I am in Tokyo and it is a little past 5am. It's a little past 1pm in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles -8GMT
Tokyo +9GMT
5am in Tokyo is one hour brighter than 5am in Los Angeles at this time of the year. Regardless, we all more or less know what 5am and 1pm feel like, and 1pm in Tokyo can be as miserable as 1pm in Los Angeles. 5pm rush hour looks similar in most places; many children are sent to bed at 8pm; and most days 9am can be an un-godly hour for me to wake up whether in Los Angeles, Tehran or Tokyo. These times are essentially all the same.
Kinda boring.
The first place where the Sun rose in this millennium, local time, was on the International Date Line, all of which is in the Pacific Ocean. Even though the line makes some zigzags to the east, the place on the line where the Sun rose first is far south, near the Antarctic Circle, where the line is intersected by the terminator (day/night line). Here, the Sun dips just below the horizon and then rises again almost immediately at midnight local time. The longitude is 180° E exactly, and we take the local time to be 12 hours ahead of UT (atomic time). The southern limit to the terminator was at latitude 66° 3' S on January 1, 2000 and 66° 7' S on January 1, 2001. Both of these locations are in the extreme southern part of the Pacific Ocean with no land nearby.
"International Date Line, all of which is in the Pacific Ocean.... Both of these locations... with no land nearby."
Without argument—and because it is a little past 5am and little past my argument making time of day/night—I'll take this as a logical start point for dates. Now why not also start and end time right here and make only one time zone? 5am (05:00hrs) in Tokyo is also 5am in Los Angeles. 1pm (13:00hrs) in Los Angeles is also 1pm in Tokyo. The time for everyone is the same, but the feel is different. Good bye the meaning of time attached to a self-centered numbering system of 1884. Who is to decide that my 5am should be the same as theirs?
24 hours and 24 different possibilities of rush hour and bed time! Let me tell you, 13:00 in August, in Tokyo is very miserable, but imagine a mild early night at 13:00 in August, in Los Angeles. You don't want to experience a location for seasons only, but for time as well! What is 13:00 like in August in Buenos Aires?! What about 13:00 in January?!
Hello Time Tourism. We have 288 new reasons to visit other "times".
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I was looking at a map today and an other one of those odd sixth grade questions suddenly hit me: Why is the planet oriented the way it is: Americas on the left... Oceania on the lower right? Why did we determine the planet's rotation to be counter-clockwise? Where did "counter-clockwise" come from? The clock's rotation could be the other way.
In space, there really isn't an up and down to the solar system—what we call up could be down and visa versa for all I care. In that case left is right and east is west and upside down is right-side up. We can look at it at an angle too. Then none of our directional conventions make sense. Maybe I need an astronomy class (and astrology)...
This simple determination of the direction of all things, by someone(s) at some point has lead to so many complex socio-cultural models which have shaped our perception and minds, and in return, which we apply to almost everything and anything, anywhere. Narrow I'd say.
How would a change in perception evolve in a space colony if these directions are nulled and everything is in constant movement, in all directions? What will that society be like? How will their minds work when they don't have these trite, earthly limitations?
I'll come back to this...
Lewis Carroll's map of the ocean:
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I get stuck when thinking about my future form and environment, because I am thinking in my current form. My current form has physiological limitations—including my brain's limitations. My limitations make me ask questions, irrelevant ones I think, such as "How/Why/When do I ___?" I say irrelevant, because these questions relate to the very environment and form I exists in, and to the only way I know how to live as.
How do I experience the sun on my skin and revel in the enjoyment of getting a tan? How will I participate with the wind and bees among the flowers on the hills of Gorman? How will I acquaint myself with the scent and taste of rose water?
In my new form, so many physical experiences will be irrelevant, which makes me wonder if life in the new form is really relevant. Why do we exist in this form (a different question than why we exists)? What are the attributes of life?
If my mind is the source of life and existence, my senses are the essence of life. My mind uses my body to feel life. What makes life is the strength of emotions—pleasure and pain and all that make up and define the two.
Love hurts physically. Will the mind alone experience love? All emotions need the body in order to be realized. Will we have emotions in the new form?
I am resolved that the body is enslaved by the mind in order to advance it's purposes. But I think my ideas of the body-less life are being foiled the more I delve into thoughts about it. Does the mind need a physical connection to the environment is occupies? Will it always need a body?
What will that body be? Do we occupy it when we need to, yes, just like going to the toilet, only when we need to...
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What is the self to be aware of it? Are the mind and the self the same thing? Does the self exist in the mind? Or is the mind occupying the self?
Doesn't the self pertain to our body in its material surroundings? Isn't the self the manifestation of our behaviours which are merely the result of our environment? Makes me think of a 'bad seed' or other similar sayings of the traits of a person. Are the characteristics of the self passed from parent to child? Then is the self an ever changing physical thing because it has physical repercussions? What about when we say 'change my mind'?
Being without oneself, beside oneself, selfless...
After brain damage, many have been recorded to have taken on a new personality, 'he was not himself anymore...'. What is our measure for gauging the change of the himself? Taken out of the context of the world we are familiar with, what does it mean to say oneself, herself, himself or myself? Does the self matter without the body? No body, no hurting yourself.
Without: Latin sed
The mind is aware of the self, but it is not self-aware as we would say we are [physically] self-aware. The mind is, however, self-conscious as it knows of its existence.
Self, own, onself: Latin sui
sui sed
Are we gone for good without our self?
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It was harder than I thought... there is NO convenient day to be blind, even in one eye. But I finally managed to put the eye patch on this morning.
A sense of our surrounding space, depth, distance, and perspective is very crucial to our sanity.
In-Progress
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We have an urge to build. Nature is treated as a side-order, becoming an attraction and a marketing tool. At one point we came from nature, now we package and sell what is left of it in holiday safari trips. Why do we disregard nature as a habitat for humans and immediately build? Why should nature be reduced to symbolism, poetics and abstraction in products, art and architecture? Like ubiquitous computing, why are we not thinking ubiquitous habitation where 'we' are inferior to nature, just as the computer is inferior to human biology? How do we seamlessly occupy and integrate with nature without disrupting it?
What is a natural habitat? If systematically built-up—as a molecular gastronomist builds food—would a built environment with a base of nature (as processed as it may be) be possible and would it integrate with us naturally?
What is architecture? Our activities define architecture; architecture facilitates our activities. A space to rest, a space to cook, a space to love, a space to learn. Must all spaces be built? Can we define our activities in open space? Does that space become architecture for our activities?
Summer 2006. Grant and I were apartment hunting. We tapped into someone's personal wifi at the corner of Idaho and 9th. Though homeless, we found a homebase in an unfamiliar city, returning to that location throughout the day. That corner of 'public' space morphed temporarily into 'our' space, creating an invisible home for our homesearching activity. Can that space be defined as architecture? What if like wifi, we can tap into Earth's electromagnetic fields for our activities?
What limits our activites on Earth? What defines our activites as Earthlings?
Earth-mineral base.
Gravity.
Photosynthesis.
Spirituality.
Emotions.
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