What Time is This Place?

“Everywhere there are signs of time.”

Introduction

The writer, Kevin Lynch, is an urban designer; he coined the term "wayfinding" and has worked on many interesting tidbits in his life. The book itself details how inhabitants of an environment experience time through environmental cues and how that translates to the larger picture of "rhythms of time." Its ideas made me piece together my thoughts about how we experience time more broadly. I eventually settled on a theory of experiencing time and focused on how we account for time and encounter or orient ourselves to time.

Further Exploration

  • Theory of Relativity
  • Biological Basis of Time and Place
  • Reports from Amnesiacs
  • Reports from Eidetic People
  • Memento and Groundhog Day

Accounting Time

We don’t really experience time as if it were a clock or linearly as we think. And that effect can be described in the relationship between memory and experience. Memory as a neurological function itself always seems to be turned on and churning without stopping. Although there is a difference between short-term and long-term memory, experience itself is very much separate and immaterial.

If I were to ask you to think about your childhood experiences, it would very much tend to be fragmented sections of key moments that you have kept as a part of that “time.” What experienced time is, then, seems to be a collection of long-term memories that can be drawn out by reflecting on past experiences. The relation of perceived change is the important part to state here. That change is what constructs the experience of time. The change within experiences, between experiences, and the present. To make sure of another point as well, I am only talking about the experience of time, which is separate from trying to speak on what time is of itself.

Another clarifying example is the common saying that “time speeds up when you are having fun!” It is said precisely because people are absorbed into whatever task they have, and they don’t stop to attempt to perceive any changes within their environment to track time.1

I’m not saying throw out your clock either because time is only experienced through the environment. There is a well-intended use of clock time for the synchronization of activities, and it drives the timing of those events, but all I’m saying is that the daily calendar doesn’t dictate the experience of time. Going by yet another example is the common bureaucratic worker who does adhere to the calendar and solely changes places via calendar reminders. I would wager that their day passes all the same, with the time they clocked in and clocked out being one innocuous fog of time.

Encountering Time

In contrast with the previous section, encountering time focuses more on how we relate and orient ourselves, using the same key components of memory and experience. What differs here is how the memory and experience are utilized. Accounting time was about the relation of changes that created time. Encountering time is about recognizing signifiers of an experience and using those to recognize temporal place. The night does not start at 8:00pm, but rather when people start to travel to bars and congregate, and when they finally arrive, that is when the night begins.

It is a fun perspective to take because it means that you can experience time through a factor of different external stimuli. There were plenty of examples given throughout the book, but my favorite one was how, in historical Japan, the burning of scented candles was used as a way to mark different times of the day. Each candle would have a distinct scent, and as the scent changed, it signaled a new period of time. This method of timekeeping intertwined the sense of smell with the passage of time, making time an olfactory experience. It might be redundant to say on top of this, but the societal implications of this is quite peculiar. People waiting for buses, streets bustling in the morning, traffic going to work, and so much more in our daily lives then contribute to our interpersonal temporal rhythms as we move throughout the day.

Discounting Time

If you somewhat agree with what I have said in the previous sections and take it semi-seriously, then let me leave you with some practical advice. A lot of people since the beginning of time have been discounting it. What people don’t realize is that it doesn’t matter if you have 70, 50, 40, or even 1 year of your life left to live. Because if it is spent with eyes closed, you haven’t experienced any of the time at all. So really, do your best intentionally spend time to make memories, experience new things, and, if you do it right, at the end of time you will feel full. – The alternative is that as you grow older, time moves faster and faster, because you have settled down into the routine.

Index (From My Notes)

Concept Definition
Environmental Time time is captured within the surrounding objects and stimuli
Historical Preservation the remembrance of the past that contextualizes the present
Time Symbols there are a variety of stimuli representations for time (audio, visual, sensor, etc.)
Time in Place the perception of a specific moment tied to experiences: are people there, train present, ball dropped, etc.
Temporal Modifications the idea that when you change a schedule the physical space has to be adapted
Temporal Depth the depth of time (history) experienced in a place
Temporal Rhythms time is perceived through recurring patterns of human activity
Place Experience how a city transitions and changes throughout the walk


Citations

Allman, M. J., & Meck, W. H. (2011). Pathophysiological distortions in time perception and timed performance. Brain, 135(3), 656–677. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awr210

Bonato, M., Zorzi, M., & Umiltà, C. (2012). When time is space: Evidence for a mental time line. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews/Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 36(10), 2257–2273. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2012.08.007

Grondin, S. (2010). Timing and time perception: A review of recent behavioral and neuroscience findings and theoretical directions. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, 72(3), 561–582. https://doi.org/10.3758/app.72.3.561

Krauss, S. (1970). The experience of time. BMJ, 1(5690), 235. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.1.5690.235-b

Lynch, K. A. (1972). What time is this place.


  1. It is often a phenomenon for me that even though I look at the time on my computer, I only realize time has passed when my room begins to get dark after hours of play. ↩