Thursday, February 26, 2015

Time is mistaken for space.

We have two clocks in the kitchen and I checked the time on one of them to see if it was OK to knead my dough again. It was 3:09, not ready. I left the room for a few moments and came back and checked the other clock which now said 3:08. Of course I swung my head immediately to the first clock and it was still 3:09. The funny thing is that briefly - as my head is swinging - I was dazed and confused and entertaining various hypotheses; one of which was that time might have gone backwards while I was out of the kitchen. 
That this is a natural reaction seems significant. It means that the spatial metaphor for time, as measured by a clock, brings with it spatial properties(like bi-directionality) that do not belong - and they never stop being inappropriate.

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