Time
Time is an artificial concept that we ourselves have created to make the limitlessness of eternity and the universe more bearable, more human.
TODO
- Time dilation is real, and your head ages faster than your feet https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/time-dilation/
- Artificial Time - Forte Labs - https://fortelabs.co/blog/artificial-time/
A correct time does exist
A correct time does exist and that everyone on the planet - whatever time zone they happen to be in - follows the same clock.
Time is a construct
Its a construct not in the sense its completely imaginary, but because we (as in humanity) have created rules about it. There are no months or seconds in nature.
Our planet is rotating around sun and there are periods when sun isnt seen and when it is seen, but it was us who decided its a “day” and “night”. There are seasons in the sense we can see weather around us changing, but there are no hard dates for this and they are not same all over the world.
There has been numerous different calendars all over the world and in the history, using different numbers of months, days and other, in the year. Minutes and seconds werent even counted before clocks became a thing, because it would be very hard to track them. We have decided that week is 7 days, there is no reason for a Sunday to exist in nature.
So, time itself is a social construction. What any group of people think about time ends up being a result of them interacting with each other and socialization processes.
Global clock
Historically, countries have not eagerly embraced the global clock—they’ve felt compelled to do so because of the demands of commerce.
The U.S. national time standard, for instance, didn’t emerge until 1883, when it was adopted by the railroads, which needed to maintain common timetables. Before that, cities largely kept their own local time, and many were not happy to have big government and big railroads force standardization on them. “Let the people of Cincinnati stick to the truth as it is written by the sun, moon and stars,” editorialized one newspaper when the changeover was going into effect.
The era of globalization may be finishing the job of standardizing time across the world, as information technology and the international supply chain knit nations together more tightly than ever.
Monochronic and Polychronic
But while it is possible to synchronize clocks, synchronizing cultures has proven more challenging.
Many of these differences are based upon whether a country is “mono-chronic” or “poly-chronic.” In monochronic societies, including Europe and the United States, time is perceived as fixed and unchanging, and people tend to complete tasks sequentially. In polychronic societies, including Latin America and much of Asia, time is more fluid and people adapt more easily to changing circumstances and new information.
Monochronic and polychronic perspectives both have their advantages. “Fast isn’t always best; nor is slow.”
To read
- Daylight saving time: five tips to help you better adjust to the clock change https://bigthink.com/the-present/daylight-saving-time-tips/