"Time does not always flow according to a line ... nor according to a plan but, rather, according to an extraordinarily complex mixture, as though it reflected stopping points, ruptures, deep wells, chimneys of thunderous accelartion, rendings, gaps--all sown at random, at least in a visible disorder. Thus, the development of history truly resembles what chaos theory describes. Once you understand this, it's not hard to accept the fact that time doesn't always develop according to a line and thus things that are very close can exist in culture, but the line makes them appear very distant from one another. Or, on the other hand, that there are things that seem very close that, in fact, are very distant from one another. Lucretius and modern theory of fluids are considered as two places separated by an immense distance, whereas I see them as in the same neighbourhood. ...
In order to explain these two perceptions we must, in fact, clarify the theory of time. The classical theory is that of the line, continuous or interrupted, while mine would be more chaotic. Time flows in an extraordinarily complex, unexpected, complicated way ...
... Time is paradoxical; it folds or twists; it is as various as the dance of flames in a brazier--here interrupted, there vertical, mobile and unexpected.
The French language in its wisdom uses the same word for weather and time, le temps. At a profound level they are the same thing. Meteorological weather, predictable and unpredictable, will no doubt some day be explainable by complicated notions of fluctuations, strange attractors.... Someday we will perhaps understand that historical time is even more complicated. ...
| No, time flows in a turbulent and chaotic manner; it percolates. All of our difficulties with the theory of history come from the fact that we think of time in this inadequate and naive way. | " |
(Serres and Latour 57-9)
