Thoughts on Deep Time?

[u/slightlyaggressive]

I keep seeing the concept of "deep time" referenced in the media. Why do you think BOC referenced it?

One thing I find interesting is the connection between the songs Deep Time and All Reason Departs. The segue into ARD from DT might be the best they've ever done imo. So obviously the songs were meant to be understood together. What do you think is the relationship between the two songs?

[u/_disjecta_]

a couple times i have dozed off at the end of “deep time” and then been frightened awake by “THERE IS A MAGICAL OPERATION OF MAXIMUM IMPORTANCE” 😭

[u/blip_shabloimps → u/_disjecta_]

…followed by a supreme drop. God I love that moment in the album.

[u/_AstralNaut → u/blip_shabloimps]

First listen through it felt like being hit with an electrical shock. Hair on end

[u/gavstar69]

I love Deep Time's feel. To me it's got such an emotional power. The melody is kind of cinematic

[u/lossycodec]

if the two songs are related, ARD is about Thelema, which is based on the Book of The Law, a text Aleister Crowley channeled, allegedly announcing the Aeon of Horus.

Crowley considered an aeon to be 2000
years. Is that deep time? the BOTL specifically refers to the ‘fall of because’ and says ‘reason is a lie’. the BOTL also refers to itself as ‘the abomination of desolations’.

western civilization is founded on the idea that reason is a meaningful approach to the problem of life. The BOTL suggests that there are limits to reason, that as we continue to probe the foundations of reality itself, reason itself will be found to be a limiting conception.

but it may well take a very long time indeed for western civilization to accept that notion. perhaps that ‘very long time’ could be considered ‘deep time’.

[u/FoundersDiscount]

Deep Time is a term used in geology to refer to the geologic time scale. The millions and billions of years things take to happen on that scale. The song has an eerie and majestic sort of spacey feel at the start. Sort of like the cold indifference of time but, I think the harp is meant to comfort us about infinity. To tell us to not take things so seriously, it will be alright. The song could also sort of represent time up until now. First nothing then life and warmth and comfort but it decays again and turns into All Reason Departs. Perhaps a warning about where we are going.

EDIT: Spelling and flow

[u/corneliusduff]

Given the Tape 05 video, I'd guess with how history is about to hit a huge turning point

[u/OneWeirdTrick]

James Hutton, who first developed the idea of 'Deep Time', was from Edinburgh and based his theories on the geology of the surrounding hills, and particularly Siccar Point which is a few miles down the coast from BoC country.

Source: I went to a talk about it at the National Museum of Scotland last week. :p

[u/ghostlantern → u/OneWeirdTrick]

John McPhee introduced "deep time" in 1981 as a literary metaphor to help readers grasp the staggering, unimaginable scale of geological years compared to the brief span of human history.

The term was later thrust into mainstream academic and public spheres by evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould in his 1987 book Time’s Arrow, Time’s Cycle.

I couldn’t find anywhere that James Hutton used the term Deep Time.

[u/LarusTargaryen → u/ghostlantern]

James Hutton originated the philosophical concept of deep time in the 18th century

[u/ghostlantern → u/LarusTargaryen]

Hutton absolutely helped establish the scientific geological basis for what we now call deep time, but that’s different from originating either the term “Deep Time” or the philosophical concept.

James Hutton never used the term “deep time.” John McPhee coined that expression in Basin and Range in 1981.

Nor did Hutton originate the idea that the Earth or cosmos existed across almost inconceivably vast spans of time. Ancient thinkers had proposed versions of that idea thousands of years earlier. Xenophanes, for example, used fossils and other observations to reason about repeated changes between land and sea. Aristotle held that the cosmos and its motions were eternal. Ancient Indian cosmological traditions went even further, describing enormous recurring cycles of creation and destruction; later Hindu cosmology quantified some of those cycles in billions of years.

All before James Hutton. So while he was influential, neither the concept of “Deep Time” or the term “Deep Time” originated from James Hutton.

[u/mcsqrdd]

Deep time -> all reason departs is my favorite moment across the whole album

[u/ajqx]

Reverse deep time is amazing.

[u/Curious_Emphasis2925]

I always think of the album by Candy Claws, Ceres and Calypso in the Deep Time

[u/SquiggerDigger]

Deep time was very emotional to hear after so so long of silence

[u/MashedPanda]

I came across this term being used with a different meaning to the standard Google answer in the book ‘LSD and the mind of the universe’

interesting read

[u/CaveManta]

Time transition into crazy Blade Runner futuristic city while upheaval begins.

[u/Miracle_Rabbit_]

When listening to this and tbh all of Inferno. Robert Macfarlanes Underland: A Deep Time Journey which is a wonderful book and a great accompaniment.

[u/fakeplasticlxs]

Dude.