Linear time is the hegemonic western cultural understanding
of time. Within this worldview time is an absolute physical reality, and a
physiological experiential perspective that allows us to make sense of how
events and experiences change.
One of the best metaphors of this view is that time flows
like a conveyor belt that moves horizontally from past to present to future at
the same unchangeable speed. On the conveyor belt there exists a series of
containers extending into the past on the one hand and into the future on the
other. The way we 'spend our time' is by putting our activities into the
containers as the conveyor belt moves along. Once the container has past, you
can no longer put activities in and you cannot put activities into the
containers that have not yet reached you on the conveyor belt. With the
experience of the conveyor belt moving from past, present we have a variety of
emotional experiences from feeling like we have wasted time (not put any
activities into the container) we can worry about the future (looking ahead on
the convey belt and imagine what we are going to put in future containers), we
can feel overwhelmed (not enough containers), etc.
The conveyor belt metaphor elucidates what Arthur Eddington
called ‘time's arrow’, the "one-way direction" or
"asymmetry" of time which has no analogue in space and the related
mental arrow that one's perception is a continuous movement from the known
(past) to the unknown (future). We plan and take action (or nonaction) intended
to affect the course of events in the future. Gravity, causality,
thermodynamics, kinetic energy all comfortably substantiates this worldview.
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