A World Without Time
October 10th, 2010
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Buckminster Fuller thought it was important to describe the world as accurately as possible, in order to avoid clouded intuition and maintain a good grip on reality. To do that, he used language in unusual ways. For example:
- Because we now know that the world is not flat, the word “worldwide” doesn’t make any sense. He said “world-around.”
- Since we now know that the sun does not revolve around the earth, it doesn’t make sense to talk about “sunrises” and “sunsets” as if we’re still and the sun is moving. He called them “sunsights” and “sunclipses” to describe them from our perspective as the earth rotates.
- “Up” and “down” are awkward because they refer to directions in a plane that moves around with you. If someone at the South Pole goes “upstairs” (relative to them), would someone at the North Pole say the other guy was going “downstairs?” That’s why Fuller said he was walking “outstairs” or “instairs,” referring to his motion relative to the center of the earth.
I wonder what Buckminster Fuller would have said about “next weekend.”
People fall into two groups in terms of what “next weekend” means to them:
- Those who say “If I meant this weekend, I would have said this weekend.”
- Those who say “But this weekend is the next weekend.”
This became an issue for me a few weeks ago on a Tuesday, when my friend said she’d be in town “next weekend.” That Friday, she again said that she’d be in town “next weekend.” While technically correct, I thought it was odd that she’d say “next weekend” instead of “tomorrow.”
Had she forgotten that it was Friday? Or was she pushing her plans back a week? Or was she just talking weird? I called to ask, and found out she’s in group 1 and I’m in group 2.
I always knew group 1 people were out there, but I didn’t know I actually knew one. And thus began a long and painful investigation into the matter. Short answer: almost everyone is in group 1, but they can’t say why.
Despite my best efforts to understand how “next weekend” could mean two weekends from now, I’ve still come up blank. The best I can come up with is that “next weekend” could be interpreted as “the end of next week,” except that (1) I didn’t say “the end of next week,” I said “next weekend,” and (2) the weekend does not come at the end of the week (although personally, I think Monday should be the first day of the week).
Here are some points of confusion that come up when “next” can potentially mean either “next” or “next next” depending on who you’re talking to:
- If someone says “Our next meeting is next Friday,” almost everyone thinks that means that one meeting from now is two Fridays from now. Why doesn’t it mean that two meetings from now is one Friday from now, or one of the other combinations?
- If someone calls you on the phone and says “I’m going to kick your ass the next time I see you,” does that mean this coming time or the following time?
- If someone says “I’m going to turn into a werewolf at the next full moon,” does that mean this coming full moon, the following one, the full moon of the next calendar month, the full moon of the next lunar month, or what?
(Notice that all of this confusion is avoided if “next” always means “next.” Just sayin’.)
I actually think that the confusion is mainly around the meaning of “this” rather than the meaning of “next.” After all, if today is Saturday, everyone agrees on what “this weekend” and “next weekend” mean.
But what if today is Wednesday? In that case, “this weekend” makes no sense at face value. You can’t say “Are you having a good time so far this weekend?” But we say “this weekend” as a shortcut for “this coming weekend,” and then it makes sense.
On the other hand, on a Monday, many people think that “this weekend” means “this past weekend,” and a few of them think that “last weekend” means the weekend before that.
Could you ask, on a Monday, “Did you have a good time this weekend, and will you have an even better time this weekend?” Does “this Arbor Day” mean Arbor Day of this year (possibly in the past), or this coming Arbor Day (possibly next year)? Don’t even get me started on the linguistics of time travel.
Does “this light” mean the light a few feet in front of you, and so “the next light” means the following one? Or does “this light” make no sense because we’re not at a light, so “the next light” is this one a few feet in front of us?
Anyway, once I realized how ambiguous something as simple as “next weekend” can be, that changed everything for me. The language we use shapes our thinking, for better or for worse. If I can’t say “this” and “next” because of the potential confusion, then how can I express concepts of time? And if I can’t express them, how can I perceive them?
Two years ago, Glen Allsopp left this comment on my post Don’t Label Me:
“I watched a film by Eckhart Tolle recently in which he asked you to imagine the world if you didn’t have a name. Close your eyes and try it, it’s quite interesting.”
When I imagine a world without names, I get the sense that the separation of you and me is an illusion. There is no “me,” because I am you. When I imagine a world without time, I get the sense that the separation of past and future is an illusion, or at least not accurately represented by a one-way absolute dimension.
As Christian Shephard said on LOST, “There is no ‘now,’ ‘here.’” Or as some guy at the National Institute of Standards and Technology said, “Our clocks do not measure time. Time is defined to be what our clocks measure.”
This post was published on Metric Moment, 10/10/10 10:10:10.
Photo by fdecomite
October 10th, 2010 at 11:37 am
I think the logic behind “next weekend” meaning what it does to some people is, “this weekend” obviously means the closest one in the future. It would be “wasteful” for “this weekend” and “next weekend” to be synonyms. So “next weekend” is the “next” one after “this weekend”.
October 10th, 2010 at 12:20 pm
10/10/10 10:10:10 by USA EDT. Just a relative name of a time, not the absolute truth
October 10th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
Okay, maybe I elaborate a bit more. In this world of forms, we can only perceive things (anything, including time) from a certain viewpoint, which is by nature limited to this specific perspective.
The sun is always shining, but from one viewpoint, it appears to rise and set. The same happens with everything. Everything may be happening all at once but we cannot perceive that. We can only observe from a set point in time & space.
So we are incapable of grasping the absolute truth.
