What is time? Does time actually pass? Or is it only a dimension of space? How do we experience time? And why doesn’t it always feel the same?
This CrossOver session is an attempt to philosophically and mathematically answer the question “Why does it take a minute to say Hello and Forever to say Goodbye”. To do so, we analyse the question in three parts. The first part focuses on the theory of time; the second on the philosophy of infinity, and the third explores the understanding of emotions in relation to the previous two parts.
The key to answering the question though lies entirely in Cecil Balmond’s theory of time revealed in his essay “Time and Dimension” in CrossOver, 2013. Balmond proposes time as a compound of the real represented as the x-axis of a two orthogonal graph, and the imaginary represented as the y-axis. When our experience of time lies completely on the y-axis of the imaginary (emotion), its duration is zero, but it feels forever (infinity).
For the infinite has nothing to do with size, and zero is nothing; can we argue that an emotional experience of time is a Zerofinity?
“My moment is Time-Full, of a jumping mind in a body constrained to physical dimensions. The algorithms that plot and drive such times are networks, made up of our culture and belief systems. And we control this time to the degree we invent between metaphors, symbols and substance.” (Balmond, 2013)
