# It's About Time



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

About time, its measure, and "being" in time:

The difference between cardinal and ordinal numbers...

Yes, but I figured this out before I knew what they were called.

Babies are certainly 'zero' at birth and their age counted in smaller increments than years. How numbers are used to measure matters of time is different from other measuring systems; there is no "zero," and everything begins at "1." 

Identity/being is synonymous with "being in time."

I never heard of a baby being called 'zero years old' all the way until it reached age one. They always say it in fractional divisions, like days, weeks, and months. "Zero" is not used in matters of time. At least, it wasn't always until digital clocks and military time.

It seems that "zero" is avoided when dealing with time (not military, but look at any conventional clock).

The calender year starting 2000 does not mean 'we have completed 2000 years' but rather 'we are celebrating the beginning of our 2000th year'. 

In birthdays, we celebrate completion, in calendar terms we celebrate the start of the new time period.

Implicit in these statements are the terms "start" and "complete," which refer to durations of time. "Duration" implies "being in time." 

It wasn't always possible to own zero sheep. Now we see this as measuring "quantities."

Time is in a sense quantitive (as in an hourglass), and it can be measured; but time differs from other quantities in that time is duration and being. 

This is obvious to any computer-music operator who deals with musical measures (which begin at the start of measure 1, and SMPTE time code, which begins on 0:00:00:00. The measure is a duration to be experienced; the SMPTE code is time as a quantity, to be measured.

Western music has gradually deviated from the notion of time as an "experienced duration of being." During early chant, it was. This all ties-in with the doctrine of Privatia Boni.


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