TIME: Is it real or an illusion?
Welcome to this wonderful ride of another amazing topic i shall be discussing with you guys. Today, i will looking at the concept of time.
Many of us usually say: time wait for no one, time is money, don't waste time. All these suggest that time is in 'motion' or something constantly moving. It suggest that it determines what we do in life and regulate how fast or slow we think.
A woman who is in her 30s in Nigeria would be reminded that time is against her! What are the people telling her? They are simply saying she is old enough to marry and at the same time going above the age she should be in a man's house. A man in his 30s also would be told to settle down and get a wife. So there is a time for everything in life as seen in Ecclesiastes:
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
In philosophy, the concept of time is more broad and it had generated lot of debates. There are arguments about tripartite nature of time - past, present and future, and dual nature of time - past and present.
Africans have always been faced with the question of rational philosophy. There are arguments that suggest Africans do do not have philosophies of their own. This view claims that we have philosophy only after the advent of colonialism. That is, after we came in contact with the White. So there are even many African scholars who subscribed to this view. Well i am not one of them!
Without deviating from the major argument on ground which is the concept of time, i shall proceed by looking at some views on the subject matter.
We have the presentists, the growing-past and their critics.
The presentists claim that only the present phenomena are real. To them, the past and future are illusion. Past and future, they claim, are things we cannot be certain about and as such they are not real. So present experiences are the only real phenomena for the presentists.
There are also the advocates of the growing-past who did not deny the view of the presentists but claims the past is real. For these people, only past and present are real. The future is nothing but an illusion. A pragmatist philosopher, William James, made a famous controversial claim about the concept of time when he said:
...the future is so unreal that even God cannot anticipate it. William James
Some of presentists and growing-past critics have also argued that the flow of time or man’s advance through time is an illusion. They claim, for example that words such as past, future and now, as well as the tenses of verbs, are lexical expressions that refer to the act of their own utterance. Hence the alleged change of an event from being future to being past is an illusion.
To say that event is future is to assert that it is later than this utterance; then later yet, when one says that it is in the past, he asserts that it is earlier than that other utterance, “past” and “future” are not real predicates of events, in this view, and change in respect of them is not a genuine change.
While there is this debate about the tripartite nature of time and whether it is real or illusion, some Africans believe that we can only talk about past and present and no future. J.S Mbiti, a Kenya philosopher maintains that Africans do not have future time.
“… according to traditional concepts, time is a two dimensional phenomenon, with a long past, a present and virtually no future”. J.S Mbiti
Time in African settings is part of their existence, it is not something different from them but what they do and bring to life. So time for the Aficans is part of their reality. And if this is true, can we say a reality not yet experieced is time?
Mbiti's assertion was echoed controversially when Léopold Sédar Senghor argues that reason is for the West and emotions is for the Africans. So he thought Africans are full of emotions and as such are not capable of rational thinking.
What do i think about the concept of time? I think it is a disturbance to the brain! It is always in ad infinitum. It is endless! I have my past experience like things i did while i was very young. So i have words about things that happened at a particular period. Now i am talking about these things and that the same time having present experience about new reality. By tomorrow, this experience will become past experience. Now i am also in the future of what i though about yesterday and this itself is in the present and by tomorrow it will be in the past.
So basically time works in ad infintum. It is a continuous process. It is always in motion. It cant be defined to mean particular thing because it is always in progress.
People have ideas about past, present, and future which also turns to present, past and future in regress. Time is real in the sense that it is always in motion. It is not static, it is not outside of us because time is us. In fact, we make time because it reality rest on what we do. To say it is outside us is to assume it is an entity different from us and can be accounted for without human.
What do you think? Is time real? Do you agree with me that it moves in circle? Do you think African truly have no idea of future time? Are we only emotional beings? What do you think about your time!
No time without human beings. I also agree with you that it moves in regress considering you analysis above. Thanks.
I won't want to jump into contribution without pointing to a popular saying;
In the real sense, we human being are always conscious of what we do which definitely in respect to time.
Come to think of it, A government worker will tell you, “Please do Quick ” “Time is against me” “I am getting late”, but why do we have all these? It's absolutely the essence of Time.
Categorically, I'll tell you Bro,
And Generally, if you are going to make any impact in Life, The time will Tell. If you don't do what you ought to do in the morning, and it was executed in the afternoon, the result that supposed to come in the afternoon will come at night....... So what will you do at Night? The simple answer is that you'll suffer what you ought to benefit from the the doings of afternoon.
TIME IS IN EVERYTHING........ WATCH OUT!!!
Valued opinon
Thanks for the appreciation
You got it totally wrong! In fact, your response is out of context! All you wrote above has no single connection with what i wrote! You were speaking in parables and deviated totally from the crux of the argument.
Firstly, is did not say time is not in everything! Secondly, i did not say time is not real to suggest your 'categorical' answer. So the two things you put in quotes have nothing to the with what i wrote.
Now to your words that if one does what one is supposed to to do in the morning in the afternoon, he will get afternoon result. You have no proof of that. In logic, we have different methods of solving questions and arrive at same answer. People have different approaches to getting result. So if you do yours in the morning and another person does his in the afternoon, nothing says they wont arrive at the same result.
May be you should read again to get the crux of the argument. Thanks.
A good post as ever. I believe time is not static too. What happens now is in the past just by one minute. As i type now, its present as when u read it, it becomes my past. I always like ur post. Your arguements are not baseless, all the time
Thanks 🙌
If time moves in a circle, it then means it will still come back at its starting point. I am on my laptop reading your blog this time 11:40 am, September 19, 2017.
There cannot be this same time again till the end of times. Therefore I disagree with you.
Lols! You did not get the logic. At the time you were writing it, it was present. Now that you wrote it, it is in the past. You 'anticipated' my response, future. Now that you will see this response, it is your present but my past cos i wrote it. If i anticipate your response too, then another future. So it is in circles! Thanks.
This is actually interesting
Man gave name and meaning to things for a better understanding of life.
Yeah!
Very interesting and actually made me 'speechless' (thumbless)
😂😂😂😂
Which one is thumbless again? What did you use in typing 'thumbless'?
Time time. Time flies fast on steemit.
Is this your own response?😂😂😂
LoL
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