"A violent man will die a violent death!"

[Matt Gregory]

Tao Te Ching, chapter 42:

The Tao begot one.
One begot two.
Two begot three.
And three begot the ten thousand things.

The ten thousand things carry yin and embrace yang.
They achieve harmony by combining these forces.

Men hate to be "orphaned," "widowed," or "worthless,"
But this is how kings and lords describe themselves.

For one gains by losing
And loses by gaining.

What others teach, I also teach; that is:
"A violent man will die a violent death!"
This will be the essence of my teaching.

How does Lao Tsu know that a violent man will die a violent death? How does he even define "violence?" In what way is it the essence of his teaching? He doesn't seem to mention violence anywhere else in the book.

[Blair]

How does Lao Tsu know that a violent man will die a violent death?

In the same manner a bent tree keeps growing in an ever-more skewed direction.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Most translations of this text completely miss the point, since only̶ w̶i̶s̶e̶ rational people should translate the extremely difficult and fluid ancient Chinese. Better to alway suspect something is up if you go "huh?". Don't buy anything or better yet: throw it away!

Here are some compared but it's still not clear! Note how the 3rd Goddard cannot help but "helping" the reader without any reason to say "not to obtain a natural dead" means "not succeeding".

However, one must not forget the culture around and inside Taoism is all about pursuing long lifespans, austerity, it "abhors death" and apart from the many writings on prolonging life, there's a clear drive towards eternal life, which means normally not having a natural dead.

Some translators thought that not having a natural, normal ,expected death, meant a sudden, unexpected death, and just wrote "violent death". There are some other ways though:

• Transliteration: "strive (strong; powerful; better_unyielding) roof beam (bridge; ridge)?, no (not) need (must,_get, result in;> satisfied> be finished) his (its, he, it, that; such) die (extremely; to death; implacable; rigid)".

• "The forceful do not choose their place of death." Cited from: Daode jing http://www.acmuller.net/con-dao/daodejing.html#div-43

Now there is also context. It's said men hate to loose their family and partners but men in high places look at themselves like being "all alone", everyone having abondended them or at least they lost those connections somehow. So one gains in position but something is taken away too. It's a harsh law.

So if we'd go with the "forceful" or "powerful", like a ruler, or master, - unyielding - he does not find death. Compare this to the gospel of Thomas: "Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death". Or check out any work on Taoist Alchemy to understand how the Taoist search for eternal life developed, so central once in Taoism but now banned to the occult sections and simply left out of translations like one can see above: defanged quite masterfully: going from powerfull to "violent".

And of course, the final nail: would the "basis" of the Lao's teaching be really.... drums... trumpets....: evil men will come to their end in a nasty way! Wow, shocking essential philophy! Or would it be more believable that the essense here is that "eternal life" can be gained if one is willing to "lose"?

[Pam Seeback]

One lives by the pattern of their Word, and when death comes, this truth changes not. Conscious awareness is a continuum; as a man thinks in the ending of this body of thoughts will be how he thinks in the beginning of this body of thoughts, the alpha and the omega is a flow or stream of I AM. This is why it is said that a man desiring to be liberated from his repetitious continuum of dualism needs to change his way of thinking now, for the longer he tarries in his repentance of his violence against himself [being in opposition to himself] the 'longer' will be his continuum of dual [violent] consciousness.

[Matt Gregory]

In the same manner a bent tree keeps growing in an ever-more skewed direction.

You mean a man is like a tree, and violence is like the bending? But then a violent death is what? The tree dies from being bent? I don't think trees actually do die from being bent, but maybe they do die sooner since they probably function less efficiently in a bent state. So you're saying a violent functions less efficiently than a nonviolent man and will consequently die sooner? I could see that, I guess.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

#33 appears to aim for the same as #42. But perhaps survived more intact. Note the similarity of "not losing ones place" with strong/unyielding/powerfull.

• One who knows others is clever, but one who knows himself is enlightened.
  One who conquers others is powerful, but one who conquers himself is mighty.
  One who knows contentment is rich and one who pushes with vigor has will
  
  One who loses not his place endures.
  One who may die but will not perish,
  has life everlasting.

(Susuki's Translation)

[Blair]

In the same manner a bent tree keeps growing in an ever-more skewed direction.

