cycle as close to “true” or “perfect” as possible.  If time is linear, then the future is mutable and the goal of living is to make the future better (for some group).  If time is a spiral, then the future is only partly mutable and the goal of living is to understand that fixity and mutability and choose their own applied focus (if any).  In Levi-Straussian terms, we have some pretty serious oppositions going on.

Time                          “Good”                   “Evil”

Cyclical                      status quo             change
Linear                         change                  status quo
Spiral                          knowledge            ignorance

It’s probably a “good” thing that the spiral metaphor never dominated any particular culture since it is antithetical to both of the others.

Now, as a cautionary note, I have described the social “good” of the cyclical time metaphor as “status quo”, and this is not quite accurate.  A more accurate definition would be something along the lines of “maintaining the ‘eternal’ verities [of the cycles], but open to surface modification”.  At the same time, the social “good” within linear time should be more accurately defined as “bringing about change with certain ideals in mind as the goal or endstate”.

Just considering the cyclical and linear characterizations of what is “good” and what is “evil”, and remember that these are culturally defined and constructed as “right and proper action” vs “wrong and dangerous action”, we can see where some of the current “political” problems in places like Iraq and Afghanistan come from.  The same can also be said of situations where linear time dominates one component of a persons life while cyclical time dominates another.  An interesting North American example of this is the “conflict” between “work” and “family”; “work” being dominated by linear time, and our cultural ideas of “family” being based on cyclical time.

As someone who operates using spiral time and the even weirder metaphor of quantum time (don’t ask, it’s almost impossible to describe since it is based in six dimensional thinking / perception), I tend to see both patterns [cycles] and linearity.  What I find fascinating about it all is the hold that these metaphors have on us, both as individuals and as cultures.  It is, for me at least, a “good thing” that we have the social role of “academic” :).