WHAT IS TIME?
· DC
“What is time?” Alice asks, lost in thought.
Alfred looks at her and says:
“Well, that is easy… Everything that endures. Time is not matter or energy, but the condition within which matter and energy persist.”
Alice looks at him, puzzled.
“How do you know that?”
“I know because my brain has formed a lasting structure that, when activated, allows me to recall that thought. Its trajectory is logical, specific and lasting because of the strong meaning it carries for me… Haha, now you really are confused. Yes, matter is not the only thing that endures. An idea also has a form that allows it to endure. Deus sive Relatio, my dear Alice.”
Alice smiles.
“So an idea endures as long as it can find its form again?”
“Exactly. It does not always have to appear in the same words, in the same place, or in the same brain. It only has to preserve the relation that makes it that idea.”
“Like a melody on another instrument?”
“Yes. The instrument has changed. The melody has not.”
“And what allows matter to endure?”
“The same thing that allows it to reach its next moment.”
“Time?”
“Trajon.”
Alice waits for the word to open on its own.
“A particle of time,” Alfred continues. “The fundamental beat in which matter persists as a form of energetic relations.”
“Does Trajon move matter?”
“No. Trajon moves nothing. It refreshes it. Ping. The next moment of the same world.”
“Like a light moving along a row of lamps?”
“Good image. At each moment, you see only one illuminated position. But when the lighting sequence runs quickly and regularly enough, you see a trajectory.”
“Even though none of the lamps moved.”
“Exactly.”
“How many Trajons are there, then?”
“For our material world—one. Its successive positions trace a trajectory. Trajon does not travel through an already-made world. Through that refresh, the world gets its next material moment.”
“And between two refreshes?”
Alfred smiles.
“You are already trying to ask that question from within time. If there is no next moment, there is no ‘between’ for you to measure.”
Alice nods.
“So a clock measures repetition, but does not explain time.”
“A clock counts the consequences of duration. It does not produce the condition that makes duration possible.”
“And an idea? You said matter is not the only thing that endures.”
“A material structure allows an idea to be activated again. But the idea is not only that structure. Its form lies in the relation among its parts—in the way one sense leads to another.”
“That is why I can understand the same idea even when you say it in different words.”
“Yes. And you can hear exactly the same words even when the same idea is no longer in them.”
“If the relation is lost.”
“If the relation is lost.”
Alice looks out the window.
“Then duration is not stillness.”
“Never. What endures does not remain fixed. It is constantly renewed, but in such a way that change does not break its identity.”
“It has to change enough to persist, but not so much that it stops being what it is.”
“Now you understand why relation matters more than the thing.”
“Because a thing is not only what it is made of.”
“But also the way its parts continue to belong to the same whole.”
“Deus sive Relatio,” Alice repeats softly.
“Now it already sounds like your own thought.”
“Maybe it found a trajectory.”
“Maybe.”
“And when does a trajectory stop being just a random trace?”
“When it becomes clear enough to be followed again.”
“And stable enough that change does not destroy the sense?”
“Yes.”
“Like a streamline?”
“Like a streamline. A defined flow, distinct from its surroundings. It is not a rail carved in stone, and it is not a prison. It can change, but its relation remains coherent enough to guide the next step.”
“So not every repetition is duration.”
“No. Repetition without sense makes a loop. Duration with sense builds a trajectory.”
“And a defined trajectory in which sense gains lasting form?”
Alfred looks at her.
“Trajnica.”
They are silent for a moment.
“Now repeat it, so you remember.”
“Trajnica,” Alice says.
Alfred smiles.
“Is it clear now, my dear Alice? What endures is what retains significance while Trajon ticks us onward.”
Continue through the field