Aristotelian Simultaneity Viewed Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Penrose (2004: 384-5):

In Aristotelian physics — and, indeed, in the later dynamical scheme(s) of Galileo and Newton — there is an absolute notion of temporal simultaneity. Thus, it has absolute meaning to say, according to such dynamical schemes, that the time here, at this very moment, as I sit typing this in my office at home in Oxford, is ‘the same time’ as some event taking place on the Andromeda galaxy (say the explosion of some supernova star). 

To return to our analogy of the cinema screen, we can ask whether two projected images, occurring at two widely separated places on the screen, are taking place simultaneously or not. The answer here is clear. The events are to be taken as simultaneous if and only if they occur in the same projected frame. Thus, not only do we have a clear notion of whether or not two (temporally separated) events occur at the same spatial location on the screen, but we also have a clear notion of whether or not two (spatially separated) events occur at the same time. 

Moreover, if the spatial locations of the two events are different, we have a clear notion of the distance between them, whether or not they occur at the same time (i.e. the distance measured along the screen); also, if the times of the two events are different, we have a clear notion of the time interval between them, whether or not they occur at the same place.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the notion of 'simultaneity' is concerned with the ordering of processes in time. Importantly, in the case of the visual representation of processes projected onto a cinema screen, the temporal ordering of such processes is relative to — and construed by — the unfolding of the mental processes of viewers.