You will never hear a thing you have not had time to preconcieve.

Please note I am not a philosopher.

I spoke with a Philosopher who told me that there are certain assumptions philosophers make. One of those assumptions is that time is linear. That would mean that time was a progression from: Point A  Point B. What I found surprising about this was that philosophers held assumptions. In my own assumption, I assumed that philosophy was a place to challenge commonly held assumptions.
I guess I was wrong.

Alternative, ‘Eastern’ philosophies suggest that time is circular. Meaning times goes from: Point A  Point B  Point A. This view of time can help a person to better understand beliefs in past lives and Karma, but I do not want to talk about that now. I was informed by my philosopher friend that time cannot be circular because the same moment can never occur twice. Please refer to the title of this post to understand how I feel about that answer.

Idea number three comes from the novel Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. That idea that time is stagnant. The main character, Siddhartha, when he became enlightened looked in a river and saw that he was his father, his son and himself at the same time. He also saw himself as a child, a young man and an old man at the same time. I tested this theory out with a friend of mine, not a philosopher just a regular Joe like me. She said that it could not be because change still happens. Even if man no longer existed to put limits on time the sun will still warm the flowers, which would wilt at the end of summer.

Then a fuller understanding of these ideas occurred to me on the bus two nights ago. The understanding that I reached was that time is not stagnant, linear or circular but layered. Layered meaning, each individual makes up a different layer of time and holds their own place in the fabric of time, which could mean that if time is layered I could be young and old at the same time, like Siddhartha. Then I took it a step farther, what if all the people we come to know in our lives are ourselves but just in different incarnations of ourselves. (This line of thought will require you to be okay with the idea of past and future lives.) Which would mean all your close friends are yourself but struggling through different challenges. It would also mean that you are in fact your mother and your grandmother.

Ultimately in your life time if we follow my bad philosophical formula, every person would have the chance to meet through another person. Implying that in fact we are all the same person, which is something that different 'eastern' religions have been saying for years. Which would imply that time is not linear or circular but layered, like sheets of paper staked on top of each other, so that all action is occurring simultaneously.

I am not attempting to be Siddhartha, but on the bus the other day I was about to experience the feeling of layered time. This does not mean that I saw a past life or something, but that the idea came from my gut not my head and grew into this little post.

This is what I have to say, what do you think about it?