Aesthetics and science are two modes of understanding reality, with a greater possibility of rapprochement through the philosophical consideration of time

1. Melanie Swan
Philosophy of Time
Perspectives in Science and Aesthetics
Indianapolis IN, January 24, 2020
Slides: http://slideshare.net/LaBlogga
All that we call invention, discovery in the highest sense
of the word, is the meaningful application and the putting
into practice of a very original feeling of truth
- Goethe, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, 1829

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Philosophy of Time 1
Book Publications
2015 2019 2020
Blockchain Blockchain Economics Quantum Computing

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Philosophy of Time
 Agenda
 Philosophy of time
 Aesthetics and time
 Science and time
2
Philosophy of Time
Perspectives in Science and Aesthetics

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Philosophy of Time
Framing conjecture: two cultures split?
 C.P. Snow: “Literary intellectuals and physical
scientists with a lack of understanding and attitudes
so different that they cannot find common ground”
 Non-scientists think that scientists are shallowly optimistic
and scientists think that literary intellectuals lack foresight
 Oliver Sacks: Deep insights about human nature
come first to poets and artists, to be systematically
explored by scientists only decades or centuries later
 Horace: Ut pictura poesis, as is painting so is poetry;
as is art so is science (not favorizing one mode)
 Science: vaunted, arts: everyone has an experience
3
Sources: C.P. Snow, Two Cultures, 1959; Oliver Sacks, In Lehrer, Proust was a Neuroscientist, 2008; Horace, Ars Poetica

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Philosophy of Time 4
Aesthetics and science are two modes of
understanding reality, with a greater possibility
of rapprochement through the philosophical
consideration of time
Thesis

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Philosophy of Time
 Philosophy, art, and science are modes of intelligibility for
encountering reality, “separate melodic lines in constant
interplay with one another” – Deleuze, Negotiations, 1997
5
Understand the Universal and the Particular together
Experience the UniversalExplain the Particular
Relation of Philosophy, Art, and Science
AestheticsScience
Philosophy
Concern:
Concern:
Concern:
Examples: disease causality, drug response Examples: suffering, love, inspiration
 Two cultures is a problem of universal and particular

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Philosophy of Time
Problem of Time in Aesthetics and Science
 Duration: snapshot, perdurant (elapsing, enduring
for an interval, for example, a musical piece), eternal
 Integrate diverse temporalities
 Structure: past-present-future
 Defining the present
 Movement between past-present-future
6
UniversalIntervalParticular
Future
Present (constantly elapsing moments)
Past
EternalPerdurantSnapshot

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Philosophy of Time
Two kinds of Time
7
Time of Reality
Axiomatic Time
Time of Human Experience
Phenomenological Time
Quantitative Time
Chronos (sequential time)
External objective Clocktime
Qualitative Time
Kairos (propitious time)
Internal subjective durée
vs.
 Axiomatic and Phenomenological
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time
- Macbeth

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Philosophy of Time
Bergson: clock time and felt time (duration)
 Two time regimes
1. Objective (quantitative): Measurable
clock time
2. Subjective (qualitative): Internal
experience of lived time (flying by,
taking forever, flow state); duration
 The intensity of the lived experience
of time produces memory,
consciousness, self
 Exercise of free will is possible, by
tuning into the internal qualitative
experience of time duration and
spontaneity, and acting from there
8
Source: Bergson, Henri. (2001, 1889). Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness. London: Dover
Publications.

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Philosophy of Time
Hume: bundles of unconnected perceptions
 Humean verification problem: mountain–teacup–mountain
 Kant: there must be a meta-apparatus, an “I think”
(consciousness) that collects individual sense
impressions and recognizes them as the same object
(Transcendental Unity of Apperception)
9

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Philosophy of Time
Kant: two-stem theory of knowing
 The “I think” (consciousness) connects the faculties
of Sensibility and Understanding
 The two stems of knowing must operate together since
“without sensibility no object is given, and without
understanding no object is thought”
 This is why “thoughts without content are empty, and
intuitions without concepts are blind” (A51/B75, 193-4)
 Problem of time arises: integrating divergent
temporalities of snapshot and eternality
10
Understanding (concept)
(Plato: Ideal Form)
Sensibility (perception)
(Plato: Particular Form)
EternalSnapshot
Source: Kant, I. (1998, 1781). Critique of Pure Reason. Ed./Trans. P. Guyer, A.W. Wood. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press.

