A DEEP DIVE into TIME
Cosmology, Country, Deep History, and Human Consciousness
MLA Educational Article
Written and Researched by James Vegter
Magic Lands Alliance
2026
ABSTRACT
Time is among the most foundational yet contested concepts in human thought. It operates across multiple scales: cosmological, geological, biological, cultural, psychological, and existential. Western industrial modernity has largely reduced time to a measurable, linear, economic resource, yet global philosophical traditions reveal alternative temporal ontologies—cyclical, relational, ancestral, ecological, and phenomenological. This manuscript develops an interdisciplinary philosophy of time integrating cosmology (Big Bang and entropy), deep human origins in Africa (~300,000 years), Indigenous Australian temporal systems (including Wadawurrung astronomy and the Budj Bim cultural landscape), African cosmologies (San, Yoruba, Dogon, Nilotic), Greek metaphysics, Daoist flow, Buddhist impermanence, phenomenology (Bergson, Heidegger, Husserl), psychological time perception, ageing theory, and contemporary sociological acceleration theory.
The central thesis argues that time is not merely a neutral metric but a structuring worldview that shapes identity, governance, ecology, and consciousness. Modern acceleration fragments time; relational frameworks restore continuity. By situating human existence within deep cosmological and ancestral time, this manuscript proposes a reframing of temporal consciousness suitable for the Anthropocene.
THE PROBLEM OF TIME
Few concepts are as familiar and yet as elusive as time. We live within it, measure it, fear its passing, and structure entire civilisations around its calculation. Yet when pressed to define it, clarity dissolves. Augustine famously confessed: “What then is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I wish to explain it, I do not know” (Augustine 397 CE).
The problem of time is not singular. It manifests differently depending on scale:
· At the cosmological level, time begins with the Big Bang.
· At the geological level, time is measured in millions of years.
· At the evolutionary level, time structures species emergence.
· At the cultural level, time organises memory and ritual.
· At the psychological level, time stretches and compresses.
· At the existential level, time defines mortality.
Western modernity has privileged quantitative, linear temporality. Time becomes divisible, synchronised, commodified. The industrial revolution mechanised temporal order (Landes 1983). Railway timetables and time zones abstracted time from place. Productivity metrics transformed duration into economic value. Benjamin Franklin’s maxim “Time is money” encapsulates this reduction.
Yet this linear abstraction is historically recent.
Indigenous cultures across the globe maintain relational temporal frameworks embedded in ecology and ancestry (Stanner 1956; Lee 1979). Greek philosophy wrestled with flux and permanence. Daoism emphasised rhythmic harmony. Buddhism denied enduring permanence altogether.
This manuscript asks: What is time when examined across all scales simultaneously?
COSMOLOGICAL TIME — THE BEGINNING OF TIME
The Big Bang and the Emergence of Spacetime
Modern cosmology situates the origin of time approximately 13.8 billion years ago. Observations from the Planck satellite confirm that the universe expanded from an extremely dense and hot early state (Planck Collaboration 2020). Crucially, the Big Bang does not describe an explosion within pre-existing space. Rather, it marks the origin of spacetime itself.
General relativity (Einstein 1916) describes spacetime as dynamic, curved by mass and energy. When extrapolated backward, cosmic expansion leads to an initial state beyond which classical equations fail. Hawking (1988) argued that asking what occurred “before” the Big Bang may be meaningless because time itself began at that boundary.
This radically alters metaphysical assumptions. Time is not eternal background. It is emergent.
Evidence for Cosmological Time
Three pillars support the Big Bang model:
First, cosmic microwave background radiation (Penzias & Wilson 1965) provides thermal afterglow evidence of an early hot universe. Second, galactic redshift observations reveal universal expansion. Third, primordial element abundances align with early nucleosynthesis predictions.
Together, these demonstrate that time has cosmological direction.
Entropy and the Arrow of Time
Physical laws at the micro level are largely time-symmetric. Yet macroscopic experience is not. Eggs break but do not reassemble. We remember the past, not the future.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics explains this asymmetry: entropy increases in closed systems. Rovelli (2018) argues that the arrow of time emerges from entropy gradients. The early universe existed in a remarkably low-entropy state. Its subsequent evolution generates irreversibility.
Time flows because entropy increases.
Cosmological time therefore has:
· A beginning (Big Bang)
· A direction (entropy)
· A relational structure (spacetime curvature)
Time at this scale dwarfs human history.
GEOLOGICAL TIME — EARTH AND MEMORY
Deep Earth Time
Earth formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago. Geological strata record vast epochs beyond human comprehension. Yet within this deep scale, cultural memory can persist.
