Department of BioEngineering

Nagaoka University of Technology

Nagaoka 940-2188, Japan

Any movement in progress is descriptively in the mode of the present progressive tense. The movement naturally transfers with itself the present progressive into the present perfect tense if the movement is to be perfected. Once a dynamic description in the mode of the present tense as the standard norm of the discourse is attempted, it is required to identify what is there at the present moment. If the present progressive tense is naturally transferred to the present perfect tense, the presence of perfected movement could be guaranteed globally at any present moment and be associated with the global time that is uniform and homogenous globally. Our natural languages in themselves are grammatically potential in the capacity of accommodating a global time as explicated in the form of Kantian-Newtonian time. On the other hand, however, if the present progressive tense is naturally transferred into the past progressive tense first instead of directly into the present perfect as it should be most often the case, what is present there is the activity for fulfilling the principle of the excluded middle. For the observation in the past progressive tense saved in the record would have to fulfill the principle, otherwise the integrity of the record would be lost. The presence of the activity for fulfilling the principle is sought in the local agents being responsible for the movement in progress. Time associated with the presence of the capacity for fulfilling the principle of the excluded middle is local. Our natural languages are also potential in the capacity of accommodating local times, which is embodied in material clocks of whatever kind. Whether local times could eventually be synchronized among themselves is exclusively an empirical matter. Until this empirical problem is settled, it has to be observed that there is an incommensurable grammatical difference in distinguishing the two notions of time, the global and the local.

Despite its superficially constructivistic nature, time is deeply rooted in our linguistic institution in the sense that it is impossible to unlearn time and to eliminate it from our vocabulary. This implies that time is closely related to other notions also found in the vocabulary. One of them is a concrete material manifestation called a clock. Inevitable association of time with a clock in one way or another now raises a serious issue on how time as a purely linguistic construct could be related to the material configuration in the form of a clock concretized in the empirical domain. Any clock materialized in our empirical world is local at least in its spatial extension. Time associated with such a local clock is also local in its outlook. The local characteristic of time is contrasted with time as a global notion, since time as a linguistic construct has been taken to permeate into anywhere and everywhere (Matsuno and Salthe, 1995). The contrast between local and global time emerges when clocks in the empirical domains are referred to (Baker, 1993; Riva, 1994).

We in the present article examine how local time associated with each local clock could be transformed and extended into a global time. To begin with, we shall first review how the notion of time has been conceived to be global, instead of being local, from the outset without being bothered by the contrast between the local and the global (Matsuno, 1997). That is Kantian-Newtonian time.

Kant argued that if there is a unified and organized experience to talk about in an objective manner, both the conceptions of space and time must be rooted in each experiencing subject prior to experiences. As for the conception of space, Kant stated:

In short, space to Kant is a container of objects which we can experience. We can eliminate these objects from the container, but cannot dispense with the container itself. If it were tried to eliminate the container, one would have to face the tenacious question of where the container could be eliminated from after all. Unless the container’s container is available, it remains impossible to eradicate the container. The container necessitates another container on a higher level ad infinitum. Space to Kant is not something abstracted from experiences, but a global particular as a condition for enabling description of our experiences possible.

Following almost the similar line of argument, Kant reasoned that the conception of time is also exclusively subjective a priori instead of being an abstraction from our experiences.

The Kantian framework of space and time now imposes a specific constraint, that is certainly global, upon material phenomena observed in the empirical domain. Of upmost significance in this regard is the principle of causality. The conception of the relation of cause and effect in succession is taken to be prerequisite to apprehend the manifold of phenomena.

While our apprehension of the house is successive as allowing the sequence of perceptions beginning at the roof and ending up at the foundation, or vice versa, the apprehension is not yet sufficiently distinguished from other apprehensions with regard to the order of the succession of perceptions. Kant made this point clearer by invoking another simple example.