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Philosophy of Time
How does knowing work?
Kant: determinate vs. reflective judgment
 Sensibility and understanding operate together to
make a judgment (judging is an exercise of freedom by
grasping something in the world to have meaning)
11
Source: Kant, Immanuel. (2007). Critique of Judgment (Analytic of the Beautiful). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
 Determinate judgment
 Routine subsuming of
particulars under a
universal
 Reflective (aesthetic) judgment
 The encounter with the artwork (or
the unknown), a new particular
upon which we must reflect and
derive a new concept

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Philosophy of Time
Kantian neuroscience: study supports theory
 Being told that an image is an artwork down-regulates
(subdues) emotional response
 Tendency to “distance” ourselves from the image
 Critique of Judgment: detached aesthetic judgment
12
Source: van Dongen et al. (2016). Implicit emotion regulation in the context of viewing artworks. Brain and Cognition. 107:48-54.

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Philosophy of Time
Kant: retentional time structure
 The problem of time forces Kant to specify the
third faculty of the imagination to join the two
stems of knowing (sensibility and understanding)
 The reproductive imagination runs through and gathers
together sense perceptions (A102)
 Introduces retentional time structure (“while” loop)
 Sense perception (immediate snapshot), “while” loop
remembers previous perceptions (mediate perdurance),
to subsume under a concept (eternal)
13
Temporality
S: Snapshot
P: Perdurant
E: Eternal
UnderstandingImaginationSensibility
EternalPerdurantSnapshot
Source: Kant, I. (1998, 1781). Critique of Pure Reason. Ed./Trans. P. Guyer, A.W. Wood. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press.
“I think”

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Philosophy of Time
Models of Knowing: Kant and Hegel
14
Outcome Snapshot
Recognize an Object
UnderstandingImaginationSensibility
EternalPerdurantSnapshotProcess
Outcome Perdurant
Self-determining Substance
Process
Hegel: Phenomenological knowing (the self-aware experience of knowing)
Kant: Epistemological knowing (recognizing an object)
 Kant solves Hume but can only recognize objects, needs
a general theory of the objective conditions of knowing
 Again problem of knowing can be seen through lens of time
Perdurant
Self-negating, becoming self-identical, self-superseding

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Philosophy of Time
Epistemology versus Phenomenology
 Kantian Epistemology: knowing
 Hegelian Phenomenology: experiencing
 Subject-object relation
 Kant: epistemological knower
 Subject recognizes objects: S → O
 Hegel: phenomenological self-aware agent
 Subject introspects about its own process of recognizing objects:
S → S → O
15
S
S O
Source: Swan, M. 2020. Kant and Hegel's Philosophical Thirds: A New Perspective on Explaining Appearances.
S O
Kant: Epistemological Knowing Hegel: Phenomenological Knowing
Subject recognizes objects Subject introspects about its own
process of recognizing objects

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Philosophy of Time
Model of Knowing: two-tier (Kant) and three-tier (Hegel)
16
Consciousness
Sensibility
(Representations)
Imagination Understanding
(Concepts)
Appearances Mental structures
“Concepts”
Thinking
Self-Consciousness
Consciousness
Kant
“I think” (Transcendental Unity of Apperception)
Representational Knowing (thinking based on representation)
Conceptual Knowing (a thinking mind and an object brought together in a unity)
Hegel: Self-conscious explanation mediates between thinking and the object of thinking (three-tier model of knowing:
consciousness reflecting on its own thinking about the relation between appearances and mental structures)
Kant: Imagination mediates between representations and concepts (two-tier model of knowing:
consciousness reflecting on the relation between sensibility and understanding)
Self-conscious Explanation:
reflecting on its own thinking
Hegel: objective conditions of all knowing: difference, necessity, otherness, infinity
Part of self-conscious explanation is difference unification
Kant: objective conditions of object recognition: quantity, quality, relation, modality
Hegel
1
2
3
1
2
Source: Swan, M. 2020. Kant and Hegel's Philosophical Thirds: A New Perspective on Explaining Appearances.

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Philosophy of Time
First problem of knowing
Explaining Appearances
 Specifying the relation between empirical appearances
and abstract concepts
17
FormulationPosition
Agreement between mind and world,
representation and external reality
Empiricism (Verification):
Hume, etc.
Agreement (in the mind) between representations
(sensibility) and concepts (understanding)
Epistemology:
Kant
Relation (in the mind) between
determinate content and abstract form
Phenomenology:
Hegel
Chair

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Philosophy of Time
Explaining Appearances
 Kant: subject recognizes object
 Hegel: subject reflects on its own
process of recognizing an object
18
Kant
Hegel
UnderstandingImaginationSensibility
EternalPerdurantSnapshot
Understanding
Self-conscious Explanation (continuous)
Sensibility
Eternal PerdurantSnapshot
Object Recognition (discrete)
S
S O
S O
Hegel
Kant
Snapshot

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Philosophy of Time
Hegel: phenomenology of self-determination
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All that it is All that it is not
 An object is a unity of all that it is and all that it is not
 Inner difference (difference as a Concept (unity of self/non-self))
 Self-determination process (production of the new):
 Self-negating, becoming self-identical, self-superseding
 Solve problem of determinacy: perception is indeterminate
Outcome Perdurant
Self-determining Substance
Process
Hegel: Phenomenological knowing (the self-aware experience of knowing)
Perdurant
Self-negating, becoming self-identical, self-superseding
Source: Swan, M. 2020. Kant and Hegel's Philosophical Thirds: A New Perspective on Explaining Appearances.

