While reading Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman and The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, both made references to time that were very peculiar to me. Both quote Lewis Mumford, who did not look at a clock merely to see what time is it, but to see how a clock creates the concept of "moment to moment" and changes our perception of us and the universe.
Both Carr in "Tools of the Mind" and Postman in "The Medium is the Metaphor" point out that for much of history, "time" consisted of the sun, moon, and stars. But we have become able to supersede the authority of nature; to translate a natural phenomenon into an artificial and intellectual conception of that phenomenon. We have disassociated time from human events by defining time in equal duration, creating a belief in an independent world of mathematically measurable sequences. "Moment to moment" is not God or nature's concept, but man conversing with himself about and through a clock. With neuroplasticity, our minds began operating and thinking that the entire universe is operating like clockwork. God became the Great Clockmaker. His creation was no longer a mystery to be accepted. It was a puzzle to be worked out. It suggested new metaphors could be used to describe natural phenomena.
Both authors seemed to suggest that mechanical representations of time had to do with weakening God's supremacy and authority over us. I very well could be wrong, but what I interpret from their statements is that rather than looking at God's creation (sun, moon, and stars) to guide them, humans created something abstract, something nonphysical to replace God's creation. Because of clocks, humans have continued looking for more and more ways to replace God's creation with something abstract and continue to use and create abstract representations like the clock rather than acknowledging and admiring God's creation. In essence, to keep creating more "clocks" to represent everything else in the universe. As I stated earlier, I could very well be wrong as I am still not fully confident that I comprehend what Postman and Carr are attempting to get across. What do you think the authors mean when they point out making mechanical representations of time weakens God's supremacy and authority? How do clocks change our perception of the universe?
I think it has always been this way, only now with more man-made tools, the movement amplified greatly. The movement in which man thinks he can take charge of the universe without God. (Scratch that) The movement that man is the god of his life. This movement has existed Bibically since Adam and Eve fell. With every accomplishment man makes, the rest of the world forgets their origin, and becomes prideful, building a metaphorical Tower of Babel. Then a prideful man becomes selfish, and switches words to his liking. Switching laws and history. Pretty soon, the word accepts 'nothing' as our Creator and reject God because billions of years means we don't need a God, meaning we don't have to live up to all of our lies and cheating and such. Since 'nothing' happened. A prideful man will alsi say he's better, pretty much *evolved* from his ancient 'nothingness'. In short, I think the clock was only a small step in the long process of rejecting God for the sake of pride.
ReplyDelete