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We understand that a major goal of Advanced Studies in the various institutes across the world is to lead researchers towards learning the different points of view (in philosophy, the various eidoi) that are present in different sciences, and thus dispel myths that distinct areas have in relation to each other.

Conceptual work means dealing with the times:

- of philosophy;

- of religion and / or spirituality;

- of the social sciences;

- of the literature;

- of physics;

- of biology;

- of chemistry.

The notion of time in each of these areas of human creation represents distinct concepts. These conceptual differences require an academic dialogue between people working and experiencing the different views over time if academy intends to build multicultural bridges. Thus, a meeting on time is justified, needed and may constitute a forum of value, especially if accompanied by young open minded researchers.

For example, the notion of time in chemistry is changing with a speed that comes with technological development. How has a science of what is real, which creates its own world, changed a time scale that could be accompanied by a wristwatch to the observation of phenomena occurring in femtoseconds (1*10^-15 seconds) in a few decades? What is the reality of these observations? How can one transfer this knowledge to the macroscopic world of human consciousness? These are examples of questions to consider when thinking about time in chemistry. Equivalent questions can be found in all sciences and knowledge. The numbered paragraphs below will propose a dialogue between different sciences.

Often, the sciences work in different temporalities, addressing an issue that only appears later in others (the classic example comes from geometry, that has been confined to its Greek model for two thousand years until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries came to make it revolutionize physics, ethics and politics, becoming the model of all science after being a practice of surveyors only). In the same way, "post-Euclidean" geometry (such as Zaha Hadid or Gehry), for its architectural, urbanist and aesthetic constructivism, changes the sensitivity of culture in the communicational metropolis with the concepts of hybridizing, morphing, generating, shifted geometry, unusual volumetrics, structural logics, natural morphologies and organic hybrid.

So when young researchers are submitted to cutting edge stimuli of exact, biological and human sciences, this means bringing them to change their way of thinking about thinking. This happened in the Renaissance, during the Enlightenment and is happenning again in our time, marked by a wealth of discoveries, inventions and information which, incidentally, is the reason to be of the advanced studies. That is how technologies, designs and arts intersect and the key concept of ubiquity manifests itself.

If we intend to work under the aegis of “Designing Transformative Models” (DTM), we should pluralize these models to the fullest and notice which similarities and differences there are between them. The most important question is whether these models have validity beyond disciplines, i.e., there should not be models only in biology or only in sociology, nor a single one in each science. Possibly, there are several models for each science whose validity transcends them, contaminating (in a positive sense) others. [1]

Moreover, ours is the first period in history in which there is strong scientific evidence that the human species, the planet and life itself are at serious risk of survival. In all past times there has been some fear of the end of the world or the apocalypse, that is, a destruction of everything that matters. Our time, however, is the first in which there are scientific elements pointing to the depletion of the planet's operating model. Challenges of life have become universal and require knowledge and cooperative actions between all sciences, both to recognize the problems and to elaborate effective solutions from the scientific and technical points of view, as well as sustainable in the political, social and symbolic levels. The crucial problem is that we are universalized in a passive way, in that we are affected by the same threats - but have not yet built na active position in the face of this situation. We are in the pathos, in passivity, and not in action. For example, the degradation of water and air knows no boundaries, but human action and reaction against these problems are barred by the borders and even by subnational entities. There is a need to not only improve knowledge and practical solutions, but also underpin the specific practices in a new idea of human process that, as opposed to the pathos, is able to reinvigorate the two antagonists: reason and action. [2]

From the points of view of the humanities, hard sciences and biological sciences we can think of at least six concepts of time which should be elaborated:

1) The existential time. Since Bergson and phenomenology, the human experience of time as it is experienced in consciousness (or, to surrealism, in unconsciousness) becomes a fruitful field of both scientific, and literary and artistic explorations. Thus, the memory occupies a position that used to be the objective, chronological and factual narrative. Proust is essential in this change, but also the narrative in films places particular emphasis on memory as seen in the alternation of present, past and future. The existential time has a biological parallel when we consider the life of individuals - beginning, middle and end - and in this context the longitudinal studies seeking the biological understanding of aging - which can be considered both from the point of view of cell replication and repair, and from the ability to deal with energy problems and immune functions. Biology is counting on the knowledge of molecular biology to evaluate the time course of individual life.

