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TIME PARADOX

CONVERSATIONAL VOCABULARY

Hi everyone. Aaron here, and in this recording I’m going to talk about some of the vocabulary and phrases that Dan and I used in our conversation about time travel. I’ll try to give a few examples and explain clearly the meaning and usage of those words and phrases. Let’s get started.

1. mind boggling The first is the term mind boggling and the term paradoxical. Of course Dan and I are talking about time and how it feels like it’s a fixed thing, but yet it’s relative. This is very difficult to understand and it’s mind boggling, so something that is mind boggling is very difficult to understand.

It’s very difficult to achieve clarity about. It boggles the mind. Time boggles the mind. The complexity of the universe boggles the mind like this. It’s mind boggling. It’s very difficult to understand, it’s very confusing et cetera.

2. paradoxical Now, something that is paradoxical is something that’s true, it’s actual, it’s valid, yet it seems crazy. It seems contradictory, it seems really absurd. For example, we tend to view time as being very fixed. We measure it, we give numbers and values to our experience of reality.

We apply it to many things in life, so it seems like it’s a fixed thing yet we’ve proven that by speeding up your velocity, your movement through space, that it warps time, it changes time, and it’s relative, it’s not fixed. That’s something paradoxical.

Another example of a paradoxical statement might be someone who says, “I always lie.” That’s paradoxical. That’s a paradox, because if the statement, “I always lie” is true, then it must be false because that person must be lying, so it’s a paradox. It seems crazy, but it’s true.

Another paradox is … They say, “The more that you learn, the more intelligent you are, the smarter you become, the more you understand how little you know.” It’s like you start out not knowing that you don’t know things, and then the more you learn, the more you realize that you know so many unknown things.

The more knowledge you get, the less you understand. That’s a paradox. Anyway, that’s what paradox means, and it’s mind boggling, it’s very difficult to conceive of and understand.

3. framework I’m going to move on to the next one and that is framework. Dan says, There’s all different kinds of wild frame works that people have to justify how it’s possible to travel into the past. A framework is kind of like the underlying structure of a building. Our bodies have a framework, a skeleton. It’s the system of bones.

Upon the framework, you actually build something. It’s kind of the structure within the building or some kind of vehicle, or something that’s created. We can talk about concepts, thoughts, as having a structure, an underlying structure.

We mentioned Albert Einstein in our conversation. His research actually provided a theoretical framework for particle physics. Many other theories, and a lot of advancement in that field was built upon his frame work.

Our lessons at deep English have a certain framework. We try to … That’s what’s in common with our lessons. We try to build upon that and use different content each time. The framework, anything that you create, if it’s well designed, it’ll have a solid framework, and that’s what it means, so a frame work.

4. ontological Next, this is when Dan says, “Hey this conversation is getting kind of deep.” I say, “Yeah, it’s getting philosophical. No doubt about it, it’s getting ontological, it’s getting heuristic.” I use 2 terms here. Ontological and heuristic. Both of these terms are very rare.

You don’t hear them much in normal conversation. In fact, it’s possible, perhaps, to never hear them unless you’re talking to a philosopher or someone very specialized in a certain field that deals with philosophy. These are terms you read in philosophy and you hear about in philosophy.

Basically, ontological comes from the noun ontology. Ontology is the theory of the nature of being, or existence, or reality. Any time we’re talking about ontology we’re talking about what exists, what is reality, what is being. That’s, of course, very philosophical.

You’ll often here this adjective, an ontological issue, an ontological argument, an ontological problem. We’re having an ontological discussion. We’re talking about the nature of reality, the nature of existence, of being. That’s ontological.

5. heuristic Now heuristic actually comes from the Greek word, ‘to discover’. Basically something that’s heuristic is something that helps you to learn and discover, especially through experimentation or trial-and-error. It’s learning through experience rather than theory. We use this adjective heuristic to describe processes, and methods, and approaches to problem solving or something like that.

The reason I use these words is kind of like half a joke. The words are so rare, they’re so uncommon, you only hear them when philosophers write and speak. I was kind of joking around by throwing those words out into the conversation, but that’s kind of like a joke. In fact, our discussion was, indeed, ontological, but not necessarily heuristic.

