| Oct 26 @ 10:53 AM |
What is Biological time vs Religious time
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yashaenka
Posts: 8,267
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What Is Time?
Elisabeth Eaves, 02.29.08, 12:01 AM ET
We all know what time is. It's the ticking of a clock, the whine of an alarm, the calendar on the wall. And since we all agree about how those things work, time can seem as solid as a rock.
In fact, it's a lot more squishy. Our calendars are imperfect. We need a leap day to keep them in line with the seasons, and even so, time will eventually get away from us. "If you feel there aren't enough hours in a day, just wait," says Max Tegmark, a cosmologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "In a few hundred million years, tidal friction will have slowed Earth's rotation to make the day 25 hours long."
If that doesn't make your head spin, consider that in physics, motion alters time; in psychology, different stimuli alter our perception of time; and in philosophy, there's disagreement on whether time is even real. "In terms of our inner lives, no time exists except for what is happening in the present moment," says Joan Halifax Roshi, a Zen Buddhist teacher.
In Their Own Words: 14 Experts On Time
In order to get a better understanding of time, we consulted physicists, philosophers and religious scholars. We talked to doctors who study aging, a watch-company executive, and a man building a clock designed to last 10,000 years. We talked to time-management and productivity experts, including one who has built a lifestyle around working only four hours a week. And we talked to spiritual guide and alternative medicine expert Deepak Chopra, who warned of the dangers of a hectic lifestyle.
"People who feel that they are 'running out of time' have speeded up their biological clocks," says Chopra. "They have faster heart rates and jittery platelets with high levels of adrenaline. When they drop dead from a premature heart attack, they have literally 'run out of time.'"
Perhaps the most surprising thing we heard about time came from a scientist and entrepreneur who studies aging. "Time has little impact on biology," says Michael West, a gerontologist who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, and founded the biotech company Geron (nasdaq: GERN - news - people ). That sounds reassuring at first--but it's only because we're pre-programmed to fall apart anyway.
"From a gerontologist's standpoint, biological time is not wear-and-tear, it's a genetic program," says West. "It's sort of like a time bomb. The cells are programmed to last just long enough for us to rear children, and no longer."
Thank goodness for spiritual counselors--and drugs. The Rev. Jacqueline Lewis, senior minister at Middle Collegiate Church in New York, says that while we may be most familiar with chronos, or clock time, we should also be aware of kairos, or God's time. "It's what the theologian [and Narnia author] C.S. Lewis called 'God's unbounded now,' where now is both this moment--right now--and what stretches into eternity." If you get frustrated waiting for your prayers to be answered, remember that "when God comes, it's always the right time."
If that's not enough solace, you're probably not alone in your misery. David Sinclair, director of the Paul F. Glenn Laboratories for the Molecular Biology of Aging, says sooner or later, nearly everyone becomes aware that time is running out. "We quickly learn to suppress these disturbing thoughts," he says. "Those who don't learn this act of self-defense require a pharmacopia of pharmaceuticals to get through each day." What is time?
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| Oct 26 @ 11:23 AM |
What is Biological time vs Religious time |
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Heaveninawildflower
Posts: 18,615
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Time's always a matter of perception, and I think we all really know that. Time flies when you're having fun, but when you were a kid, didn't summer vacations seem endless? When you first fell in love, didn't time with your love seem like an 'eternally real' time and everything else just flew by as we marked time? Or was it just me?
Maybe it's getting older, but while it seems that a year's gone by in the blink of a eye, yet within that year were moments that lasted forever...looking up at a night sky so filled with stars it was just stunning, then looking down to see sparks flying around a campfire providing their own mini-light show.
I thought this thread was going to be about the age of the earth, and yadda yadda yadda...how religion's all wrong, then about how the scientists have it all wrong...and so on, until the usual bickering breaks out. I was relieved to see it wasn't - just a philosophical musing on time itself and how we relate to it.
Personally, I'm at the point where work becomes just a blink of an interruption into my real life - the one where a moment lasts an eternity and the knowledge that this and everything else will pass. It's so worth it to savor the moment and really live it - otherwise we really ARE wasting time!