2) The time of Nietzsche. Although the doctrine of "eternal return of the same" is not followed to the letter in our days, it models a critical rule in linear chronological time. Briefly, Nietzsche says that - if time is infinite - all successive series of events over time will be repeated infinitely many times, and not necessarily in the same sequence that would restart constantly. Biological clocks and circadian rhythms are the forms of biology to deal with recurring phenomena of the planet. These molecular mechanisms that operate at the cellular and organismic level making a real interaction between the large communication systems (nervous, endocrine and immune) allow the recurrence and the prediction of facts that are repeated daily. This is the focus of chronobiology to be seen both in ideal conditions, when the weather can be considered an "eternal return of the same", and when pathophysiological disturbances promote a change of marking and / or perception of time.

3) The dialectical time is relatively unstudied nowadays, since it has been closely associated with Marx (after being defined by Hegel) and the general crisis of communism and Marxism has eventually diminish the attention given to it. However, the idea that thesis and antithesis oppose at the same "time" and that both are overcome, in their war, for a synthesis remains one of the richest prospects over time. Briefly, it can be said that, to this thesis, nothing happens "on" time as if time was a neutral support of what happens. Actually time "is" what happens. In a comparison, a previous idea would be that time provides dates in which events occur, as a library that provides the Dewey classification, in which books are classified. But for dialectics, the relationship between the date and the event is not external, but internal. Time is not a label affixed to the event, it is happening.

4) The time of structuralism. Although one might have forgotten the name of "structuralism”, this line of thinking has valued synchrony over diachrony, i.e., reduced the importance given to time in its sequence, increasing the relevance of conflicts occurring at the same "time".

5) The end of time. It would be interesting to confront the scientific perspective, for example from studies of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), with the apocalyptic strand present in Christianity and in other religions as among the Aztecs, that did daily human sacrifices to appease the bloodthirsty gods and thereby delaying the fifth destruction of the world (because four had already occurred). Regarding the end of time: is the end of species inexorable? It is also valid to remember the composition of Olivier Messiaen, Quatuor pour la fin du temps, interestingly composed and premiered in a German concentration camp in Görlitz, now the Polish town of Zgorzelec, in 1941, and that associates with the Christian end of times and the abolition of time in music. One can also remember Umberto Eco’s distinction between Apocalyptic and Integrated, the first being those who rejected mass culture and the latter those who expected too much of it (and by extension, one could say today: of progress, of technology, etc.).

6) The end of the marking of biological time - the fact that molecular patterns associated with danger or pathogens block the production of the hormone that marks the dark, or even alter the biological clock. These are facts that in short or even in long term lead to conditions that facilitate important pathologies such as cancer and Alzheimer's disease. The body needs to be synchronized properly so that organs and tissues work together for the good functioning. This is how we get to the end of timekeeping. It is the Kairos time, which is not linear and mathematized, an irregular, chaotic, pluralistic time, which tells - from Greek and then Latin thought (carpe diem) - artistic creativity in an expanded sense, which also involves the hard sciences and moves beyond the Khronos time.

There is also the time on Earth, of the planet, which gives a prodigiously larger scale, more than 4.5 billion years, during which the Earth has experienced numerous changes, many of them caused by organisms that evolved here. Life began on this planet for millions of years. The species are finite because to live they need proper places, food, interactions with partners and defense against enemies. Thus, periodically in this immense lifetime on Earth, a species replace another, and the interactions between them have shaped the face of the planet as it appears today. The growth of the human population on the planet, estimated 650 million in 1700 to 7 billion in 2011, brought new challenges for the development of life on Earth (Barnosky et al, 2012). The concept of the Earth System (biosphere (the place on the surface of Earth where life dwells) + biogeochemicalcycles + climate) according to Hughes et al (2013) suggests that life on Earth has undergone repeatedly abrupt changes in the past and that it will happen again. We do not know whether it is human action on the planet, featuring the new era of the Anthropocene, which will transgress this tipping point.

[1] The "unruly" contamination is always constructivist and diffuses the "exact imagination".
 
[2] In philosophy, pathos (or passion) is similar to affectio (or condition). Pathos, in particular, opposes to the action (pathos is passive, action is active), but also to reason. Pathos could be understood as a meaning beyond the dichotomous thinking, such as active passivity or logical sensorialities.