Time?!?

My wonderfully erudite, free-thinking and philosophical friends recently begun an email chain discussing the philosophy of time. As a philosophy major, you might think that I would be at the heart of such a discussion. Sadly, no. I have never understood any of the confusion surrounding time, and I say this NOT in a “look how smart, I answered a question that’s been plaguing thinkers” way, more in a, “What the hell is wrong with me that I can’t even grasp the question?” way.

Some excerpts from this discussion:

“Either way, I wish time was not venerated as it is... it is relative, and I don't want to adhere to something so restrictive, when it is, in essence, "made up" (at least the way we humans use it).”

“ I agree with you in the absurdity of schedules and time in that sense, though I do understand that they exist to coordinate people and facilitate relationships in circumstances like jobs, meetings, and what have you. *My* point would be that the vast majority of said jobs and meetings are completely absurd in and of themselves, and so the concept of conforming your life to an arbitrary schedule that doesn't necessarily suit your own happiness just to accomplish whatever job-related task is required seems ridiculous and annoying to me.”

“We may have ‘invented’ it, I guess...but things do get older and change during these movements of the sun, moon, and earth. And what else is time really? My only issue is how many things we have to fit into these few hours a day we have...not the hours themselves.”

I agree with much of the above, and more importantly, I adore my friends for having this cyberconversation. But to me, time is time. It goes by. It can be measured, as one can watch an object travel a distance (are we agreed that distance and objects exist?), and then realize that there’s this other element involved, not just distance or size etc. It’s time. And it goes on, no matter where you are. You could be in a black hole. You could be in a cubicle. You could be on Mars. And there’s no going back in time, because while you’re back in the time, time is passing, which messing everyone up.

My inability to see the problem here led me to do badly on a Metaphysics class paper, to fail to really appreciate THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE (an amazing book nonetheless), and to be perplexed and bewildered by the movie BACK TO THE FUTURE.

Alas!