The Falsities of Time
“Time is an illusion.” -Albert Einstein
Time is one of the greatest inventions humans have come up with. It gives us a sense of existence; a purpose in life. It makes us feel alive and headed towards our own deathbed. It gives us a glimpse into our past and an expectation of a future. The seconds tick by; unhindered by us mere mortals. Soon accounting for minutes that turn into hours. The ticking of a hand that dictates the pace of human life. We live by this tick and die by it. Every second of every minute of every hour spent in a mad rush to beat this exact ticking. As a highly intelligent species, we do seem to throw this word around rather callously. It is the most crucial factor in the life of our Universe; and the most potent threat to it. Even the Universe bows down it. It determines the fate of everything that exists within its vast, infinite sphere of influence. It gives the Universe a direction to grow in. It not only gives life a sense of purpose but also gives it a reason; a reason to exist, a reason to die. Woven into the laws of nature it stands tall as the ultimate hurdle to cross. An insurmountable challenge.
“Only time will give us that answer.”
It would be easy to dismiss time as something that just passes. Something that will continue to pass as it did even before we came into existence and as something that will continue to go ahead just as relentlessly once we cease to exist. That would certainly be how a layman would go about this whole thing and that would, unfortunately, be that. How foolish would it be to dismiss such a great concept as a mere division into seconds that count down to your ultimate death with unwavering relentlessness. Time, however, goes deeper. It begins with early humans noticing patterns in the phases of the moon and the rising and setting of the Sun. These were our very first calendars. These gave humans a concept of going forward. With advancements in writing we were able to better define this rather abstract pattern and we had the very first set of rules that dictated how ‘time’ passed. We made devices to record the passage of time. From the early Egyptians to the Ancient Greeks, everybody devised their own ways. Some took to the Sun, while some devised a way to use water. Human ingenuity at its horrifying best. The seconds keep ticking. Humanity makes progress; from a society that relies on religion for answers to one that answers its own questions using science. The philosophers and thinkers become scientists and inventors. The temples turn into labs; the long cloaks turn into lab coats. But all we’re still trying to do is figure out where Time is taking us. Only Time will give us that answer.
We have come far from Galileo and Newton’s ideas of time being the absolute frame of reference against which everything can be measured, to the mind-bending revelations of Einstein’s relativity. Time has been twisted into a complex web where the past, present, and future stop making any sense in the real world. Einstein and his seemingly improbable theory of relativity threw a completely new light on Time, and consequently, on reality. It challenged our understanding so much so that we are still trying to wrap our heads around it. The General Theory of Relativity seemed to suggest time moves at a different rate at different points in space-time. Nothing is absolute, everything is relative. Time isn’t simple. It never has and it never will be. It ebbs and flows like a river, dividing itself into countless distributaries that eventually lose track and wander further and further away from reality; into a different reality. It changes its flow according to the laws woven into the fabric of our Universe. Moving slower as you move faster. At the speed of light, time literally comes to a standstill. Forever would seem like no time at all at those speeds. Not only speed, but also massive objects warp and disturb the flow of time. Gravity changes time. It is mind bending to imagine these concepts. It regularly challenges human understanding. It challenges our imagination. Physics doesn’t work if you cannot visualise concepts. Nothing is straightforward. Everything has been woven into complex laws but all we see is the final, elegant solution. Only on deeper introspection will we ever even begin to wrap our heads around what the Universe is actually like.
“Time can be stretched,twisted, and compressed like a sheet of rubber.”
There are a great many things that twist our understanding of time and consequently, our Universe. Einstein and his wonderful theory of relativity not only gave us a glimpse into what it actually might be but it also made time into a parameter. Flexible, changeable, and relative. It gave us an idea of space-time as opposed to just space. It gave us black holes, and different rates of flow of time. All our notions of Time have been challenged to the point that we don’t even know what’s real anymore. Just try to imagine how complex our time really is. Whatever we experience of it is relative only to us. Perhaps, there exists a species out there in the vastness of space-time that witnesses the Universe as a flow of time as opposed to us, who experience it as a flow of matter. Perhaps, there exists a species for whom time itself might be non-linear. For them, the past might just be another place like the McDonald’s near your house is for you. They could maybe be able to access it and change it like changing the position of a mouse cursor and editing a Word document. It might be that easy for them. Even if we such a species doesn’t exist, imagine a future where humans are galactic explorers traversing the Universe at near the speed of light. Try to imagine that there exists a person in the Universe for whom time is running at almost no pace at all relative to you. The very idea that time, a seemingly absolute entity, can be experienced in different ways is absurd. To think it can be stretched, twisted and compressed like a sheet of rubber is even more absurd. Reality is absurd.
“We make Time worth the time.”
It was mentioned in the very first line that Time is humanity’s greatest invention. After reading all this it might seem like a rather stupid thing to say. It is, after all, woven into the very fabric of our Universe. How ever can humanity even dream of inventing such a thing? But I stand by it. Time remains, to this day, our greatest invention. Without us, who knows, it might not even exist. Without someone looking up at the skies and wondering about their place in the Universe, time would cease to mean anything. Without someone to see it pass by, what would be the point of all this complexity? We make Time worth the time. As the seconds tick by, we sit around and record them, experience them, make memories out of them, and cherish them. The Universe, vast and impenetrable as it is, lacks one extremely important thing; Consciousness. It lacks meaning. Time in itself has no true existence. Whatever it is, it exists because we experience it. We experience every second of it. So live your life. Live it to the fullest possible extent. Don’t let it slip by your hands. Let there be no regrets. Reality doesn’t take long to change itself and it waits for no person. Time is, alas, something you think you have in abundance up to the point you realise there’s none of it left. Never ever waste it. It exists for you, because of you and it will die with you. With the unnerving precision of the second’s hand. Tick tock.
“Time is, alas, something you think you have in abundance up to the point you realise there’s none of it left.”
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PS- I would recommend you watch two movies to really grasp this topic. One would be Interstellar and the other, Arrival. Do give both these movies a good, hard watch.
