Why hurry if time does not exist?
What is time? Baby don't hurt me, no more
Published on August 30, 2014
Time as we represent it (with a past, a present and a future) is a very uncoherent concept. Indeed, imagine that we you read those sentences, the time would stop, and then restart. Will you notice it? No, of course, because everything would be frozen, including your own thoughts. So time could stop, accelerate, slow down, nobody would notice. Of course, you spotted the problem here: in our scenario, the time would stop… But for how much time? We usually represent the present as a window sliding over the events, going from the past to the future. At what “speed” does that window is sliding? One second per second? This supposes the existance of a more primitive reference time. We then have an infinite regression problem. Furthermore, by definition nothing can be outside of the Universe, so the reference time cannot be outside of the Universe.
The Universe is self included at thus contains all the times: past, present, future. This Universe is fixed, not evolving: it is called the “block Universe”. The perception of time is purely subjective: the Universe is objectively immutable. The Universe just cannot evolve: if it would do, it would be necessarily with reference to something external, and again that something cannot be outside of the Universe.
Time, as well as space, are probably emergent phenomenas of a more primitive phenomena. To make a parallel with another emergent phenomena, take the temperature: at our level, temperature do exist, we can feel it, we can measure it. It’s an important and interesting parameter in many situations. But at a lower level, it doesn’t exist anymore: there is only molecular agitation. For time and space, this is probably the same: those two “emerge” and unfolds from more fundamental things.