I mean, have you ever really thought about time?
I’m not talking about the time or clocks or the various methods of measuring time, I’m talking about time itself; the concept of it. I looked up the definition: It says time is “the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole.”
I’d say that’s a pretty damn good definition of time!
Still though, how do you make someone who has no previous concept of time – say, a hypothetical pandimensional timeless being who never set foot (uh, appendage?) into our Universe aware of the concept of time intuitively?
Since intuition relies on previously established reference points, I don’t think that’s actually even possible. In fact, as I’ve researched the subject, I discovered that all known attempts to describe time intuitively end in circular reasoning, which is what happens when you try to create a definition with the word you’re trying to define, or when you begin with something you’re trying to have as the end result.
This begs the important question of whether time even has a reference point upon which to latch any intuition whatsoever? I think in order to answer that, we need to look at time through a new lens:
What causes time?
Can time be independent of cause? I think that would be hard to grasp, even abstractly. Time always requires cause in the sense that something needs to happen in order for time to be perceived as occurring. For example, in a truly frozen Universe utterly devoid of any happenings at all, is time occurring? Does it exist? How could we know? How could it be measured?
We know that things change over time. But does that mean time acted as an independent force changing all the things? Or does time have a more direct relationship to these changes?
Obviously, I’ve thought quite a lot about time. I’ve reasoned the reason it’s so hard to define time is because the truth is so simple it’s hiding in plain sight: Time isn’t actually anything. It’s abstract. We made it up!
Time exerts no force or effect because it isn’t a force or effect in the first place. It’s simply an idea. We merely use “time” as an abstract concept (an idea) to describe something. That something is change. Or, more aptly, motion.
Think about my frozen Universe example from earlier. Could time occur there? Of course not! In order to perceive time, motion must have occurred. Ever heard of clocks? Sure you have! Ever heard of a completely motionless clock still able to convey the passing of time? Thought so.
Everything moves. Clocks move. Even “motionless” electronic clocks have molecules and energy that propagate within their circuitry in order to change their displays. Nothing violates this relationship with motion because time logically cannot happen without it. Motion not only allows time, motion is time. Motion is change too. Wait, that means…
Premise Three: Time, change, and motion are the same thing – the transformation of space.
Further Questions
What accounts for time’s unidirectional flow?
Remember, time is not independent of space, it is space. Space can exist without time (my frozen Universe example above), but time cannot exist without space, as time is simply the arbitrary description we’ve naturally developed to measure the changing of space all around us. Time is space, undergoing states of change. And space is simply the distance between stuff (matter and energy).
What this also means is if space can transform in one direction, it can also transform in the opposite direction. If this weren’t true, then you could never pick up that thing you dropped on the ground! This is why it’s inappropriate to assume time (space) is rigidly unidirectional. It isn’t.
Time only appears unidirectional because of various physical constants like ambient state retention and entropy (laws of thermodynamics), which I’ll discuss in more detail in a later premise. Think of these constants like the water locks in the Panama canal: Reversing the direction of time would “simply” be a question of where the required energy would come from to reverse the locks.
So you’re saying time “travel” is possible then?
To the future? Yep, just go really, really fast.
To the past? Only to the extent that one has the energy and means to perfectly rearrange all space in the Universe to a previous state, yes. But that might be a bit of a challenge, my friend.
Personally, I’m thankful backwards time travel isn’t a thing. Think of the complexity of it: For one, if you moved in time you’d have to account for your own precise motion relative to everything else around you. If you time traveled without doing these calculations you’d end up floating in the vacuum of space because the Earth itself wouldn’t be at that location anymore! The Earth moves, the Sun moves, our galaxy is moving, etc. How are you going to deal with that? Even worse, how do you handle all of the paradoxes? The butterfly effect leading to humanity never existing? The grandfather paradox? Timelines and alternate realities or the lack thereof? A Universe where time travel could happen isn’t one I’d want to live in, frankly.
Ok, what about local time travel then?
Interesting question. If the Earth were disintegrated by an alien child’s ray gun, then perfectly reassembled instantly just as it was by that alien’s angry nanny, would time have passed? The answer is no, because as we’ve learned time is dependent on space and the alien nanny perfectly set space back to the way it was pre-disintegration.
So if we take that logic and disintegrate the Earth from say, this year in 2019, then perfectly reassemble it as it was in 1847 except for our relevant year 2019 observers, would that be local time “travel?” Yup. But the rest of the Universe would still be in the “future” of 2019.
“Time travel” is a misnomer. It should be called “space modification” instead, because that’s what it is. But time travel sounds cooler in the movies.
Does that mean the past and future don’t actually exist?
It does. The past and future indeed do not exist independently of the present. In fact, they are the present. The “past” is our physiologically encoded memory of the past and nothing more (which is tangibly composed of the present). The future is simply an expectation of how the present will change. Again, that expectation of that future is composed tangibly of the present via our physical brain.
Neither the past nor future is a thing you can travel to. There’s nowhere to go! If you want to go there, you have to make there, ideally with the assistance of an alien nanny.
So what is the present then?
The present is simply the current configuration of space. Interestingly, our perception of the present is always delayed by the small amount of time it takes for signals to travel from our sensory organs to be processed by our consciousness. In that sense, our conscious minds exist subjectively slightly in the past even though we are objectively right there in the present.
Can time be frozen?
Only to the extent that space can be frozen.
Is time infinite?
Yes. Nothingness is impossible, therefore the Universe has no outside which means space is infinite, therefore time is infinite since time is the arbitrary attribute of changing space.
Time has no beginning or end, hard as that is to comprehend.