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Philosophy of Time
Structure of Time: Past, Present, Future
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 Time structure
 Hegel: “multiplication of Nows” (§107-8)
 Difference (negation: present is not-past and not-future)
 Unity of all that it is/all that it is not: present contains past/future
 Universal and particular (middle term syllogism); parts-whole
Past Present Future
Future
Present (moments constantly elapsing to the past)
Past

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Philosophy of Time
 Kant’s theory of knowing recognizes physical objects
but not abstract objects of knowing such as justice
 Problem formulation
 No theory of difference unification
 No full-blown past-present-future time structure
Explaining Appearances
21
All that it is All that it is not
Source: Swan, M. 2020. Kant and Hegel's Philosophical Thirds: A New Perspective on Explaining Appearances.
FutureHegel Past PKant Past P
FormulationPosition
Agreement (in the mind) between representations
(sensibility) and concepts (understanding)
Epistemology: Kant
Relation (in the mind) between determinate
content and abstract form
Phenomenology: Hegel
HegelKant
Difference in the empirical sense:
the “numerical difference” between
“two drops of water” (B319-320)

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Philosophy of Time
Philosophy of Time
 Time structure
 Kant: retentive time structure (memory)
 Hegel: full-blown past-present-future time structure
 Husserl: internal time consciousness with “long now”
 Heidegger: the future reaches back to the past to
determine the present (living into possibilities) (§65-8)
 Derrida: non-present is present in the present
22
Future
Present (moments constantly elapsing to the past)
Past
Kant Hegel Husserl Heidegger Derrida
Source: Swan, M. 2020. Kant and Hegel's Philosophical Thirds: A New Perspective on Explaining Appearances.
Continental
(open-ended
questions)
Analytic
(provable claims)
McTaggert
A/B Time

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Philosophy of Time
 Agenda
 Philosophy of time
 Aesthetics and time
 Science and time
23
Philosophy of Time
Perspectives in Science and Aesthetics

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Philosophy of Time
Kant and Aesthetics: two arguments
1. Integrate diverse temporal regimes
2. Derive aesthetic theory of felt knowing
from the Kantian theory of cognition
 Two-stem theory of knowing: sensibility and
understanding
24

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Philosophy of Time
Aesthetics: same problem of time
25
UnderstandingSensibility
EternalSnapshot
Verbal (text, music)Visual (image)
PerdurantSnapshot
Cognition
Aesthetics
 Problem of joining diverse temporal regimes
 Visual artwork: snapshot temporality
 Verbal artwork (music, poem): perdurant temporality

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Philosophy of Time
Verbal-Visual (Ekphrasis) Example:
Breughel and Auden
26
In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster, the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure
Musée des Beaux Arts, Auden
Landscape with the
Fall of Icarus,
Bruegel the Elder
Temporality:
snapshot
Visual
Verbal
Temporality: perdurance

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Philosophy of Time
Aesthetics: imagination and problem of time
27
UnderstandingImaginationSensibility
EternalPerdurantSnapshot
Verbal (text, music)ImaginationVisual (image)
PerdurantPerdurantSnapshot
Philosophy
Aesthetics
 Imagination needed to join diverse temporal regimes
 Visual artwork: snapshot temporality
 Verbal artwork (music, poem): perdurant temporality

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Philosophy of Time
Kant and Aesthetics: two arguments
1. Integrate diverse temporal regimes
 Intermediary faculty of imagination needed to join diverse
temporal regimes in the domains of both cognition
(sensibility and understanding) and aesthetics (verbal and
visual; image and text)
2. Derive aesthetic theory of felt knowing from Kant
 Two-stem theory of knowing: sensibility and understanding
relies upon both emotion and intellect
28
Marble Torso of the Apollo
Lykeios AD 130-161;
Archaic Torso of Apollo,
Rainer Maria Rilke, 1918

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Philosophy of Time
Aesthetic theory of felt knowledge
 Derive an aesthetic theory of felt knowing from Kant
 Two-stem theory of knowing: sensibility and understanding
relies upon both emotion and intellect
 Stakes: give Kant a full-blown aesthetic theory,
directly from the first Critique (Critique of Pure
Reason); not merely a theory of aesthetic judgment
from the third Critique (Critique of Judgment)
 Add aesthetics to the Kantian theory of cognition
29
UnderstandingSensibilityCognition
Theory of Felt
Knowledge
IntellectEmotion

