When you think about #history do you imagine a timeline? What shape is it? how wide is it? Does it extend in a particular direction?

When I think of the previous decades I see a wide steep slope extending down to the right. The future is up to the left just behind me (unless I turn around and try to look at it) The past is an impossibly wide set of steep cellar stairs littered with knickknacks.

How to you see time?
#time #timeline #mentalModels

@futurebird my minds-eye is blind so i can't visualize. see aphantasia

@hans sure when i think of time i use the language of the future is "ahead / in front of" and so one and that's an artifact of the languages i grew up speaking @futurebird

@mensrea @futurebird just language? For me the sense of direction for walking and the time arrow share more than words, even without visualization.

@mensrea @hans @futurebird That's how German sign language treats the direction (unlike the spoken German) btw

@hans there are languages where the past is in front because you can see it. and the future behind because it's unknown @futurebird

@mensrea which is super interesting, but I was curious if you (as a fellow aphant) don’t feel such any association

@hans I think primarily in English and some in Afrikaans. that's the cultural model I use to frame the thoughts. same as a linear progression tends to be left to right, but there I'm sure being right handed is part of it