Gerald James Whitrow on Time

“It must have required enormous effort for man to overcome his natural tendency to live like the animals in a continual present. Moreover, the development of rational thought actually seems to have impeded man's appreciation for the significance of time. ...Belief that the ultimate reality is timeless is deeply rooted in human thinking, and the origin of rational investigation of the world was the search for permanent factors that lie behind the ever-changing pattern of events.”

“The continuing evolution of our idea of time is revealed by the increasing importance of tense in the development of language. Greater knowledge of the universe has been accompanied by greater appreciation of the distinction between past, present, and future as people have learned to transcend the limitations of 'the eternal present'. Although our awareness of time is based on psychological factors and on physiological processes below the level of consciousness, ...it is also dependent on social and cultural influences. Because of these, there is a reciprocal relation between time and history. For, just as our idea of history is based on that of time, so time as we conceive it is a consequence of our history.”

“Throughout Iranian thought there was a tendency to dualism... two distinct forms or aspects of time were recognized: indivisible time, that is the eternal 'now', and time that is divisible into successive parts. The former represented the creative aspect of time and was fundamental. It was called Zurvan akarana, or infinite time, and was the progenitor of the universe and of the spirits of good and evil. Associated with the universe was the other form of time called Zurvan daregho-chvadhata, that is the time of long dominion, or finite time. This was the time that brought decay and death. It dominated the world of man and was represented by the celestial firmament. ...The whole reason for the existence of finite time appears to have been to bring about that conflict of good and evil which eventually leads to the triumph of the former. ...Finite time begins and ends with the rule of Ohrmazd. At a given moment finite time came into existence out of infinite time. It goes through a cycle of changes until it finally returns to its original state and then merges into infinite time.”