You mean a man is like a tree, and violence is like the bending? But then a violent death is what? The tree dies from being bent? I don't think trees actually do die from being bent, but maybe they do die sooner since they probably function less efficiently in a bent state. So you're saying a violent functions less efficiently than a nonviolent man and will consequently die sooner? I could see that, I guess.

Possibly, but I didn't mean it that literally.
More that a trees (and a persons) growth trajectory, is decided when a sapling, and keeps going in that direction by default, and can only be re-directed with considerable patience and coaxing.

[Matt Gregory]

Most translations of this text completely miss the point, since only̶ w̶i̶s̶e̶ rational people should translate the extremely difficult and fluid ancient Chinese. Better to alway suspect something is up if you go "huh?". Don't buy anything or better yet: throw it away!

Well, I'm still going "huh?", so I don't know.

Here are some compared but it's still not clear! Note how the 3rd Goddard cannot help but "helping" the reader without any reason to say "not to obtain a natural dead" means "not succeeding".

Yeah, that part about self-confident teachers sounds cheesy. But the line that goes "I am teaching the same things things which are taught by others" is pretty interesting because it doesn't place so much significance on the next line in the verse. Then again, maybe that is appropriate after all since he's always talking about yielding and stillness and being passive.

However, one must not forget the culture around and inside Taoism is all about pursuing long lifespans, austerity, it "abhors death" and apart from the many writings on prolonging life, there's a clear drive towards eternal life, which means normally not having a natural dead.

Well, we don't know if there was any such culture that Lao Tsu was involved with. For all we know the Taoist culture could have come from specific interpretations of this book long after its author died.

Some translators thought that not having a natural, normal ,expected death, meant a sudden, unexpected death, and just wrote "violent death". There are some other ways though:

• Transliteration: "strive (strong; powerful; better_unyielding) roof beam (bridge; ridge)?, no (not) need (must,_get, result in;> satisfied> be finished) his (its, he, it, that; such) die (extremely; to death; implacable; rigid)".

• "The forceful do not choose their place of death." Cited from: Daode jing http://www.acmuller.net/con-dao/daodejing.html#div-43

Now there is also context. It's said men hate to loose their family and partners but men in high places look at themselves like being "all alone", everyone having abondended them or at least they lost those connections somehow. So one gains in position but something is taken away too. It's a harsh law.

That's true.

So if we'd go with the "forceful" or "powerful", like a ruler, or master, - unyielding - he does not find death. Compare this to the gospel of Thomas: "Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death". Or check out any work on Taoist Alchemy to understand how the Taoist search for eternal life developed, so central once in Taoism but now banned to the occult sections and simply left out of translations like one can see above: defanged quite masterfully: going from powerfull to "violent".

I'm afraid I don't understand what you're getting at. I think you're forcing this text into an interpretation that it wasn't meant to have and killing it in the process :)

And of course, the final nail: would the "basis" of the Lao's teaching be really.... drums... trumpets....: evil men will come to their end in a nasty way! Wow, shocking essential philophy! Or would it be more believable that the essense here is that "eternal life" can be gained if one is willing to "lose"?

I think it is plausible that "evil men will come to their end in a nasty way" was what he meant, but that the significance of it is not in the effect but in the cause. In other words, a violent man dies a violent death, but it's not an occasion to get happy or sad over. It's just what happens. But he seems to be repudiating aggression. But why since everything "achieves harmony by combining the forces of yin and yang"? Why not a balance of aggression and passivity?

I want to analyze the whole piece tomorrow and try to fit everything together. I'm still confused as to how the beginning fits in with the later parts. But I'm sleepy right now and need to go to bed.

[jupiviv]

"Death" refers to the consequences of the violent man's actions. An action which is defined as "violent" will have violent consequences.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

For all we know the Taoist culture could have come from specific interpretations of this book long after its author died.

Quite possible but it's a difficult topic looking at the vast time-frame Taoism has had presence and how it might have effected the collection, rewriting and selection of their own inspirational texts. For example I noticed the references to the "feminine" aspect of Tao are not present in the earliest copies found so far.

So if we'd go with the "forceful" or "powerful", like a ruler, or master, - unyielding - he does not find death. Compare this to the gospel of Thomas: "Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death".

