On Time

Fred-Rick
7 min readJul 28, 2022

Thinking about time, our brains can wag the dog.

Photo by Hunters Race on Unsplash

Scientists claim that time is not the same everywhere. Atomic clocks were sent into space and they found the evidence scientists were looking for. However, they did not take any wagging the dog into consideration. When a clock returns from outer space and shows a different time compared to a similar clock here on Earth, there are two options to interpret the data.

When the assumption is accepted that the clock’s functioning is the stablest functioning of matter we know, then we can declare that time is different out there, far away from Earth.

Yet when the assumption turns out to be not that sturdy, we can declare instead that not even the most stable material can withstand an outer-space position and not change its behavior.

Either the clock ended up warping, or time ended up warping. One of these options is ‘wagging the dog’.

There is actually no evidence that can say which one is which. The most proper conclusion is then obviously that the human brain is the weakest link in this dilemma.

Still, we can use Occam’s razor and pick the simplest explanation. Picking time as the aspect that got warped is a rather extreme conclusion. It is far more within normal range to say that matter behaves differently when placed in a deep-space environment, and time is always just time.

Scientists review time as something that exists by itself. They concluded that since it is real it must also be an actual something. Yet that is not necessarily true either.

A phenomenon is something scientific that is real but not based on its own attributes.

A good example of a phenomenon is the Eye of the Storm. We can all see the Eye in the satellite pictures (or experience it live if you aren’t that lucky) and we therefore know that it is real. Yet the Eye has no attributes of its own that makes it the Eye.

The entire Storm is the reason we end up seeing an Eye. The Storm is based on wind — lots of it — and yet the Eye does not have all that much wind in it, blue skies above. You can light up a Cuban cigar inside the Eye without too much trouble. But look at the Wall of the Eye and you’ll likely get more…

Fred-Rick

Structural Philosopher