The Arrow of Time and the Cycle of Time: Concepts of Change, Cognition, and Embodiment

Abstract

In this target article, I explore the thesis that both the natural and human sciences are undergoing—however gradually and reluctantly—a deep and broad paradigm shift. This shift is away from foundational, objectivist, atomist, nondirectional mechanistic category systems and toward interpretational, holistic, relational-dialectical, directional organic category systems. The contextual influence of each of these category systems on understandings of change (development), cognition, and personality is examined both historically and from a contemporary perspective across a wide band of scientific disciplines. The Arrow of Time is a deep metaphor entailing a relational field of both nonclosed cycles (spirals) and direction. The Arrow of Time metaphor emerges from the organic narrative. Within the context of this metaphor, and the broader organic metaphor that forms the wider conceptual context, development is understood as entailing both direction and variation. Within the organic metaphor, cognition and personality are understood as emerging from a fundamentally relational theory of the embodied mind. The Cycle of Time is a deep metaphor of closed cycles that reduce apparent directionality to nothing but variation. The Cycle of Time emerges from the mechanical narrative. Here development is understood as being limited to variation and only variation, and cognition and personality emerge from a theory of the computational mind. Theoretical and methodological implications of each of these broad contextual narratives are discussed.

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