Category Of Time As A Cross-Disciplinary Concept In Research Activities Of Students

Time as a measure of duration

From the moment humans invented time keeping, time at a natural level become equated with seconds, minutes and hours used to measure it. This is a substitution of concepts, as time as a concept is substituted with an interval measured by clock and expressed in common time measurement units. It is a manifestation of a quantitative approach of classical physics, according to which only measurable things exist.

As the measure of duration, time finds expression in all branches of science: temporal parameters are an integral element of physical, chemical, biological, psychological, anthropological, social, linguistic and many other phenomena. So, we are measuring the duration of certain processes or phenomena, but not the abstract time itself, as “each time interval is related to a certain process, otherwise it would not have been perceived at all” (Reichenbach, 2009, p. 24). But duration of a process or phenomenon is just a universal characteristic of time, it cannot be equalized to the objective time as it does not explain the nature of time. “I am looking at my watch and see: it is three minutes to seven. Where is time in this? Go find it” (Heidegger, 2012, p. 7).

Time as an entirety of times from the different branches of science

In our opinion, time cannot be considered in the context of a single science. The category of time embraces all the knowledge areas and exists in theoretical models and empirical generalizations of each and every scientific discipline. There are two points of view among academics: one group acknowledges existence of multiple times, such as physical, anthropological, chemical, social, literary, textual, etc., while another group denies such identification of times, justifying their opinion by a statement that there is only physical time expressing duration and this is the time that extends into every other discipline (Lolaev, 2015). We assume that it is impossible to reduce everything to the physical time alone. For example, the chemical time reflects reactions, which are non-specific for physics, as well as other functional features. Psychological and literary times reflect primarily not the duration of action per se, but its perception and resulting human feelings. In our opinion, the literary time serves as a complex text-forming phenomenon, bounded by the limits of its author’s perspective and plot perspective (Koshevaia & Makarova, 2017).

In our opinion, only a complex analysis of time in the context of all the branches of science may provide a comprehensive description and understanding of the nature of time. By limiting ourselves to a single scientific discipline, we limit the selection of phenomena to study, their properties and characteristics, thus, limiting our understanding of the nature of time. By studying properties and characteristics of time within different disciplines, we may find regularities in process functioning as considered by various disciplines, which is of important practical value.

Time as a set of past, present and future

Division of time into past, present and future is commonplace. Basically, the very etymology of the word past (what already happened) and future (what will happen) is the same in all the European languages and is explanatory about the meaning of the words. During the evolution of philosophical and scientific thought, many thinkers, such as Plato, Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, Augustine of Hippo, Hegel, E. Levinas came to a conclusion that past and future do not exist objectively, what exists is only a moment of here-and-now. For example, Augustine of Hippo, identifies present of the past, present of the present and present of the future, speaking of non-existence of past and future (Augustine, 2012). This idea was later developed by Heidegger (2012).

It is interesting to look at how various thinkers understand the concept of now. Aristotle (1981) stated that “now includes simultaneously the beginning of the future and the end of the past” (p. 49). Augustine of Hippo talked about the present “through which the future is diverted to become past. (Augustine, 2012) According to Aliushin and Knyazeva (2007), “now” is defined by certain events, thus it does not correspond to a moment of time, but to a time interval, and “the interval of now may be whatever long”. Levinas (2000) was of an opinion that present is a moment devoid of duration and existing at the boundary between the past and the future; at that, this moment is understood as a birth, a beginning of new.

It should be noted that there are such theories as presentism, possibilism and eternalism, which variously interpret the reality of past, present and future. Presentism accepts that only present is real; possibilism considers only past and present as real, but not future; eternalism postulates reality of past, present and future. It is also interesting to look at how the issue of relation between past, present and future is solved by followers of A-theory and B-theory, which have currency in foreign literature: the former admit reality of past, present and future, while the latter speak in such temporal categories as “before” and “after”.

Einstein postulated a unity of past, present and future reality, stating that the difference between the past, present and future is nothing but an illusion. In our opinion, time exists as an integrated whole, a total of its parts, and division of time into present, past and future is possible on condition of human perception of time, which is discussed below.

Time as a subjective human perception of reality.

From antiquity till present, philosophers and scientists have been attaching a great importance to the anthropological factor in understanding the nature of time. Thus, Protagoras’ postulate “human is a measure of all things” is to a certain degree reflected in most concepts of time. Many scientists, starting from Plato, have been raising the question of whether objective time exists beyond the human perception. (Plato, 1936). As for our perception, there is only the here-and-now moment, the past and the future live only in our consciousness: one as a remembrance, another as something desired and expected.

