Spencer Heath Archive

Item 254

Penciled by Heath on note-pad paper in New York City. Strangely, much of this is printed rather than written, yet is clearly in Heath’s hand. Did he want to give it special emphasis?

November 19, 1961

TIME and SPACE

Time is the rhythm, the discontinuity, of ACTION (or work)

ACTION (or work), as a quantity abstractly, apart from time, is mass units times motion units, grams per centimeter times centimeters.

ACTION (or work) as a quantity, concretely (including time), is mass units per motion unit times motion units per time unit times an absolute number (not a ratio) of time units. This concrete quantity of action is often mis-called Energy.

ACTION (or work) as mass (or force) units per motion unit times motion unit per one time unit (but not including any extension of time) is a ratio of ACTION to time. This abstract ratio of ACTION (or work) to time is usually called Energy.

 ACTION (work) alone is concrete, physical and objective, giving rise to sensory reactions, objective experience.

 Mass, motion and time are, all of them, abstractions, compositional elements or aspects, divorced subjectively and imaginatively, out of and apart from the concrete physi­cal actuality of ACTION.

Except this trinity be integrated into the unity and physical actuality, the concrete reality, of ACTION, no one or any part-combination of them can be physically, concretely or objectively experienced.

Except so united, they are wholly abstract, conceptual, subjective and imaginary. This applies to the concept of ACTION or work apart from time either as a quantity of Action apart from time or as a quantity of Action in ratio (per unit of) time, both of which are commonly called Energy, meaning either a quantity of Action (or work) or a rate of Action (or work).

The same applies also to the concept of a quantity of motion abstracted mentally from mass (or force) and taken in ratio to (per unit of) time.

Mass gives rise to and is quantified by motion into a quantity of ACTION (or Work) abstractly because irrespective of time.

Motion per unit of time (Velocity) transforms mass into ACTION per unit of time.

Time transforms ACTION per unit of time from an abstract ratio into the objective and concrete physical reality of ACTION as a proceeding, process, occurrence, happening, cycle or objective event — the sole and exclusive subject-matter of all strictly physical research and investigation.

 

Time transforms the abstract into the concrete, the subjective into the objective, the unbounded into the limited and measurable, thought into experience, the metaphysical into the physical. Time is the actualizer of events, the formless creator of forms.

Mass supplies events with substance,

Motion contributes power (capacity for Action),

Time endows them with actuality — reality

Mass, Motion and Time, all measurable in numbers based on their respective units. Thus are they numerically related, the ratio of the first to the second and of the second to the third determining the kind, quality or form of the event and the absolute magnitude of the third — not a ratio — determining, in combination, the magnitude of the particular cycle or event or of the members in a series, a process or proceeding of them. This /is/ the basic rationality of the Cosmic Whole, the ratio between mass and motion determining the quality and character and the durational factor determining the over-all magnitude of each particular cycle or event that goes to constitute the whole.

When velocity is not least, entropy lowers velocity and raises mass and parallel series interact with less col­lision and thus both higher organization and longer duration alike for themselves and increasingly for the new (super) organization thus being formed.

 

Hence the Cosmic trend is towards lower frequencies with longer duration in present similar organizations of “energy” and therewith the formation of super-organizations supported more enduringly by the succession of the lesser forms.

The organization elements — events — constituting the Cosmos seem to be expanding in the direction of time much as its mass organization is said to be expanding in the direction of space — motion of mutual inter-nebular repulsion to balance the more intimate gravitational systems. Gravity may perhaps reverse among masses sufficiently remote

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

INORGANIC

Excluding Life and Man.

 

 

 

 

Entropy and Organization

Strictly causal and

deterministic.

Objective time only.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BIOLOGIC

Including the Inorganic,

Excluding Man.

 

 

 

Entropy and Organization.

Mainly causal and

deterministic. Primitive

consciousness in the

higher forms. Percepts

without Concepts. Little,

if any objective Time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HUMAN

Including the Inorganic.

Including the Organic and

Including Man

 

 

Entropy and Organization

Including the Organic.

Developed consciousness,

Largely Purposive.

Both percepts and concepts.

Subjective Experience. Imagination. Dream, plans,

purpose. Subjective Time extending back in the past,

forward into the future. Synthesis of subjective and

objective Time.

Objective

 via the Senses

Fact          

Act

Perception

Knowledge

Practice

Succession

Discontinuity

Rhythm

Motion

Mass

Event

Experience of Consummation Performance

 

Subjective

 via Imagination

      

     Fancy

Intent

Conception

Understanding

Theory — Rationale

 

Time

Length, Distance, Space

Inertia, Force, Stress

 

Mind as Receptor

Memory

Dream

Purpose

 

The Elements of an Event are Unitedly perceived and Experienced as

Mass in Motion,

Motion in Time

and Time as Repeti­tion, Rhythm, Discon­tinuity

 

 

 

 

The Elements of an Event are Conceived and Imagined as

Body, Volume, Particle, Structure,

Length, Distance, Space

Duration, Continuity