On the homogenisation of time

Three stages of before during and after, are naturally occurring phenomenon. We live in the entropic one way street that is called the passing of time. Our universe, galaxy, solar system, and planet all rotate through time, so it's normal for humans to have evolved biological underpinnings that are dependent on these three stages. It can be felt in the subconscious urges that we experience eventually as hunger, or desire... The before. The ecstacy of the now, during. And the denouement, the after. Consciously accessed experiences, manifest as future memory, working memory and attention, and short and long-term memory. These distinctions reflect the rising and falling of cycles, their repetitive nature, the foundation of life itself, life as we know it, complete with the cycle of life and death, growth, maturation, renewal.

The psychological impacts of these three stages have been studied and exploited to generate compulsive behaviours, consumerist behaviours, by stimulating and prolonging the before stage... Priming the second stage. The more delay before the gratification, the better the perception of the reward of the during stage. The more disconnected the promise of the before stage is, in terms of raised expectation, say the perceived deliciousness of an advertised hamburger, compared to the reality of the during stage, the shorter the 3rd stage lasts, and the sooner the cycle resets.

Perhaps the inverse is true, if the promise is understated, and the experience exceeds expectations, the third stage requires more time to fully integrate the meaning of what's occurred. This is a recipe for experiences the memories of which will last a lifetime.

The arc of the the stages creates a platform for meaning. These arcs can be constructed around any meaningful experience post facto. Childhood, coming of age, adulthood. Before tasting Jello, eating Jello, life after Jello. Life as you take it for granted, loss of love, life after loss. In any case, the meaning generated by the arcs that we attend to colour our mood, and influence our emotional experience.

As people move away from natural cycles, and progressively into artificial cycles, the arcs become isolated from the larger influences of the natural world. The abundance of artificial light removes us from the arc of night and day. Many medications disconnect us from physiological biochemical cycles. Sleep disruption, appetite disruption, physical routine disruption, and consequently mood alteration all result from being removed from these arcs, both in an ontological and an epistemological sense. Our experience, a common mundane experience, is deprived of meaning and consequently of life fulfillment, just as our biochemical transmitters and receptors are deregulated, by the absence of a macroscopic arc that influences all microscopic arcs.

The question of what it is like to be a concious, sentient being has been kicked around the halls frequently enough for us to imagine that not only is there an experience we have of being ourselves, but that we conceptualise the world as full of people such as ourselves. But to ask what it's like for a rock to sink in water becomes more difficult. Or of an ion gated channel in a single section of the cell wall of a neuron, shuffling ions through the lipid bilayer... Is there something it's like for that molecule to flip flop through its conformations, repeating it's arc, playing a meaningful part in the macrocosmic order? That state is of course incomparable to what 'likeness' is for people.

This post was to warn against the homogenisation of time, the modern convenience that allows people to do what they want when they want. The danger implicit in disconnecting from larger arcs that govern our planet... The seasons, lunar and solar cycle, day and night... Even hours of the day.

Our organism took millions of years to evolve, after billions of years of preparation... Entirely undertaken under the influence of naturally occurring arcs. Because arcs are representative of dynamic states, they can be differentiated as changing gradients.

People create psychological arcs that conflict with natural arcs, and disrupt psychological, or eventually ecological environments.