On Time and the Body

"Time dilation," reportedly discovered by Einstein (or, more probably, Einstein's first wife), in the early years of the 20th century, refers to the relativity of time. Put simply, the faster you move, the slower time passes. At the speed of light, time moves so slowly as to be nonexistent. For something barely moving, time moves quicker, quite literally. 

"Literally" means literally—astronauts traveling in space actually experience time moving slower than they do on earth; however, they do age quicker because of the stress on the body.

Speaking of body, parts of the body experience time differently. Think of the nervous system as it pertains to skin. It almost instantaneously responds, in some sort of rhythmic way I suppose, to outside stimuli. Right now, I type this blog post with my fingertips, which instantaneously respond, rhythmically to the keys and to my unfolding ideas. (Where, oh, where do my "ideas" come from—what rhythm helps them to emerge, and what ecology is involved in their making and unmaking?)

Now, think of the circulatory system. The heart, which is probably not exactly the center but an important part, helps, with the veins and arteries and even capillaries, to rhythmically pump blood through the body. It moves much slower than the nervous system as it pertains to skin. Therefore, parts of the body inhabit different time zones because they move at different speeds. According to time dilation, parts of the human body move at different speeds; therefore, there is no unified time for the human body as a whole.

There are other rhythms that emanate from the body, such as circadian rhythms, eye sight, hearing, and so forth.

All move at different speeds. This is easily illustrated: we hear slower than we see. I remember when I went down the fairway while caddying for my dad when he golfed in order to spot balls that flew out of bounds. I heard the crack of the club on the ball much later than I saw the club hit the ball. Sound travels slower than sight. It follows, that it is likely hearing in the human body travels slower than seeing. Hearing and seeing inhabit different time zones.

You may wonder, given all these multiple time zones in a single body, if there is a central, governing time zone.

I doubt it. What orients the various time zones exists outside the body, in the ecology of the people and things about us.

Let me explain.

What do we pay attention to? Stuff outside our body—except in two instances: pain and discomfort. We attend to the stuff outside of ourselves all the time except in those two instances. We actually live in the ecology of things about us.

To demonstrate how little we know of our own body is easy. I know my nose only from reflection in the mirror, which is, of course, reversed—left is right and right is left in a mirror. Other people see my nose all the time as it really is. They know my nose better than I do, yet it's my nose!

All this tends to show that 1) the human body inhabits multiple time zones, 2) the human body is absolutely inseparable from the ecology of the various things about it (including other people), 3) we cannot separate any time or aspect of the body from this ecology, and 4) the organization and unifying factor of the multiple time zones the body inhabits comes from this outside ecology.

That's all, folks! I may be wrong on this, but I think, more or less, I'm write in’  (Hee-hee) 

Signed,

Jay Paul I mean Red Rocks IIIIII......

Edited on the spot, in an improvisatory manner by my good friend and …. Erica