„For time is life. And life dwells in the heart.“ – (Michael Ende) –

Time is life? Life means being-in-the-world, i.e., existing within a range of possibilities. This range of possibilities is not arbitrary, but a limited, changing range of unique, concrete opportunities. By seizing opportunities, living beings shape their being-in-the-world and thereby create facts: the realization of their existence. Temporal linguistic expressions describe the concrete way in which life embodies being-in-the-world. Time is a collective term for linguistic forms of expression that can be used to capture and communicate how living beings realize their lives. In this respect, time is life.

The range of possibilities in which life can take shape may theoretically be arbitrarily large. In practice, however, there are always only very limited opportunities for access. To sustain their existence, living beings depend on the availability of receptive and cognitive capacities for differentiation and networking. This means they must be able to perceive the world in a broad sense and respond to it. These capacities are quantitatively and qualitatively limited. This means that only a limited number of specified distinctions can be grasped as available opportunities for creative potential, reflexively processed if necessary, and, in the case of humans, shared communicatively.

The contingent reference of life to what it distinguishes, dependent on concrete opportunities, fixes reality within the scope of the possible. At the same time, the range of existential possibilities shifts and opens up new opportunities for referential distinctions and networking.

Being-in-the-world is subjective insofar as it embodies creative potential that sustains itself in existence. It is objective insofar as it realizes a concrete embodiment of life.

Literature:

Michael Ende, Momo (1973)

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