Oh, how sad. But that is only so as a physical being. Our souls know better.
Yet, this physical world is a blessing. It’s beautiful and fun even if that perception is so screwed and untrue.
(For those of you who may have noticed — yes, I am quoting from the first paragraph of Tao Te Ching.)
October 10th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Very good points,
but as someone who’s done a lot of my own long and painful investigations (which I found enjoyable but my parents and later my husband found painful), I hope your friend is intelligent like you or at least a Seinfeld fan, or else she may have dismissed your questions as simply “weird.” Er, my ex used to call me “Data” because he said the questions I’d come up with reminded him of things Data on Star Trek would have asked.
Anyway, I’m actually in the first group because I grew up in Georgia, where someone would say, “This comin’ weekend” if they meant the one that’s coming up in the next few days.
October 10th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
I say ‘Saturday coming’ for the next Saturday in the calendar starting from now, and ‘Saturday week’ for the following one, because it’s clear what I mean no matter which group you’re in.
October 10th, 2010 at 1:45 pm
I gave it some thought, and I think my usage of “this weekend” and “next weekend” comes by analogy from the phrases “Saturday this week” and “Saturday next week”.
I’m still stumped by what I would mean in the werewolf example, though
October 10th, 2010 at 3:18 pm
@ Xamuel, true, it’s wasteful in a way for “this weekend” and “next weekend” to mean the same thing. And that’s why on a Monday, some people say that if “this weekend” means the past weekend, it would be wasteful for “last weekend” to mean the same thing, so it must mean the prior weekend.
@ Akemi, thanks for explaining why our perception is “so screwed and untrue.”
I wonder if our souls get frustrated with us.
@ Christie, it’s good to be asking Data-like questions, though I have a hard time seeing Data saying “This comin’ weekend.” Maybe if he had his southern gentleman chip installed.
@ Colin, “Saturday coming” I’d understand. “Saturday week,” I wouldn’t.
@ Vlad, if you become a werewolf, I guess you can always use hard dates to inform people of your schedule.
October 10th, 2010 at 8:04 pm
@ Akemi, BTW, not only is Metric Moment relative to our calendar and time zone, but the number 10 is only meaningful because we have a base 10 counting system, most likely because we happen to have 10 fingers.
October 11th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
Hunter,
Aha. So that is why arguments like “10-10-10 is a special time” is meaningless. All names given to any point of time is arbitrary.
I was also thinking about the limitations of my analogy of the sunrise / sunset. The reason why the sun appears to be rising and setting from a certain viewpoint is not because we assumed a certain viewpoint but because we assumed a viewpoint on earth that is moving around.
October 17th, 2010 at 10:51 am
Hey Hunter!
Two years ago, Glen Allsopp left this comment on my post Don’t Label Me:
“I watched a film by Eckhart Tolle recently in which he asked you to imagine the world if you didn’t have a name. Close your eyes and try it, it’s quite interesting.”
That is very cool, I just tried it now and it feels like everything is a completely new and different planet.
Does that mean that I identify the world with who I am, and if I lose my identity that the world becomes a strange place?
October 17th, 2010 at 8:49 pm
@ Diggy, without our identity, I do think the world would seem very strange. If your identity falls in the forest and you’re not around to hear it, does it make a sound?
October 19th, 2010 at 11:02 am
A Google search on the this and next problem got me here.
Gleaning from other sites and thinking about it I have come to the conclusion that problem arises because days of the week and weekends are discontinuous patches of time. The common labels referring to order are “previous”, “this” and “next”. These labels works fine when referring to continuous (no gaps between) chunks of time such as years, months, weeks or even days.
The problem arises when people try to apply those labels to discontinuous chunks of time such as named days of the week and weekends when the present time is in one of the gaps. In such a case the term “this” is logically meaningless but that doesn’t stop people from using the term.
When the term “this” is used to refer to a chunk of time that doesn’t include the present time an ambiguity arises. It would be better to always use “next” or “previous” for this case but we have to accept that some people will want to use “this”. The ambiguity should always be resolved by adding a qualifier such as “this coming Thursday” or “this past Thursday”. I personally don’t understand how resolving the ambiguity by changing the meaning of the “this” to “next” and changing the meaning of “next” to “next after” for this special case is a good solution since it has proven to lead to confusion. Some advocate interpreting the meaning of “this” and “next” the same as a solution but I believe a qualifier is still needed if you want to be understood by everyone.
October 19th, 2010 at 11:21 am
I see I forgot to mention that using “next” will need a qualifier too since I doubt that people will start using the terms logically any time soon. “Next Thursday”, for example, should be understood to mean “the next occurrence of Thursday after the most recent” but apparently for many people you need to spell it out. Maybe “this next Thursday” might work since it combines the terms?
October 21st, 2010 at 1:05 pm
I think I can clear this up a little, at least from my perspective. I am in group 1 and here’s why:
The “weekend” is just a sub-part of the week (like a “thumb” is still called a finger). So “This weekend” is “the weekend that is a part of the week we are currently in” and “next weekend” is “the weekend of the week after the one we are currently in.”
I’m not so sure how other people view it, I’m better at sociology, bu that is the way I’ve used it and seems to be the way that others use it as well.
October 21st, 2010 at 7:05 pm
That drives me nuts as well. “Next” etymologically means “nearest”!
But people are illogical. What are you going to do?
I always use specific dates because of exactly this problem.
October 21st, 2010 at 8:49 pm
I heard a new one yesterday (10/20). Someone sent me an email referencing “this Thursday, 10/28.” Can anyone explain that?