RE: virus: Language

Eva-Lise Carlstrom (eva-lise@efn.org)
Wed, 1 Apr 1998 15:57:07 -0800 (PST)


On Wed, 1 Apr 1998, Gifford, Nate F wrote:

> I'm puzzled by these two posts:
>
> ----------
> On Sat, 28 Mar 1998, Kristee wrote:
>
> > Well I'm glad you broke the ice on that one; I'll share how
> I got
> > my "confirmation" that time does not exist. ....
> > Anyhow...so awhile ago when I was shrooming, I was confronted by
> the stark
> * reality that INDEED, time does not exist.
>
> Eva-Lise Carlstrom wrote:
>
> When my partner of the time and I were tripping, we found it
> an
> extremely exhausting experience, and wanted to be reassured, though
> it was
> very interesting, that it would in fact end eventually. My
> reasoning in
> that state was that as long as every time I looked at a clock, it
> was a
> later time, then time was passing, and thus the effects would
> eventually
> wear off, so things were fine.
>
> Please forgive me If I'm missing the point as I haven't been closely
> following the language thread ...but I am puzzled why you two would think
> that subjective definitions of time have any meaning for objective time ....
> Your descriptions remind me of the time I was lieing in the back seat of my
> car at a highway rest stop. Suddenly I saw that the car was moving past a
> truck so I jumped over the bucket seats to get to the emergency brake ...
> which I found was already set. Then I realized that the truck that was
> parked next to me was backing up ... my car wasn't moving forward!!!! Most
> popular relativity books point out that we can't perceive if time is moving
> forward or backward ... if its moving "backward" then we essentially
> remember the future until an event occurs when we forget it .... But even if
> the universe is moving toward a state of less entropy and we are moving
> forward into the past IT DOESN'T MATTER DOES IT? Nothing changes. So,
> because you have turned down subjective time to close to zero doesn't mean
> that your autonomic functions were any different then what is objectively
> necessary to sustain life does it? If you take drugs that allow you to
> perceive the world as a non-euclidean geometry that doesn't change the
> utility of Euclidean geometry for the rest of us does it? We could probably
> build a house while you were still trying to design it ... on the other
> hand you could pilot a starship while we'd be hopelessly lost. I'm not
> trying to deny the validity of your hallucination ... just the utility.

Actually, Nate, that was pretty much my point. By bringing up the fact
that I had a very different experience of time while under psychedelic
influence, I meant to demonstrate the Kristee's experience did not prove
anything about the nature or existence of time for everyone else. Or at
least, it doesn't prove what it seemed to me she was saying it did.

--Eva