Budj Bim: Convergence of Science and Story
Budj Bim, on Gunditjmara Country in western Victoria, erupted approximately 36,900 years ago (Matchan et al. 2020). Oral traditions recount ancestral volcanic transformation. Geological dating confirms late Pleistocene eruption.
The Budj Bim Cultural Landscape includes one of the world’s oldest aquaculture systems, extending over at least 6,000 years (UNESCO 2019). Stone channels and eel traps demonstrate sophisticated ecological management.
Budj Bim collapses assumed divides between:
· Geological time
· Ecological time
· Cultural time
It demonstrates that oral tradition can carry temporal knowledge across tens of millennia.
Geology and ancestry intersect.
EVOLUTIONARY TIME — AFRICAN DEEP ORIGINS
The Emergence of Homo sapiens
Human emergence in Africa approximately 300,000 years ago (Hublin et al. 2017) situates humanity within deep evolutionary continuity. Genetic studies confirm ancient southern African lineages (Schlebusch et al. 2017). Symbolic artefacts from Blombos Cave exceed 100,000 years (Henshilwood et al. 2002).
Temporal Awareness Before Agriculture
Hunter-gatherer societies developed temporal awareness through ecological pattern recognition. Seasonal migration, celestial cycles, and generational continuity structured experience.
Time was not abstract.
It was embodied.
GREEK METAPHYSICS AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF WESTERN TEMPORAL THOUGHT
Western philosophy’s systematic engagement with time begins in ancient Greece. The early Greek thinkers did not treat time merely as duration; rather, they interrogated it as a metaphysical problem intimately tied to change, permanence, motion, and being.
Heraclitus: Time as Flux
Heraclitus of Ephesus (c. 535–475 BCE) articulated one of the earliest philosophies of becoming. His doctrine of flux—often summarised in the fragment that one cannot step into the same river twice—positions reality as perpetual transformation. In this view, time is inseparable from change. Stability is an illusion generated by continuity of process.
Heraclitus’ cosmology anticipates later process philosophies and resonates with both thermodynamic irreversibility and Buddhist impermanence. Time is not container but movement itself.
Parmenides: The Denial of Temporal Change
In direct opposition, Parmenides (c. 515–450 BCE) argued that change is illusory. True being is singular, eternal, and unchanging. Motion and temporality belong to deceptive sensory perception.
This radical claim inaugurates a tension that remains central in metaphysics: is time real, or is it an artifact of perception? Contemporary physics echoes this question in block-universe interpretations where past, present, and future coexist in a four-dimensional spacetime manifold.
The Heraclitean-Parmenidean opposition frames the foundational paradox: time as becoming versus time as timeless being.
Plato: Time as the Moving Image of Eternity
In the Timaeus, Plato describes time as “the moving image of eternity.” Eternity is perfect and unchanging; time emerges through celestial motion. The revolutions of the heavenly bodies generate measurable cycles. Thus, time is cosmological, structured by astronomical regularity.
Plato’s cosmology elevates the heavens as temporal regulators. Measurement becomes aligned with cosmic order rather than industrial productivity. This view aligns surprisingly with Indigenous astronomical frameworks such as Wadawurrung sky law.
Aristotle: Time as Number of Motion
Aristotle’s treatment of time in Physics (Book IV) remains one of the most influential classical accounts. He defines time as “the number of motion with respect to before and after.” Time depends upon change, but also upon a mind capable of counting change.
Here, temporality becomes relational: without perception, time is not experienced. Aristotle anticipates psychological constructions of time while grounding temporality in motion.
Importantly, Aristotle also links time to ageing. Biological life unfolds through measurable motion. Growth, decay, and mortality are structured by temporal progression.
Chronos and Kairos
Greek language distinguished between chronos and kairos. Chronos refers to sequential, measurable time—what later becomes clock time. Kairos refers to the opportune, qualitative moment.
Kairos is not duration but significance. It is the “right time,” the moment of decision, revelation, or transformation.
This distinction prefigures the modern contrast between quantitative and qualitative time. Chronos dominates industrial society. Kairos remains embedded in ritual, art, and relational cultures.
Stoicism and Cyclical Recurrence
Stoic philosophers proposed that the cosmos undergoes recurring cycles of destruction and renewal (ekpyrosis). Time is not linear progression but recurring cosmic order. This cyclical temporality parallels Hindu Yuga cycles and Mesoamerican cosmology.
Stoicism also reframed ageing. Mortality was not tragedy but participation in cosmic order.
