The Human Understanding of "Time"

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The Human Understanding of "Time"
Time is a dimension that humans use to give account on when events occur or how long these events take. We, however, use the word time pragmatically oblivious of the ambiguity that arises when we try to define time. When we use time in different contexts, does the meaning of time change in different situations or have we a definite meaning of time? If it does change, how do we tell the meaning apart or do we force it to carry meaning in these contexts? Nevertheless we still use the word time practically to communicate but without a definite meaning. There are three practical uses of the word time; clock time, psychological time and real time. These three distinct usages of the word time do not necessarily suffice understanding of what time really is. Thus, questions about time arise from here. (1) What do we mean by time and how do we experience it? Can we understand it? (2) What do we mean by “past”, “present” and “future”? In what sense do they exist? (3) What does time has to do with our existence?
In clock time, one hour is the apparent movement of earth from a single point to another by 15° westward along its orbital path. So the clocks measurement of time will correlate to the sun’s position. Hence, in this definition time is physical and is the synchronized movement of a clock and the sun. This explains the concept of time through correlation of events in for practical uses. It in turn gives an illusion of time. In its definition of time it falls short to justify the logic behind an hour being 60 minutes and so on. Even in practical uses, we cannot sometimes explain the differences that occur from personal experiences since people experience the durations differently – some perceive it short while others long.
A second phenomenon that takes into account the differences in time as experienced by individuals is psychological time. It gives it a subjective understanding. In this way, we perceive time from the perspective of our senses and our consciousness. Time change depending with whether the cycle of existence is longer or shorter. In this context, the speed of time is largely affected by the metabolic processes that determine our time consciousness. It is common for example for a child to feel that time moves slowly while and adult experiences time moving exponentially fast. Psychological time is our individual experience of the continuum of our consciousness. Consciousness is time. When we are asleep or unconscious, time is none existence for each of us but it begins when we regain consciousness (Christian 238). Thus time variability is a personal experience of consciousness.
Henri Bergson argued the term consciousness was not appropriate and instead used “duration”. He argued that consciousness means the awareness of something being present. It would then bring confusion when we try to objectify time as a medium in which events occur. To him, time might more easily be conceived as the continuum of consciousness. Another implication is that if one is not conscious about time, then there would be no time. Therefore, time probably existed even before the creation of earth. To sum it, psychological time speeds up or slows down but in relation to our experiences. The experiences however do not affect how fast e...