Untrodden paths

Victor: There can be and is! We are simply attracted and confused by the superficial visible diversity of the world, the variety of its forms. Prying into its content, its essence, is boring and unattractive. Nonetheless, this world has one feature in common which serves both as a reference point and a universal measure: it’s

Time.

Andrei: Time?

Victor: Sure. As you know, everything in this world changes, everything flows. Therefore, the only universal measure there can possibly be is Time.

The fact that the old dialectics explain the developments and processes by the struggle of opposites which have a common root; the fact that this struggle is perceived, first, as a quantitative change, growth, then as a qualitative shift; that during this struggle a negation of negation takes place, and contradictions are eliminated – all this shows that we are dealing not with a methodology, but a universal description, because there is no universal measure in it.

Appropriately, the practical value of such description is rather limited, actually close to nil. Because the world description is nothing but a sketch, a diagram, whereas methodology is a map which has its scale, points of reference, or cardinal points, and its set of signs.

With such a map in your hand, you can find your position in space by aligning the cardinal points and finding a match between the signs on the map and the actual objects in the field. The ability to take measurements means that you can answer the crucial questions: not just what direction do we go in, but where exactly do we go? What do we have yet to pass, and when? What obstacles do we have to overcome, and how long will it take us? No draft, no universal description, would answer those questions.

Andrei: Well, I understand your analogy. But it applies to space, it’s hard to comprehend how Time can be the universal measure in such a case.

Victor: Don’t we measure cosmic space by light years?

Andrei: Well, that’s the Cosmos…

Victor: Don’t we measure the distance to a nearby bus-stop or a kiosk by how many minutes it takes us to walk there?

Andrei: Sure, but we imply an average distance that we cover in a minute. Besides, one can compare only things of the same quality. Space and Time are totally different entities which, as far as I know, have not even been precisely defined.

Victor: Quite right! It’s this absence of precise definition, or rather understanding of the nature of these things which in our minds makes them qualitatively different, incomparable. But these differences are relative…

As I’ve already said, the character of one’s perception depends on the speed, frequency of perception. Depending on its speed, the picture of the perceived thing can range from chaotic to dynamic or static.

If our perception of a thing or a process produces a picture of chaos, it means that in the multitude of the picture’s elements our mind failed to find anything familiar, repetitive.

If our mind begins to single out and recognize as recurring these or those periodically appearing and disappearing elements, a dynamic picture will emerge. A stable periodicity of such repetitions is generally considered as Time.

Naturally, this stable repetitive element must be vital to the observer. I mean whatever gadgets we might invent to measure time: mechanical, electronic, or atomic clocks – the Sun and the Moon will remain as the defining measure of all our life cycles.

If we are to give a brief scientific definition, then Time is a result of a juxtaposition of two frequencies, with the received fraction being periodical.

Andrei: What, again frequencies-amplitudes, again physics?

Victor: Yes, what I’ve done, in effect, is pure physics, where Space and Time are simply ways of arranging, interpreting information, a set of stereotypes.

Andrei: Isn’t your work yet another stereotype?

Victor: It is, but more precise, detailed and therefore of greater practical value.

Andrei: It’s funny to discuss the stereotype of Time in the institution where even possession of instruments for measuring it is strictly prohibited.

Victor: You mean watches?

Andrei: Well, maybe not just them. I guess I mean there must be some missing link in your logical chain, or to put it plainly, you must have gone astray somewhere somehow. Anyway that’s the conclusion all my knowledge and personal experience would rather lead to, unless my knowledge and personal experience are patently insufficient to understand your point. If I follow your logic correctly, the pattern, the path of our development is not determined by the resulting sum of internal and external forces, but by Time?

Victor: Quite right. It’s Time which determines these things, both the array of forces, and the pattern, the path of development of both animate and inanimate worlds. As for your reservation that my statements contradict your knowledge and experience, I’m afraid one has to conclude that you, my friend, have not yet acquired even the humblest of knowledge and experience which Ecclesiastes used to have, to observe that everything happens in its good time; that there’s time for birth and time for death, time for killing and time for healing.

Andrei: Time for sorrow and time for joy. Yes, that was a clever move to put me down, considering that

Ecclesiastes is the only author in the Old Testament I have any regard for. But, to tell you the truth, I’ve always regarded him as a great lyricist and viewed this passage as lyrics, not as physics. You seem to have a physicist’s point of view on everything, resorting here and there to physical terms, did you study physics?

Victor: On the contrary, the education I received two decades ago graduating from a conservatory is rather of a lyrics than a physics nature. Until my enlightenment I used to be a musician and played with the

Moscow philharmonic orchestra.

Andrei: Why did you quit? A musician in a philharmonic orchestra is an excellent job.

Victor: Because «no one lights a lamp and puts in under a bushel; instead he puts it on the lampstand, where it gives light for everyone in the house.»

Well, concerning my choice of physical terms, I must stress that if you seek to explain something, you should choose the language which can offer us its most succinct description. And physics can offer us the most precise picture of our present-day reality. Of course, this language should be comprehensible to the audience you address. But you seem familiar with physics’ basics?

Andrei: Yes, quite. I simply cannot understand how a musician…

Victor: could grasp the language of physics? It’s the result of lengthy practice of yoga, of work with one’s own body and mind. You see, neither our body nor mind differs in any way from the rest of physical instruments, except that they are more complex. It’s only natural that I in my work come to the same conclusions which physics make, that’s why I use their language.

Andrei: Funny thing: yoga has always been regarded as an idealistic, religious teaching, while you are proving to be a rabid physical materialist.

Victor: I’m neither. Idealism – materialism are simply points of view, instruments, say, kind of glasses we use to look at the world, some glasses we select are good for reading newspapers; others are good for watching TV. Religion starts where knowledge in its impotence gives way to faith, reason to morals and ethics; the borderline between them is always relative and conditional.

Bachkov, approaching: Sunbathing?

Andrei: What else is there to do? I guess we’ll have to spend the rest of the holiday season here.

Bachkov: Well, it’s not up to me to decide who or what time is spent here, but I’m sure they won’t release you until the festival ends and its foreign guests leave the country.

Dandelion, an old man about 80, addressing Bachkov: Anatoli Sergeevich, could you please give me the keys. I want to weed this flowerbed with dahlias, time permitting.

Andrei: Time is no problem here.

Dandelion looks peevishly at Andrei, without saying anything.

Bachkov: Here they are, Evgeniy Pavlovich. Watch out for the sun: they say it will be hot today.

Andrei: How did this Dandelion come to be here?

Bachkov, taking a seat: His sisters handed him over. He has two sisters in Moscow, and he lived with them…

Andrei: Is he single?

Bachkov: He is.

Andrei: Well, what’s the story?

Bachkov: The story is the usual one: either he got on their nerves, or their children wanted more living space…