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Philosophy of Time
Definition
Aesthetic theory of felt knowledge is…
 The feeling tone that knowledge is true
 The right answer to a problem clicks into place
 Mathematician break-throughs: ease, elegance
 Occam’s Razor: the simplest solution is correct
 There is a special quality to truth
 Claim: an emotionally-installed understanding is a
superior form of intellectual understanding
 There is an aesthetic aspect and a cognitive aspect to the
right answer of felt knowledge, as an indication of emotion
and intellect working together
30
All that we call invention, discovery in the highest sense
of the word, is the meaningful application and the
putting into practice of a very original feeling of truth.
- Goethe, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, 1829

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Philosophy of Time
Example: Moby-Dick
31
 Poetry (poetic language) and praxis (practical manual)
 Singular work because captures both the heart and the
intellect through the imagination, Melville:
 (May 1, 1850): The whaling voyage is a strange sort of a book;
blubber is blubber tho’ you may get oil out of it, the poetry runs
as hard as sap from a frozen maple tree
 (June 27, 1850): The book is a romance of adventure, founded
upon wild legends in the Southern Sperm Whale Fisheries
Sources: Oriental Repose. Baleinier au Mouillage (Whaler at anchor) colored lithograph drawn by Jean-Baptiste-Henri Durand-Brager
(1814-1879), Garneray’s Sperm Whaling Scene: Peche du Cachalot. Cachalot Fishery. Aquatint by Ambroise Louis Garneray (1783-1857).

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Philosophy of Time
Moby-Dick: Problem of Representation
32
 Previous representation only provided by myth
 Though elephants have stood for their full-lengths, the
living Leviathan has never yet floated for his portrait
 The living whale, in his full majesty, is only seen at sea in
unfathomable waters; the vast bulk of him out of sight
 The only way to derive a tolerable idea of his living contour
is by going a whaling yourself
Source: Melville, Moby-Dick, 1851, Chapters 55 and 56: “Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales” and “Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of
Whales, and the True Pictures of Whaling Scenes”
 A portentous, black mass of
something hovering in a
nameless yeast. A boggy,
soggy, squitchy picture truly…

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Philosophy of Time
Theory/Artwork Pairs
Theory/ArtworkThinker/Artist
Collected Works (Vol. 5)/
The Name of the Rose
Peirce/Eco
Distinction/In Search of Lost
Time, Sentimental Education
Bourdieu/Proust-Flaubert
Science and Hypothesis/
Coup de Dés
Poincaré/Mallarmé
Curved spacetime Theory/ Las
Meninas-The Ambassadors
Riemann/Velasquez-
Holbein
Logical reasoning
Social space (habitus)
Probability theory and
mathematics
Geometric perspective and
mathematical space
Derrida’s GlasHegel/Genet (Rembrandt)
Form & content: philosophical
system vs poetic verse
Domain
 Poetry and praxis, theory and artwork
Source: Swan, M. The Ekphrastic Diagram: Towards a Quantum Theory of Ekphrasis. 2019.
Mallarmé‘s Coup de Dés
poem (throw of the dice)
illustrates Poincaré‘s
probability theory

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Philosophy of Time
Theory-artwork pairs in geometric space
34
 The artwork breathes life into the scientific theory
Holbein, The AmbassadorsVelasquez, Las Meninas
Riemann: geometric perspective and mathematical space

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Philosophy of Time
Imagination: intermediary faculty
35
UnderstandingImaginationSensibility
ImaginationEmotions
Philosophy
Felt
knowledge
 Imagination needed to join diverse mental regimes
(emotion-intellect) just as diverse aesthetic temporal
regimes (visual-verbal (image-text))
 There is both an aesthetic aspect and a cognitive
aspect to the right answer of felt knowledge
 Emotion and intellect working together through the
imagination as an intermediary
Intellect
ImaginationVisual (image)Aesthetics Verbal (text)

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Philosophy of Time
Summary
Kant and Aesthetics: two arguments
1. Integrate diverse temporal regimes
 Intermediary faculty of imagination needed to join diverse
temporal regimes in the domains of both cognition
(sensibility and understanding) and aesthetics (verbal and
visual; image and text)
2. Derive Kantian aesthetic theory of felt knowing
 Two-stem theory of knowing: relies upon both emotion
(sensibility) and intellect (understanding)
 An emotionally-installed understanding is a superior form of
intellectual understanding (poetry and praxis)
 Knowing has both an aesthetic and a cognitive aspect
36

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Philosophy of Time
Philosophical Contribution of Aesthetics
37
 Wide-ranging themes surface in aesthetics
 Problem of integrating diverse temporal regimes
 Problem of relating emotion and intellect
 Relation between form-content, parts-whole, concrete-
abstract, materials and practice, theory-praxis
 Production of the new, mechanism for social critique
 Deleuze: new concepts arise in the cinema Hitchcock,
Frenzy, 1972
 Example: The movement of
individual characters and objects
is shown at the same time to
express a change in the whole,
conveying the sense of the flow
of movement itself
Source: Deleuze, Gilles. (1986). Cinema 1: The-Movement-Image. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

