Time

Time

Since a timeline was presented it is appropriate to consider time.

Time is what stops everything from happening at once. Time is all we have as an existence.

Time is “the dimension of change a fact which distinguishes it from the other three dimensions of space.” Honderich, T (ed.) p. 919

A definition of time: A nonspatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.
Albert Einstein

Time is always changing. Time never stands still. Time is continuous, and not stationary. Time changes our perceptions, and our perceptions of time change continuously. Time is infinite; change is essential to time. http://www.angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/time.html

Among prominent philosophers, there are two distinct viewpoints on time. One view is that time is part of the fundamental structure of the universe, a dimension in which events occur in sequence. Sir Isaac Newton subscribed to this realist view, and hence it is sometimes referred to as Newtonian time.^[2][3] Time travel, in this view, becomes a possibility as other "times" persist like frames of a film strip, spread out across the timeline.

An opposing view is that time does not refer to any kind of "container" that events and objects "move through", nor to any entity that "flows", but that it is instead part of a fundamental intellectual structure (together with space and number) within which humans sequence and compare events. This second view, in the tradition of Gottfried Leibniz^[4] and Immanuel Kant,^[5][6] holds that time is neither an event nor a thing, and thus is not itself measurable nor can it be traveled. Immanuel Kant, in the Critique of Pure Reason, described time as an a priori intuition that allows us (together with the other a priori intuition, space) to comprehend sense experience.^[29] With Kant, neither space nor time are conceived as substances, but rather both are elements of a systematic mental framework that necessarily structures the experiences of any rational agent, or observing subject. Kant thought of time as a fundamental part of an abstract conceptual framework, together with space and number, within which we sequence events, quantify their duration, and compare the motions of objects. In this view, time does not refer to any kind of entity that "flows," that objects "move through," or that is a "container" for events. Spatial measurements are used to quantify the extent of and distances between objects, and temporal measurements are used to quantify the durations of and between events.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time

In general, the Judaeo-Christian concept, based on the Bible, is that time is linear, with a beginning, the act of creation by God. The Christian view assumes also an end, the eschaton, expected to happen when Jesus returns to earth in the Second Coming to judge the living and the dead. This will be the consummation of the world and time. St Augustine's City of God was the first developed application of this concept to world history. The Christian view is that God is uncreated and eternal so that He and the supernatural world are outside time and exist in eternity.

Ancient cultures such as Incan, Mayan, Hopi, and other Native American Tribes, plus the Babylonian, Ancient Greek, Hindu, Buddhist, Jainist, and others have a concept of a wheel of time, that regards time as cyclical and quantic consisting of repeating ages that happen to every being of the Universe between birth and extinction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time

The distinction between the past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.
Albert Einstein 

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
Buddha

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A Brief Timeline of History

Now that we know we survived, have a mind and cognition of contrast, have knowledge of truth and perception we can consider from where we came to be.  

An excellent brief history summary is provided by Y. N. Harari, credited below.

Years Before the Present

13.5 billion Matter and energy appear. Beginning of physics. Atoms and molecules appear. Beginning of chemistry.

4.5 billion Formation of planet Earth.

3.8 billion Emergence of organisms. Beginning of biology.

6 million Last common grandmother of humans and chimpanzees.

2.5 million Evolution of the genus Homo in Africa. First stone tools.

2 million Humans spread from Africa to Eurasia. Evolution of different human species.

500,000 Neanderthals evolve in Europe and the Middle East.

300,000 Daily usage of fire.

200,000 Homo sapiens evolves in East Africa.

70,000 The Cognitive Revolution. Emergence of fictive language. Beginning of history. Sapiens spread out of Africa.

45,000 Sapiens settle Australia. Extinction of Australian megafauna.

30,000 Extinction of Neanderthals.

16,000 Sapiens settle America. Extinction of American megafauna.

13,000 Extinction of Homo floresiensis. Homo sapiens the only surviving human species.

12,000 The Agricultural Revolution. Domestication of plants and animals. Permanent settlements.

5,000 First kingdoms, script and money. Polytheistic religions.

4,250 First empire – the Akkadian Empire of Sargon.

2,500 Invention of coinage – a universal money.

The Persian Empire – a universal political order ‘for the benefit of all humans’.

Buddhism in India – a universal truth ‘to liberate all beings from suffering’.

2,000 Han Empire in China. Roman Empire in the Mediterranean. Christianity.

1,400 Islam.

500 The Scientific Revolution. Humankind admits its ignorance and begins to acquire unprecedented power. Europeans begin to conquer America and the oceans. The entire planet becomes a single historical arena. The rise of capitalism.

200 The Industrial Revolution. Family and community are replaced by state and market. Massive extinction of plants and animals.

The Present Humans transcend the boundaries of planet Earth. Nuclear weapons threaten the survival of humankind. Organisms are increasingly shaped by intelligent design rather than natural selection. The Future Intelligent design becomes the basic principle of life? Homo sapiens is replaced by superhumans?