AUGUSTINE AND THE INTERIORISATION OF TIME
Augustine (397 CE) transformed the philosophy of time by shifting its locus inward. In Confessions (Book XI), he argues that past and future do not exist independently. The past exists as memory, the future as expectation, and the present as attention.
Time becomes psychological.
Augustine anticipates phenomenology by describing temporal experience as a distension of the soul. The present is not a mathematical instant but a field containing retention (memory) and anticipation.
This interiorisation marks a profound shift from cosmological time to experiential time. It bridges Greek metaphysics and modern psychology.
INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIAN TEMPORAL ONTOLOGY
“Everywhen” and Ancestral Coexistence
Anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner (1956) described Indigenous Australian temporality as “everywhen.” Creation is not locked in the past; it coexists with the present. Ancestral beings remain active in landforms, waterways, and constellations.
Time is layered, not linear.
Wadawurrung Sky Law
On Wadawurrung Country, celestial observation structures seasonal cycles. Bunjil, associated in some Kulin traditions with Altair in Aquila (Norris & Hamacher 2014), embodies continuity between creation and astronomical order. Tchingal, the Emu in the Sky formed by dark dust lanes of the Milky Way (Norris & Norris 2009), aligns with emu breeding cycles.
These frameworks demonstrate ecological temporality. Time is read through flowering, migration, and star positioning. It is observational, embodied, and land-based.
Budj Bim as Temporal Convergence
Budj Bim integrates geological eruption (36,900 years ago; Matchan et al. 2020), ecological aquaculture (6,000+ years; UNESCO 2019), and ancestral narrative. It demonstrates continuity across temporal scales.
Indigenous Australian temporality is relational continuity rather than linear succession.
AFRICAN COSMOLOGICAL TEMPORALITIES
The San: Experiential Time
The San of southern Africa structure temporality through ecological knowledge and trance ritual (Lee 1979; Biesele 1993). Age is relational, defined by contribution and knowledge.
Time is not counted but lived.
Yoruba Cosmology
Yoruba metaphysics situates existence between Àiyé (visible realm) and Òrun (ancestral realm). Temporal continuity persists across ontological states. Ancestors remain active within present life.
Time is morally relational and spiritually layered.
Dogon Cosmology
Dogon cosmology integrates celestial cycles into ritual and social organisation. Time unfolds through patterned cosmic order.
Nilotic Age-Sets
Nilotic societies structure time through generational age-sets. Identity emerges through communal progression rather than individual chronology.
Across African traditions, time is ancestral, cyclical, communal.
COMPARATIVE GLOBAL PHILOSOPHIES OF TIME
Daoist Flow
Daoism emphasises alignment with natural cycles. The Dao is rhythmic flow. Time is neither conquered nor commodified; it is harmonised.
This stands in contrast to industrial acceleration.
Buddhist Impermanence
Buddhist philosophy asserts impermanence (anicca) and momentariness. There is no permanent self enduring through time. Existence unfolds as conditioned arising.
This resonates with Heraclitean flux and contemporary process philosophy.=
QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE TIME — POLITICAL ECONOMY OF TEMPORALITY
A decisive transformation in the philosophy of time occurs with the rise of industrial modernity. Time becomes quantified. It is standardised, segmented, synchronised, monetised. Mechanical clocks in medieval Europe (Landes 1983) detach daily life from seasonal rhythms. Railway timetables impose uniform coordination across geography. The International Meridian Conference of 1884 globalises standard time.
Time becomes abstract.
Quantitative time is numerical, measurable, divisible. It is compatible with industrial capitalism because it allows labour to be calculated. The aphorism “time is money” signals a profound shift: time is no longer experienced but expended.
This transformation produces what may be called temporal abstraction—time detached from ecology and embedded in economic systems.
In contrast, qualitative time remains experiential, ecological, and relational. Indigenous frameworks such as Wadawurrung seasonal knowledge interpret time through flowering cycles, animal migrations, and celestial orientation (Norris & Hamacher 2014). Chronos yields to kairos.
The dominance of quantitative temporality reshapes consciousness itself. It restructures governance, education, work, and even self-perception.
Time becomes resource.
BERGSON AND LIVED DURATION
Henri Bergson’s critique of spatialised time provides a philosophical counterpoint to industrial abstraction. In Time and Free Will (1889), Bergson distinguishes between measurable time and lived duration (durée). Measured time divides experience into homogeneous units. Duration, by contrast, is qualitative and indivisible. The past persists within the present; memory is not stored behind us but coexists in consciousness.
For Bergson, the attempt to measure time reduces it to space. Real time flows.
This insight parallels Indigenous “everywhen” and Daoist flow. It also anticipates contemporary neuroscience, which reveals that memory density alters perceived duration (Wittmann 2016).