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Philosophy of Time
Philosophical Contribution of Aesthetics
 Van Gogh “is an artist and a thinker, every one of his
works contains an idea that flashes on the eye of the
viewer” – E. Bernard (painter colleague)
 The Bedroom: “Looking at the painting should rest the mind, or
rather the imagination” – Van Gogh
 Starry Night: dusk, twilight, and night provides comfort and
peace from the commotion of the day
38
Source: Heiligman, Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers, 2017.
Starry Night,
1889
The Bedroom,
1888

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Philosophy of Time
Aesthetics: What is Art?
39
 Relation of form and content
 Winkelmann: focus on content
 Lessing: at least 50% is form
 Adorno: “art…is simply identical with form”
 Art is a way of creating and expressing the
element of truth in a culture – Heidegger
 Art is pressing a representation of individual and
collective self-concept into materials – Hegel
 Examples: pyramids, Parthenon, skyscrapers,
sculpture, snow forts
 What art seeks to disturb is monotony of type,
slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the
reduction of man to the level of a machine -
Oscar Wilde
Schoenberg atonal Five
Orchestral Pieces, Op.
Source: Hegel, Georg W.F. Aesthetics. Vol. 1 and 2.
Shoes, Van Gogh, engaged
by Heidegger in The Origin
of the Work of Art

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Philosophy of Time
Aesthetics: What counts as a Work of Art?
 Venue: if displayed in a gallery, it is art
 Adorno: An artwork has its own law of
form (a relation between its formal
elements; a principle of self-legislation
(freedom), vs. externally-imposed rules)
 The autonomous artwork produces meaning
out of itself (by acting as a free subject)
 Deleuze: The artist has an encounter
with originary time
 The artwork is “a transmutation of
substance” giving the viewer access to
“an original world”
40
Sources: Adorno. (1997). Aesthetic Theory; Deleuze. (2000). Proust and Signs.
Beckett,
Play
Duchamp,
Fountain

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Philosophy of Time
 Agenda
 Philosophy of time
 Aesthetics and time
 Science and time
41
Philosophy of Time
Perspectives in Science and Aesthetics

43. 24 Jan 2020
Philosophy of Time
Scientific Aesthetics
42
 Charles Henry (1859-1926): universal principles
that apply to art, science, and any domain
 Write equations from Degas paintings, calculate the value
of Mallarmé metaphors (dynamograph) and the relation
between the lead solubility and the Taiping Rebellion
 Greeks: Pythagorean rules of proportion
 Painting, sculpture, architecture, and music
 Leonardo da Vinci: principles of ancient symmetry
 Typographic characters (interlaced roundels) drawn for
Pacioli’s De divina proportione
 Michelangelo: symbolic precept in sculptural figures
 Pyramidal, serpentine, and multiplied by one, two, three
Source: Henry, Charles. “Introduction to a Scientific Aesthetics.” Art in Translation. 10(2), 2018, Pp. 198-222. Trans. Naomi Polonsky.
(Published in French as Charles Henry, “Introduction à une esthétique scientifique.” La Revue contemporaine (2 August 1885): 441-69.)
Michelangelo,
Moses

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Philosophy of Time
Kandinsky’s Color Theory
43
 The eye is strongly attracted by warm, light, clear
colors…keen lemon-yellow hurts the eye in time as a
prolonged and shrill trumpet-note on the ear
 Example: the struggle between yellow (pain) and blue
(pleasure, relief), with red (fire) as a mediator
Kandinsky, 1925
Yellow, Red, Blue
Source: Kandinsky, The Art of Spiritual Harmony (1914).

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Philosophy of Time
Aesthetics and the Scientific Diagram: Biophysics
44
Source: Wilson, J. & Aksimentiev, A. Water-Compression Gating of Nanopore Transport. Physical Review Letters. 120:268101, 2018.
 Properties
 Color theory
 Green and blue
 Red emphasis
 Diverse temporal
regimes
 Snapshot
 Perdurant
elapsing
 Processes
involving interiority
and exteriority

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Philosophy of Time
The Scientific Diagram: Neuroscience
45
Source: Cook, Steven J. et al. Whole-animal connectomes of both Caenorhabditis elegans sexes. Nature. (571):63-89, 2019.
 C. elegans motor neurons
 Portrayal of complex systems
 Functional map of neuronal connections

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Philosophy of Time
The Scientific Diagram: Quantum Computing
46
Source: Sarma, S.D., Freedman, M., & Nayak, C. Majorana zero modes and topological quantum computation. Nature partner journal:
Quantum Information. 1(15001), 2015.
Clear examples
 Quantum computing and Majorana braiding
Confusing examples

