Keeping Time

The Tree Ring model of Time, as essentially entailing a terminus, seems antithetical to the traditional association of Time with Motion. However, the validity of that model is demonstrated insofar as it informs some mundane contexts. For example, to 'temporize' means to 'delay'. Furthermore, timing and pacing procedures are constituted by punctuations of the processes that are being timed or paced. Perhaps the most vivid illustration of how Time entails termination is the 'keeping time' of a drummer, via the sounding of a beat that signals the completion of some period of sound, a period that is usually, of course, followed by the initiation of another such period. Even Bergson's Duration is inconceivable without such terminal moments. Not only does it perpetually end at the latest datum, but the rhythmic character that he attributes to the flux is impossible to explain without some subdividing of the flow, and such subdividing requires a contrast to the flow. In general, once it is accepted that Time and Space are not experiential givens, but are produced by Temporalization and Spatialization, each a dynamic process, it is easier to understand that the traditional associations of Time with Motion, and of Space with Rest, are groundless and erroneous.