Toward a Practical Theory of Timing: Upbeat and E-Series Time for Organisms
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Toward a Practical Theory of Timing: Upbeat and E-Series Time for Organisms Naoki Nomura 1 & Koichiro Matsuno 2 & Tomoaki Muranaka 3 & Jun Tomita 4 Received: 6 February 2020 / Accepted: 4 November 2020/ # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Timing adjustment is an important ability for living organisms. Wild animals need to act at the right moment to catch prey or escape a predator. Land plants, although limited in their movement, need to decide the right time to grow and bloom. Humans also need to decide the right moment for social actions. Although scientists can pinpoint the timing of such behaviors by observation, we know extremely little about how living organisms as actors or players decide when to act – such as the exact moment to dash or pounce. The time measurements of an outsider-observer and the insider-participants are utterly different. We explain how such essential operations of timing adjustment and temporal spanning, both of which constitute a single regulated set, can be carried out among organisms. For this purpose, we have to reexamine the ordinary conception of time. Our specific explanatory tools include the natural movement known as the upbeat (anacrusis) in music, a rhythmic push for the downbeat that follows, which predicts future moves as an anticipatory lead-in. The scheme is situated in and is the extension of our formulation of E-series time, i.e., timing co-adjusted through interaction, which is derived from the semiotic/communicative perspectives. We thereby demonstrate that a prediction-based timing system is not mechanical but communicative and entails meanings for future anticipation. Keywords Time-ing . Insider player . Upbeat/downbeat . Command/report . E-series time
* Naoki Nomura [email protected]–cu.ac.jp Koichiro Matsuno [email protected] Tomoaki Muranaka [email protected] Jun Tomita [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
Nomura N. et al.
Introduction Although we humans resort to mechanical clocks to measure time based on the global standard time, other living organisms neither use such clocks nor count time apart from their actions or living circumstances. For these other living organisms, time and actions are unitary, not separated from one another, where time may not move linearly forward as we generally conceive. For us humans, time independently exists regardless of one’s being or acting, as it passes even while we sleep; however, we are not sure if this occurs to reptiles, insects, fish, plants or bacteria. Is it then safer for us to assume the independent existence of time for the world of organisms, since no human being has ever seen time? What can we do? Although the controversy on whether the presence of time apart from our existence is scientifically sound or not is beyond the scope of the present paper, it seems to be important to place ourselves on a logically better ground concerning the temporality issues in biology. The observation seems warranted that what is visible to us is no
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