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Philosophy of Time
Feynman: Universal Quantum Computer
47
Source: Feynman, R.P. (1982). Simulating physics with computers. International Journal of Theor. Physics. 21(6):467-88.
 The laws of physics present no barrier to reducing
the size of computers until bits are the size of atoms
 Vision: build a “universal quantum simulator” in the
structure of nature
 Simulate field theories with lattice works of spins

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Philosophy of Time
Quantum Computing
48
 Exploit properties of quantum objects (atoms, ions, photons)
 Superposition, interference, entanglement
 Test more permutations since particles exist across all states
 Bit: fundamental unit of computational information: 0/1;
qubit (quantum bit: bit in a quantum system)
 Classical computing relies on electrical conductivity, using
Boolean algebra (true/false, and/or) to manipulate bits
 Quantum computing relies on quantum mechanics, using
linear algebra to manipulate matrices of complex numbers
(i.e. the amplitudes of possible states)
 Create qubits: any two-state system of 0s and 1s
 Methods: superconducting loops, trapped ions, silicon
quantum dots, topological qubits, microscopic diamonds
Ytterbium-171
isotopes below 1
Kelvin (-458°F)

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Philosophy of Time
Quantum Computing
 Threat: break existing cryptography standards (2048-bit
RSA) “unlikely within 10 years” (US National Academies
of Sciences, 2019), but methods constantly improving
 Opportunity: US NIST: next-generation standards
 Lattice cryptography: complex 3D arrangements of atoms, as
opposed to the difficulty of factoring large numbers (RSA 2048)
 Group theory (lattices) versus number theory (factoring)
 Commercial systems (on-premises and cloud-based)
 IBM & Rigetti (controllable gate model superconductors (~19 qubits))
 D-Wave (less-controllable quantum annealing machines (2048 qubits))
49
Source: Swan, M. 2020. Blockchain Physics.

51. 24 Jan 2020
Philosophy of Time
Scope of Quantum Advantage
50
 One-tier improvement in computational complexity
 Solve the next tier of designated problem difficulty with the
current tier’s computational resource (in time and space)
 NP becomes solvable in P, EXP becomes solvable in NP
 Example: factoring large numbers becomes time-reasonable
 Computational complexity: amount (time and space) of
computing resources required to solve a problem
P: polynomial time (e.g. solvable in human-reasonable amount of time); NP: non-polynomial (not solvable in human-reasonable
amount of time); EXP: exponential (requires exponential time/space to solve)
Computational
Complexity

52. 24 Jan 2020
Philosophy of Time
Industry of the Future
Optical Quantum Computing
51
 Standard quantum computing
 Massive parallelism from processing all problem inputs
simultaneously (all permutations of 0/1 in 3D space)
 Quantum circuit (chip) processes 0s and 1s
simultaneously
 Optical (photonic) quantum computing
 Superposition of both problem inputs (0/1) and
processing gates (“superposition of superpositions”)
 Gate architecture
 Standard quantum architecture: fixed gate order
 Photonic quantum architecture: superimposed gate order
 The circuits themselves are superpositioned
 Result: optical quantum circuits exponential advantage over classical
algorithms and linear advantage over standard quantum algorithms
Source: Procopio et al. 2015. Experimental Superposition of Orders of Quantum Gates. Nature Communications. 6(7913):1-6.

53. 24 Jan 2020
Philosophy of Time
Industry of the Future
Quantum Multiplexing of Time and Space
52
 Quantum speed-up
 Standard quantum computing: space accelerated by testing
all 3D Hilbert space permutations of 0/1 (problem inputs)
 Optical quantum computing: time also accelerated by
superpositioning processing gates (gate order)
 Quantum optical routing
 Global fiberoptic communications parallel
 TDM/WDM: time-division/wave-division multiplexing

54. 24 Jan 2020
Philosophy of Time
Scale
53
Physical TheoryScale
Newtonian mechanics1 x 101 m
Quantum mechanics1 x 10-9 m
QCD/gauge theories1 x 10-15 m
Planck scale1 x 10-35 m
QCD: Quantum Chromodynamics
 Theme: ability to understand and
manipulate physical reality at
increasingly smaller scales
Atoms
Subatomic particles
Quantum objects:
atoms, ions, photons
Matter particles: fermions (quarks)
Force particles: bosons (gluons)
(nanotechnology)

