The paradox of the static concept of time

The modern concept of time assumes that time is relative. Time can be regarded from different points on the linear continuum and it seems different from each point of view. Though flexible in that respect, it’s inflexible in another. A person perceiving time can be aware of either the past or the present, but not both at the same time. We can either reminisce about things gone or plan for the future to come.

For us, the aspects of time are different and separate. The past is gone forever and the future doesn’t exist yet. Present is but a fleeting moment in between, forcing us to orient towards either past or the future.

Our way of thinking would be alien to early modern people. For them, things didn’t change through time or because of it. Change wasn’t an attribute of time. Instead, time was perceived as a space where all its aspects were present at the same time. And all of them could be observed from one point, the present, simultaneously.

Because change wasn’t assumed, it made sense for the early modern people to use the past as advice to the present. And because all aspects of time existed in the same space, it was possible for them to be aware of the past and the future at the same time – a paradox that tends to baffle the historians of renaissance thought.

Modern historians have found it difficult to understand how renaissance humanists could be interested in the past, wish for a golden age to return, and write utopias at the same time. Their solution has most often been to ignore one of these interests and regard the other as the dominant, a very unsatisfactory solution.

Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) is one of the scholars baffling historians. He yearned for the return of a lost golden age of knowledge, wrote a utopia, the New Atlantis, and developed a new system of learning that sealed his fame as an ‘advanced’ thinker. The latter has dominated his reputation and most historians have seen his interest in the golden age as a ‘quaint’ hobby, a remnant of an age that was already passing.

But the confusion disappears when one understands that, for Bacon, time was spatial. The past and the present weren’t mutually exclusive, they were simultaneous. For him, his system of learning was about returning the lost knowledge, not by recreating it or renewing it – updating it to his own time – but by recovering it as it had been for the benefit of his own time. This would bring about the lost golden age and elevate his age to its former glory. He is a prime example of a person who held a spatial concept of time.

New Atlantis, too, is spatial in the manner of the early utopias. It’s not about a familiar place in the future; it’s about a strange place in the present time. Time doesn’t cause the difference but distance. None of the renaissance scholars imagined a future different from the present.

The paradox of the static concept of time is, therefore, such only for modern thinkers who understand time to be relative. For someone who understood time spatially, the ability to consider the past and the present at the same time was self-evident and didn’t give cause to commentary. The renaissance scholars, too, become more understandable when one remembers that they viewed the world – and time – spatially, not temporally.

Titian: Allegory of Time Governed by Prudence c. 1565.

Past is the old man, future the young, and both are 

simultaneous with the middle-aged man who

represents the present.

From spatial perspective to temporal?

That time is relative – how it feels depends on the point of view of the observer – may be self-evident to us. It is, however, a fairly new idea and one that marks the change from medieval worldview, where the present was the only observation point, to modern. But it’s curiously poorly understood how such a tremendous change took place. Many theories have been proposed, but none of them seems entirely satisfactory to me.

One fascinating explanation is given by Wolfgang von Leyden in his article History and the Concept of Relative Time (1963). He suggests that changes in the concept of time happened simultaneously with – or as a consequence of – changes in how space was understood. Perspective, the visual representation of the idea that objects seem different depending on where one observes them from, was introduced in painting at the end of the 15th century. Until then, hierarchy had dominated the composition. According to von Leyden, this spatial perspective led to a temporal one. People began to understand that time, too, could be observed from different points of view.

In the spatial concept of time, the difference between past and present is measured by distance, not by change. Change between two observation points isn’t perceived mostly because it isn’t expected. Change happened so slowly in medieval culture that things seemed to stay the same, and in oral culture, stories evolved to suit the present so that differences disappeared. Moreover, change was seen as evil so it was resisted. When differences were noticed, they were explained as coming from a different place, not different time.

Past and present occupied the same space. Past was distant, but essentially the same than the present. Therefore, the past could be used as advice to the present and a guide to the future, a practice that endured until the late 17th century. But it wasn’t until at the end of the 18th century that the first temporal utopia, where the difference is caused by time instead of distance, was written. This would indicate that the spatial concept of time was very resilient.

I think that von Leyden’s idea is plausible. Spatial and temporal relativity both require similar adjustment of perception. It gives rise to quite a number of questions though. Did the relative concept of time first emerge in Italy where the spatial perspective was introduced? How did it spread, independently or along other theoretical innovations? For example, van Eyck couldn’t produce proper perspective in his paintings because he didn’t understand the mathematics behind it. Was a similar theoretical understanding necessary for  the understanding temporal perspective? Did the ideas of spatial and temporal perspectives spread separately once conceived? Or was temporal perspective conceived in an entirely different setting where perhaps other contributing factors were in place too?

These are all fascinating questions. As it is, von Leyden’s idea alone isn’t enough to explain the change, but it’s worth keeping in mind.

Pietro Perugino: Delivery of the Keys to Saint Peter, 

Sistine Chapel (1481–82).

Source:

von Leyden, Wolfgang: History and the Concept of Relative Time. History and Theory, Vol. 2, No. 3. (1963), 263-285.

By way of opening

This is a blog about early modern (English) history. I will mostly write about the concepts of time, progress, future and utopia that are the main focus of my PhD, but other topics may arise. My master’s thesis was about John Donne so he may feature. The primary sources in my PhD are the writings of the first generation Quakers so I will definitely write about them, as well as other topics related to Christianity, especially mid-seventeenth-century English sectarianism.

Despite the focus on history, I may occasionally write about other topics as well, depending on my mood. Hopefully you will find everything interesting nonetheless and will return. I try to write a new post every Monday. In the meanwhile, you can follow me on Twitter and G+ for more flexible conversation.