Leave it to a philosopher of science to nudge us to think seriously about something that we never expected to think about.  As one of our group succinctly stated:  “Time, what’s the big deal.”  Granted most of us, philosophers excepted, have no reason to worry over the status of time, the reality or the unreality of time.

Momma is it time yet?  Remember saying that when you were taken along to a adult social affair, and were ordered to restrain your normal, child proclivities to explore, to change up the game.  Polite adult conversation was the game.  Your mother perfectly understood your expression, an appeal to orchestrate an exit for the family.  Enough time already.  Now is the time to leave.

I doubt that we could do without vocabulary indicative of our individual and collective engagement with process, with change.  Apart from references to time,  would we still be living in a cave, eating herbs, and what scarce protein we were lucky enough to bring “home?”  Due to cooperation, the application of joint solutions to common problems, — the language of time allows us to run a railroad,  manage a fulfillment warehouse, or direct the kids to be home by dinner time.

Time is a bigger deal than I originally thought.

I offer my round of silent applause for the continued effectiveness of philosophers.  Without the persistence of “the gadfly” we’d be unlikely to climb out of our intellectual rut.  We are all creatures of habit.

I was intrigued by the assertion that time is the language that we use to deal with cause and effect, the temporal succession of change, the before and the after.  I doubt there is anything more fundamental to all of experience than change.  We are immersed in a great dance, process trumps substance, and stasis is exceedingly rare. I wonder if stasis, a steady unchanging state is not usually illusion, the result of inattention, of not looking deeply or with sufficient patience.

I am rambling.  Enough.

I’ve found that the arts, at least those that I have some knowledge of, are often an artists work at playing with time.  Even sculpture, a fixed art form, is alive with the before and the after which the work evokes from the imagination.  Michelangelo’s David sizzles with life force.

A song came to mind that I have contemplated many times.  I’ve not had opportunity to experience Cher live, performing the many hits of her career.  I’d be eager for the experience, and the ticket price probably would not be an issue.  I would be willing to pay.  This tune “If I Could Turn Back Time” highlights the asymmetry of change in human relationships.  It is never possible to undo what has been done, to unsay a hasty, ill-considered comment.  “Words are like weapons they wound sometimes.”

This strikes me as a fundamental wisdom, not limited to interpersonal relationships, or romance.  Because we cannot easily predict the consequences of a decision, an action — delicacy, care is called for.  Words, acts, policies, are like ripples in a pool.  The effect that we get may not be what we intended.  The appreciation of asymmetry can be a restraint, a safety shield if you will to the proclivity to charge straight ahead, pedal-to-the-metal of our reason,–to achieve what we desire.