LINEAR ILLUSION AND SEARCHING THE TRUTH
What are the factors, excluding time, on which the destination location by time depends? What is the reason why we perceive time as never passed when the position remained the same, but as quickly past when it is very different? Is increased mobility accelerating time? Is the 'speed', the distinction between the old and the contemporary? On the other hand, in either case, the 'conteporary', looking back from the 'end' position, which is more or less different from the beginning, says that time passes very quickly. If time passing 'like a wind' is a perception valid both for those who are constantly in the same place and who move a lot, shouldn't there be a concept beyond time?
Speed involves a magnitude other than time, the 'path'. The path travelled is the change in location. For a person who does not move, the fact that the days do not pass (0 / ∞) or do pass very quickly (0/0) indicates the mathematical uncertainty or meaninglessness of the speed. From literature, Apollinaire's lines can be examples. Saying 'The days go by not I' * actually shows that change / unchange in position may not be affected by time. The reason why the ratio of two independent variables to each other is perceived as meaningless is this lack of effect. 'Ratio', in this case 'velocity', is defined on the condition that both sizes are finite. The fact that the change in position is infinitely small renders the concept of speed meaningless as well as the non-change in an infinitesimal time. It is an imaginary occurrance that a quiscient and calm state continues for an infinite time or that there are unnoticeable changes in a certain instant. What exist in reality are the positions that wiggle, oscillate, rotate, and continously move in infinite time and at infinetesmall instant. But, the misconception that change must be linear overshadows this dynamism.
While everything and everything is in motion little by little, it is an illusion about slowness to think that the position of the area covered by anything does not change . The perception of little or no change brings the conclusion that when the difference in position is proportional to time, the speed is also low. But time is sufficient and favorable for all changes that we can perceive. If there is the most qualitative change in the smallest part of time, 'living ends in the moment' **, everything can pass quickly. So, although the 'passing through like the flow of water' of time and its 'staying where it is' contradicts the other when the change of position with respect to time is taken as a criterion, in reality these two perceptions complement each other. Because; 'speed' is just a comparison. The effect of the traveled roads on the position reached is often more than the effect of time on the change of location. Although the time required to cross the path between two locations is sometimes effective, the final position is independent of this time. The variable on which the final position depends is the path followed, and it is not highly likely that it will be a straight line.
The illusion of 'linearity' is perhaps due to the fact that the shortest path between two points is a straight line. However, the locations are not discrete points. Even positions at equilibrium consist of a large number of points oscillating around a mean, and these points also have correlations. The amount of energy possessed at the current position will also affect the correlation between these released points.
An example that can be given in this regard is the relationship between the two point correlation in turbulent flow and the initial eddy size. When the distance between two points exceeds the average diameter of the eddy, the relationship between them disappears [1]. Therefore, the energy of the subjective thing also affects the position. But there is a more important fact than this conclusion: that the thing is a living system. Everything that lives moves over time, not only as a whole, but also with its sub-parts within itself. The duration of this movement is not a cause, but a result. The relations between its subparts and its oscillation will determine its path and destination, and since it continues to move while on the road, it will be a different thing also where it goes. The destination depends on the road, and the road to be taken is determined by the thing's nature which is travelling.
It is true that we should avoid the analogies between the fields because they contain stereotypes but it is possible to talk about that the variables such as initial energy, motion, path, time and location take place in the development of societies. For example, has reaching the 'modern' society been through a line drawn from the 'old' society in time? Does social 'development' mean that somebody travels this line in less time? Was the life quiet, still and almost eternal for the 'archaic' since their mobility was rare? In ancient communities, weren't people asking, "How quickly passed the life"? It is not easy to answer the last two questions. The answer to the first question is clear: Change is not linear and development cannot be described as a rapid change. If this were the case, also the societies that have moved slowly on the 'line' could have accelerated and developed.
There is such a prediction, indeed. The prediction that societies that slowly traverse the imaginary line that stretches from the old to the modern will accelerate and develop by using the possibilities of modernism around them. This prediction states that the development is unique and the goal will be achieved by marking the path followed by those who have completed the 'development', on the compass and going that way. The fact that technical work done a few decades or even half or a century ago is considered a step towards improvement is an example of this idea. An 'anachronic' effort of determining our own destiny by imitating the past of another organism, which we think is linear. This is also present in 'scientific' studies. The infrastructure required for most of the work that could be done by a very few research groups a few decades ago is now easier to access. Thus, those who think that they have not been on that line before and want to speed up, spend time re-finding results achieved a few decades ago, repeating over and over again what was done back then. What emerges, is also, wasted material, energy, labor, ... Living in a story that has been mis-exemplified ...
The 'contemporary' order supports this misconception and most of us confirm it. Illusions and simple procedures bring 'tranquility' and 'ease'. We try to realize 'peace' and 'ease' with the anxiety and fatigue of passing a 'virtual' line in a short time. We start over the processes that were completed two hundred years ago with the idea that 'we can do it too and we have a recipe'. We think that if we go too 'fast' and complete it, we can go beyond the line.
'Time', which is very important, is being wronged by these dreams. We deny its irreversibility, which is the most important feature of time. Think now: If the positions that have changed from the past to the present, really were on a certain line, wouldn't it be also possible to return to the past? There is no such line! You cannot go to the beginning in time either. We should evaluate the infinite path possibilities in our position together with the oscillation of all points, and know that the energy and effort we spend concerns those outside of us. As Lucretius said: "Reads out of things what happened long ago, What presses now, and what shall follow after: No man, we must admit, feels time itself, Disjoined from motion and repose of things '' [2nd].
Everything is the essence. If we stay on the scale of the earth and the sky we see; stone, earth, air, water; mammal, winged, multi-legged, flying, swimming, traveling animals,… We should not have a privilege among them. We have to wake up from the dream of linearity and choose the way we will go in the wiggling of reality. Real science, real production, real healing, real prosperity do not come about by repeating the 'stories of old times'. We've come so much way but we didn't realize this !
[2] Lucreitius, De Rarum Natura, Translated by William Ellery Leonard, classics.mit.edu
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