Time consciousness

Consciousness of physical time is shown by the calendar-makings of all societies, based on the apparent motions of stars, sun, moon and planets. Other observations of physical time take in tidal movement, seasons and the growth and decay cycle of vegetation. Physical time may be experienced as an objective consciousness of time, of which one characteristic is the regularity of perception that the duration of an invariable event is always the same. However in subjective (personal or "psychological") consciousness of time, a day, for example, may appear to be longer or shorter.

Consciousness of biological time, in man, can be the awareness of his diurnal cycle, his biorhythms, and of other internal clocks. Objective physical or biological time may also be registered as a consciousness of its direction: irreversibly progressive or anomalously retrogressive or reversible. It may also be registered as a consciousness of its form: linear, non-linear; symmetrical, irregular; cyclical, helical; and also as a consciousness of its qualitative meaning or phase: constructive, destructive; upwards, downwards; evolute, involute; etc.

Time is, therefore, experienced quantitatively (duration of an interval, etc), qualitatively (phase, meaning etc), symbolically (form, "wave property") and logically (sequence, direction, causality). In all these modes the consciousness of time is subject to distortion. A possibility of non-distortion exists in the consciousness of sacred time, that is, the eternal. This state of time lies at the extreme end of the time arrow, in one direction towards total entropy, a universe of diffused energy where self-consciousness is only potential; and in the other direction to total negentropy, energy concentration and the consciousness of a god.