Time Is A Cultural Concept

In the western world we perceive time in a linear fashion. There is past, present and future even though this notion has been debated by philosophers and physicists alike. As westerners, we are helplessly bounded by this linearity since our linguistic and epistemological endeavors are structured around a world of past, future and present. The only culture that is free from time as we know it, are the Aboriginal people of the Northern Territory of Australia.

I was lucky enough to experience and study this culture first hand. I won’t claim to understand it since I am not sure I do. Western culture has bestowed me with the linear time predisposition since birth. It is almost impossible to escape this form of brainwashing since it defines our very foundation of culture and religion. In this post, I will rather try to explain how I perceived aboriginal concepts myself and let you draw your own conclusions.

We have been brought up to perceive things in a progressive manner. Things that have a beginning and things that have an end. We build everything around us on this concept whether they are ideas like religion or tools for everyday life. The term of eternity cannot be quite grasped by our minds since everything around us is perishable. When we apply eternity the brain hits a brick wall. We stop thinking.





In physics the eternal is just a symbol, an idea with no demonstrable proof. Same applies to religion when we talk about eternal life. We talk about it, we think about it but we don’t really grasp it. We can’t because we live our everyday life based on a linear unfolding of events. Even religion itself and its philosophy is based on a timely progression of events.

Aboriginals lack this limitation of perception of time and rather perceive the world much more expansive. They picture the entirety of the human experience to be the “dreamtime” where we are simultaneously dead and alive, imaginary and real. Everything exists within the dreamtime and has the same value. What ones gets to experience in a given version of reality, is just relationships of concepts. For example, our perception can relate to a mountain that has existed for millions of years. The reality of the mountain is subjective based on who observes it and under what premises. Our memory, our dreams and our current “awake activity” are just different tools to perceive the same reality of the idea of the mountain. Dreams are just as important as being awake. Memories as important as future projections. Mountains don’t have intrinsic values, power or qualities. We apply them through social constructs. The mountain stops being a mountain when it becomes a grave for a grandparent, a quest for survival for the tribe, a point in reference in geography, a source of livelihood for the miner.

This notion might appear to flirt sophistry but it is not. For example, in neurobiology we have recently discovered that much of what we remember is bogus information mixed with dreams. In other words what we perceive as memories from which we identify ourselves is jumbled up information that deceives us. We are also very aware of perceptual flaws and how the mind can play dirty tricks. Those can either be cognitive biases or plain shortcomings of our limited sensory system. Reality as we perceive it, is much like a dream due to the nature of our faulty biological entity. A google search with the words “cognitive biases” or “optical illusions” will challenge every single idea one has about “objective reality”. A reindeer can see the world with Ultraviolet vision. Imagine now how humans would develop philosophy, science and religion if we could only see in black and white like most marine animals. Our perception of reality is predetermined from our very biology.





This is not to say that there is a “higher” plain of existence that is more “real”. Religious folk, spiritualists and many others have tried to build an alternate reality around the idea of the unknown. Imagination can play many more tricks than reality itself. This is after all how human theories have structured our current world views.

We build fictional back stories, narratives, to create meaning for our life. We need a purpose to fulfill. The concept of time provides this gateway for linear ritual of progression much like a story does. Religious folk are required to follow specific rules for life. It serves as a preparation for the next.

If we are not religious we structure our life on another, similar concept. Perhaps a career, or family or convincing oneself that an endeavor will make the world a better place. We create a narrative so we can extrapolate meaning. Linearity of time reinforces this idea. It rather functions as an excuse rather than a physical entity. Einstein seems to agree on this as well.





Instead of a developing a linear, progressive narrative, aboriginals perceive the world with circles of relatedness. Since everything, always exists, an entity can only relate to another based on how subjects choose to interact with it. A meeting in an aboriginal community won’t take place based on geological time but rather focus on the relationship one circle of existence has with another. In the western world we will engage socially through a webbed cultural architecture. For example: Dating -> connection -> copulation -> cohabitation -> procreation -> family all bounded by geological time. In the Aboriginal perception it can easily be: [copulation, connection, cohabitation] all at once and on top of each other with time being irrelevant. This is why it is rather silly to as an aboriginal purpose of “final purpose” or “end of the line meaning” or “where do you see yourself in 10 years?” Everyday is just a form of existence, not a self fulfilling prophecy. The trip is what matters, not the destination.

Perhaps the most evident difference with the western culture appears when it comes to matters of death and decay. Having spent quite some time in a hospital in the Northern Territory, I was lucky to experience how Aboriginal people perceived death. In my astonishment, I never saw anyone being sad or crying over somebody’s death. Most of the time they were smiling or laughing if someone got seriously injured, making fun of each other as if nothing happened. Suddenly Steve-O from Jackass made a whole more sense.

The sick and near dead seemed to have a calm look on their face. This perception seemed to have been created from the idea that they are not really alive or dead. They believe that they just change a state of being. In the dreamtime, their entire worldview, they are always dead-alive. This is how people will see them. This is also why the aboriginal people do not like pictures of the dead to be shown. It shows a false perception of who that person really is currently and it is considered offensive. A photograph tries to preserve something that goes against reality, or what they perceive as real.





Their view also challenges our dearest religious beliefs and shows our hypocrisy when it comes to eternal ideas like heaven. If we really believed in eternity and that our friends and family really are with God or somewhere better, we wouldn’t be so sad when someone died. We wouldn’t want to perceive their memory through photographs or visiting their graves since their existence, much like their perception, is divine and eternal. This is to show how the western language and culture do not rhyme with our philosophy and how we rather fall short of our own devices. This lack of intellectual consistency can say a lot about our culture.

I am not sure I will ever be able to perceive the dreamtime as the Aboriginal people do. Language plays an important role to this since it shapes perception. It really changes how one thinks and acts. Aboriginal languages are vastly different from the western ones since they are not time-specific. This is why no matter how much I try to explain this to you by using a western, time-based language, it is quite futile. I hope though I have opened a new door for your perception to understand the world in a different way. Remember, western languages were built based on trade and economic relationships first and then as perceptual mechanisms.

We often say “live for today” or “seize the day” to express the ultimate freedom of a living being’s experience out of time. We acknowledge that somehow we are enslaved by time but we are not really sure what to do about it. An elder in one of those communities always looked at me and smiled when I was trying to get explanations. He always answered me the same “Your questions are the answers”.

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