I am currently in the middle of a little book by Carlo Rovelli called “The Order of Time.” I seem to be stumbling from page to page with my mind being boggled as I attempt to “follow” the story. Having a background in physics might help me do this, but that is not certain. At least I am already familiar with the concepts, theories and historical figures that he draws upon – but the way Rovelli is weaving the story seems both helpful in providing a better glimpse into some of my long-time confusions, but then adds a lot of new ones. I am going to write this posting a little different than normal. I am going to write little snippets, or add interesting quotes as I go along reading the book. That means that this blog will change over time as I “edit” it and repost it with new materials. I don’t promise continuity or avoiding conflicting ideas.

Here goes:

Time goes slower in higher gravitational fields. For example, the gravitational field on top of a mountain is less than at sea level because of the increased distance to the center of mass of the earth. Hence, time is faster on top of the mountain than at sea level. Not a lot slower at sea level, but enough to have major impacts. According to Rovelli, “The slowing down of time has crucial effects: think fall because of it, and it allows us to keep our feet firmly on the ground. If our feet adhere to the pavement, it is because our whole body inclines naturally to where time runs more slowly – and time passes more slowly for your feet than it does for your head.”

“On the one hand, there was time, with its many determinations; on the other, the simple fact is that nothing is: things happen.“

“We can think of the world as made up of things. Of substances, Of entities. Of something that is. Or we can think of it as made up of events, Of happenings. Of processes. Of something that occurs. Something that does not last, and that undergoes continual transformation, that is not permanence in time. It is the realization of the ubiquity of impermanence, not of statsis in a motionless time.” This is pointing to the rather odd perspective that the universe is made up of nothing (no thing), it is all a manifestation of action, of change in line with the Buddhist teachings about the importance of the concept of impermanence. It isn’t just that there everything is impermanent, but that is exactly what everything is – IMPERMANENCE. “The world is not a collection of things, it is a collection of events.”

“It isn’t true, as is sometimes stated, that life generates structures that are particularly ordered, or that locally diminish entropy: it is simply a process that degrades and consumes the low entropy of food, it is a self-structured disordering, no more or less than in the rest of the universe. From the most minute events to the more complex ones, it is this dance of ever-increasing entropy, nourished by the initial low entropy of the universe, that is the real dance of Shiva, the destroyer.”

In Book XI of the Confessions, Saint Augustine asks himself about the nature of time, how we can be aware of duration if we are always only in a present that is instantaneous. He concludes that: