Stupid thoughts

Rowan, you asked the other day about time's relation to immanence and transcendence. I was going to post about it before, but it slipped my mind. Here are my belated thoughts.

Is time a presence? That is, is there ever such a state as the present or is what we consider the present just difference between past and future? Lately, I've thought of time as difference not presence. We seem to only ever think of time in terms of difference; that is how we measure or observe it. If we ever try to think about or capture the present, we have always just missed it. We never experience it as a presence. But perhaps we only perceive time as difference through discursive thought. If this is the case, then could a non-discursive experience (inner experience) be a relation to time that is a presence?

I think time could only be a presence with inner experience. With inner experience (non-discursive thought), there are no objects taken. That is, there is no subject to take an object. So with inner experience, time cannot be taken as an object. It would merely be there, unable to be thought of. It could be a presence then; a presence with everything else or a "totality" (to use a word of Bataille's). In this case (through inner experience), time would be related to immanence and chance. They would be together (present) in inner experience, but they could not be experienced or thought of as presence or as even being together.

Maybe time is related to transcendence through discursive thought. Perhaps through thinking of time in terms of its differences (projects are conducted this way), we are trying to transcend experience (and immanence and chance). That could be how they all relate.

I don't know. I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, so feel free to disagree. I just was thinking of this the other day and thought I'd share it.

Also Rowan, which reading of Bataille's did you want us to select from? I know it was from the Unfinished System, but was there a specific part from that to choose from?