Tonight I watched a ‘timely’ show (ha!) — a P.O.V. documentary on PBS called “Nostalgia for the Light.” \u00c2\u00a0Described as “a remarkable meditation on memory, history and eternity” the movie focuses on three groups of people who search for and study the past in the Atacama Desert of Chile — archaeologists, astronomers and old women who sift through the desert sands in search of loved ones lost to the massacres of the Pinochet regime. \u00c2\u00a0Members of each group were interviewed, reflecting on the matter of time, of what it means in the present to study and search for the past, and what “past” and “present” mean, at all. \u00c2\u00a0There was much that struck me in relation to our topic here.<\/p>\n
One astronomer’s words were quite insightful — “All of our life experiences, including this conversation, happened in the past. Even if it is a matter of millionths of a second. The camera I am looking at now is a few meters away and is therefore already several millionths of a second in the past in relation to the time on my watch.\u00c2\u00a0”<\/p>\n
He continues, in conversation with the interviewer:<\/p>\n
Interviewer: “How long does it take for moonlight to reach us?”<\/p>\n
Astronomer: “Just over a second.”<\/p>\n
Interviewer: “And sunlight?”<\/p>\n
Astronomer: “Eight minutes.”<\/p>\n
Interviewer: “So we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see things at the very instant we look at them?”<\/p>\n
Astronomer: “No, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the trap. The present doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exist. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s true. The only present that might exist is the one in my mind. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the closest we come to the absolute present. And not even then! When I think, it takes a moment for the signal to travel between my senses\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 there is a lapse in time.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
I’ve long known about the lapse of time for light from stars and such to reach us, but had never considered a similar lapse when visually taking in things that are quite close (like this laptop screen), or even the miniscule lapse of time it takes for thoughts in my head to reach my fingers typing here. \u00c2\u00a0It’s as though my hands themselves operate on past information. \u00c2\u00a0What is truly “present?”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tonight I watched a ‘timely’ show (ha!) — a P.O.V. documentary on PBS called “Nostalgia for the Light.” \u00c2\u00a0Described as “a remarkable meditation on memory, history and eternity” the movie focuses on three groups of people who search for and … Continue reading