Time

From: Benedict Adamson <ben_at_cd.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 13:03:27 +0000


What do we (and Gloranthans) MEAN by time? To most Gloranthans, isn't it merely the regular succession of night and day? In that case Time began at the Dawn. But being (mostly :-) well educated, we know time is more than this. Isn't part of the problem of discussing Gloranthan time that many of our sources are through the eyes of people (Gloranthans, that is) who do not UNDERSTAND what time is (in the way that we do), so they use the term differently from us.

Can time exist without a REGULAR REPEATING succession of events marking its progress?

One of the runes is change/movement. What does change MEAN if there is no time? When we speak of change, don't we mean there was one state of affairs, AND THEN a different state of affairs---doesn't that require time? One of the runes is death. What does death mean if not PRECEEDED by life? One of the runes is water/liquid. What is the difference between a liquid and a solid (e.g. ice) if it can not flow? When we speak of flowing, don't we mean that the liquid is in one place AND THEN in another place?

Can the 'God Time' have a succession of events (which we could call time), but have no regular repeating events (such as sunrises)?

If I read records of the (real world) past, they become increasingly fragmentatry, garbled, fantastic and (sometimes) unintelligeable, the further back I study. Do we conclude that time was 'fragmentary' then? Do we conclude that unicorns once existed (in the real world) because some writers in the past asserted it? Or did time exist then and unicorns did not, and the records are imperfect?
What then of using Gloranthan mythology to determine what the 'God Time' was like?

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