What is implied at this point is that the principle of causality requires for its own sake an a priori universal rule to specify the order in the sequence of perceptions. Consequently, it follows:

Insofar as the unity of our experience through a sequence of perceptions in time is guaranteed, the order of the sequence, that is, the principle of causality has to be observed irrespective of the nature of phenomena to be experienced. So far, so good with the Kantian principle of the succession of time according to the law of causality. Nonetheless, the reciprocity in perceiving phenomena in temporal domain raises another reciprocity in spatial domain. However, the reciprocity we come to observe in spatial domain is quite different from the one in temporal domain. Phenomena to be perceived in space come to coexist if the perception of the one can follow upon the perception of another, and vice versa.

Coexistence of the manifold phenomena in one and the same time is thus based upon the relation of influence or the relation of community or reciprocity, that is, interaction in short. The present insistence on coexistence is, however, undoubtedly subjective, though it is intended to be grounded upon an objective basis.

Interaction as a dynamic community of reciprocal influences underlies the reciprocal sequence of perceptions that could in turn yield the perception of coexistence of objects. The present Kantian proof of the principle of coexistence is, however, different from other three proofs of subjective underpinning of space, time and causality. It refers to the conditions of things that are coexistent prior to how they are perceived. Before any phenomenon is perceived and experienced as such, the notion of interaction takes it for granted that all phenomena are connected in the dynamic community of reciprocal action to each other. The issue of aiming at the unity of experience through subjective perception thus comes to face a deeper problem of how to accommodate it to the unity of the universe, in the latter of which all phenomena are connected immediately or mediately.

This observation now gives rise to a convoluted situation of reflexive perceptions such that subjective perception of a perception could also be an empirical phenomenon in the unity of the universe. Needless to say, subjective perception is an empirical phenomenon unless it is further supplemented by the transcendental apprehension or apperception. Perception as an empirical phenomenon can render itself to be an object of further perception. The reflexive sequence of perceptions continues to hold indefinitely unless an artifact to stop it, such as the Kantian transcendental apprehension of perception, forcibly intervenes.

Nonetheless, each perception is a temporal phenomenon among themselves. A certain preliminary notion of time is inevitable in invoking perceptions. In fact, insofar as it is focused internally in the dynamic community of perceptions without referring directly to the unity of experience, each local perception comes to associate itself with a local time. Although the unity of experience, if ever possible, would require a synchronization among those local times in the light of time inherent in a transcendental subject, local perceptions participating in forming the unity come to constantly negotiate among themselves instead. Intrinsic to each local perception is the capacity of measuring local times pertaining to mutually influencing local perceptions immediately or mediately (Matsuno, 1985: Rössler, 1987).

Internal measurement associated with each perception is eventually related to the unity of experience apprehended in terms of a priori time, but is more than that (Matsuno, 1989). It operates in a local time that does not presume an a priori synchronization among those local times. Each local perception or internal measurement is to proceed in a locally asynchronous time with each other (Matsuno, 1996a), while the transcendental apprehension of perceptions proceeds in a globally synchronous time that is unique to the Kantian transcendental subject. Transference from a locally asynchronous to globally synchronous time is inevitable for the unity of experience to be explicated on individual local perceptions (Matsuno, 1996b). Likewise, each perception is a spatial phenomenon of only a local extension unless the transcendental apprehension of space is forcibly imposed. For there is no empirical agency boasting of grasping space of an infinite extension.

Internal measurement upholding empirical perception being local both in space and in time serves as an elementary activity towards the unity of experience. What internal measurement is involved in doing is to draw the finite spatio-temporal horizon more than anything else (Brooks and McLennan, 1990), and then distinguishes this world within the horizon from all of the other real worlds over and beyond the horizon, in contrast to Kantian infinite horizon both in space and in time. At this point, the horizon is taken to be a descriptive artifact in the sense that anything fallen within the horizon could be perceived as such without being accompanied by any activity ascribed to the perceiver towards the object. The finite horizon unique to internal measurement is to refer to the spatio-temporal extension over which coexistence of objects could be guaranteed even in the absence of perceptive activities. Henceforth, this world within the horizon could emerge only after internal measurement sets such a finite horizon as an artifact. Internal measurement is a precategorical activity because this world as a fixed category comes into being only as a consequence of the act of internal measurement. A the same time, internal measurement has to abide by something remaining invariant such as a conservation law a posteriori, otherwise it would lose its descriptive integrity.