55. 24 Jan 2020
Philosophy of Time
 Holographic Principle
 A 3D volume reconstructed on a 2D surface (bug on windshield)
 Holographic Correspondence (gauge-gravity duality)
 Connection between gravity and gauge theories (Maldacena 1997)
 Gauge theories treat next scale level down from atoms
 Quantum chromodynamics (subatomic particles)
 Proton: three quarks bound together by gluons (lines of flux/field
strength, like electromagnetic field lines, gravitational fields)
The Holographic Principle
54
Sources: Susskind, L.; Maldacena, J.
Gluons hold Quarks together to form a Proton Fields/Lines of Flux
Matter particles: fermions (quarks)
Force particles: bosons (gluons)

56. 24 Jan 2020
Philosophy of Time
 Apply information theory to physics (Harlow & Hayden, 2013)
 Formalization of the holographic principle/gauge-gravity duality
 Claim: Any physical system with a bulk volume can be
described by a boundary theory in one fewer dimensions
 Bug on windshield : particles are smeared out on the
black hole event horizon in one fewer dimensions than in
the bulk interior
AdS/CFT Correspondence (Anti-de Sitter Space/Conformal Field Theory)
55
Sources: Harlow, D. & Hayden, P. (2013). Quantum computation vs. firewalls. J. High Energ. Phys. 2013:85; Pastawski, S., et
al. Is spacetime a quantum error-correcting code? arXiv:1503.06237, 2015; Escher, Circle Limits.
AdS/CFT
“soup can”
Escher Circle Limits Quantum error
correcting codes
 Implications for
 Black hole
information
paradox
 Time/space
emergence

57. 24 Jan 2020
Philosophy of Time
Practical application
Computation at the Planck Scale?
56
Newton
(1687)
Difference Engine
(1786)
Transistor
(1947)
Quantum Mechanics
(1905)
Quantum Gravity
(2016)
??
(2075e)
Planck scale
(1×10−35)
Atomic scale
(1×10−9)
Classical scale
(1×101)
Scale Scientific Discovery Computing Paradigm
Source: Feynman, R.P. (1960) There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom. Engineering and Science. 23(5):22-36.
Quark scale
(1×10−15) Quantum Computing
(2019)

58. 24 Jan 2020
Philosophy of Time 57
Newton General Relativity
Human scale Very large and very heavy
Quantum Mechanics
Very small and very light
Physical Domains of Reality

59. 24 Jan 2020
Philosophy of Time 58
Newton General Relativity
Human scale Very large and very heavy
Quantum Mechanics Quantum Gravity
Very small and very light Very small and very heavy
Physical Domains of Reality

60. 24 Jan 2020
Philosophy of Time
 Diverse Temporal Regimes
 General Relativity: relativistic time (experienced time)
 Time dilation: age faster mountain top than sea level
 Twin problem, grandfather paradox, one party traveling
 Quantum Mechanics: atomic time (clock time)
 Measured regular movement of atomic particles
 Klein-Gordon, Dirac, QFT (many particles)
 Diverse Spatial Regimes
 General Relativity: geometric space, phase space
 Quantum Mechanics: Hilbert space (vector space),
momentum space, configuration space, various
polarizations of space
General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics
59
Time dilation
Atomic clock

61. 24 Jan 2020
Philosophy of Time
Positions
1. Time and space are fundamental
 Time and space exist as concrete and basic
“furniture” of reality that cannot be derived from
other entities or structures
2. Time and space are emergent
 Time and space exist, not fundamentally but as
derived from other entities or structures (i.e.
quantum matter and its relations)
 What precedes? Geometry (domain in which things
behave) or Dynamics (parameters of behavior)
60
Source: http://www.hss.caltech.edu/content/dennis-lehmkuhl
Time and Space: Fundamental or Emergent?

62. 24 Jan 2020
Philosophy of Time
 What precedes?
 Geometry (domain in which things behave)
 General relativity view: geometry precedes
 Theories: Loop quantum gravity (Rovelli, Oriti)
 Dynamics (parameters of behavior, how system changes)
 Quantum mechanics view: dynamics precedes
 Theories: M-theory, D-branes, Lorentz-invariance
Principle of Equivalence (Weinberg, Salimkhani)
 Other models (mathematics, logic)
 Theories: (Category) topos theory (Isham) vs Causal set
theory functionalism (Wüthrich)
61
Time and Space as Emergent

63. 24 Jan 2020
Philosophy of Time
Time and Space at the Planck scale
62
Source: Loop and Spin Foam Quantum Gravity: A Brief Guide for Beginners. In Approaches to Fundamental Physics: An Assessment of
Current Theoretical Ideas, 2007, pp. 151-84. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-71117-9_9.
Spin Networks: Snapshot of Time and Space at the Planck scale
Spin Foam: Evolution of Spin Networks over Time
Artistic Rendering