6. egotistical Let’s move on. These are more useful, the next ones. Dan is talking about this Frank Sinatra song. He actually plays it in our conversation. My Way, by Frank Sinatra. He says that it’s a song about an egomaniac jerk. I did it my way. He says that, “One point about regret is really …”, and I finish his sentence by saying, “Poignant.” Dan says, “Yeah, you can feel like there’s some truth to it. The rest is just some blustering Donald Trump jerk.” I use the adjective egotistical. There’s quite a few terms here that are quite useful. The first is egotistical. That’s the one I use at the very end of that segment. It just means, someone who’s egotistical is very centered in their own ego. For that reason, they’re very selfish, they’re very boastful. They love to talk, they’re opinionated. They like to look at themselves in the mirror.

They really like themselves a lot. That’s egotistical.

Dan just throws the name out, Donald Trump, who many people feel is egotistical. He’s, of course, the American businessman, reality TV show guy, and Presidential candidate of the moment.

7. egomaniac Egomaniac is someone who is extremely egotistical. An egomaniac is someone who is crazily egotistical. They’re super egotistical. A jerk, is a rude, obnoxious, mean person. A person who does not treat other people well. A person that you don’t like because of the way he or she acts. Dan is saying that the song My Way is about some egomaniac jerk. Someone who just does it the way he wants to do. He doesn’t care what other people think.

8. blustering He uses blustering to describe Donald Trump. A blustering Donald Trump. Blustering just means someone who’s very noisy, very talkative, kind of loud and brash. A blustering jerk.

9. poignant Wow, these are a lot of words there. The one adjective I use is poignant. Dan’s talking about the point in the song that talks about regret. I said, “Yeah, that’s poignant.” This is a word that you usually read more than you hear, although you may hear it at times. It’s not very common, but it basically … Something that’s poignant is something that stands out in a very, king of a touching, moving, meaningful kind of way. Often in a sad way.

Although I didn’t really use it in that way. I was talking about the fact that there’s an element of truth in that song about regret, that we all have regrets. Even an egotistical maniac, an egotistical jerk has regrets, has things they suffer from. They wish they could go back and change. That’s poignant in a way. It stands out and it’s meaningful and it’s moving.

There’s a little touch of sadness in it. For example, maybe you go to a movie and the movie is about these 2 lovers who were torn apart in some kind of war, some kind of tragedy. It ends very badly, and everyone in the theater is crying their eyes out. You might say, “That was a poignant movie. That was a poignant story of lovers torn apart in a tragedy.” Maybe you come across a painting in a museum, and it reminds you of a distant childhood experience that was kind of sad, but also powerful. You might say, “That painting is a poignant reminder of my childhood.” 10. in a heartbeat Let’s move on to the next one. This is a very useful phrase. In a heartbeat. We’re talking about a hypothetical situation where if my daughter died, Dan asked me, “Would you want to go back in time and change things? I said, “Yeah in a heartbeat I would go back.” In a heartbeat means I would not hesitate. I would do that in a heartbeat. I would do that without any hesitation. It would not take me long at all to decide and to act.

For example, I love my wife very much. She’s a wonderful person. If I could go back in time, I would marry her again in a heartbeat. I wouldn’t even think for more than a second about not doing that. I would do it in a heartbeat, in a very instant, without any hesitation.

11. hitman We’re moving right along here. Hitman is the next one. Dan’s telling a story about this woman who plotted with a man to murder her husband and they hired a hit man. A hitman is someone who is a professional at killing people for a fee.

You often see these in movies. Of course, they do exist in reality, but in movies, if you do not want to actually kill someone with your own hands, you can hire someone to do it, and that person is called a hitman. Not a very noble profession in my opinion.

12. the brightest bulb We’re moving along, and this is something when Dan … It’s a phrase. It’s actually kind of an idiom. Dan doesn’t quite get it right. He says that … He’s talking about the ad that that man put out about finding someone to go back in time with. All these people wrote him. It was a fake advertisement, but lots of people wrote in. Dan said, “If you’re the kind of person that really believes that that ad is true, you’re not the brightest bulb in the pack or whatever that expression is.” In that moment when Dan said that, he didn’t quite remember what the exact expression was, what the exact idiom was. He used, “In the pack”, but he knew in that moment that it’s probably not correct, so he said, “Or whatever that expression is.” I understood it anyway because it makes sense. A bright bulb is something that’s bright. Bright is a synonym, it’s a word that means the same thing as intelligent or smart.

