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By Samuel Gugliotta
For Variety
THE great, enigmatic
Argentine writer, Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) wrote an essay with the
paradoxical title, “A New Refutation of Time.”
This title is paradoxical because the word, “new” entails the
concept of time, of which the title promises a refutation. It’s like
the skeptic, who presumes to give us knowledge when she says, “Nothing
can be known.” But what about the statement, “Nothing can be
known” which itself is a knowledge claim?
Or worse yet, recall the proverbial Cretan, who said, according to St.
Paul, that all Cretans are liars. But if “all “Cretans are liars”
is true, it follows that the statement must be false, which implies that
it must be true, and so on around the mulberry bush.
Borges was aware of the contradiction in his title; that is was, in classical
terms, a “contradicto in adjecto.” But Borges, I think, was
a master of paradox and contradiction, and was able to use them in his
writing. He was faithful to his quest for truth, unraveling the condition
of postmodern experience. And if the truth is contradictory, or paradoxical,
then so be it. (In the Christian context, we must first loose ourselves
in order to find ourselves; or to give away in order to keep it, etc.).
The nonexistence of time is a consequence of philosophical idealism. In
one version, expounded by George Berkeley in the eighteenth century, idealism
denies the independent existence of an external world. All that is are
contents of consciousness, dependent on the perceiving mind. Thus, considering
the everyday furniture of the world, such as trees, cars, other people,
clouds and stars, we have no evidence to presume they are anything more
than the configuration of secondary or perceptible qualities which appear
to us (sensations). The table is color, hardness, shape, and so on, but
there is no underlying “table” which exists in itself, and independent
of the perceiving mind. “To be is to be perceived,” was the
universal claim.
In terms of German idealism, there is only “phenomena” and the
“neumena,” the thing in itself, is an empty concept. Or, as
the immortal bard has said, “Life is the stuff that dreams are made
on.” In this ephemeral world of evanescent sensations, the ideal
of substance is but a sound signifying nothing.
David Hume went a step further than Berkeley and also denied the existence
of any continuous ‘self’ or ‘spirit’ which is said
to have the perceptions by which we construct the illusion of external
reality. Hume says, “We are nothing but a bundle or collection of
different perceptions which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity....”
A similar doctrine is reiterated by Deepak Chopra in his new age revival
of the ancient wisdom of the East. He says, “My material body and
the body of the Universe both flicker in an out of existence at the speed
of light.” Or, “The essential nature of my material body and
that of the solid-appearing universe is that they are both nonmaterial.
They are made up of non-stuff.”
Once we do away with the objective world, including space, and the subject
or self, Borges says we must take the next step and do away with time
also. The idea of one single linear time comprising a succession of moments
stretching backwards into the distant past and forwards into the imagined
future is an imaginary construct without an iota of support from the data
of immediate experience. We live and have our being in the present moment,
and that is all we have. The past is a dream and future our present anticipation.
Borges quotes a Buddhist text to the effect that, “The man of a past
moment has lived, but does not live nor will he live; the man of a future
moment will live, but has not lived nor does he now live; the man of the
present moment lives, but he has not lived nor will he live.” Or,
in the words of Plutarch, “Yesterday’s man died in the man of
today, and today’s man dies in the man of tomorrow.” And Santayana
once proclaimed that the past was but a novel that he is constantly rewriting.
By considering the present moment as autonomous and solitary you may bring
to bear all the force of life, it vividness and multifariousness before
your consideration. It is helpful, I think, to realize that your life
does not happen in your past or your future of only in the now. Yet the
doctrine that claims that time does not exist, although it may follow
from impeccable logical arguments, somehow offends our common sense. Borges
says that he himself does not believe in the refutation of time. Yet he
says a glimpse of time’s nonexistence tends to visit him at night
or in the “weary hours of twilight.” He goes on:
“And yet, and yet...To deny temporal succession, to deny the self,
to deny the astronomical universe, appear to be acts of desperation and
are secret consolations…. Time is the substance of which I am made.
Time is a river that sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger
that mangles me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but
I am the fire.”
Jorge Luis Borges was the most courageous of writers, boldly diving into
the deep seas of metaphysics and mathematics and exploring the consequences
of profound ideas in terms of his, and everyone’s daily experience.
In our time there are so many writers and artists who shun the hard sciences,
and so many scientists who shun literature and history. Borges is one
of the few who balanced both sides. To enter into his world, through his
essays, poems, and stories is an experience that will open your eyes to
the enigmas and paradoxes of existence, and in the process you may expand
your consciousness to heights you never imagined.
But, you may say, I don’t have the time to read Borges. But, as I
tell my students, slow down, for the slower you go, the longer it takes,
the more time you have. When you are rushing, in a hurry, you have no
time. You live in that momentary world where nothing is real. And I would
continue with this, for there is so much to say about the mystery of time,
if I only had the time...
Puzzles
1. The King told his subjects that the one who may marry his beautiful
daughter is the one who can answer this question: What is the cube that,
when diminished by a square, leaves 2,000,000. (The Queen also gave this
problem to the women of the realm, offering her handsome prince as a reward.)
Can you find the cube and so live happily ever after?
2. The Ghost of Plato posed a problem to all who would desire to enter
through the gates of heaven. It was this: Two digits of the eight digit
number, 273*49*5 are missing. But the number is divisible by 9 and 11.
Can you find the missing digits?
3. The Queen had two cubical boxes of different sizes full of priceless
gems. The volume of both boxes totaled 6 cubic feet. She was willing to
give them to anyone who could tell her the exact dimensions of the boxes,
which were rational numbers. Find the dimensions and become rich!
Answers To Last Week’s Puzzles
1. 7 P. M.
2. Celestial
3. The number 3, as per the phone key pad
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