The words we use for time
Distinguish instants, durations, periods, ages and eternity, then examine the relation between temporal labels, counts and clocks.
REALITY & TIME · EXISTENCE AND THE WORLD WE EXPERIENCE
Language meaning and temporal thought
Explore language meaning and temporal thought through questions connecting temporal order, change, experience, and the interpretation of reality.
Read the essays
Grammar and temporal perspective
Move event, reference and utterance points to distinguish temporal grammar, viewpoint and the physical interpretation of a timeline.
The metaphors through which we imagine time
Compare spatial, flowing and cyclic images of time, including an Aymara study, while identifying what a metaphor does and does not establish.
Translating temporal concepts
Read a temporal term in context, compare translation choices, and preserve the source locations that make an interpretation open to inspection.
Reading Arabic temporal vocabulary
Read zaman, waqt, dahr and abad in specific textual settings, preserving the distinction between source vocabulary, interpretation and physical models.
Names and the things they name
Compare names, classification rules and underlying constitution through an eight-state example of what a label retains or discards.
Symbols and interpretation
Follow a quarter-turn through algebra and physical interpretation, while keeping formal symbols and images in historical texts distinct.
Literal and analogical language
Make an analogy explicit, compare counts with calibrated durations and distinguish historical images from newly proposed physical mechanisms.
When the same word means different things
Compare the meanings of observer, dimension, information and inner time, using small examples to reveal where an argument needs an explicit connection.
How narrative organizes time
Reorder a messenger’s story without changing its events, then distinguish narrative emphasis, reader knowledge and physical history.
Poetry and the present moment
Read Wordsworth’s movement from encounter to recollection, then use an original verse to distinguish poetic presence, pacing and measured duration.
Mathematical notation and meaning
Translate an exponential process between temperature and time units, identifying invariant ratios and the extra work behind physical meaning.
How to read a difficult passage about reality
Reconstruct a difficult argument through its context, quantifiers and assumptions, using inner-order invariance and explicit counterexamples.
Translation as a documented interpretation
Compare an Arabic passage with alternative renderings and a decision record, keeping translation choices, textual variants and editorial notes distinct.