Source:

Harari, Y. N. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. HarperCollins. Retrieved from Kindle Edition.

Pangaea or Pangea ( /pænˈdʒiːə/^[1]) was a supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras.^[2][3] It assembled from earlier continental units approximately 335 million years ago, and it began to break apart about 175 million years ago.^[4] In contrast to the present Earth and its distribution of continental mass, much of Pangaea was in the southern hemisphere and surrounded by a superocean, Panthalassa. Pangaea was the most recent supercontinent to have existed and the first to be reconstructed by geologists.

Source:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangaea

However, Pannotia (from Greek: pan-, "all", -nótos, "south"; meaning "all southern land"), also known as the Vendian supercontinent, Greater Gondwana, and the Pan-African supercontinent, was a relatively short-lived Neoproterozoic supercontinent that formed at the end of the Precambrian during the Pan-African orogeny (650–500 Ma), during the Cryogenian period and broke apart 560 Ma with the opening of the Iapetus Ocean, in the late Ediacaran and early Cambrian.^[1] Pannotia formed when Laurentia was located adjacent to the two major South American cratons, Amazonia and Río de la Plata. The opening of the Iapetus Ocean separated Laurentia from Baltica, Amazonia, and Río de la Plata.^[2] In 2022 the whole concept of Pannotia has been put into question by scientists who argue its existence is not supported by geochronology, "the supposed landmass had begun to break up well before it was fully assembled".^[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pannotia#Formation

Rodinia (from the Russian родина, rodina, meaning "motherland, birthplace"^[2][3][4]) was a Mesoproterozoic and Neoproterozoic supercontinent that assembled 1.26–0.90 billion years ago^[5] and broke up 750–633 million years ago.^[6] 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodinia

What we know of the Earth today is not static. It too has a history. Beware! History can change, which seems impossible! We inpret the past by what we know NOW. The present does not affect what happened in history, but it does affect how we understand history. History is pieced together by evidence (and myth). As the evidence changes (often new uncovered) so can our understanding of what really happened. 

Update: Further reading 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1674987124001464?fbclid=IwY2xjawLShThleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFFOTZZWTJNVThiZkFQUWVkAR4bfJCQkRQAuym3-x1U45xsWQEbdNFx_eKjFKUmbr8o-5T1WuO1xKa09XU_Pg_aem_oFUiIShMB0xhoEkrSRYKGQ

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The Mind

The Mind

The mind is everything. What you think you become.
Buddha

A mind is the set of cognitive faculties that enables consciousness, perception, thinking, judgment, and memory—a characteristic of humans, but which also may apply to other life forms.[3][4] Wikipedia

Broadly speaking, mental faculties are the various functions of the mind, or things the mind can "do".

1)         Thought is a mental act that allows humans to make sense of things in the world, and to represent and interpret them in ways that are significant, or which accord with their needs, attachments, goals, commitments, plans, ends, desires, etc. Thinking involves the symbolic or semiotic mediation of ideas or data, as when we form concepts, engage in problem-solving, reasoning and making decisions. Words that refer to similar concepts and processes include deliberation, cognition, ideation, discourse, and imagination.

2)         Thinking is sometimes described as a "higher" cognitive function and the analysis of thinking processes is a part of cognitive psychology. It is also deeply connected with our capacity to make and use tools; to understand cause and effect; to recognize patterns of significance; to comprehend and disclose unique contexts of experience or activity; and to respond to the world in a meaningful way.

3)         Memory is the ability to preserve, retain, and subsequently recall, knowledge, information or experience. Although memory has traditionally been a persistent theme in philosophy, the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries also saw the study of memory emerge as a subject of inquiry within the paradigms of cognitive psychology. In recent decades, it has become one of the pillars of a new branch of science called cognitive neuroscience, a marriage between cognitive psychology and neuroscience.

4)         Imagination is the activity of generating or evoking novel situations, images, ideas or other qualia in the mind. It is a characteristically subjective activity, rather than direct or passive experience. The term is technically used in psychology for the process of reviving in the mind percepts of objects formerly given in sense perception. Since this use of the term conflicts with that of ordinary language, some psychologists have preferred to describe this process as "imaging" or "imagery" or to speak of it as "reproductive" as opposed to "productive" or "constructive" imagination. Things that are imagined are said to be seen in the "mind's eye". Among the many practical functions of imagination is the ability to project possible futures (or histories), to "see" things from another's perspective, and to change the way something is perceived, including to make decisions to respond to, or enact, what is imagined.

5)         Consciousness in mammals (this includes humans) is an aspect of the mind generally thought to comprise qualities such as subjectivity, sentience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and one's environment. It is a subject of much research in philosophy of mind, psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive science. Some philosophers divide consciousness into phenomenal consciousness, which is subjective experience itself, and access consciousness, which refers to the global availability of information to processing systems in the brain.[9] Phenomenal consciousness has many different experienced qualities, often referred to as qualia. Phenomenal consciousness is usually consciousness of something or about something, a property known as intentionality in the philosophy of mind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts,

we make the world.
Buddha

Why is creativity tied to the subconscious? The subconscious is better at free association, away from paradigm restriction of the conscious.