Duration resists commodification.
HEIDEGGER AND EXISTENTIAL TEMPORALITY
Martin Heidegger radicalises the problem by arguing that temporality is the structure of existence itself (Being and Time, 1927). Humans (Dasein) are beings stretched between thrownness (past), engagement (present), and projection (future). Time is not a container in which life unfolds; it is the condition of possibility for meaning.
Heidegger critiques everyday clock time as inauthentic temporality. Authentic existence requires confrontation with finitude—awareness that life is bounded.
Time defines mortality.
Ageing, in this framework, is not decline but unfolding toward finitude.
HUSSERL AND THE STRUCTURE OF THE PRESENT
Edmund Husserl deepens temporal phenomenology by describing retention (immediate past) and protention (anticipation of immediate future). The present is not a point but a field. Consciousness stretches.
Augustine anticipated this insight; neuroscience confirms it (Wittmann 2016). Temporal awareness is constructed through overlapping layers of memory and expectation.
The “now” is thick.
PSYCHOLOGICAL TIME AND NEUROSCIENCE
Temporal perception arises from distributed neural systems involving the basal ganglia, cerebellum, and cortical networks (Wittmann 2016). There is no single time centre. Duration perception shifts with emotion and attention.
Fear increases temporal density; events appear prolonged. Novelty expands retrospective duration because more distinct memories are encoded. Routine compresses experience.
Psychological time is elastic.
This elasticity reveals that time, at the level of lived experience, is constructed.
AGEING AND TEMPORAL COMPRESSION
The widespread perception that time accelerates with age can be explained through several mechanisms. Proportional lifespan theory suggests that each year becomes a smaller fraction of lived experience (James 1890). Reduced novelty decreases memory density. Predictive neural automation reduces conscious encoding.
At age five, one year represents 20% of life lived. At age fifty, it represents 2%.
Time does not accelerate.
Perception shifts.
Ritual, travel, creativity, and ecological engagement reintroduce novelty and expand subjective duration.
SOCIAL ACCELERATION AND MODERNITY
Hartmut Rosa (2013) argues that modern societies are characterised by escalating technological, economic, and social acceleration. Efficiency increases, yet perceived time scarcity intensifies. Digital communication collapses boundaries. Work extends beyond location. Productivity metrics fragment continuity.
Acceleration produces alienation.
Indigenous and relational temporal frameworks restore resonance—connection between self, community, and environment.
Acceleration fragments.
Relational temporality integrates.
SYNTHESIS — TOWARD A RELATIONAL TEMPORAL ONTOLOGY
Across scales, time appears in multiple forms:
Cosmological time begins with the Big Bang (Planck Collaboration 2020).
Geological time erupts at Budj Bim (Matchan et al. 2020).
Evolutionary time unfolds across 300,000 years (Hublin et al. 2017).
Ancestral time persists in Indigenous cosmologies (Stanner 1956).
Metaphysical time oscillates between flux and permanence (Heraclitus; Parmenides).
Existential time structures being (Heidegger 1927).
Psychological time stretches and compresses (Wittmann 2016).
Industrial time fragments experience (Landes 1983).
No single framework exhausts time.
Time is relational structure across scales.
TIME IN THE ANTHROPOCENE
The Anthropocene introduces a new temporal crisis. Human industrial activity alters geological systems within centuries rather than millennia. Climate change compresses geological processes into political timescales.
Modern acceleration collides with deep time.
Relational temporal consciousness becomes necessary for sustainability. Recognising humanity within 13.8 billion years of cosmic unfolding and 300,000 years of evolutionary continuity reframes responsibility.
Temporal humility emerges.
CONCLUSION: TIME AS BELONGING
From the emergence of spacetime 13.8 billion years ago to the volcanic memory of Budj Bim; from Heraclitean flux to Daoist flow; from Bergsonian duration to Heideggerian finitude; from African deep ancestry to Wadawurrung sky law; from psychological elasticity to social acceleration—time reveals itself as multidimensional.
Physics explains its structure.
Philosophy explores its meaning.
Psychology reveals its elasticity.
Indigenous knowledge embeds it in land and sky.
Time is not merely something that passes, it’s living in every moment.
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Researched by James Vegter (17th, February, 2026)
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Magic Lands Alliance acknowledges the Traditional Owners, Custodians, and First Nations communities across Australia and internationally. We honour their enduring connection to the sky, land, waters, language, and culture. We pay respect to Elders past, present, and emerging, and to all First Peoples’ communities and language groups. This article draws only on publicly available information; many cultural practices remain the intellectual property of their respective communities.