Time is an extremely interesting topic to me and it always has been. I mean, that's what I named my blog after. It's only "thyme" as in the herb because it was a joke in the sense that this was an eating disorder blog.
Personally, I believe that time doesn't exist, but recently I found that I had forgotten why I believe that. I knew it had something to do with the fact that matter can't be created or destroyed. But if it were that simple, then time would still exist, it would just be circular instead of linear.
I remember already pondering the existence of time intently a few years ago and eventually coming to an understanding of a belief; but somewhere along the line I lost it, so I decided I'd simply google it and my reasoning would come back to me... this was not the case.
What was the case however, was a mind fuck of an event that took me two hours to absorb and share with other people who probably didn't want their morning cluttered with my stupid theories.
I was just sitting there, minding my own business when I decided to google "Is time linear?".
I ended up on this thread from reddit, where the question was the following:
I recently read a theory suggesting that linear time does not exist, that the notion of linear time is nothing more than our minds way of condensing information. But how would we ever prove this? This theory suggested that everything that has occurred, is occurring, and will occur is in fact happening simultaneously and we see it happening in linear form simply to perceive it. I figured if this was true, it is because at the moment of the Big Bang an infinite amount of energy was released, and using Einstein's Theory of Relativity, an infinite amount of energy would mean an infinite amount of mass, space and time; resulting in time both existing and not existing, which would then mean time could not be linear, but at the same time appearing to be. So my question is; am I understanding this correctly, and how would we ever prove this theory?
Now, I'm not that smart. I could only make it through grade 11 physics and didn't even try to attempt physics in grade 12. This is because I'm not very good with abstract thought. I'm a big picture person and I think it gets in the way of understanding technical shit like physics. I start thinking about this stuff and it's like all the secrets of the universe are surging through my bones. My mind races a thousand miles a minute because it's like "OH! SO THAT EXPLAINS THIS AND THIS AND THAT AND SO THEN THAT MEANS THIS AND WITH THAT AND THIS TOGETHER-" you get what I'm saying? After big "eureka moments" like these, I'm usually out of it for the rest of the day hahaha I'll sometimes get a headache, or feel dizzy or nauseous (talk about a wild ride).
So what I'm saying is, take this post and what is written in it with a grain of salt. Because I could be making 0 logical sense here. Alright, so here we go...
Reading that person's paragraph, I disagree with the fact that the universe has an infinite amount of energy. I think back in uni I remember learning in astronomy class that the Big Bang happened, supplying the universe with a certain amount of energy. The universe is ever expanding, yes, but it's not because of "infinite" energy. It's because the universe is becoming less dense. It's like, you've got a ball of dough which you roll out. You're not get more dough, it's just getting thinner and thinner, ie. less dense.
But I do agree with the realization that everything exists and doesn't exist at the same time; because mass can neither be created or destroyed so just as you recycle, the item exists before it's created and also doesn't exist at all.
How can we relate this to time? I mean, I remember yesterday, and don't know what will happen tomorrow. Yes, it kinda makes sense with the whole "recycling" theory that yesterday, today, and tomorrow all exist before it happens and in a sense, doesn't exist at all. But that's such a broad explanation. Why do we see remnants of people from centuries ago? It's absolutely CLEAR that they once existed, and now they don't.
Okay, so let's dive a little deeper here. Most of what we perceive in the world is due to the brain interpreting waves. Light waves, sound waves, electromagnetic waves... frequencies of all sorts. So since we are perceiving time, let's examine the waves it would consist of.
The best example I could come up with that shows everything happening at once even though we perceive it differently is how we observe lightening.
Lightening strikes. The light waves reach our eyes, our brain turns those waves into electric currents. The currents travel all throughout the brain and we eventually understand that we have just seen lightening. BUT!!!!! Only after all that happens do the sound waves make it to our ears, to our brain, to our conscious understanding.
We know with the help of science, that the sound of thunder really did occur at the same time as the light appearing. It just took longer to perceive the sound than the light due to the different wavelengths both light and sound hold.
So, maybe the past is just waves that have been perceived sooner than waves of the future, even though everything has happened at the same time; resulting in us creating a linear sequence of events, aka: time.
So if we're just perceiving one event consisting of different wavelengths, it could explain why we find such patterns in our lives. For example, meeting the same type of people over and over, having passions/questions/themes that keep popping up here and there our entire lives. BUT a wavelength has a beginning and an end, so we haven't made 100% sense here yet.
I already said that I agree that energy cannot be created nor destroyed. So with that notion, time cannot be created or destroyed, meaning it's infinite. If time is linear, then what's an infinite line? A circle. Right? a triangle has 3 lines, a square has four, hexagon-six, a circle-one.
In perception views, this could explain déjà vu, reincarnation, why the sun and moon rise and fall, all the other cycles we witness on earth (water cycle, seasons), the patterns and constant themes within our own lives...
But I'm saying that time is a product of consciousness: constructed. It can't be manipulated because it only exists structurally in our minds.
If it were to be manipulated, we could take this moment and put it there, and throw tomorrow right out the window. That's obvious right? The only thing we can do is "live in the moment". C'est la vie. It is what it is.
So now note this: when we look into deep space, we're actually looking into the past. We know this because the universe is ever expanding (as I mentioned above); so the further we look, the more into the past we are. This is also proven with the fact that using just the naked eye, we can see stars in the sky that are actually dead. They are no more.
We can use a telescope and watch the birth of a star that is now non-existent. Like, if we looked far enough, we could see the birth of the universe. Actually SEE the Big Bang.
Crazy, right?
So stop for a minute and absorb what I just wrote. We can literally see the past happening, in the present moment. We can watch the actual MOMENT of something that happened millions of years ago, without the use of film or something that captures moments (like taking a video and watching it later sort of thing).
If we can watch the past, who says we can't watch the future?? We just don't know how to do it yet, and when we figure it out, shit's going to hit the fan, I swear it.
But again, I just separated past, present, and future into different things. But what I'm actually saying here is: everything is happening at the exact same time; we just simply can't perceive it all at once. It can't be swallowed in one bite, but it's still one singular sandwich.
Existence is each person individually recalling a little bit of one GIANT moment. We live our lives inspecting one small hair on the head of said giant moment.
Another way to explain it is we're all in a MASSIVE art gallery together. We all enter at different doors and when we do walk in, all the art was present before we came in and after we will leave (coming and going being life). Each painting and sculpture would represent an event or something like that. There will be wings of the gallery that we'll miss or never reach, and there will be details of each artwork that we might not have noticed. Person A sees picture 1 when they first come in. But person X might see picture 1 somewhere in the middle of their journey. Get it?
Another, way to explain it is that time is one HUMONGOUS painting. Like, bigger than you could ever imagine. And we're all on it. Life would just be us experiencing different parts of it. Everyone would end up seeing different things, some people would see the same parts when they walk beside each other.
I don't know, my favourite explanation is the art gallery one. Time doesn't exist because it's all already present.
If anyone has read this far, I'd be super interested in hearing your thoughts! Like I said, the concept of time is something I've always been fascinated with. And everyone always has a different opinion! Time to physics is like religion to humanity I feel, so many different beliefs and theories.
Maybe I should share some of my other weirdly abstract thoughts and beliefs? Let me know! Science is overwhelming but it's kinda fun because even though we think we've figured something out, it can always be disproven. Nothing is known if you think about it. Nothing is real.
Anywaaaaay, sorry for the long post! Sorry if it's stupid, makes no sense, or is boring!! If you really do actually know about science, please don't chew me up and spit me out! I'm always so afraid to share an opinion on stuff like this... 😳😳
♥︎,
Mint.
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