We talk about a light bulb as being bright, meaning it throws out lots of light, but we can talk about a person being bright as being intelligent. If we say that a person is not the brightest bulb in the pack, what we’re saying is that person’s not very smart. That person’s not very bright. You rarely hear in the pack.

You usually hear brightest bulb in the box, or brightest bulb on the tree, as in a Christmas tree, or the brightest bulb on the chandelier which is something that hangs from the ceiling. It’s very ornate, it’s very beautiful.

It has many light bulbs on it. You use it to light a big room, like a banquet room or a ball room or something like that. It has many light bulbs on it. If one of them is dim, that’s the opposite of bright, then that would be the person who’s not very smart. Dim is also a synonym for dumb or not intelligent.

To call someone … That person’s not the brightest bulb on the tree. That person’s not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, it’s not a nice thing to say about someone, but if you’re feeling that way, that might be a good way to express it.

13. the butterfly effect Quickly, butterfly effect. We’re talking about going back in time and changing something and I said, “Oh yeah, that’s the butterfly effect.” We didn’t actually explain it in our conversation. If you’ve never heard of this, this is the effect that, or the idea that, a single change in reality, a single movement, a single alteration in reality, can actually change the course of the universe forever.

For example, if a butterfly flaps its wings, then the air around that butterfly moves or changes a bit. It changes direction, it creates a ripple or a movement of energy. That movement causes other movements and if you carry that out to its full extent, maybe it causes a hurricane, or a typhoon, or some tornadoes several weeks later through the movement and how everything is very interconnected.

In terms of time travel, the butterfly effect is actually a very important thing because if you travel back in time, let’s say there’s a man and he gets in a time machine, and he goes back to the age of the dinosaurs. He wants to see the dinosaurs, and while he’s there he accidentally, I don’t know, he steps on a butterfly and kills it.

When he goes back to the present, after he’s finished with his stay in the dinosaur age, when he gets back he doesn’t recognize anything. Everything is totally different because of that butterfly he stepped on. That’s the butterfly effect.

This is one of the reasons why I feel that time travel to the past is so paradoxical. It’s so mind boggling. I don’t really understand how anyone can travel to the past without affecting the present irreversibly forever. That’s the butterfly effect.

14. wrap things up We’re almost at the end, which is fitting because the next one, the next little phrase, means to finish. It’s wrap things up. At the end of our conversation, Dan says, “Well, maybe it’s time to wrap things up.” I said, “Yeah, I guess it’s time to wrap things up in this universe anyway.” To wrap something up literally means to take paper and wrap it around something like a box, to cover it with wrapping paper. To wrap it, in a plastic bag, it could be a paper, something like that.

The actual meaning of it, not the literal meaning, but the way it’s used means to finish. To wrap something up means to finish. Maybe we’re in a meeting and the meeting has gone on too long. The coordinator of the meeting finally says, “Okay guys, look, we’re past the time. It’s time to wrap this up.” “Let’s wrap this meeting up. Let’s wrap this project up. We’ve been working on it too long. Let’s wrap it up. It’s time to wrap it up. It’s time to finish.” That brings us to the very last 2 phrases.

These are very closely related.

15. blink of an eye/in a split second The first is blink of an eye, and the next one is a split second. Dan says, “Our entire conversation was 21 minutes.” I said, “Hey, that’s pretty good.” Dan says, “It felt like the blink of an eye.” I said, “Yeah, it felt like just a split second.” Both of these phrases mean exactly the same thing. They mean in a very, very, very short time.

In an instant, in a moment, in a heartbeat, in a jiffy. We might say, “As soon as the man laid eyes upon the lovely woman, he fell in love in the blink of an eye”, like in an instant. As soon as he saw her it was love at first sight.

As the car hit the tree, in a split second it burst into flames. Like immediately it burst into flames. Luckily the driver got out unharmed. That’s it. That wraps up everything that we talked about in our conversation that I thought would be interesting to draw your attention to. I hope you found these words and phrases useful, and as always, you do need to use these or you will lose them.

You’ve got to use them or lose them. Make note of them, write them down, see if you can make sentences with them, see if you can incorporate them in your conversations, and that will enhance your ability to communicate in English. Okay, we’ll see you next time.

The End.