How important is the past, present, and future to personality and behavior? How are ones personality and behavior patterns developed, including abnormal personalities and behavior patterns

Newton and Time

1 Abstract

Newton's conception of time has had a profound influence upon science,

particularly psychology. Five characteristics of explanation have devolved

from Newton's temporal framework: objectivity, continuity, linearity,

universality, and reductivity. These characteristics are outlined in the

present essay and shown to be central to psychological theories and methods.

Indeed, Newton's temporal framework is so central that it often goes

unexamined in psychology. Examination is important, however, because

recent critics of Newton's framework–including both scientists and

philosophers–have questioned its validity and usefulness.

Newton and Time

2 Newtonian Time and Psychological Explanation

Brent D. Slife, Baylor University

Perhaps no conception is more fundamental to any science than time.

If a science is concerned at all about the order, organization, and

measurement of events, then it has to have assumptions of time. Indeed, the

notion of "event" itself is wrapped up in temporal assumptions. Even "soft"

sciences, such as psychology, must adopt philosophical assumptions about

temporal order and measurement. Psychological researchers not only

measure time in many of their experiments, but psychological theorists

assume certain characteristics of time in virtually all their explanations.

What are these assumptions? Why are these assumptions used and not

others? The problem is that such questions are virtually never addressed in

psychology. With certain rare exceptions,1 psychologists have ignored the

assumption of time. They have studied how people perceive and manage

their time, but they have not examined the assumptions of time in their own

theorizing.

The reason for this is clear. At the point in history when psychology

was conceived as a discipline, time had become reified. That is, time was no

longer an "assumption;" time was a property of reality existing independently

of our consciousness. Indeed, this was the view of time implicit in our

culture. As this article will show, psychologists adopted this cultural view, in

part, because it was not recognized as a view. Several historical factors are

described below as leading to this reification. Undoubtedly, a prime factor

was Isaac Newton's popularization of this reification in the physical sciences.

This essay outlines how Newtonian physics–the ideal of sciences during

psychology's formative years–became a model for all that early psychologists

wished their discipline to become. Much of this model, however, involved

Newton and Time

3 Newtonian assumptions of the world that were accepted uncritically. One of

these assumptions, as this essay will show, is Newton's own rendition of

time–Absolute Time.

The bulk of the present essay outlines how Newton's conception of time

has influenced "scientific" explanations ever since. As we shall see, five

characteristics of explanation have devolved from Newton's temporal

framework: objectivity, continuity, linearity, universality, and reductivity.

The article first describes each of these as it is related to Absolute Time.

Then, criticisms of this framework by philosophers and physicists are

delineated. The latter group of critics is especially important because many

contemporary physicists have abandoned these temporal characteristics (as

well as Absolute Time) in their explanations. Nonetheless, contemporary

psychology–with its identity now somewhat intact–has not looked back to

physics. This essay reveals how psychology currently maintains most, if not

all, of these temporal characteristics in its mainstream explanations of

behavior, mind, and abnormality.

The Rise of Absolute Time in Western Culture

The view of time held so widely by psychologists is also the view of

time held widely in Western society. Time is "out there" flowing like a line

from past to present to future. No examination of this linear notion of time is

considered necessary, because it is part of reality. An interesting example of

that "reality" is our dependence upon the past. All events that occur in the

present are thought to be explainable by events in the past. Because the

past, present, and future are considered to be consistent with one another–as

part of the same "line"–the present and future must be consistent with, if not

determined by, the past. In this manner, it is "common sense," both in

Newton and Time

4 psychology and our general culture, to explain behavior, attitudes, and

personality through past events. The question is: How did this 'common

sense' become so common? How has this linear view of time gained such a

hold on our culture and such an influence in psychology?

Actually, the predominance of linear time is a relatively recent

phenomenon. Ancient peoples did not view time as an objective frame of

reference for marking events. They relativized time by making it conform to

events, rather than events conform to time. For the Romans, each hour of

daylight in the summer was longer than each hour of daylight in the winter.

Time was a dynamic and adjustable organization tailored to fit our world

experiences. Cyclical rather than linear views of time dominated these

cultures because so many aspects of nature seemed cyclical, such as the

seasons and heavenly bodies. Plato believed that the order of world events

was destined to repeat itself at fixed intervals. Aristotle's students wondered

whether Paris would once more carry off Helen and thus again spark the

Trojan War (Porter, 1980).

