Have you ever thought of "nothing" and "everything" at the same time? Or about the limits of the universe? I have so many times I can't count. I believe in most of those moments we can reach a level of our unconscious, where it's possible to access a web, or sort of network, which connects us all on a incredible enormous sensory place between space and time itself. Nevertheless, we not only can access through our unconscious, but sometimes we can through our conscious. But it is not easy and it will take a little effort to get there.

But what does it have to do with temporality?
Hold on tight, we'll get there.

Photo: pixabay.com

Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher who wrote a lot about the Being and Time, as the title of his book "Being and Time" (German: Sein und Zeit) shows us, evidently. A very important concept for Heidegger was Temporality. And as the medievalist Aline Dias da Silveira wrote, "the problem that Heidegger saw in this perspective was the disconnection/separation of the being from the present as regards from the past and - even more serious for Heidegger's perception - of the rupture between the past and the future, for such relationships would be necessary for the healing of Being and openness to the world of things." Therefore, in order to understand THE BEING, we need to understand this "being there" or "presence" (Dasein, often translated into English with the word "existence"), as well as its ties in time. How do we feel, not only the present, but the past and future? How do we know it's there? And where "there" is?

Do you remember, above, when I said there are different types of time besides the clock time?Well, like I said, there is a time known as "historical time". According to another German, historian of concepts, named Reinhart Koselleck, this time exists because of two things. He could simply say that historical time exists by the relation between space and time, with the past and future. But if he had done it, would not result in a handful of books he published. Joking aside, Koselleck argued that societies have both “Space of Experience” and “Horizon of Expectation”. These are two Historical Categories he created, and as a result of the articulation of both, we find historical time.

But are we going to see each of these categories better?

Space of Experience

Here is where we find the past manifesting in the present.

How is that?

Through the multiple temporalities of the being. Of course they do not manifest all at the same time. That would make anyone nuts. I know it may sounds a little crazy, but I really believe we all have a universe within us. How do you think you can talk to someone? Or to tell a gossip to some friend? Or even tell a story? Wait, let me try to explain what I mean. These connections occur by memory action. A series of connections in our subconscious, even when we are conscious, so that we can form phrases that make sense to those who hear them or read them, as your are right now. Therefore, the past is potentially present in each of us, and can manifest at any moment. Likewise, all past of humankind may be embodied in one being or an object, a material or imaterial thing. However, the manifestation of one temporality of a thing happens through the interpretation of a being, or using Heidegger's term, through hermeneutics. For everything we see, looks back at us, as argued the philosopher, historian and art critic
Georges Didi-Huberman. But I don't want to drive anybody to madness, so let's leave this Frenchman for another post, right? Returning to the Germans, Koselleck uses the term "Sediments of Time" to illustrate the various temporalities of the past within the being. However, I agree with Aline Dias da Silveira in considering this multiplicity as an interweaving similar to a temporal vortex. Remember the *time vortex * where the Doctor Who's TARDIS travel to? That's the one.

Horizon of Expectation

The horizon is related to the future, but it does not manifest itself in the present in the same way as the "Space of Experience" since it can not be experienced as the past does. It is likely that you are thinking something like this;

The future is only future until it becomes present, so the horizon of expectation ceases to be when we reach it and becomes past, right?
Wrong. At least in these germans point of view, it is not.

The choice of the "horizon" term by Koselleck to compose his historical category appears from the meaning that the word has, that is, every horizon we try to reach out distances itself from us in the same proportion as we approach it. Therefore, we could never reach the horizon of expectation that we have right now, at this particular moment. What we hope for a future from today is completely interconnected the way we experience our past right now and how we work with our memories. After all while the past is constantly expanding, the future is in constant transformation, distancing itself to each past that we create at the present moment we lived.

So the "space of experience" is where all the experiences of humanity, can emerge in different ways, causing reactions in our unconscious. Even those we do not remember in a totally conscious way, why not? Imagine the traumas of our ancestors, afro-americans, native-americans, jews, women, and the list goes on and on, eventually these manifestations arise in a non-chronological way and intertwine with our present. The experience we are talking is not chronologically measurable, however much historiography sometimes forcibly attempts to do so. Just like Doctor Who's vortex, the temporality is never still. It is moving all the time.

Between the Space of Experience and Horizon of Expectation, one does not happen without the other, from all experience arise expectations, as well as through expectations, new or old the experiences will be experienced, will be lived. Thus it is through these two categories, presented by Koselleck, that we can study historical time, by them intrinsically their constitution the interweaving between past and future. What is even more incredible is that, because of the tension between these two categories, new ideas arise, such as our beloved Blockchain, the bitcoin, and the cryptocurrency.

But after all, you may be asking me, what does temporality have to do with all this?

And I must say. It has all about. The most temporalities are in constant movement, in this temporal vortex, whether in the Being or in the World itself through things. But we do not see everything all the time. Even if we did, we would probably have at least a serious headache. We see, or rather feel, as if it were a washing machine in which most we're doing the white clothes, but there is at least one small pieces that is red. We only identify it once or twice and if we are looking through the glass of the machine. Otherwise we just feel that it is working somehow. And when it's done, it is done.