Abstract

In any investigation of time, two central problems immediately confront us: defining the term, and deciding how we can have any knowledge of this phenomenon. Like 'consciousness', with which it is intimately related, 'time' raises challenging linguistic and epistemological issues. In this paper, I aim to show how a committed attempt to approach the deep questions of time and consciousness push us toward the necessity of developing a new epistemology as the basis for a fundamental paradigm shift in science -- especially for a science of consciousness. I hope to show that attempts to resolve these problems ultimately defy the reach of categorizing and objectifying language and require, instead, an approach to communication that embraces the power of poetics, the embedded meanings of metaphor, and the silent pulse of pre-verbal and transcendental intuitions