Question: Lyn, I'm from Philadelphia. I've been thinking about this concept for a while now, that physical space-time is a multiply-connected process. So, I was thinking about this concept of time, and how we have different concepts, like the simultaneity of eternity; but, then you can also think of time as a measure of change. So, then, I started thinking about, what are we measuring that change against?

LaRouche: Ah!

Question: And then, you get in areas of composition, where now you know you're talking about the Noösphere, and then, there's still this element of time, and the ambiguities that are presented with. So, I'd like you to comment on what this element is.

LaRouche: Okay. Well, it goes to the question of curvature, huh? I don't know how much discussion among all of you has been, about this question of Gaussian curvature, and its relationship to the idea of a Riemannian universe. Most of my work, of course, is based on that particular problem, that concept.

Now, as I've described it before, you may have heard this before--some of you, at least--but just to situate this for everyone: If you imagine ancient man, that is, ancient intelligent man, looking at the nighttime sky, on a clear night, and seeing a panoply of stars, and also planets, and some other objects floating around up there, and they would imagine the universe to be, in a sense, like a big spherical bowl, container which they're in. Now, they don't know how far distant is--that is, how far that surface is from where they're standing--but they imagine that someplace out there, there is a point at which you can--a surface, which you can see the inside of, and where all these different objects, stars and so forth, might be moving. And you try to measure the relationship among the movements among those bodies, the way ancient people constructed these astrological schemes; calendar schemes for the annual calendar, things of that sort.

Now, you call that the Sensorium. This imagining, you project a sphere, that you're inside a sphere; you're on some normalized point inside the sphere, and you're looking up toward the interior surface of the sphere, in which all these objects are moving about as light points: Is that real?

And, then, you find out, that it's not real. It is real, it's a real shadow of reality, but it's not the reality as such. This, of course, is the significance of, among other things, of Kepler's discovery. When Kepler discovered that the motion of the planets, starting with Mars, was not circular, but elliptical in form, and discovered two other things: This whole business about assuming that this is the actual surface, on which events are occurring--that goes out the window. Why? Well, he discovered, in the elliptical function, that the Sun was located at one of the two foci of the relevant ellipse. And also discovered that the rate of the planet's motion, along the elliptical pathway, was constantly non-uniform. And what the measurement was. That proved that there was an operating physical principle, invisible to the senses, but whose effect was, nonetheless, visible to the senses.  And therefore, you can not simply say, that, from Euclidean geometry, from looking  at the universe from the standpoint of Euclidean geometry, you can come up with a mathematical description of the laws of the universe. That's what he proved, among other things--as others had proved before him.

So. Now, what does that mean? That means, essentially, that you have a real universe, whose shadow is the universe you think you're seeing. In other words, if you're looking at this spherical Sensorium up there, which you imagine you're inside it; you're looking up at it, like the ceiling of the universe; and you think, that the mathematic relationship between  the events you're observing, as on that Sensorium, are reality. They're not. But, there's some reality to them, isn't there?

What is the reality, which they correspond to. Well, think of them as the shadows of something projected upon the Sensorium from outside that universe. Think of that universe, the one you think you're observing, as an imaginary universe: One created by the senses, as an artificial sense, of what you're actually experiencing, but an image which is determined by the way your sense organs are constructed. Now, what is the real process, which is causing this effect in your sense organs? Well, that's what Kepler law meant, Kepler's law of gravitation.

Now, how does this reflect itself? It reflects itself, that the planet is now moving, like Mars. It's moving along the elliptical orbit it follows. At every point you observe it, no matter how finely you divide the points, the rate of motion is changing, relative to sense perception. So, what is regular? What is constant? Huh? Well, at every point, on this pathway, you're dealing with a different curvature, which is intersecting the curvature of some elliptical pathway, as if it were touching it at that point: call it a "singularity." The intersection of the curvature of the real action, as against the imagined curvature, which is shadow of the effect.

Now, to understand the universe, you have to understand the relationship between the two curvatures. The curvature of the function, which is defined by the tangent action, or tangential interference at that point, and the motion within the orbital pathway, as a different surface. The two surfaces give you a sense of mapping of the universe. Now, obviously, the universe is much more complicated then, isn't it? It's more complicated, because you have to look at all the curvatures, to see what is really happening in the universe. And you come up with a different kind of universe.

Now, we also have a second thing going on: We have man in the universe. To the best of our knowledge the number of physical principles, in the universe, as a whole, is predetermined. That is, we don't determine the number of principles that exist in the universe. We discover them, but we don't predetermine their existence. But, we're not aware of their existence, until we make the discovery.

All right, therefore, you have a sense of two universes--or maybe three: one is the sense-perception universe, which is only a shadow, as for example Plato defines it; then, you have a universe as you know it, in terms of principles; but then, there's a larger universe, which includes what you know, and what you have yet to discover, which is the real universe. What happens, therefore, when man discovers a principle? Well, man's discovery of a principle, is not simply a matter of observation: It's a matter of intervention. Of willful intervention in the universe. When man, who is a creature of will, discovers a physical principle, and uses it, even though the principle discovered already existed, man changes the order of effects in the universe.

So therefore, we have three universes to consider: The totally imaginary, shadow universe of observation, sense perception. The universe, as we know it, in terms of physical principles, which is good. It's real, whereas the shadow universe is merely a shadow universe, but, it is not complete. We have not yet discovered the universe in full. So, there we are--we say, the process now is determined by man's discovery, and efficient use of, discovered universal physical principles. Ah!

How do we measure the effect of adding a new physical principle, as a discovery, to the repertoire we already had. In Gauss's measurements, or in Riemann's work in general, it's defining what's called a "Riemann surface." A Riemann surface is typical of the case, where you  have the intersection of one universe, with the tangential impact of another universe upon it -- [that's a] typical Riemannian surface. In this case, you say, you measure the change in effective action within the universe, as a result of adding the action of this additional physical principle that we discovered. What that means, of course, in practice is, that relative to man, man's power over the universe increases. This power is expressed in various ways, but it's also expressed very simply in quickness. When man discovers new physical principles, and applies them efficiently, the quickness with which man can effect changes in the universe, is increased.

Now, if the quickness of a standard event, is changed, if the measuring rod of time is changed, in terms of practice, then there is no such thing as universal fixed, permanent clock-time. The universe does not go "tick tock." The universe speeds up. It speeds up, because of the effects of the processes of principles. It speeds up, because man's intervention, with new physical principles, speed up the effective measurement of time. That is, time tends to speed up; time becomes quicker.

So, the idea that people can take a fixed clock-time measurement, and apply that to the universe, and tell me what the actual history of the universe was relative to man, they don't know what they're talking about. They may be very good astronomers. They may be good scientists in general, but they still don't know what they're talking about.

So, that's what the anomaly is: That time is not an absolute clock-time, functioning independent of the physical changes in the universe. Time is a reflection of a direction and of relative power of the processes we're deploying, relative to the universe and relative to man's actions. So, time is essentially, intrinsically, relative. It is not absolute, in the sense of "tick-tock."

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