I'm afraid I don't understand what you're getting at. I think you're forcing this text into an interpretation that it wasn't meant to have and killing it in the process :)

That's entirely possible. But you appeared confused about the non-obvious meaning and this is just one possible way to look at the issue in a different light. You might find my murder is still way more consistent internally as well as with other vital traditions. Or at least it might make you wonder if you should bother much with heavily translated and interpretable stuff, apart as a hobby, like in my case :)

But why since everything "achieves harmony by combining the forces of yin and yang"? Why not a balance of aggression and passivity?

Generally within Taoism the aggression would be seen as "disturbance of balance" and the Tao would then "correct" it by supplying a certain fate. It's possible the text doesn't have any real ethical approach at all, I'm not even sure I see "repudiating aggression" in there. Again it might also be a slight preference of translators in word choice.

I'm still confused as to how the beginning fits in with the later parts. But I'm sleepy right now and need to go to bed.

That's what made me believe in this instance "violent" as well as "violent death" would be just serious mistranslations. The chapters need to have a natural consistency, being interwoven, since that's the whole thing being taught here. So when the theme in this chapter is losing and winning, how mastering needs a bit of dying like a "ruler" standing isolated and sacrificing notions of "personal life", it makes perfect sense the next step would be about "death" and the issue of the eternal for the philosopher.

And after all, violent people do not really live significantly shorter or less successful, otherwise natural selection would have taken care of that gene by now :-)

[Diebert van Rhijn]

There's another chapter which might show a bit more clarity on this combined with some added confusion:

Chapter 55.

• To increase life is called a blessing, and heart-directed vitality is called strength,
  but things vigorous are about to grow old and I call this un-Reason.
  [Whatever is contrary to the Dao soon ends. Un-Reason soon ceases!]
  (Suzuki)

Now compare with some other translations. First this one

• To add on to life is called a "bad omen".
  For the mind to control the breath – that's called "forcing things. ".
  [When things reach their prime, they get old; This is called "not the Way."
  What is not the Way will come to an early end.]
  (Henricks)

Or take this one

• Filling life exceedingly is called ominous.
  Letting the mind control the vital breath is called force.
  [Things exalted then decay. This is going against the Way.
  What goes against the Way meets an early end].
  (Stenudd).

NB last sections are missing in oldest known version of the text.

In these texts the notions of strength, force, rigid ('qiang', same word used in #42 for violent), although generally seen as 'good', still decay by their very nature. "What comes up must go down". Many have pointed out this was perhaps meant antipodean to Confucianism, as the idea that every structure or law will have to change or "reverse" eventually.

How's this for yielding towards the undoing of my earlier theory? But one has to understand these texts are probably not meant to have one singular meaning, as to escape its own criticism of fixation, stiffness and rigidity.

[Matt Gregory]

Diebert wrote:

Or at least it might make you wonder if you should bother much with heavily translated and interpretable stuff, apart as a hobby, like in my case :)

Yeah, maybe it is a waste of time. It's rather tiring thinking of all the possibilities.


I think the most natural interpretation goes like this:

The Tao begot one.
One begot two.
Two begot three.
And three begot the ten thousand things.

The Tao is ultimately the source of all the people in the world.

The ten thousand things carry yin and embrace yang.
They achieve harmony by combining these forces.

The people are made up of male and female aspects and are happiest when their lives revolve around mating and families.

Men hate to be "orphaned," "widowed," or "worthless,"
But this is how kings and lords describe themselves.

When someone has aspirations beyond family concerns, then they lose the connection with the people, the tribe, their family.

For one gains by losing
And loses by gaining.

Things are acquired at the expense of other things. Power over others is acquired at the expense of the relations with one's family.

What others teach, I also teach; that is:
"A violent man will die a violent death!"
This will be the essence of my teaching.

One who seizes power will not have his family to protect him.


Vague, but it relates all the different parts of the verse together. To me, the first thing that needs to be considered when interpreting one of these verses is what specific idea ties everything together. Family seems like an obvious choice. Any other possibilities?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Things are acquired at the expense of other things.
Power over others is acquired at the expense of the relations with one's family.
One who seizes power will not have his family to protect him.

Any other possibilities?

"The forceful acquires at the expense of [his own] life".