In addition, inevitable occurrence of a finite spatio-temporal horizon in turn makes the notion of interaction quite different from what Kant conceived as the principle of coexistence. Simultaneous coexistence of those objects lying beyond a directly accessible finite horizon cannot be guaranteed on the spot. Nonetheless, the notion of interaction is still conceivable. That is, every interacting element has its own real world, directly accessible within a finite horizon and those of the others directly inaccessible beyond the horizon, while these two are reachable with each other through a communication over the horizon. Communication as a mode of interaction is unique to internal measurement.

Perception inherent in internal measurement in reference to something remaing invariant in one form or another is thus found to remain inseparable from the act of drawing a finite spatio-temporal horizon. Perception in reference to conservation or invariant is an aspect of the underlying epistemic act of Swenson (1998, p. x) stating that

When this view is applied to thermodynamics, we note with Swenson (1998) that “the experiment of Joule and every other experiment designed to demonstrate the first law (e.g., Mayer and Helmholtz), demonstrated the second law as well”. Rather, the second law on irreversibility is a derivative of the first law on conservation (Matsuno, 1989). The present ontological turnaround of making an epistemological perception an ontological activity now raises a serious second thought on our linguistic practice heavily relying on the discourse in the present tense. Although it is extremely competent in coping with observational statements in the exclusively epistemological domain, the present tense is far less versatile in addressing ontological activities because of its grammatical stipulation (Köhler, 1993). Tensoral framework of the present tense is quite akin to the Kantian conception of space and time at least in that an arbitrary statement in the present tense makes itself legitimate at any present moment, thus rendering the available temporal horizon infinite.

Consequently, any serious effort for shedding light on the issue of ontological activity is required to seek a possibility of tensoral framework other than the present tense (Ulanowicz, 1997). One likely candidate is the present progressive tense, because it comes to directly face an action in progress. We shall examine the role of the present progressive tense for the endeavor intended for bridging the gap between the local and the global time.

Predicative explication of action currently in progress is exclusively for the present progressive tense. Above all, the present progressive tense is peculiar in admitting the middle voice without being restricted only to either the active or the passive voice. Consider, for instance, a sentence like “I am walking through a crowd so as to avoid collisions with other people”. The descriptive author, who happens to be the walking subject, is active in two senses. The author is active in initiating such a description in the present progressive tense on the one hand and also in engaging in the active behavior of walking through the crowd (Barthes, 1989). These two activities, however, are not monopolized by the one and the same author. Although the descriptive activity intrinsic to any descriptive author remains invincible, the behavioral activity necessarily referred to in the present progressive tense can also be shared by those other than the descriptive author.

When I am walking through a crowd so as to avoid collisions with other people, I can see other people in the crowd doing the same. The descriptive author walking through the crowd comes to interchangeably recognize himself also in the present progressive tense expressed as “I am walking through the crowd so that collisions with other people may be avoided”. The present progressive tense can make the descriptive author even passive to other agents which inevitably appear on the scene. Although the present tense can allow the descriptive author to monopolize the agential capacity in controlling any subjects appearing in whatever sentences in the present tense as practiced in the Cartesian split, the present progressive tense makes its middle-voiced core ineluctable (Kisiel, 1997).

The middle voice inevitably latent in the present progressive tense is of course not limited to the descriptive author. It is also inevitable to the behavioral subjects of whatever kinds appearing in the present progressive tense (Paton and Matsuno, 1998). When a particle is acting upon another particle, it is alternately being acted upon by the latter. If both the particles share exactly the same horizon both in space and in time, the acting of a particle upon the other could completely be synchronized with the being acted upon by the latter, with a consequence of no net activity altogether because of the complete reciprocity between action and reaction. The exact similitude of the horizon for both the particles could make perception between the two hypothetically possible without being accompanied by any actual activities because of the very definition of the horizon. The coexistence of the two particles could be vindicated without having recourse to actual perceptive activity between the two.