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Perspective and Truth

Perspective and Truth

One's reference point often determines perspective.

If one is standing beneath an arc it appears concave.  If one is standing above an arc it appears convex.  Both are correct, from their point of reference. Yet they are opposites.  Here is the concept of the yin and the yang. 

Marie Antoinette made the famous statement upon being informed that the common people had no bread, “Then let them eat cake!” If one is part of the ruling elite, never having known hunger and is informed that the people have no bread it may actually be logical to suggest that they eat cake.  Perhaps that statement was made, not out of cruelty, but ignorance. From the perspective of those starving in such a statement could convey a total lack of concern. She lost her head. The perspective of the individual and one’s audience is of great importance.

Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen, 965–1039), one of the key figures in developing the scientific method, the emphasis has been on seeking truth:
"Truth is sought for its own sake. And those who are engaged upon the quest for anything for its own sake are not interested in other things. Finding the truth is difficult, and the road to it is rough."  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method 

Alhazen demonstrated by placing a straight stick or a taut thread next to a light beam, that light travels in a straight line.  Book of Optics (1021).This is true.  Einstein predicted in his theory of General Relativity that light bends in a gravitational field and that the amount of bending depends in a precise way on the strength of that gravitational field. This was also found to be true. Does that make Alhazen’s assertion false?  No. What is suggested is that truth depends upon the circumstances that are known. It goes to the opening remark about perspective. 

Truth is simply a concept yet it can be a function of perception.  For example, it may be said that the sun rises in the east and sets the west.  From a different perspective, the sun could be a fixed point, and it is a rotation of the earth that makes it appear that the sun rises in the east and sets the west. 

Confucius said, "when you know a thing you should recognize that you know it and when you do not know a thing recognize that you do not know it."  So is it untrue that the sun does not rise in the east or set in the west but that it was the earth's rotation makes it appear so? From a practical perspective, for humans on the earth, it may not make much of a difference. If one is studying science and attempting to understand planetary movement it is of critical importance.

St. Augustine is credited with saying, “The truth is like a lion. You don’t have to defend it Set it free. It will defend itself.”

Lincoln said. “How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.” Common sense is important.

Historically, people have died in the defense or advancement of a truth that they believed that may have not been so.  Some of the recent wars we have had on this planet have been due to ideology.  Pursuit or defense of the truth as perceived by individuals or groups is a powerful force.

By contrast, a lie is an assertion that is believed to be false, typically used with the purpose of deceiving someone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie Lying is a cooperative action. One can lie to one's self. A discomforting truth may be replaced with a lie to make one have the illusion of satisfaction. 

“If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.” 
― Mark Twain  (except the truth)

Consider yin and yang below. One sees the dots only by contrast black on white or vice versa. A halo helps. The dots exist even if one cannot see them. 

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Contrast

Contrast

The only way one can observe anything in the universe is by contrast.

Chinese philosophy describes the yin and the yang. The concept of yin and yang describes two opposing and at the same time, complimentary [competing] aspects of any one phenomenon [object or process] or comparison of any two phenomena.  [Source: Wikipedia] We know dark because there is light. Smooth is the contrast to rough.  We know distance because we have more than one point. Distance is meaningless without a frame of reference. It is like asking a question, "how far is one point?" A more sensible question could be phrased, "how far is point A from point B?"  A similar truth can be said of most things, including emotions. If there was only one emotion could it exist? We could not know happiness without sadness. 

Contrast allows us to differentiate what is; - from what is not; - just the way, the semicolon and the dash demarcated one set of words from the other.

Because we do not perceive something does not mean that it is not there. At one time, will we could perceive was limited by our five senses.  Before microscopes, we did not know that microscopic life existed.  There was evidence that microscopic life did exist. Just because we did not see the bacteria that help make cheese or gave mankind the plague; it did not mean microscopic life did not exist.  They still went about their business, just without our understanding.  We did not know how to interpret unseen particles. The microscope enhanced our senses, and hence our ability to consider possibilities beyond our senses.

Similarly, before telescopes, we could not see the expanse of the universe. We could not have known how immense the universe was.  This helped feed the notion that we were at the center of creation.  Since we do not now know the size of the universe is it may be difficult to say precisely where we are in the universe.  On a practical basis, for everyday living, it may not make a difference whether we are at the center or on the periphery. It only affects our self-importance. ©

Survival

Survival 

Rule one is the simplest: Survive.

Two things about survival are certain, one survives or not. If one does not, what comes next will not affect that person in this life.

I can only write this, because I survived birth, childhood and to this point, adulthood.  Similarly, you can read this for the same reasons. Without survival other questions are moot.

In simpler terms, you have to keep from getting killed to reach your potential.

If Frodo dies early in Lord of the Rings there might not be much of a story...

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” 
― Oscar Wilde

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