"One who strikes or severs what is already complete in order to better his life"

Deeper inside Chinese mythology there lives the daemon Gonggong. Creation and self-destruction are deeply connected to the rise of our consciousness, although most people erroneously interpret it as a state of "peace", falsely tucked in the center of some storm I.
But as the myth relates, the whole sky is "tipped sideways" and things roll forever westwards. It's not as much as cosmology: it's also the way our own - personal - existence is wrought and the higher it's forced to rise, the more sudden it will fall again. Therefore, if a long and peaceful life is sought (a little illusion most desire) it's better not to exist too much... hence the introduction of reduced people.

[Matt Gregory]

I don't know, I'm just having trouble understanding all of this.

"A violent man will die a violent death!"

I think we humans would like for it to be true because we like our vengeance. We want people who harm us to come to harm. I think that's a very primal instinct. But I don't see any physical reason why it would be true. Killing someone might bring some backlash from society, jail time or whatever. Maybe they had the death penalty in China back then. But if that's what he's talking about, then I don't think it's a wise quote. Wisdom doesn't depend on specific governmental policies, surely.

I have to think that by "violent man" he's talking about a state of mind. Incidentally, I would like to just analyze this statement as it stands to see if it has any merit. I don't know about all the different translations, and I'm not prepared to enter into the thicket of philology because it turns into this game where every time you try to pin down an idea, someone comes up with a new translation and pulls the rug out from under you, and soon everyone is talking about a different idea. Let's at least thoroughly repudiate this idea before moving onto another one. Maybe this translation I chose just happens to be the wisest? It's the Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English one. David Quinn likes it, so it can't be all bad.

Anyway, wisdom is about making people think. Making us think. His purpose is to get the reader to ask himself, "Am I violent man?" Maybe my imagination is limited, but I just can't imagine any other reason without it becoming ridiculous.

So how do we answer this question? What are the boundaries of violence? Where does non-violence end and violence begin? The boundaries of a thing determine its essence. Is it exclusively about killing people? What about smaller animals? Plants? What about just hurting them a little bit? What about not hurting them physically, but hurting their feelings? Is that violent?

But what's the problem with violence anyway? It hurts? It makes people suffer? Is that all this is about: avoiding suffering? But when you're dead, all the pain is over, so how do we know we're not doing people a favor by killing them? If all life is about is avoiding suffering, then the best thing you could do is die. That's absolutely the end of it. So, then violence would be good. Maybe he's saying it like if you're a good boy, you'll get a good present for Christmas: If you're violent enough, you'll get a nice violent death!

Now I gotta admit, avoiding pain is a pretty strong motivator for us. But there has to be something else wrong with violence beyond the painful part.

The only thing I can think of really is the fact that violence is done to someone or something else. So it presupposes that reality is divided into 'self' and 'other'. So the whole 'Oneness' thing is gone. If 'Oneness' could be thought of as your 'true self' and violence is a divergence from that, then I suppose that could be considered a violent death. That's a pretty abstract interpretation, though. I don't think that's really what was intended.

[cousinbasil]

"Death" refers to the consequences of the violent man's actions. An action which is defined as "violent" will have violent consequences.

Succinct, jup. But do you agree? I have spent some time over the years thinking about this very thing, more in the light in which you have put it. Literal death seems not to follow any such rule. If the saying were literally true, one might conjecture it implies a peaceful man will die a peaceful death. I submit that no examples to the contrary are required here, since they abound. And very often violent men literally die a peaceful death; in the States, this is enforced by law, since wherever the death penalty is used, its opponents have managed to litigate that it be carried out in a "humane" fashion, as if society were putting down a family pet.

I often see things precisely as you have worded it, jupiviv. The violent consequences do indeed result, but often not to the perpetrator; sometimes it seems that the violence suffered by the perpetrator is in his past.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

I don't know, I'm just having trouble understanding all of this.

It seems more like you're having trouble comprehending any abstract interpretation. Perhaps you've already decided what this should be all about and keep hammering on what you see as a nail (the question) because you already have a hammer in your hand. Just an impression...