However, the two particles are located differently in space and accordingly, cannot share exactly the same horizon at least in space. Communication over and beyond the finite horizon becomes inevitable to the interacting particles. Since each interacting particle is responsible for setting up its own spatio-temporal horizon specifying the coexisting participants internally, the communication arriving from over the horizon comes to induce the activity of varying the horizon itself at the receiving end. One particle’s acting upon the other comes to induce changes in the horizon to be set by the latter. When a particle is acting upon another particle, the latter is not simply passively reactive but reactively active towards the former in inducing changes in the horizon (Matsuno, 1989). The middle-voiced characteristic is inevitable even to interacting elements of whatever kinds appearing in the present progressive tense.

Nonetheless, the middle-voiced characteristic intrinsic to the present progressive tense causes a serious descriptive difficulty in securing its consistency because of the participation of many behavioral agents other than the descriptive author. One strategy for coping with this impasse for the time being is to switch to one more tensoral framework, that is, the present perfect tense, since in the latter the descriptive author is the sole agent that can declare what are the completed and perfected events. The former behavioral agents already frozen in the record in the present perfect tense cannot exercise their agential capacity anymore.

The sentence reading “I have walked through the crowd so as to avoid collisions with other people” does not distinguish itself from another one “I have walked through the crowd so that collisions with other people may be avoided” in the respect of “I have perfected my walking through the crowd without collisions”. The behaviors of other people in the crowd have already been subdued under the declaration of the perfection of the successful walking through the crowd by the descriptive author. The present perfect tense can let the descriptive author being merely one of many behavioral agents stand out among the other participants in declaring the perfection of the behavior even if the perfection is no more than a descriptive artifact.

A similar line of argument also applies to the case in which the descriptive author does not participate in the behavioral activities to be described. That is to say, a particle has acted upon another particle, and it has been reacted upon by the latter. Both action and reaction have been perfected and coexist in the perfected record. There does not arise any further activity beyond a consistent counterbalancing between action and reaction from within the perfected record. Even if he does not participate in the actual behavioral scene, the descriptive author comes to exercise the prerogative of having perfected whatever behaviors on the scene once the present perfect tense is employed.

We thus come to observe that the present progressive tense may risk its descriptive consistency because of the inevitable participation of behavioral agents other than the descriptive author (Rosen, 1997), whereas the present perfect tense may run a risk of eliminating all of the behavioral agents other than the descriptive author from the description. Exactly at this point, the role of the present tense is to be focused.

If dynamic behavior like an interplay between time and a clock is of our concern, both the present progressive and the present perfect tenses are primary compared to the present tense. Movement in progress can be frozen into the record when it has been completed or perfected via the past progressive tense. Perfection of movement in progress induces natural transference from the present progressive to the present perfect tense, while letting the present tense pointing to the presence of perfected movement simply derivative and secondary. On the other hand, the reverse transference from the present perfect to the present progressive tense could also be conceivable if the presence of perfected movement is available in the mode of the present tense. This reverse transference now renders the commitment of the present tense primary compared to the case of natural transference from the present progressive to the present perfect tense. Although there could be one more possibility of the reverse transference without relying upon the presence of perfected movement, which will be taken up later in this section, the effort for grounding whatever dynamics upon the presence of perfected movement has at least historically been quite influential in the tradition of Galilean-Newtonian physics.

Once the presence of perfected movement is guaranteed, it also has to be globally consistent at any present moment because the perfection does not allow any imperfection or inconsistency of the movement internally. The present progressive tense thus retrieved from the present perfect tense carries the presence of globally perfected movement constantly forward. The carrying forward of globally perfected movement is nothing other than a movement in global synchronous time. This conception of global time is exclusively linguistic in its origin in the sense that it is a linguistic construct enabling the present perfect tense to constantly precipitate the present progressive tense while being mediated by the present tense grounded upon the presence of perfected movement.

As a matter of fact, this linguistic construct serves as a linguistic foundation for giving rise to Kantian-Newtonian time. The capacity of carrying forward the presence of globally perfected movement is sought in the linguistic vehicle called the present progressive tense, and the uniformity and homogeneity of its progression is also found in the linguistic convention letting the presence of perfected movement global at any present moment. Our linguistic institution is intrinsically well equipped to the emergence of Kantian-Newtonian global time. One can say that Galilean-Newtonian physics has taken advantage of our linguistic institution being competent enough to precipitate a global time.

