I've posted about the nature of time before and it's something I think about a lot (like a lot of middle aged physicists do I suppose). Lately I've started thinking about the nebulous concept of "now" as being a sort of pruning point where (when?) the possible futures are being eliminated down to the one path we are choosing (free will?), thus leaving the single thread of the past.
The future is unknown because of the multiplicity of paths. It is disorganized, has high entropy. The past is known because it is unique: so organized; low entropy.
Just the other day I mentioned in class that I had once read that one of the reason babies are so helpless is that their neurons are actually over-connected and that a large portion of youthful brain development is the pruning of connections.
Getting old and becoming an adult is, in large part, the cementing of personality-forming memories. I just shared my old favorite film classic Mon Oncle d'Amerique with a few students (shout out to YL, AA, MC, ML, & AP) and Isabelle. I realized that watching this movie as a teenager was the first time I was exposed to the idea that 'who you are' is simply an accumulation of individual memories.
I'm feeling a connection between the abstract concepts of "who you are", maturing, and time itself. They are all about the replacement of possibility, uncertainty, and the unknown with having a definite identity, a unique trajectory through time, and just generally pruning away possibility until there is no more pruning to be had...
I once asked my mother where to go for insight on the meaning of life and she responded "I suppose it's really Camus and the Myth of Sisyphus." I've always gotten a lot out of that Camus treatise but now I realize that all I'm talking about here is Sisyphus again! He is out of time itself for his future and past are one and the same: the ultimate act of pruning! As he contemplates his fate, he is always caught in the NOW...
The secret to being youthful then is to continue to be open to possibility, savor the unknowns of the future, and to not wallow in the past. But if 'now' is the actual act of pruning then living fully is inevitably the reduction of possible futures. One must simply enjoy the act of pruning itself!
"The struggle itself ... is enough to fill a man's heart." - Camus
No comments:
Post a Comment