E. Leach, Two Esseys concerning the SymbolicRepresentation of Time, in: RethinkingAnthropology, University of London, TheAthlone Press, s. 124-136.

ENGLISH KACHIN

The time by the clock is

A long time

A short time

The present time

Spring time

The time has come

In the time of Queen Victoria

At any time of life

ahkying

Na

taung

ten

ta

hkra

lakhtak

asak

Dwa sposoby doświadczania czasu

(1) powtarzalności niektórych zjawisk przyrody

“Firstly, there is the notion of repetition. Whenever we think

about measuring time we concern ourselves with some kind of metronome; it may be the ticking of a clock or pulse beat or the recurrence of days or moons or annual season, but always there is something which repeats.” (Leach 1961: 125)

(2) nieodwracalne zmiany żywego organizmu“Secondly, there is the notion of non-repetition. We are aware that all living things are born, grow old and die, and that this is an irreversible process.” (Leach 1961: 125)

“It seems to me that if it were not for religion we should not attempt to embrace two aspects of time under one category at all. Repetitive and non-repetitive events are not, after all, logically the same. We treat them both as aspects of ‘one thing’, time, not because it is rational to do so, but because of religious prejudice. The idea of Time, like the idea of God, is one of those categories we find necessary because we are social animals rather than because of anything empirical in our objective experience of the world.” (Leach, 1961: 125)

“If we do not refer to time as if it were a coordinate straight line stretching from an infinite past to an infinite future, we describe it as an circle or cycle or cycle. These are purely geometrical metaphors, yet there is nothing intrinsically geometrical about time as we actually experience it.” (Leach, 1961: 126)

day

night

life

death

summer

winter

TIME

now

past

OPPOSITES

“(…) past has no ‘depth’ to it, all past is equally past, it is simply the opposite to now.” (Leach, 1961: 126)

“Bóg, chociaz jest jeden, posiada wiele imion. Nazywany jest bowiem od wszystkich zjawisk, które sam nieustannie odnawia. Nazywamy go zatem Zen i Dia, używajac tych imion w takimsamym znaczeniu, jak gdybyśmy powiedzieli‘ten, przez którego żyjemy’. Zwany jest takżesynem Kronosa, to jest czasu, poniewaz trwa bezkonca, poprzez wiecznośc .”

Arystoteles, O świecie, rozdz. 7http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_Aristotelicum

ZYGZAK

“(…) u wszystkich zobaczymy, czy nie w ten sposob powstaje wszystko; nie inna droga, tylkoprzeciwienstwa z przeciwienstw, o ile coś w ogóle ma przeciwienstwo, jak na przykład: piękno jest przeciwienstwem brzydoty (…) Jeślicoś posiada pewne przeciwienstwo, to czy możepowstawać skadkolwiekinad, jak ze swegoprzeciwinstwa?”

Platon, Fedon

pendulum. All that is needed to determine its motion are two variables: position and velocity. The state is thus a point in a plane, whose coordinates are position and velocity. Newton’s laws provide a rule, expressed mathematically as a differential equation, that describes how the state evolves. As the pendulum swings back and forth the state moves along an “orbit”, or path, in the plane. In the ideal case of a frictionless pendulum the orbit is a loop;

failing that, the orbit spirals to a point as the pendulum comes to rest.The motion of a pendulum (top), for example, is completely determined by its initial position and velocity. Its state is thus a point in a plane whose

coordinates are position and velocity (bottom). As the pendulum swings hack and forth it follows an “orbit”, or path, through the state space. For an ideal, frictionless pendulum the orbit is a closed curve (bottom left); otherwise, with friction, the orbit spirals to a point (bottom right).

(E. Leach, 1961, s. 134.)