Among ancient philosophers relating time to its subjective perception, one shall note Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius and Seneca. Augustine of Hippo was of an opinion that time is a duration of the soul, its property and thus, analyses it only within the boundaries of human perception, as something subjective. (Augustine, 2012) His ideas were interpreted and developed in philosophical concepts of the 19th and 20th centuries authored by such philosophers as Descartes, Bergson, Husserl, Kant, Hegel. So, according to Descartes, time exists in our thinking, because duration is an attribute of matter, while time is a “way in which we think of this duration” (Descartes, 1989, p. 78), Hegel understood time as a “pure form of sensuality and contemplation” (Hegel, 1975, p. 62), while Kant understood it as a “subjective condition necessary for coordination … of all that is perceived sensually” (Kant, 1964, p. 99)

Besides, as the very process of perception and comprehension of time is linked to human thought, evaluation of properties of time related to a certain specific phenomenon includes subjective criteria: duration, speed, correlation to past or future, continuity of a process are perceived differently by different people.

Time as a measure of movement

Philosophers as far back as Parmenides, Heraclitus and Plato related time to movement and change. Definition of time as “the amount of movement with respect to preceding and subsequent” (Aristotle, 1981, p. 51), but as it was not supported by a scientific theory, it was more of a philosophical musing on the nature of time: “Movement is impossible without a location, emptiness and time.” (Aristotle, 1981, p. 51). In this way he stipulated that there is no time without movement and matter. Newton also understands time as a “measure of duration determined by means of movement” (Newton, 2017, p. 80). Many philosophers and scientists tried to develop his idea, but a breakthrough took place only in the 20th century, when Einstein suggested his vision of global processes and brought space and time together to a unified space-time continuum. Later, Lorentz transformation that includes a universal constant с for the first time provided an opportunity to express time through space, namely, to measure it by means of spacial lengths. In addition to exclusively physical models that explain the nature of time, philosophers have also been developing the idea that time and movement are related. For example, Hegel also held that time is movement itself (Hegel, 1975).

Modern science understands time as objectively existing, along with other physical values, such as mass, length, width, etc. According to the Einstein’s relativity theory, time serves as the fourth dimension to our three-dimensional space and forms a unified space-time continuum. Matter is moving along the time axis from the past to the future through the present moment. But, as we live in three dimensions, we are unable to see or touch the substance of the fourth temporal dimension. It is like a flat creature living in a two-dimensional world is unable to see a three-dimensional object. Such a creature may only see an impression, a flat projection of the object. Basically, just as we may live through and feel only the present moment, as an impression of time as a whole but are unable of moving along the line of time into the past or the future, as only one moment of present exists for us, while everything else is an illusion of our mind.

Time as a continuous or discrete process

Time flows, runs, drags. The feeling that time is moving from the past to the future through the present moment is natural for human perception and thus is applicable to subjective time. But what is the matter with objective time? Currently, it is there are two common points of view on existence of objective flow of time, forming two radically different concepts, static and dynamic ones (Levich, 2009). The static concept of time denies the phenomenon of the flow of time, while the dynamic concept accepts the objective nature of the flow of time. According to the static concept, past, present and future exist simultaneously, as frames of a film, and only one of them, corresponding to the present is in the focus of our attention, while temporal relationships are expressed through the “before-after” relations. The dynamic concept accepts existence of the time arrow and emphasizes difference between moments of past, present and future. Only present exists: past is no more here and future is not here yet. At the same time, development and succession are noted, namely, the influence of the past onto the future and formation of the new (Molchanov, 1977).

Supporters of both concepts appeared as far back as antiquity. So, Heraclitus supported the dynamic concept, while Parmenides and Aristotle supported the static one. Time either does not exist at all, or just barely exist being something ambiguous according to Aristotle (1981), while the moment of he completely excluded from time modes, as time is likely not formed from nows.

European science developed the static concept of time, but some individual theories of time pertained to the dynamic understanding of the time flow. In the context of the dynamic concept development, we shall name Augustine of Hippo, McTaggart (1927), Bergson (2020). Propagation of the static understanding of the nature of time through various branches of knowledge is related to appearance and wide adoption of Einstein’s relativity theory, where space-time has a static nature.

As far as discussion of the static and dynamic concepts goes, one shall note existing foreign classifications. A-theory of time and B-theory of time explain relations and distinctions between past, present and future. It is accepted that the A-theory expresses the dynamic character of time, while the B-theory expresses its static character (Zima, 2019). The above classification shall not go unmentioned as it identifies such models of time as presentism (close to the dynamic concept), possibilism and eternalism (sometimes identified with static B-theories).

