An Embodied View of Time

"Try to think about time without any of the metaphors we have discussed. Try to think about time without motion and space--without a landscape you move over and without objects or substances moving toward you or away from you. Try to think about time without thinking about whether it will run out or if you can budget it or are wasting it... What, after all, would time be without flow, without time going by, without the future approaching? What would time be if there were no lengths of time? Would we still be experiencing time if time could not creep or fly by us? Would time still be time for us if we could not waste it or budget it?" - George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh

I am sympathetic to the authors' view that the majority of our understanding of truth comes from conceptual metaphors. Indeed, it is my contention that such a view fits harmoniously well with an Incarnational approach to epistemology (and philosophy in general) in which the Word becoming Flesh is the paradigmatic metaphor for understanding truth, for grasping truth. We tend to think of metaphor as an embelishment of language from which truth must be extracted; nothing could be further from the, ah, truth. A brief look at how we understand time is enough to demonstrate the validity of metaphor as a clear venue for the expression of truth.

In the English language the structure for our understanding (and experience) of time occurs within the context of what the authors identify as the "Time Orientation" metaphor. In this schema the observer is the marker for the present, everything in front of the marker/observer is the future and anything behind the marker/observer is the past. This is why we can make sense of sentences like "Let's put the past behind us" and "I look forward to our date on Friday." The Time Orientation metaphor reflects our everyday use of the concept of time. Even our words about the past and future are oriented in this manner: "yesterday" is past because it refers to the day behind (or before) today and "tomorrow" is future because it refers to the day in front of (or after) today. There are other metaphors that work in conjunction with this one and that help shed more light on our conception of time.

The authors note, "The Time Orientation metaphor has a spatial source domain, but it says nothing about motion." What they mean by saying the Time Orientation metaphor has a spatial source domain is that the metaphor functions within the context of location relative to the observer. The observer is present (here/now) and the future is in front (spatial relation) of the observer and the past is in back (spatial relation) of the observer, thus time is spatially oriented with the observer. But is the observer stationary or or moving, and does this affect the metaphor? If we view the observer as stationary then we get the Moving Time metaphor and if we view the observer as moving then we get the Moving Observer metaphor. Both of these schemas contain the orientation metaphor and both are used frequently in framing our understanding of time.

"There is a lone, stationary observer facing in a fixed direction. There is an indefinitely long sequence of objects moving past the observer from front to back. The moving objects are conceptualized as having fronts in their direction of motion." This is the Moving Time metaphor in which the observer is stationary and time moves from the future toward the past (or toward the observer). It accounts for sentences like "Time flies [passes quickly] when you're having fun" and "Valentine's Day will be here [will arrive] soon." In these examples we seen the role of the orientation metaphor as well. The observer is still the marker for the present and the future are those events/times moving towards the marker and the past are those events/times which move away from the marker. It is important to note that the events/times have a front-back orientation like the observer does and that this orientation, like the obeserver's, is fixed. Events/times are always moving towards us from the future and away from us as they pass.

The Moving Observer metaphor is a role reversal of the Moving Time metaphor so that time is stationary and the observer is moving. To further clarify, "Here the observer, instead of being fixed in one location, is moving. Each location in the observer's path is a time. The observer's location is the present." This metaphor accounts for sentences like "We've already been through the month of January" and "The deadline for entry is coming up soon." The Time Orientation metaphor remains our spatial reference and on this schema it is the observer's progression forward that constitutes the passage of time. From this metaphor we get conceptions of closeness and farness relative to events. Because the events are stationary and we are moving towards (or away) from them, our perception of them is constantly changing. I've been married for less than a year, so my wedding is an event/time that is relatively close in proximity to my location in the presnt. But in ten years I will have moved farther away from it and this metaphor provides the conceptual basis for my interpretation of the perceived chronological distance.

Why do we experience and interpret time with these various metaphors? The authors explain, "The answer is that these metaphors arise from our most common everyday embodied experience of functioning in the world." In other words, we are involved in "motion-situations"(i.e. situations that involve movement in relation to ourselves where we are moving towards/away from an object or an object is moving towards/away from us) which are then mapped onto our conception of time. What's fascinating about the variant metaphors above (Moving Observer, Moving Time) is that they are actually inconsistent with each other. An example sentence is given, "Let's move the meeting ahead a week.":

In the Moving Time metaphor, the times are moving. If the meeting had been scheduled for some future time and that time is facing forward toward the present, then moving the meeting ahead means to move it ahead of the time at which it is scheduled, namely, closer to the present. By contrast, In the Moving Observer metaphor, the observer is moving and facing toward the future. If the meeting has been scheduled for a future time, then moving the meeting ahead means moving the meeting ahead of where the observer will be at that time, namely, farther into the future.

Another example they use is the come of "Christmas is coming" and the come of "We're coming up on Christmas." Even though the same word is used, our interpretation of it is shaped by the respective time metaphors. This is true of our experience as well. Some people experience the coming of Christmas; they wait for it, anticipate it and are eager for it's arrival. On the other hand, some people experience the going-to of Christmas; they can't wait for it, they make plans about where they will be on it and they are excited about passing the days until they arrive at it. Even though these two metaphoric schemas are incompatible with one another, it doesn't prevent us from using them consistently and coherently. They are both true and provide true ways of understanding the place of time in our everyday lives. Now, go back up and try the thought experiment I quoted at the beginning of the post. Still think metaphor has no place in discussions about truth and knowledge? I didn't even present the other metaphors we use for time: Time-as-Substance, Space-Time, Time-as-Resource, and Time-as-Money. As the authors might greet you, welcome to the practical implications and implimentation of a philosophy in the flesh.