Thread 514805510

>The mechanical clock came into existence in Europe about 500 years ago.
>Prior to that they used sun dials made of stone or bronze to approximate time.
>For Westerners, this means time has always existed as something independent of ourselves
>Time is moving forward and you are in it for a limited period.
>There is a fixed, unaltered past, a momentary present, and a large and uncertain future.
>There is no evidence that Sub Saharan Africa or Australian aboriginals ever even had stone sun dials.
>Africans interpret time as something that is "created" by doing something.
>Time is merely a singular present moment and that moment flows into you from a mutable past. The future does not exist.
>Some non Western languages lack words for things like days of the week or even the concept of a week, instead all time tracking is event based
>Some African languages don't even have a past/present/future tense and are completely context dependent.
>Today, 57% of Americans under 30 are unable to tell time reading an analog clock.
>Many cannot even read Roman numerals found on more traditional clock faces.
What are the implications of all this? It seems to me like it would explain a huge amount of the problems non Westerners have with integration and would explain also why their countries struggle to industrialize. You can have a factory making machine parts when we can't all agree on how long a second is, or whether it even matters if the factory is still here tomorrow.

time doesnt exist because of relativity. all there is is a now-reference frame. even that is an artificial mental construct occuring at the speed of electro-chemistry inside your brain a good fraction of a second later and dependent of a series of neuron networks that let you assimilate a sense of self-awareness out of sensory memories and memory patterns. really, we humans make up the idea of time by fiat only.

>>514805510 (OP)
>Some non Western languages lack words for things like days of the week or even the concept of a week
I'll ask which languages but that's not surprising at all. A week is just a cycle of 7 days, and it's based on biblical tradition, not astronomy.
>Some African languages don't even have a past/present/future tense
That's a little surprising. Which languages?

Bumping this important subject

>>514805510 (OP)
Yup, adhering to a time schedule was a part of our self-domestication. Sub Saharans are feral.

>>514806144
Yoruba, Zulu, and Igbo are examples of languages that do not have tenses but rely on other markers to indicate when something occurs. You might get a sentence that literally translates as "I go to the store yesterday and I go to the store now and I go to the store tonight."

Some nonsense Western languages also have time based words that are translated into English but don't literally mean the same thing. So a word that translates to "morning" might literally mean "by the light of the sun" and "night" is "by the light of the moon." The word itself doesn't indicate a fixed period of time.

>>514807087
*non Western languages

There is not past nor future, only an infinite present. Yes, it's hard for our human brains to conceive but everything is happening at the same time.

>>514805510 (OP)

As a taco nigger gimme a calendar to make better tacos

>>514807087
Well what do we mean by "morning" and "night" in English?
I think many, perhaps most people would agree that morning could refer to the first half of a 24-hour cycle, but I think most people would disagree that night is the other half of that cycle. I certainly wouldn't call 12:01 PM "night", though I might call 11:59 AM "morning". I think sundown could maybe be considered the beginning of night and maybe midnight is when it ends, but then why is it called "mid-night"?
What do you think?

>>514807798
I think you're trying to bait me into pilpul because you are Jewish. ¯\(ツ)/¯

>>514807475
Sounds like bullshit, mate.

>>514809273
I'm not, but even if I were, aren't these interesting questions? I think so.
I think I'd probably personally define "night" as the period beginning when the sun sets and ending when it rises. Of course that's not fixed since those times change throughout the year, but I don't think that's a problem.

>>514809860
I would say that it is generally agreed on that
>Morning is the period between sunrise and noon
>Noon is 12pm and afternoon is the period between 12pm and sunset
>Night is the period between sunset and sunrise
>midnight is 12AM because it is the middle of a 24 hour period, just like midday is 12PM.
Yes there's also evening, twilight, etc. but my contention here is that there is a clear distinction between Western attitudes towards time as something that exists separate. In a different culture, you may encounter people who don't respect these kinds of distinctions because it means nothing to them. Consider a bus schedule in the US.
>The bus leaves at 12:01pm every weekeday and every other weekend.
This kind of consistency and standardization means you can reliably plan a future. "I will take a lunch break every day at 11:50am so that I can catch the bus and go to a local sandwich shop before it closes at 2pm."
In Africa you are more likely to encounter something like
>the bus leaves when it is full of passengers
>this can happen anytime between now and sundown, when we can't drive because there are no street lights
>there are no street lights because nobody drives at night, and nobody drives at night because there are no street lights
>if you get to the sandwich shop, there's no food because the owner hasn't baked bread yet and doesn't until someone shows up
>none of this matters if it doesn't happen today because it will eventually happen at some point

My contention is that this mentality persists when they leave these countries and move into western countries with a completely different perception of time and its passage.

>>514807475
infinite many finite presents physically all at once.

>>514807798
>Well what do we mean by "morning" and "night" in English?
everyone knows what it means, schlomo. and when there's any doubt, people indicate a time for clarification. kikes are truly insufferable.

>>514811411
>Morning is the period between sunrise and noon
That's interesting because I've observed people refer to morning as beginning at midnight. I've probably done it myself. Here's an old movie clip where they do the same thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyMU8O2B2Vs
Yet still I doubt I'd ever say that it's simultaneously night and morning.

>>514805510 (OP)
>Today, 57% of Americans under 30 are unable to tell time reading an analog clock.
>Many cannot even read Roman numerals found on more traditional clock faces.

This is not relevant to anything, because most of them likely still track time with modern interfaces.

>>514812189
>when there's any doubt
Well why is there ever any doubt? Why is there ever any need for clarification? It's because though we may sometimes think that every word or combination of words we recognize always has the same meaning in our mind as it does in someone else's, that's actually not he case and our interpretation of what someone is saying may not be what they intended to communicate.