It's a quite common idea to call the self violent. Yesterday I stumbled upon this from Jiddu Krishamurti, pretty "mainstream":

• We have strengthened in our consciousness, through great development of skill, the structure and the nature of the self. The self is violence, the self is greed, envy and so on. They are of the very essence of the self. As long as there is the centre as the me, every action must be distorted. Acting from a centre you are giving a direction, and that direction is distortion. You may develop a great skill in this way but it is always unbalanced, inharmonious..... Now, be aware of this fact without any effort; the moment one makes effort one gives importance to the self, which is the bad.....When there is clarity there is action which is skilful and which does not perpetuate the self. (1st Public Talk Brockwood Park, 27th August 1977)

Every selfish action becomes violence and opposing "the way", with all kinds of backlash attached. Ignorance is at the root of violence and embodies all forms of "violation". Philosophy is about the root of things, not about morality plays or about arguing what 'violence' is or isn't. At the base every effort has violence to it, something is asserting and something or someone else is diminished, eventually. In Taoism it's often about the release after the stringing, not instead.

Compare it also with Heraclitus:

• We must know that war (polemos) is common to all and strife is justice, and that all things come into being through strife necessarily.

[Anders Schlander]

I'd say it's akin to the idea of the "good tree bears good fruit, a good tree does not bear bad fruit".

A violent man dies a violent death because his mind state is violent; if he was a calm person, he would die calm. It speaks about how the people are measured by their effects, and my guess is that death is to illustrate something which is important to many people, we don't like the idea of death, because it seems violent and unpleasant; but how could our deaths be violent and unpleasant unless we were violent and unpleasant people?

edit: I'm obviously not saying that a calm person can not be brutally murdered in an otherwise unpleasant way, but that to the degree that a man experiences a violence, he becomes the violence, and that to the degree that calm man experiences a calm, he is the calm, because a person boils down to their fruit..

[cousinbasil]

I'd say it's akin to the idea of the "good tree bears good fruit, a good tree does not bear bad fruit".

Right, especially if you extend the analogy a bit. If you believe in an after-life, this life must then be a preparation for that life. Passing from one to the next would be the tree which has grown finally bearing fruit.

I like it!

[Diebert van Rhijn]

I'd say it's akin to the idea of the "good tree bears good fruit, a good tree does not bear bad fruit".

A violent man dies a violent death because his mind state is violent; if he was a calm person, he would die calm. It speaks about how the people are measured by their effects, and my guess is that death is to illustrate something which is important to many people, we don't like the idea of death, because it seems violent and unpleasant; but how could our deaths be violent and unpleasant unless we were violent and unpleasant people?

Such calmness in the face of death can only be achieved by having died many deaths already. That there's nothing left to loose. That death lost its grip simply because it changes nothing. Otherwise it still will be violent and uprooting simply because of the fierce attachment to our existence which where we're born with. It's an attachment, or even a rejection, one only notices in certain extreme circumstances, when things are starting to unwind. Men hate to be "orphaned," "widowed," or "worthless".

[cousinbasil]

Otherwise it still will be violent and uprooting simply because of the fierce attachment to our existence which where we're born with.

Or to the things that clutter one's existence, and that is merely a potential one is born with.

This brings to mind an elderly person I know who has made a very comfortable living from her writing but recently suffered a stroke which has left her unable to speak or move from one place to another. In addition, she has difficulty using her hands even to type, so any kind of communication has become laborious. In other words (Diebert's) "things have started to unwind" for this woman. Her success has made it possible for her to afford many things, possessions. Not very long ago, she went through a torturous episode with one of her children trying to communicate something to this daughter that was seemingly of the utmost urgency. It turned out that she was worried about her furs, which were in storage and had been for years. She was beside herself that they would be forgotten about. To me, this is a perfect example of someone who is physically approaching the Big Step yet whose attachment to things causes her to be frightfully unprepared for it.

Men hate to be "orphaned," "widowed," or "worthless".

Especially widowed.

[jupiviv]

The violent consequences do indeed result, but often not to the perpetrator; sometimes it seems that the violence suffered by the perpetrator is in his past.

This "perpetrator" is an illusory entity, since every moment of a person's life is, in fact, a completely different person from all the other moments. The person who suffers from a violent man's actions may in fact be that same man in the future, and the violent man may in turn be the future of a man who himself suffered from violent actions. In this sense, the people who suffer from a violent man's actions are the "future lives" of the violent man.

[cousinbasil]

The violent consequences do indeed result, but often not to the perpetrator; sometimes it seems that the violence suffered by the perpetrator is in his past.