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| Oct 26 @ 11:26 AM |
What is Biological time vs Religious time
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iam01
Posts: 6,286
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In our perception of time, our body functions in sometimes in what seems faster than normal neurological response is capable. It happens in sport all the time. According to neurologists, we often respond to stimuli faster than our perceptions to them. We can respond or react even before our own awareness recognizes it. We call it reflexes but his is exactly what martial train for years to attain. Very often they tell you they have the feeling of something operating through them. The tao, the flow, is about our brains firing neurons long before we process the information to our conscious awareness. A batter hitting a baseball at 90 mph is impossible by the time it takes to perceive the ball. Visual information is processed in 30 locations in the brain but only one main area is for conscious perception. Very often when in a crisis, in a fight or a high adrenaline sport such as skydiving we report that a minute feels like 10 minutes. Everything seems like its in slow motion or that it feels normal but there is more time than enough time. Over ten years of skydiving, I can tell you that a one minute free fall feels like 10 minutes. In telemetry of skydivers, after the parachute opens, the neurology indicates a relaxation response to almost sleep levels. There is a correlation to why such people are often high achievers in other areas of their lives. They're quick thinkers, decisive, fear is conquered, their brains are accustomed to handing stress and meeting external challenges while achieving an internal peace.
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| Oct 26 @ 11:33 AM |
What is Biological time vs Religious time |
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Heaveninawildflower
Posts: 18,615
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For once I have to agree - as a software support engineer who's usually in crisis mode, that total relaxation is what I've come to call the 'know zone.' Your adrenaline levels are probably sky high but you're operating on cruise control. Top efficiency, no pressure, total concentration on whatever's at hand and enjoying it immensely.
As for 'time running out'...I'll worry about it when I get there. Life still has its crises and disrupted plans, disappointments and successes...it is what it is. The bottom line is that it's all good.
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| Oct 26 @ 11:48 AM |
What is Biological time vs Religious time
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iam01
Posts: 6,286
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When I was a project manager I had to painfully learn what time management was. Microsoft project is an amazing tool. Planning contingency, dependency, the full life cycle from initiation to execution, coordinating many people working independently of one another. When you're getting down to the wire, stress levels are very high and when things screw up, you and everyone else is boiling blood. Its at those times when the PM is needed to keep level headed and keep the business rolling without negative impact. Managing expectations is an art form.
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| Oct 26 @ 12:00 PM |
What is Biological time vs Religious time |
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dizzydoll
Posts: 657
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What is Biological time vs Religious time
there is no such thing as religious time 
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| Oct 26 @ 12:01 PM |
What is Biological time vs Religious time
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yashaenka
Posts: 8,267
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WALLA EUREKA Time's always a matter of perception
Is it real or is it Memorex? How do we know that this is not one long dream that knows no time? We don't do we? 
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| Oct 26 @ 12:03 PM |
What is Biological time vs Religious time |
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yashaenka
Posts: 8,267
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there is no such thing as religious time Is time the devil of illusion we have to fight? Is the timeless reality of the enduring soul the one reality we are after? Or would time be the unifying force and divinity making for the qualified duality of the complete whole of the omnipresent God? Stressing the latter position, this article describes how the different concepts of religious time to the Original Person can be understood and combined into a unified and integrated concept of worldtime. This suggests the basis of a worldorder unifying the religions. Practically it proposes a reform of as well clocktime as calendartime also accounted for under science at this site.  Religious Time
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| Oct 26 @ 12:08 PM |
What is Biological time vs Religious time
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dizzydoll
Posts: 657
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people have got a lot of time on their hands 
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| Oct 26 @ 12:42 PM |
What is Biological time vs Religious time |
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Heaveninawildflower
Posts: 18,615
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When I was a project manager I had to painfully learn what time management was.
Yeah, and Gantt charts and all that stuff...ugh. I don't miss that at all!! Expectations are easy - quote four times what you expect for starters, and when project creep kicks in, learn to dig in your heels. Been there done that too - I actually like 'run' better than 'build' - fewer meetings. Being an 'independent contributor' is a lot simpler too - fewer reviews to suffer through.
Ah well, meanwhuile, time to get back to work and see what's up. It's both Monday and Friday for me today, whether I go to Vegas or not, I'm off this week.
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| Oct 26 @ 12:53 PM |
What is Biological time vs Religious time
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yashaenka
Posts: 8,267
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Why Vegas and not Brandsom is it because what is said and done in Vegas stays in Vegas rock on and have a heavenly time! 
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