Translation of 'Is Time Linear'?

Here is the translation of Ava's article 'Le temps est-il linéaire' - 'Is Time linear' and its two following comments will eventually be translated (but right now I'm going to bed). I thought the ideas quite interesting, and found it quite sad that half (or even more) of the people on this blog couldn't contribute due to lack of understanding. This is a bilingual blog after all.

Is Time linear?

We usually consider time as a a straight line: it appears as horizontal, linear, indefinitely stretching towards a goal- civilisation, progress, happiness, wisdom, the end of the world, etc. This is the way all our timelines are: an arrow, marked with a principle focus point (Jesus, the revolution, a key event); the important dates are positionned around this key point, and there are some dots towards the end of the line to signal the future, when the timeline draws towards the present day. The linearity in which we view history introduces a certain determinism. By placing events side by side on a line, it's possible to make links between them, and to build cause and effect relationships between these events. Basically,what we make of History is a logical sequence of events, that enables us to say, in retrospect, that this sequence was predictable.
The linear way in which time is most often considered presents two major problems. It is a unifying vision of time as well as a determinist one.

First of all, we think of Time as a linear, unifying and global diagram: history of Humanity, that englobes all civilisations past and present, participating in a same timeline. Therefore, all civilisations would belong to a same time frame that would participate in fulfilling a same ultimate goal.We consider humanity as an ensemble, and its history as a unified one, with a same arrow that points towards a same direction. All civilisations help humanity to advance in one way or another towards the same goal, for example, the ultimate one Civilisation.

However, it appears to me that it would be rather difficult to have civilisations as different as Antic China, the Sumerians, the Vikings, the Tutsis, the Wisigoths, the contemporary 'West', all participating in a same direction, aiming at the same ultimate goal. Different civilisations seem to me to be leading separate existences, with their own goals and their own stories/histories. But they are not elements of a global linear History. Apart from isolated exchanges between civilisations (commerce, wars, or influence through ideas) what link could we draw between, say Byzanthine Europe and China at the same period? Even more caracteristically, what link between the Japan of the time, and the Native Americans whose existence was of yet undiscovered by the other civilisations, altjough they very much existed? Even now, between Europe, China, the Arab world? The links have multiplied, civilisations intercommunicate more, globalisation brings the knowledge of other civilisations and their values. But, the diagram, the general gist appears to be the same: each civilisation lives its own History, simultaneously with others, where there some links between all of them, but there is no global history; no common goal, or inclusive objectives, or joined ideals.

We could then introduce the notion of another representation of time, a non-linear one. Each civilisation could be represented by a the arc of a circle (cyclical theory): birth, growth, peak, decline. This representation comes from Spengler, a German philosopher and theorist on historicism at the beginning of the 20th century, idea developped in The Decline of the West. These arcs link themselves to others of course, entertwine sometimes, follow each other when one civilisation takes another as a model. Sometimes these arcs fuse, or seperate. A civilisation can be born in the place where another dies. But they all participate in their own time frame. There is no one time (global and linear), there are multiple times. This model works for civilisations but it can also work for people in the midst of a group: each one lives his/her own life, where he/she will inevitably interact with many other people, but that doesn't mean that all these people live the same life. This leads to something else: what about the individual? One's relationship with time, is it individual or does one conceive time in relation to others since one lives in a society where interactions are necessary and inevitable?

It is undeniable that time moves forward. Day moves into night, and whatever happens there will always be an end to each life. But should we still consider our history as a line? I already mentionned that what I think the problem is, is that this vision of history suggest determinism.

This is where the second problem in this vision of history intervenes: the fact that it doesn't give its chance to choice. And yet, choices form our history. Therefore, history cannot be viewed as a determined and logical sequence, and time as we conceive it should give its place to choice. But how to represent the influence of choice on history? We could elaborate a diagram in the form of a tree with multiple ramifications. To each choice we have made, the line breaks into as many possibilities(each imporant choice is taken into consideration, not the breakfast dilemna between apple or yoghourt. Although...If the yoghourt had turned sour, and that the continuation of brakfeast, and by that of life, became completely different? But anyway). The choice we end up making is the one that makes us continue, taking into account the ramification. Therefore, time would no longer be linear, but a zigzag, that would leave us to see what could have happened, but that didn't because we chose for it not to happen.

We can't extract ourselves from time that moves on. But we can influence its course: we are the ones who determine time.