Is Time Real Or An Illusion?
Why is time a controversial thing? It feels like time is always there, like the truth, and moving forward mercilessly. Time has a flow, it flows like a river. Time has direction, it is constantly moving forward. Time has an order, it comes one after another. There is a continuum of time, there is a measurable period between events. Time has an untouchable present, only the present is real. Time seems to be a universal background that moves in an order where all events can be sequenced and processes can be measured.
Is time physical?
Understanding time means feeling the structure of reality. Many physicists and thinkers say time is an illusion. So what do they mean by saying that time is "unreal"?
Huw Price, professor of philosophy at the University of Cambridge, argues that the three fundamental properties of time come not from the physical world, but from our mental conditions: a special present; some kind of flow or transition; and an absolute direction.
Price says: "What physics gives us is that time is only part of a four-dimensional space-time… and the so-called 'block universe' where space-time is not essential but emerged from a deeper structure."
He says that we perceive time as if there is an "arrow" or direction, because our minds add a "subjective element" to reality, "so we project the temporal appearance representatives around to the world."
Let's consider the block universe theory. This theory is a four-dimensional space-time structure, supported by Einstein's theory of relativity, where time is like a space, and each event has its own coordinates (abscisses) or addresses in space-time. Time is modal, everything is equally oriented towards "truth", so the future and the past are as real as the present.
Present tense, past tense, future tense
So do our human perspectives give us the wrong idea? Is our perception that time flows or passes and that there must be a direction? Are we attributing the wrong meaning to the present?
Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist Max Tegmark says: “We define our reality as either a three-dimensional space where things happen over time, or as a four-dimensional space ['block universe'] where nothing happens; And if the second depiction is real, then what we call change is really an illusion, because nothing is changing; past, present, future, all are standing there.
“So life is like a movie and space-time is like a DVD,” he adds; “Even if all those events occur in the movie, there is nothing about the DVD itself changing in any way. At any given moment we have the illusion that the past is already happening and that the future does not yet exist and that things are changing. But all I'm aware of is the current state of my brain. The only reason I feel like I have a past is because my brain holds memories. ”
“Time is there,” says Andreas Albrecht, a theoretical cosmologist at the University of California, Davis. This is called external factor; that is, it is the independent variable in the [classical] equation of motion. So time (as we know how to tell time on an hour, when we do) seems to disappear when you work on physics, until it reaches relativity.
“The essence of relativity is that there is no definite time and no definite location. Everything is relative. When you try to discuss time in the context of the universe, you need this simple idea that you abstract part of the universe and call it your own clock, and the evolution of time is only about the relationship between parts of the universe and what you call the clock.
Julian Barbour, a UK physicist, describes time as follows: “The constantly changing sequential images are sequential photographs. I'm looking at you; you are shaking your head. Without this change, we would never have a concept of time. "
"Isaac Newton," notes Barbour, "insisted that time will pass, even if absolutely nothing happens, and I believe it is completely wrong."
According to Barbour, change is real, but time is not. Time is just a reflection of change. Our brains produce a perception of time from change, as if it were flowing. As he translated, all the evidence we have about time is coded in fixed images that we see or experience subjectively, and they all intertwine, making time appear linear. "
Isn't it completely imaginary?
But not all physicists are willing to reduce time to a second-rate position.
John Polkinghorne, a quantum physicist and Anglican priest, believes that the flow and direction of time is real and ruthless. He says that using relativity to suggest that time is an illusion is “wrong” because no observer has knowledge of a distant event or the synchronicity of different events, unless those events are in the observer's past. And so this argument focuses on the way observers construct definitions of the past and cannot determine the reality of the future that awaits. ”
Polkinghorne completely rejects the idea of a fixed block universe of space and time. “We live in a world of progress and change,” he says.
Fotini Markopoulou-Kalamara, a theoretical physicist at the Perimeter Institute, says: “It saddens me that physicists tell me that time is not real. … This confuses me, because time seems to be real. Events are happening. When I clap my hands, this happens. … I'd rather say that general relativity is not the ultimate theory than to say that time does not exist.
Time is the most important conflict between relativity and quantum mechanics. It is assumed to be the background (and unmeasurable) in quantum mechanics while it is relatively measurable and docile. For many physicists, time is actually not real, although we live the time psychologically. Time is not an essential and irreducible element or concept required to build reality in the deepest foundations of nature.
