Linear Time vs Cyclical Time (Western Philosophy vs Eastern Philosophy)

In this video I talk about time percptions, linear time versus cyclical time. Western philosophy emphasises linear time while eastern philosophy see time as more cyclical. There is also vertical time, especially in the works of Henri Bergson and Marcel Proust.

[j.clover]

I feel like like I understand cultural perspectives a lot better now, learning how Western and Eastern perspectives view their place in reality and what we do about it. Amazing info

[martinwest]

Ironically, time is both linear and cyclical at the same time. As other comments here say, the movement of time is spiral, corkscrew like. In a way we get back to certain definable points on our journey, like "spring" or "afternoon", but we don't get back to the afternoon of yesterday or the spring of last year, but to a new afternoon or a spring on a completely new level. The comparison to the movement of the planets through space is accurate, we move in circular motions, but this can also be imagined as a route, a straight (but curved) line.

I wouldn't attach such concepts as "purpose" or "goal" to time itself. Time is just the space dimension where we humans realize ourselves - or not. The notion of "self centeredness" is also common to eastern philosophy, as you live trying to remove your "self" to reach some spiritual "goal".

Progress is however somehow attached to the notion of time, because there cannot be any observable time if not for the changes. But calling "change" for "time" is not true, either, because observation is subjective, while time is objective and all-existent, not dependable of the observer.

[MisakaMikotoDesu]

I think the cyclic nature of reality is plainly obvious if you just look.

[rechsteinerjay]

I don't think time as such exists. It is just a tool that helps us understand change. It is a concept, a theory.

Time is a way to subdivide eternity to coordinate and extract physical benefits.

[pjviitas]

Thanks for taking the time and sharing

[chanchan]

The approach to time exhibits huge divergence between cultures: scientific or Mechanical in western versus relational or spiritual in Eastern, China. Historian Carlo Cipolla can add much more to your excellent summary with his book, Clock and Culture .

[Hesiod]

Western and Eastern historiography in ancient times both involved a cyclical concept of history. The Bible has a paradise on Earth at the beginning and end of history, and the Greek concept of the Ages had a decline from and return to a golden age. Aristotle expressed a belief in prisca sapienta or original wisdom. That is the belief that in earliest history, philosophy was more advanced.

[l.g.harris]

Maybe it’s linear (ray line) but the line starts at ‘now’ and the arrow goes into eternity.

[jessiejamesferruolo]

Ive been entertaining the idea lately that all of time exists simultaneously. And we only experience it as linear. Maybe is entropy that creates the experience of linear time.

One fun theory to think about is how we could all be the 3d shadows of a higher dimensional existence (E8lattice). If that was the case, then we could imagine our 4d experience of time as an intersection between our shadow 3rd dimensional shadow and higher existences.... Of course thats purely baseless metaphysics/philosophy at that point...

Its funny cause we could be right on point with our current accepted theories or a billion lights years away and we could never tell the difference 😅

[Anythinganyoneong]

If there are infinite possibilities for infinite possibilities, then there is an "outside of time" .... if that is the case, then all time exists simultaneously as well.

[SusmitaBarua_mita]

A multiverse and multidimensional understanding of spiralling evolutionary time with periodic shift in orbit and frequency of quantum-consciousness is how I see time or time-space.

[maxortega]

The one thing I would like to know is time linear or cyclical. Linear would imply starting where you are and stretching onward till your end. Now CYCLICAL DOES NOT MEAN CIRCULAR, A CLOSED CIRCLE. Rather cyclical in a corkscrew pattern. The way the planets in our solar system ACTUALLY MOVE. SO IF TIME IS CYCLICAL LIKE A CORKSCREW pattern it would be easier to get from one turn of the screw to another. As opposed to traveling the full length involved in linear time travel.

[alwaysgreatusa]

There surely something fundamentally wrong with attempting to describe one dimension in terms of another. What length is height ? What height is depth ? What time is space ? What space is time? Lines and circles are plane figure that occur upon two-dimensional spaces (or planes) defined in terms of their height and length (or radius, in the case of circles). Time is neither linear nor circular, nor is properly described by any kind of figure whatsoever. It is only our human mind's inability to comprehend time that makes us resort to these inadequate analogies and metaphors in the vain attempt to describe it. Time is not something you can describe in terms other than itself, instead it simply something you experience.

[Bronze_Age_Sea_Person]

I think people are trying to fuse both ideas into this "spiral" thing but they seem to miss the point of both ideas completely. It's not about the geometry of time, but the telos in linear time, and the repeating events in cyclical time. In any individual with at least a beginning, the end is the telos, it's the actualization of every possibility the thing had, so it become an "IS" instead of a "COULD BE", and removing all other "COULD BE'" that weren't actualized. That's why it's an end. Cyclical time doesn't have an actualization of a potential, because it repeats events, so if it actually actualized a potential within cyclical time itself, it would have to revert back into a potential again, taking the purpose of the thing being actualized in the first place, and only by "linearizing" the cycle, choosing arbitrary points to "cut " it, you would find some potential being actualized and derive a purpose from it. The objects inside it like plants or planets might have a timeline to follow, and therefore an end and a telos, but the time itself where these things "move" in time, that doesn't need a telos if it's eternal.

Also, time itself is a limitation of reality. Just like you cannot touch the other side of the planet because of a limition called space, or else, all events could have an infinite amount of causes given everything had the potential to cause everything in space, which is literally chaos, it's like before Big Bang. Time is the same but in time, so there would be just an unique cause to an event, and so order itself could exist, as order implies predictability instead of the utter randomness, causeless of chaos.

[diane]

Fascinating video. The best part though is that he pronounces money the way the Canadians in South Park do!

[tonymcgray]

Time/history is more of a spiral. As as evident now, the cyclical Struss-Howe generational theory holds a lot of water in regard to our "4th turning" period that they predicted in their book "The 4th turning" they written in the 1990s where they predicted a period of hardship. in another respect, and this can also be explained from a generational theory standpoint that they is also a liner aspect to time. The Awakening of the 1880s brough the women's movement and trade unionism to prominence. Those things still exist today, and the Awakening of the 60s and 70s brought racial social justice and gay rights. outside the west other cultures went in different directions for example Islam moved into a more Cromwellian direction. Time itself is liner but cycles are nature's engines and humans are as much a part of nature as anything else

[PanaceaUnderground]

Even if I was born again, and reincarnated into another lifeform. It would still be linear.. the universe would still be older. And yes I believe in reincarnation but also believe time is linear.. because it only moves forward. Time is linear but relative

[alwaysgreatusa]

How much time does it take for time to complete one cycle ?

[teddyboucher]

Its good to know that only Bhutan emphasises happiness before economic growth