Time as an objective phenomenon

The problem of objectivity of time is one of so-called time paradoxes. There are two main concepts that look at the nature of time in the context of its objectivity: substantivalism and relationism. Substantial concept of the nature of time understands time as an independent entity, an element of being, along with space and matter. Mach (2003) described time and space as “primal, independent variables, …directing and regulating everything in the world” (p. 24). The same approach was followed by Democritus, Newton, Einstein, Wheeler and many other philosophers and scientists. Basically, the modern scientific world view is based upon the substantial approach that explains existing of the space-time continuum. Relational concept denies independence of time and understands time and space as a system of relations between events (elements), that is, time serves as a certain temporal characteristic of events and phenomena taking place. In other words, in the relational approach time is a “derivative from relations between elements” (Zima, 2019, p. 12). The relational concept was supported by Leibniz, Mach, Bošković, Narlikar and many others. That same Mach (2003) believed that “time and space exist in certain relations of physical objects and these relations are not just introduced by us but exist in relations and mutual dependence between phenomena” (p. 27). It should be noted that despite the idea of objectivity of time dominating in physics (due to spread of Einstein ideas based upon substantial concept of space-time), both physical and metaphysical debates on its objective nature continue.

During their work on master’s degree thesis, students run into a number of difficulties due to having a low level of analytical skills and insufficient experience in scientific activities. The classification of concepts of time and their identified relations to functional areas of post-graduate students are necessary and needed for further improvement of efficiency of these students’ research work. In order to study the efficiency of master’s degree student activities, the following aspects of time were identified: duration, speed, linearity, subjectivity, perception of past-present-future. In our opinion, they are related to mistakes that master’s students make during their work. Let us analyze several examples where understanding of time influences appearance of mistakes in scientific research activities of tertiary students.

in the process of writing a master’s thesis includes a skill in generation new ideas while solving research and practical problems. The main problem for actualization of student’s creative potential is a limited nature of discourse. When a master’s student think linearly, their imagination is boxed inside their limited discourse, which does not facilitate the creative pursuit. That is why actualization of master’s degree student creative function shall mandatory be accompanied by application of all the approaches to the problem of time, as they cover both scientific understanding of the nature of time and academic ideas, thus allowing avoiding local outlook of the problem of time and facilitating synthesis of the new by valid problem statement. A recipe for success in research starts with the correct problem statement, as correctly formulated questions create an accurate vector for development of scientific thought. If gnoseological problem cannot be solved, maybe it is because the questions and the problem itself were misworded.

it is important that the master’s student understands the topicality of the information found. In this context, time may become a cause to refocus the topicality of the data in question. For instance, engineering sciences show the most vivid example of a situation where the dominating concept is held as current and correct, while previous ones are understood as obsolete and useless. Thus, in order to prevent possible mistakes in understanding the currency of information, it is necessary to have a clear delineation between the past, the present and the future, as well as a skill to identify in the total of knowledge the ideas that define the modern paradigm.

, mathematical tools are applied, thus, depending on specialist field and research interests of the master’s student, certain concepts of time will be applied to solve specific problems, where emphasis will be given to anthropomorphic factor of time or duration, depending on the problem. In its own turn, selection of the concepts will define the research tools and methods applied to solution of both research and practical tasks. For example, accepting time as continuous or discrete determines methods to be applied in mathematical and logical analysis of information.

as a coherent text also poses a certain problem to post-graduate students, as at this stage, confusion of human temporal consciousness manifests. When master’s students are writing their theses, they already know the end results of their research, thus, the future is already determined: it is as real to them as the past and the present. Due to the future determining the past and the present to the master’s students, the sequence of information treatment within the logic of the thesis is contravened. To rectify such mistakes in construction of the temporal line of narration, the students shall clearly understand the concepts of time that explain the nature of past, present and future.

At the final stage of, it is important to take into account the factor of subjective perception of time. When explaining a complex concept, one shall allocate enough time for good presentation in order to avoid misunderstanding. As the student understands the matter, they may cut short the explanation time, thus making it insufficient for the percipient side.

at all the above listed stages of master’s thesis development, effective results are determined by understanding on behalf of the student that time perception is a subjective process. For a good reason many concepts see time as a result of subjective human perception of reality. At that, during the work on one’s thesis, time management is important. While a student may think that they have more than enough time, it is inadvisable to postpone things to the last moment. Correct organization of each and every stage in the work on one’s thesis and strict compliance with the time requirements increases the efficiency of research work.