The Experience of Time

Catalog description

Is time something "out there" - a part of nature and the universe - or is it something felt, so that we cannot imagine time passing without someone or something (a god) to experience it? The ancient physicists pictured time as a measure of motion or change. That picture raised for early Christian theologians the question whether time was created with the universe, and if so, whether God could do anything before there was time in which to do it. In our era, some philosophers have argued that time, properly understood, is unreal. But we might wonder whether such arguments can touch our experience of time. We speak of time as tyrannical, always moving forward, and finite for each of us. But it also moves fast or slowly, is full or empty. We travel through time thanks to the gift or curse of memory. And music can shape time beyond what physics can account for. This course will explore, through discussion of classical and contemporary readings in philosophy and science, literature, music and film, a range of attempts to understand our concept and experience of time. Fulfills: Ways of Knowing/Metaphysics.