Our Western view of time arose primarily as a result of three historical

developments: the spread of Christianity, the industrialization of society,

and the invention of cheap watches (cf. Porter, 1980; Morris, 1984, chs. 1 and

2; Whitrow, 1980, section 2.3). Pre-Judaic religions complemented the

cyclical view of time. They either portrayed time as infinite and possessing

no beginning or end, or as a cycle of rebirth and future life with time forever

repeating itself. The spread of Christianity brought to bear a "stunning" new

conception (Porter, 1980, p. 13). Christians considered their God to be the

creator and ultimate destroyer of the universe. Hence, the world had a

beginning and an end, and important Christian events, such as the birth of

Christ, were unique and nonrepeatable. The spread of these conceptions

Newton and Time

5 resulted in a competition between the cyclical and linear views during the

medieval period (Whitrow, 1980, section 2.3).2

The temporal tide began to turn in the favor of linearity–at least for

our Western culture–when industrial economies arose. As Lewis Mumford

concludes, "The clock, not the steam engine, is the key machine of the

modern industrial age" (Mumford, 1934, p. 14). When power stemmed from

the ownership of land, time was considered plentiful and cyclical, being

associated with the unchanging cycle of the soil. However, with the rise of a

mercantile economy and the mechanism of industry, emphasis was placed on

the scarcity of time and "forward" progress (Whitrow, 1980, pp. 58-59). "Time

is money" was the byword; time could now be "saved" or "spent."

The coup d'état for the linear view was the increased availability of

cheap watches. The mass-production of watches in the nineteenth century

made it possible for even the most basic functions of living to be regulated by

time. "One ate, not upon feeling hungry, but when prompted by the clock:

one slept, not when one was tired, but when the clock sanctioned it"

(Mumford, 1934, p. 17). Regulation of our lives by the clock meant that the

abstract assumption of linear time could be endowed with a type of concrete

reality (Morris, 1984, ch. 3). People now seemed to be able to "see" and "feel"

time (the clock). Time also appeared to be one of the causes of psychological

factors, because the thoughts and behaviors of individuals seemed to turn on

what time "told" them. In short, a convenient (linear) way of organizing

events became reified as the way events were organized.

Psychology was conceived and developed during this temporal

zeitgeist, when time was a concrete actuality rather than a point of view.

The spread of Christianity, industrialization, and the invention of cheap

clocks, all coalesced to make linear time a "reality." Before this coalescence,

Newton and Time

6 many scientists, including Newton, felt it necessary to make their

assumption of time explicit. Several views of time were possible, 3 and so one

view had to be identified and supported. On the other hand, psychologists

were not called upon to articulate their temporal assumptions. Linear time

had become a given and required no discussion or defense. Time existed as a

line, independently of us, and virtually everyone accepted this reification

without awareness.

Newtonian Time

Psychology was not the only discipline that reified time. Einstein

described a similar state of affairs in his own discipline at the turn of this

century:

Concepts which have proved useful for ordering things easily assume

so great an authority over us that we forget their terrestrial origin and

accept them as unalterable facts. They then become labeled as

"conceptual necessities," "a priori situations," etc. The road of

scientific progress is frequently blocked for long periods by such errors.

It is therefore not just an idle game to exercise our ability to analyze

familiar concepts, and to demonstrate the conditions under which their

justification and usefulness depend. (as quoted in Holton, 1973, p. 5)

Einstein's point here, of course, is that sometimes the very pervasiveness of

an idea leads to its anonymity. Certain ideas can be so commonplace and so

widely accepted that they go completely unrecognized. Yet it is these very

ideas that are often the most influential for thinkers in a discipline.

Part of Einstein's immense contribution to knowledge was the

realization that time played an unrecognized role in physics. Indeed, linear

time was seen as an absolute truth–an unquestioned part of reality–during

Newton and Time

7 the preceding three hundred or so years of physics. This led to a curtailment

in the number of new ideas in physics (cf. Burtt, 1954, Ch. VII, sections 3-4).

Acceptable ideas about reality had to be compatible with time's supposedly

linear properties. Einstein's theory of relativity, however, was in large

measure based upon his examination and eventual rejection of this

traditional view of time. 4 He proposed an alternative view that ultimately

revolutionized the discipline of physics in the twentieth century (to be

discussed later).

