A philosophical reflection
02/05/16 05:15
I’ve had a bit more windshield time in the past few days and when I drive alone, I tend to allow my mind to do a little philosophical thinking. Those of you who fine my philosophical rantings to be boring might want to skip today’s blog and wait for something more practical.
The German philosopher Martin Heidegger wrote a treatise entitled “Being and Time.” The work, written in haste to meet a publisher’s deadline is really only the first part of the project as outlined in the introduction. The argument, however, is fairly simple. He argues that being and time are the same. At least for the human experience. We exist in time. We have no experience of timelessness. To understand that we are is to understand that we are temporal. We are finite. The book is considered to be one of the masterpieces of 20th Century philosophical thought.
The theological discussion that is not contained in the book is whether or not human experience is the only way of assessing reality. I realize that we are human and that we carry a uniquely human perspective. There is a growing body of evidence, however, that we are a part of a larger existence. People who have survived strokes and other forms of traumatic brain injury that affected primarily the left hemisphere of their cerebral cortex report a euphoric sensation of timelessness. One theory to explain this is that there is, within the human brain, the evolutionary remnants inherited from previous generations. Jungian psychologists refer to this as our “collective unconscious.” Within each of us is a connection with a shared history.
While Heidegger may be right in his observations about being and time from the perspective of our current life, his description may not be adequate for the whole of reality. There may simply be more to the story than Heidegger was able to observe.
Theologians, especially those of monotheistic religions, begin with the assumption that the eternal exists as an objective reality. In addition to the temporal, which is perceived and experienced by humans, there is also a realty that exists beyond time. From that perspective there is no past, present or future, but a reality in which all is simultaneously present. To simplify the larger argument for the sake of the brief form of the blog it might be helpful to separate being from doing. This takes us away from Heidegger’s perspective, but from a philosophical point of view one of the ways of recognizing a deep truth is that it opposite is also true. Doing is action that takes place in time. It is initiated and concluded. Being reaches beyond time. From the eternal perspective existence is not defined by action. For that which always exists there is no distinction between then and now. There is no distinction between here and there. All is simultaneously experienced.
We, however, are temporal - at least most of our perception is temporal.
Christian theology introduces a dramatic element into the discussion. It isn’t unique to Christianity and there were elements of the concept in other more ancient religions, but the concept is central to Christian thought and Christianity is responsible for the widespread dissemination of the concept in the contemporary world. The thought is this: there is an intersection between the eternal the the temporal. There is a meeting point between being and doing. In Jesus of Nazareth the eternal becomes human and humans are endowed with a spark of the divine.
Although very few modern brain scientists would chose to use theological language, contemporary brain research has discovered that in the complex networks of communication between the two hemispheres of the human brain there is a semblance of this intersection. Logical, memory-based brain processing organizes human experience along a timeline and we experience a progression through linear time, with some memories taking place prior to other ones. The part of our brains that experiences time is in constant contact and communication with other areas of the brain that process experience in an entirely different manner. In those regions the brain has no need to organize or order. Things simply are.
Most of us experience the dominance of the logical, orderly processing of our brains most of the time. But when we dream we get a glimpse of other ways of arranging our experiences. In a dream imagination mixes with experience, story is shaped by speculation, elements are reordered and reorganized. In a dream things are connected whose connections aren’t seen by the orderly processing of our logical memory centers. In some cases where brains have been injured, either by trauma to the logical processing centers or by damage to the neurological connections between the brain’s hemispheres, human existence is perceived without the limitations of time. While this would be dramatically disorienting for those of us who think in terms of time and order, it does open the window slightly on a completely different human perception of time.
In a world with no time, there is no loss and no grief. That which is past is also present. All that ever was currently is. Pain, if it exists at all, is not associated with loss. Brain scientists would never use the word, but theologians call this experience heaven.
The realities of our temporal existence, however, present most of us from anything like a complete experience of that which is not bound by time. We get glimpses, in injuries, or in dreams or in moments at the edges of consciousness. Our experiences are incomplete and our perceptions are partial. As a result, when we attempt to discuss the eternal, like this particular blog post, our discussions are tiny fragments of a much larger reality. We know enough to say that there is more that is, but we often lack common language to determine whether or not our understandings are common.