Nonetheless, the global time grounded upon the presence of perfected movement cannot be the only vehicle to be moved by the progression in the present progressive tense. Even if perfected movement is not definitely in sight, the activity towards a prospective perfected movement can effectively carry the present progressive tense forward while being involved in the endeavor of precipitating the present perfect tense as a product. This active endeavor towards the present perfect tense comes to seek its functional source within various behavioral agents appearing in the present progressive tense. Unless the descriptive author eliminates all of the behavioral agents from the on-going scene and subdues all of them under the perfected movement, any one of the surviving behavioral agents within the descriptive framework can exercise its activity in the present tense instead of in the present perfect because the author has no prerogative to declare that the agent would have perfected its movement at a certain point. The descriptive author’s approval of the presence of behavioral agents in the descriptive framework takes place in the present tense.

At the same time, whether behavioral agents could be saved in the description is up to the descriptive artifact the author is going to take even if approval of those agents is strongly sought in a practical sense. The inevitable involvement of artifacts in any descriptive enterprise now yields that the description approving a behavioral agent on a descriptive scene would have to be transferred to the one approving no such agent once the descriptive author determines to switch to the stance allowing no agents other than himself. The active carrying forward of the present progressive tense while precipitating the present perfect tense as an effect can legitimately reduce to the transference from the present perfect to the present progressive tense if such a descriptive artifact as eliminating behavioral agents from the scene is attempted. Of course, it goes without saying that approval of behavioral agents on the descriptive scene should be attempted because of its closer affinity towards actual dynamic behaviors in the empirical domain. A positive merit of conceiving such a descriptive artifact eliminating behavioral agents from the scene could be fathomed only when perfected movement as preserved in the record is referred to as a descriptive invariant in one way or another.

Once the unattainability of perfected movement is properly recognized due to the participation of behavioral agents on the descriptive scene, the present progressive tense comes to first be transferred into the past progressive tense without ultimately being terminated by the present perfect tense (Derrida, 1973; Gunji, 1995). Despite that, the past progressive tense can be saved in and retrieved from the record as in the case of the present perfect tense in that the movement in progress is yet to be perfected even in the record. The reverse transference from the past progressive to the present progressive tense rests upon the capacity of agents behaving locally as carrying their finite spatio-temporal horizons. The presence of behaving agents is responsible for transferring the past progressive to the present progressive tense.

A linguistic imperative required to the local behaving agents is at the least to fulfill the principle of the excluded middle since observations in the mode of the past progressive tense saved in the record would lose the integrity of the record itself unless the principle is respected. When I was walking through the crowd so as to avoid collisions with other people, the avoiding activity has successfully been conducted up to the point the record has been registered, though the walking has not yet been completed. My walking yet to come is going to avoid collisions with other people since walking and colliding exclude each other. The present tense embodied in the presence of local behavioral agents is strictly local. Time thus associated with the present tense carrying the present progressive tense forward is local (Gendlin, 1995).

Our linguistic institution is grammatically and intrinsically potential in having two different notions of time, the global and the local. Although its progressive character is sought in the occurrence of the present progressive tense, time as a conception rests upon the presence of something or some events at any present moment. The presence of the present perfect tense for perfected movement underlies a global time, whereas the presence of the activity for the principle of the excluded middle precipitating the past progressive tense underwrites a local time.

This linguistic competency in coming to terms with the notion of time in one way or another now begs the question of whether it can really face dynamic behaviors to be met in the empirical domain. In fact, the global time grounded upon the presence of perfected movement has come to uphold Newtonian time in the practice of physics, let alone whether such a global time could faithfully address empirical reality. At real issue, however, is how one more possibility of grounding a local time upon the principle of the excluded middle without referring to perfected movement could find its material embodiment in the empirical domain, since the possibility of a local time is less dependent on linguistic artifacts. Past progressive tense can be conceivable from present progressive even if present perfect tense is not directly available from it. Actual significance of a local time being potential in our linguistic institution is sought in a material scheme embodying a local time. That is a clock (e.g., Plautz et al, 1997).