Still, this revolutionary view has had little impact upon the lay

culture. Except for parts of physics and philosophy, the Newtonian picture of

the world remains dominant in Western culture (McGrath and Kelly, 1986, p.

26-30). This is not to say that this "picture" was totally original to Newton.

When it came to crucial aspects of his metaphysic, Newton often accepted the

view of the world handed down by his predecessors (Burtt, 1954, p 231). In

regard to time, his most immediate forerunner was Isaac Barrow (1735), who

regarded time as "passing with a steady flow" (p. 35). Aristotle is also viewed

as one of the primary philosophical precursors of Newton's view of time

(Faulconer and Williams, 1985; Williams, 1990). Nevertheless, Newton

rightly deserves the credit for assembling their ideas into the current

package our culture calls "time." Let us therefore examine Newton's views in

more detail.

Newton postulated Absolute Time which ". . .of itself, and from its own

nature, flows equably without relation to anything external. . ." (Newton,

1687/1990, p.8). Newton needed this assumption for two main reasons.

First, his conceptions of motion and causality required an absolute frame of

reference (Burtt, 1954, p. 249). Motion, for example, could not be detected or

measured without an objective "past" and "present." The rolling ball begins

Newton and Time

8 its roll at some point in the past but is "now" at some point in the present.

Second, his mathematics required the continuity of events (flowing

"equably"). He regarded moments of absolute time as a continuous sequence

like that of real numbers, believing that the rate of this sequence was

independent of events (Whitrow, 1980, pp. 185-190).

For these reasons, absolute time became the standard by which all

scientific explanations were judged. The order (and directionality) of the

world was thought to be synonymous with the absolute and linear

organization of events. Characteristics of Newton's absolute time became the

"rules" for acceptable scientific explanation for nearly three centuries and

still form the rules for many disciplines such as psychology. It is thus

important that we explicate these rules and their modern criticisms and then

check the specific role these rules play in psychological explanation.

Newtonian Temporal Framework for Explanation

Newton's approach to time left science with a legacy of five somewhat

overlapping implications or characteristics for "scientific" explanation. These

include objectivity, continuity, linearity, universality, and reductionism.

Some of these characteristics are the properties of time itself, as envisioned

by Newton, and some are the necessary properties of the events to be

explained, because they are in absolute time.

The assertion that events are "in" time is itself an implication of a

temporal characteristic. Newton viewed time as objective, existing

"absolutely" and independently of consciousness. Time is conceived as a

medium in which and against which events occur and can be related to one

another. Motion, causation, and change are seen to exist "out there," and so

an absolute framework for evaluating these conceptions must also exist "out

Newton and Time

9 there," separate from them (and our consciousness). If time were subjective–

Newton might argue–distinctions between the temporal dimensions (past,

present, and future) would be left up to the perceiver, and an objective

science would be in jeopardy. Indeed, the notion that cause and effect

require succession in time occurred with the advent of absolute time (Bunge,

1959, pp. 62-64).

This view of causality was bolstered by another property of Newtonian

time, its linearity. Newton was a highly religious man whose theology

guided much of his scientific work (Burtt, 1954, pp. 256-264). God, for

Newton, was the First Cause of the world, and thus time has a beginning

point (unlike cyclical time), and properties akin to a geometric line, with no

gaps or spaces. Time begins in the past and advances into the present on its

way to the future.5 This places the greatest weight upon the past (or the

"first" in a sequence), because it is the temporal entity which supposedly

starts this process. The metaphor of the line means that the present and

future must remain consistent with the past. Moreover, the past is the

temporal entity with the most utility. The present is less useful because it is

just an evanescent "point" on the line of time, and the future is less useful

because it is not (yet) known with any certainty. Only information from the

past is thought to be substantive and certain enough to be truly known and

understood.6

Newton also considered time to be continuous, proceeding smoothly

and "equably," as he put it (Newton, 1687/1990, p. 8). Actually, this

characteristic of time has two properties worth separating out: consistency

and uniformity. Consistency is the well-known Newtonian notion that events

which happen at one point in time will be consistent with events occurring

later in time–the past is continuous with the future. This is the origin of

Newton and Time

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