This "perpetrator" is an illusory entity, since every moment of a person's life is, in fact, a completely different person from all the other moments. The person who suffers from a violent man's actions may in fact be that same man in the future, and the violent man may in turn be the future of a man who himself suffered from violent actions. In this sense, the people who suffer from a violent man's actions are the "future lives" of the violent man.

This has a philosophical tidiness to it, and like many such niceties has only a marginal intersection with reality.

The "perpetrator" is no more illusory than life itself. Every moment of a person's life is different from every other, if for no other reason than the person occupies a different place in space and time both. But that person himself is not different in the following undeniable sense. First, it would be meaningless to speak of a person if this did not distinguish something from everything else, in this case including other persons who have their own continuities from moment to moment. This person physically consists of the same particles from moment to moment (not absolutely, of course, but for the most part.) Plus, unlike a building which also consists of the same atoms etc. from one second to the next, this person has a memory which is unique to the person. A person is the same from one moment to the next in the same sense one would say "Look at that tree how big it has grown, " believing it to be the same tree as he remembers planting. He means it is the same tree in that it is not any other tree he has ever seen or contemplated.

Having said this, you can see why I am loathe to accept your idea here, jup. A perpetrator of a violent action perpetrates it onto someone else. Thus the circle of violence spreads like ripples on a pond, affecting many more people than the direct victim, who may be killed by the violence and not suffering at all. The perpetrator is treated harshly by society, but the common wisdom is that it is never harshly enough. Then his violent death may be by a humane lethal injection, and the violence he feels in response to that he committed exclusively internal, whatever such people endure at such times. Perhaps they undergo no inner turmoil at all. The liberal-minded often moan when a death-row inmate gets a last minute stay, then the stay is reversed and he is served a second "last meal," then is granted yet another stay, and so on. "This is inhumane!" they cry, entirely forgetting about the ten women and children he raped, sodomized, and murdered, and in some case sliced up and ate. When this condemned man may feel nothing, only aware that he is being granted a few more meals of his choice.

Such a man man have experienced violence in his life that has begotten that which he expresses. This may be, in which case his "violent death" preceded his living as a violent man. If this is what you mean, I agree, since it was my original point.

But I do not subscribe to any many-lives scenario, where one suffers evil because one was evil in a past life. A man may be reborn within his lifetime, that is true - but he retains the memories of the person he was, and does not dissolve immediately away in someone else yet again in a series, a continuum, of moment-to-moment reincarnations. Philosophically entrancing, perhaps; it is not how humans experience existence between physical birth and physical death.

[jupiviv]

First, it would be meaningless to speak of a person if this did not distinguish something from everything else, in this case including other persons who have their own continuities from moment to moment.

True, but if we are dividing time, then we also have to divide consciousness, because time is nothing but a series of experiences.

The perpetrator is treated harshly by society, but the common wisdom is that it is never harshly enough.

Therefore, society itself commits violence upon the erstwhile perpetrator, thus keeping the cycle of violence going. This is the result of not understanding the truth that things lack inherent existence, as you demonstrated above.

But I do not subscribe to any many-lives scenario, where one suffers evil because one was evil in a past life. A man may be reborn within his lifetime, that is true - but he retains the memories of the person he was, and does not dissolve immediately away in someone else yet again in a series, a continuum, of moment-to-moment reincarnations.

There is no literal reincarnation, of course, since that would be impossible, but things do not in fact remain the same in two different moments of time, and in this sense are reborn as different things in each moment. Of course, it's completely up to us to determine what a "moment" is.

[cousinbasil]

True, but if we are dividing time, then we also have to divide consciousness, because time is nothing but a series of experiences.

You lose me when you get philosophical. We have devised machines that divide time for us, so we can measure it and coordinate future activities according to this commonly-agreed-upon measure. Time has a meaning even when we are not talking about consciousness, although talking about time requires consciousness. I give time a dimension, in my thinking, since if you were to experience nothing, time would still "pass." I would say experiences happen in time, and you seem to be saying time and those experiences are one and the same. You could as easily suppose that time and consciousness are one and the same.

[jupiviv]

We have devised machines that divide time for us

So what is time? And are you saying we wouldn't be able to divide time if it weren't for the machines that divide it? Have the ideas of past, present and future not existed before the invention of the sundial?

if you were to experience nothing, time would still "pass."

The experience of a rock occurs in a moment of time. But if you don't experience anything at all, then what is it that would have the experience of the passage of time?