64. 24 Jan 2020
Philosophy of Time
Time and Space at the Planck scale
63
 Time and space are features
 Selectable parameters: space, time, geometry
 Focus on domain-specific questions (e.g.
melonic gauge theory), time insight emerges
 Portability between space and time models
 Various space regimes
 Diverse coordinate systems (Cartesian, polar,
spherically-symmetric)
 Hilbert space (infinite-dimensional function space
generalized from regular Euclidean space)
 AdS (toy model) of “regular” de Sitter space
 Time parameter eliminated to simplify
complexity (evolution over time)
 Solve Einstein equations by dropping out time
Source: https://towardsdatascience.com/a-weird-introduction-to-deep-learning-7828803693b0

65. 24 Jan 2020
Philosophy of Time
Fundamental furniture of reality
Light’s Wave-Particle Duality
 The first ever photograph
of light as both a particle
and wave (Mar 2015)
 Light's wave-particle
duality imaged in physical
reality for the first time
 Schrödinger's cat: dead
or alive?
64
Source: http://phys.org/news/2015-03-particle.html, http://actu.epfl.ch/news/the-first-ever-photograph-of-light-as-both-a-parti
Particle
Wave

66. 24 Jan 2020
Philosophy of Time
Conjecture: Time Duality
 Light duality: particle and wave
 Time duality: discrete and continuous
 Time is like light, simultaneously
existing in two modes, discrete
(snapshot) and continuous (perdurant)
 Support from Information Theory
 Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem: in
digital signal processing, the sampling
theorem is a bridge between continuous
and discrete time signals
65
Source: Swan, M. (2016). Derrida’s Perdurant Temporality and a New Theory of Time as Discrete-Continuous. 5th Derrida Today
Conference. Goldsmiths, University of London. 8th – 11th June 2016.

67. 24 Jan 2020
Philosophy of Time
Support from Philosophy
66
Past Present Future
Retention ProtentionPresent NowRecollection Expectation
(Discrete) (Continuous) (Discrete)
Source: Extended from Husserl, Edmund. (1991, 1964). On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time (1893-1917).
Kluwer Academic Publishers: Dordrecht NL.
 Husserl: Internal Time Consciousness
 Time as a ‘raw material’ existing uncollapsed as simultaneously
discrete and continuous; a snapshot and a perdurant elapsing
(like light as a superposition of particle and wave)
 Time is an uncollapsed resource until deployed in a specific
situation

68. 24 Jan 2020
Philosophy of Time
Support from Science
 Composability of physical time
 Conjecture: time and matter are
composable at small scales
 Matter at the atomic scale (1×10−9)
via positional nanoassembly (actual)
 Possibly time and matter at the
Planck scale (1×10−35) via Lego-like
time fabric bricks (loop quantum
gravity) (theoretical)
67
Source: http://www.dedoimedo.com/physics/what-is-time.html, Kempf, Achim. (2010). “Spacetime could be simultaneously
continuous and discrete, in the same way that information can be.” New Journal of Physics. 12.
Atomic-scale Positional
Nanoassembly of Matter
Planck-scale ‘Lego-like’
Assembly of Spacetime

69. 24 Jan 2020
Philosophy of Time
 Agenda
 Philosophy of time
 Aesthetics and time
 Science and time
68
Philosophy of Time
Perspectives in Science and Aesthetics

70. 24 Jan 2020
Philosophy of Time 69
Aesthetics and science are two modes of
understanding reality, with a greater possibility
of rapprochement through the philosophical
consideration of time
Thesis

71. 24 Jan 2020
Philosophy of Time 70
Understand the Universal and the Particular together
Experience the UniversalExplain the Particular
Conclusion
AestheticsScience
Philosophy
Concern:
Concern:
Concern:
Examples: disease causality, drug response Examples: suffering, love, inspiration
 Two cultures problem (Aesthetics and Science) is an
issue of the universal and the particular, which
Philosophy attempts to bring together

72. 24 Jan 2020
Philosophy of Time
Conclusion
 Problem of time is one of snapshot and
perdurance and past-present-future
 Philosophy discusses the unified time
structure of past-present-future
 Time duality: time existing as both discrete
(snapshot) and continuous (perdurant),
similar to light’s wave-particle duality
71
FuturePast P

73. 24 Jan 2020
Philosophy of Time
Conclusion
 At the smallest scale of reality (Planck
scale) and in general at small scales, the
focus is on time as an emergent feature
 At the macro scale of philosophy,
aesthetics, and applied science, the
focus is on integrating snapshot and
perdurant temporal regimes
 Expected: the smallest scales of reality are
still under physical investigation
72
Verbal (text)ImaginationVisual (image)Aesthetics
IntellectImaginationEmotionsFelt knowing
UnderstandingImaginationSensibilityPhilosophy

74. Melanie Swan
Philosophy Department
Purdue University
Philosophy of Time
Perspectives in Science and Aesthetics
Indianapolis IN, January 25, 2020
Slides: http://slideshare.net/LaBlogga
Thank you!
Questions?