Scientists accuse theologians of speaking of that which is not real. Theologians accuse scientists of observing only a tiny fragment of the whole of reality. And a few of us, especially when left with enough time by ourselves, speculate on the intersection of the two realms of thought.
The German philosopher Martin Heidegger wrote a treatise entitled “Being and Time.” The work, written in haste to meet a publisher’s deadline is really only the first part of the project as outlined in the introduction. The argument, however, is fairly simple. He argues that being and time are the same. At least for the human experience. We exist in time. We have no experience of timelessness. To understand that we are is to understand that we are temporal. We are finite. The book is considered to be one of the masterpieces of 20th Century philosophical thought.
The theological discussion that is not contained in the book is whether or not human experience is the only way of assessing reality. I realize that we are human and that we carry a uniquely human perspective. There is a growing body of evidence, however, that we are a part of a larger existence. People who have survived strokes and other forms of traumatic brain injury that affected primarily the left hemisphere of their cerebral cortex report a euphoric sensation of timelessness. One theory to explain this is that there is, within the human brain, the evolutionary remnants inherited from previous generations. Jungian psychologists refer to this as our “collective unconscious.” Within each of us is a connection with a shared history.
While Heidegger may be right in his observations about being and time from the perspective of our current life, his description may not be adequate for the whole of reality. There may simply be more to the story than Heidegger was able to observe.
Theologians, especially those of monotheistic religions, begin with the assumption that the eternal exists as an objective reality. In addition to the temporal, which is perceived and experienced by humans, there is also a realty that exists beyond time. From that perspective there is no past, present or future, but a reality in which all is simultaneously present. To simplify the larger argument for the sake of the brief form of the blog it might be helpful to separate being from doing. This takes us away from Heidegger’s perspective, but from a philosophical point of view one of the ways of recognizing a deep truth is that it opposite is also true. Doing is action that takes place in time. It is initiated and concluded. Being reaches beyond time. From the eternal perspective existence is not defined by action. For that which always exists there is no distinction between then and now. There is no distinction between here and there. All is simultaneously experienced.
We, however, are temporal - at least most of our perception is temporal.
Christian theology introduces a dramatic element into the discussion. It isn’t unique to Christianity and there were elements of the concept in other more ancient religions, but the concept is central to Christian thought and Christianity is responsible for the widespread dissemination of the concept in the contemporary world. The thought is this: there is an intersection between the eternal the the temporal. There is a meeting point between being and doing. In Jesus of Nazareth the eternal becomes human and humans are endowed with a spark of the divine.
Although very few modern brain scientists would chose to use theological language, contemporary brain research has discovered that in the complex networks of communication between the two hemispheres of the human brain there is a semblance of this intersection. Logical, memory-based brain processing organizes human experience along a timeline and we experience a progression through linear time, with some memories taking place prior to other ones. The part of our brains that experiences time is in constant contact and communication with other areas of the brain that process experience in an entirely different manner. In those regions the brain has no need to organize or order. Things simply are.
Most of us experience the dominance of the logical, orderly processing of our brains most of the time. But when we dream we get a glimpse of other ways of arranging our experiences. In a dream imagination mixes with experience, story is shaped by speculation, elements are reordered and reorganized. In a dream things are connected whose connections aren’t seen by the orderly processing of our logical memory centers. In some cases where brains have been injured, either by trauma to the logical processing centers or by damage to the neurological connections between the brain’s hemispheres, human existence is perceived without the limitations of time. While this would be dramatically disorienting for those of us who think in terms of time and order, it does open the window slightly on a completely different human perception of time.
In a world with no time, there is no loss and no grief. That which is past is also present. All that ever was currently is. Pain, if it exists at all, is not associated with loss. Brain scientists would never use the word, but theologians call this experience heaven.
The realities of our temporal existence, however, present most of us from anything like a complete experience of that which is not bound by time. We get glimpses, in injuries, or in dreams or in moments at the edges of consciousness. Our experiences are incomplete and our perceptions are partial. As a result, when we attempt to discuss the eternal, like this particular blog post, our discussions are tiny fragments of a much larger reality. We know enough to say that there is more that is, but we often lack common language to determine whether or not our understandings are common.
Scientists accuse theologians of speaking of that which is not real. Theologians accuse scientists of observing only a tiny fragment of the whole of reality. And a few of us, especially when left with enough time by ourselves, speculate on the intersection of the two realms of thought.