Michael,

I’m assuming what you describe is a platonic idealism.

Consider for a moment, an emotional basis for this focal desire.

What we see are not objects and shapes, but the light radiating out of, or reflected off of them and everything around them, etc. So why do we see this form and clarity, rather than just a whiteout of the light? Obviously because our vision works like a camera and extracts flashes of perception out of this light. Even more like a movie camera and creates sequences of perception from these flashes. Our other senses, touch, hearing, smell, are also extracting signal from the ambient noise, in their own fashion.

This perception is like a wave, in that it is at its most clear and distinct, as it is cresting. Then these perceptions give way to the next.

So while our bodies are and are riding this energy, the brain is seeking the forms and focal points emerging from it. That is what drives the mind, the information. So then we are constantly ordering, sorting and judging this information for further clarity and definition. It essentially works like an addictive impulse, especially when these insights lead to others and positive feedback loops emerge.

There are problems with this dynamic, though. One way positive feedback works is when our ideas correlate with other people’s perceptions and then we really seem to be on the right road. Yet having others agree with you is as emotional, as logical feedback. The quest for wealth, as quantified hope and security, is one example where stepping back from this feedback loop might be eventually necessary.

So onto the issue of time. As I point out, the process, the energy, the dynamic, goes from one event, form, pattern, to the next. As these patterns rise and fall. So process goes past to future, while patterns go future to past.

In the west, where platonic idealism is paradigmatic, we apply this focal distillation to ourselves and see ourselves as distinct forms, against the context in which we exist and from which we emerge. So we see ourselves as moving through our context, therefore toward the future and away from the past.

The eastern view tends to be more context oriented, so the paradigm is of being part of the context, not separate from it. They see the past as in front and the future behind, “because past and in front are known, while future and behind are unknown.”

Which accords with that physical reality that we see the light from the forms, thus after the events occur, then this energy transmutes into further forms and events.

So these ideal forms, no matter how imprinted they are in our minds and instincts, still emerge from the processes generating them.

;-)