Any clock of material origin is almost completely autonomous in its movement, but is not isolated from its outside. Even a cesium atomic clock cannot run properly unless it is excited externally. A clock requires its mover to act upon. At the same time, it also presumes its reader to be acted upon. Insofar as there are more than one clock in this empirical world as it should be the case, each clock comes to act upon and to be acted upon by other clocks. Action and reaction between an arbitrary pair of clocks points to occurrence of a communication between the two clocks through a local time. This communication between local clocks now serves as a means of establishing a synchronization in terms of local time between the two clocks, since time, or more specifically local time, plays the role of a common denominator among available local clocks. Time is a particular, individualistic property applied to all of the clocks available, instead of being a common property abstracted from the latter. Local time associated with each local clock is thus more than an attribute to that particular clock. It also has the capacity of relating that clock to others in the neighborhood.

Action and reaction between local clocks turn out to be an attribute of a local time available there. Local time directly addresses itself to an activity of local origin in sharp contrast to global time, in the latter of which its globally static attribute can be conceivable even independently of its dynamic counterpart (Leydesdorff, 1994; Matsuno, 1998).

In particular, action and reaction between an arbitrary pair of local clocks are a form of synchronization between the two, since the principle of action and reaction presumes the counterbalancing of the two at any synchronized moment. The principle simply says that there cannot be expected anything out of nothing. What is crucial at this point is that the principle is established at any shared and synchronized moment between the participating local clocks. Local time intrinsically has the capacity of synchronization. This, however, does not bring about the global synchronization on the spot. Since each local clock has a finite spatio-temporal horizon of its own, a consequence of synchronization between an arbitrary pair of clocks serves as a signal for inducing further subsequent synchronization with other local clocks lying beyond the finite horizon when it is actually communicated over the horizon.

Synchronization associated with local time is of delayed or skewed character (Matsuno, 1998). No global time of a static nature is available to skewed synchronization in local time. Synchronization between local clocks due to the principle of the counterbalancing between action and reaction constantly provides local time with the capacity of subsequent synchronization. When a local clock reads local time from its neighboring another clock, the consequence of reading it does not fail in inducing further synchronization with the third party clock. Consequently, any local clock turns out to maintain a triadic relationship among itself and two other clocks, in the latter of which one serves as a mover and the other as the reader (Hoffmeyer, 1996).

Local time is an activity of skewed synchronization between local clocks grounded upon the timing of the counterbalance between action and reaction. The principle of the counterbalancing between action and reaction upholds local time as an agency capable of achieving timing between the two and extending the achievement to the global extent, but the global synchronization on the spot constantly remains out of reach. The effect of achieving timing between action and reaction in one location keeps providing causes for subsequent timing of the similar nature in the neighborhood. Linguistically, local time as timing activity of a local character is implemented in the process of fulfilling the principle of the excluded middle in the transference from the present progressive to the past progressive tense. This is so because the activity of timing the counterbalancing the two comes to exclude the cases that would fail in achieving the timing.

The issue of whether time is global or local is more than simply a physical matter of how the global time could be approached from an array of local clocks if ever possible. What concerns us at this point is the descriptive stance specifying the foundation upon which our discourse in the mode of the present tense could be guaranteed (Emmeche and Hoffmeyer, 1991). Once one secures employment of the present tense upon the ground of the presence of perfected movement or progression necessarily to the global extent, time as an attribute of such a perfected movement has to be globally synchronous. On the other hand, once it is duly recognized that what is present is the activity towards the principle of the excluded middle, time as an attribute of such a local activity is locally asynchronous while being equipped with the capacity of synchronization locally in progress. The global time upon the presence of perfected movement is thus linguistically incommensurable with the local time upon the activity towards the principle of the excluded middle.

An example of showing the distinction between local and global time is seen in a grass inflorescence expressed in histological events. A grass grows in length, and at a certain stage of its development appear some units at its base and continue to appear in the direction towards the tip. Once units called spikelets appear at the tip, maturation starts but is in the direction opposite to the appearance of the spikelets (Maze, 1997). That is, the spikelet at the tip is the first to mature, that at the base the last. The order of inflorescence is in that the last comes, the first served. There could be two interpretations about this developmental process. One is to refer to global time as associating each developmental stage to some measurement of global synchronous time being independent of the grass itself. This explanation in terms of global synchronous time is intuitively rather difficult to swallow because one has to observe the inverted sequence of making the last comer to be the first served at a certain point.

