On Borrowed Time

the long version

"In On Borrowed Time, Harald Weinrich examines an extraordinary range of materials - from Hippocrates to Run Lola Run - to put forth a new conception of time and its limits that, unlike older models, is firmly grounded in human experience. Weinrich's analysis of the roots of the word time connects it to the temples of the skull, demonstrating that humans first experienced time in the beating of their pulses. Tracing this corporeal perception of time across literary, religious, and philosophical works, Weinrich concludes that time functions as a kind of sixth sense - the crucial sense that enables the other five."--Jacket.