One more interpretation is to match certain events in the process of inflorescence to other properties of the grass as referring to local activities on the scene. This is in its essence to consult local time available to each histological part of the grass. Since the global time is at most an artifact to the developing grass itself (Salthe, 1993), the second alternative of referring to local time is more direct and natural to the process proceeding there. What is unique to such a local time is the manner in which various clocks distributed in the grass come to synchronize their local time with each other.

The synchronization is necessarily skewed in the sense that global synchronous time in the static sense is not available to the grass. How the skewed synchronization would proceed is specific to the particular nature of the clocks constituting the whole body of the grass. Even if the spikelet at the tip appeared last matures first, this would come to tell us only the manner of skewed synchronization proceeding there. Although skewed synchronization does not bring about global synchronous time on the spot, it can certainly be a globally organized process. This is due to the active nature of local time towards global synchronization.

An overarching issue of the synchronization of clocks is whether there could be a master clock presiding over all of the available clocks. If there is such a master clock, time must be globally synchronous as unanimously consulting time read from the master clock. Our natural languages should certainly have the capacity of accommodating the master clock into their institution if they are supplemented by the linguistic practice of associating the present perfect tense with the present tense. This convention however does not answer the empirical question of whether such an invincible master clock could really be available empirically. Of course, the diurnal cycle attributed to the rotating movement of the planet Earth has direct influence upon various circadian clocks observed in biological organisms inhabiting on the Earth, but the synchronization between the cycle and these circadian clocks is not strictly observed. There is an intrinsic mismatching between the two. This discrepancy in turn provides each organism with the capacity of adapting to changes in the diurnal cycle due to migration or forced terrestrial transportation. Each circadian clock can maintain some extent of autonomy. Although it is a major clock, the diurnal cycle does not completely specify the timing of each biological clock.

Nonetheless, one can apply the timing of the master clock to the evolutionary process taking place on the Earth by reading the available fossil record as distinguishing simultaneous events from sequential ones. This commonly held practice of reading the record inevitably imposes upon the process in the record a dynamic artifact such that simultaneous events may be distinguished from sequential ones globally. Approval of the record is a commitment to accepting a form of global synchronous time in one way or another. The most representative example of the record available to biological evolution is genes. Although they are very minute in their spatial extension, genes as the record make themselves extremely extensive temporally. Whether or not genes remain unaltered comes to provide a descriptive means by which how sequential events could have been alternated in evolution.

Once genes as the record are employed in the description of evolutionary processes, the consequence is acceptance of a global synchronous time making the same genes to be shared synchronously among the relevant evolutionary participants. The record in itself has to be consistent globally by definition, otherwise the record would lose its integrity. Any member constituting the record synchronously shares its contextual consistency with the whole. This global synchronous time as an artifact exclusively of descriptive origin becomes inevitable once a description of evolutionary processes is intended as consulting the record. Genes as the record do not carry any internal inconsistency because of its descriptive stipulation. This exhibits a marked contrast to genes in actual process, in the latter of which descriptive consistency associated with genes has only to be effected. Global synchronous time associated with genes as the record is merely a descriptive artifact conceived from local asynchoronous time intrinsic to genes in actual process.

Relationship between global and local time is subtle. Our linguistic institution is extremely competent in coming up with global synchronous time. The presence of perfected or completed record inevitably precipitates such a global time. Despite that, there has been no empirical foundation supporting the global time of descriptive origin. Unavailability of global synchronous time in the empirical domain will become evident even if one considers the synchronization of three clocks. A consequence of synchronizing one clock to another does not fail in providing further cause for the third party to initiate renewed synchronization with one of the two clocks. This sequence can continue indefinitely. No global time is in sight in the process. What we have to pay attention in this regard should be how to keep appreciating local time as an activity in the face of the overwhelming linguistic practice to superficially vindicate global time.

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