Static Time

[Kyle]

I'm sure that someone has already developed this theory and I just don't know it.

I think about the nature of time a lot. When I do, the question of "Why are we here at this moment doing what we're doing?" And most of my life, I've applied the theory of- "The simplest answer is probably the correct one." In applying that to the nature of time, I had concluded that we're here doing what we're doing because we have to be. If the nature of time is such that there are multiple or alternate universes, one existing for every infinite possibility at every infinite point in time- then of course we're sitting here doing this, because we have to be-- this universe and these exact set of circumstances exits because they ALL exist.

But the other day on my drive home I was re-examining what I thought of this and then I thought, "What if the opposite is true. What if there isn't infinite universes, just one. What if we're here doing what we're doing because, in the whole scheme of things, this is the only way it could happen because this is the only timestream/universe, etc." So I thought about how that could exist- i.e, the opposite of the multiverse.

Then I thought that if time were static-- i.e., not a linear progression, but just one perceived to be a linear progression-- then we have just universe and existence.In essence, can our universe and our "progression" through it in time just be an upper-dimensional version of a crystal sphere. If a higher-intelligence views this sphere, they don't see a beginning or end. They don't see the movement or progression. They just see a thing called "Universe" and perceive it as the thing it started as and ended as (or looped as) all at once. To them, time is static.

I'm sure I'm not explaining this well, but I wanted to get my thoughts down on this before I forgot them and started obsessing over upper-dimensional black holes again.

[Elle]

I wish I knew enough about physics to form a coherent answer to these interesting suggestions. I thought that one reason favoring the multiverse hypothesis is that the configurations of physical matter are limited in a way that the infinity of space is not, but I have never really bought this argument. If I understood physics better, maybe I would, but as a piece of mathematics it makes no sense to me, and I am bolstered to some extent by the fact that better mathematicians and physicists than I would agree. Just don't ask for my reasons!

Anyway, the point is, I'm not sure there's a reason to propose a limit to spacetime such that from any perspective, the progression of events could be seen as a totality. If there is such a reason, then why not? Sure. IMO the arguments that all time and motion is illusory are just as good, as arguments per se go. So I need some other sort of evidence besides rational argument to adopt any particular hypothesis about time.

[Mike]

I think Ray Bradbury wrote a story about this. A traveler to another planet is infected by some alien thing that lets him see his entire life all at once. And it is retroactive, so from the moment he is born until the moment he dies, he perceives every point in his life as if it is a single static thing. That means from the moment he was born, he was already able to speak and knew the future with absolute precision, but his muscles and vocal cords could not yet form words, but by the time he was one, he was essentially exactly the same person he would be for his entire life. And with the ability to view static time (as you put it), he also had perfect recall of all events at all times.

[Mike]

And here's the thing about the many-worlds theory... it's not disprovable, therefore, it's not really science. By it's nature, if time is a branching thing and there are a multitude of parallel universes, there is no way to travel between them, and there is no way that any individual world can have any measurable effect on any other. Therefore, they might as well not exist.

I find this really disappointing, because I'm a huge fan of the many-worlds theory. If true, it opens up so many avenues of cool sci-fi exploration. But about a year ago, I heard someone explain the above premise to me and further went on to explain that in many ways, the many-worlds theory is just a non-scientific go to idea to explain anything that we haven't figured out yet. "Yeah, but WHY is it this way?"... "Well, under the many-world theory, it's actually ALL ways, and this just happens to be the one we live in." Which totally skips the idea of figuring out why, using a conjecture that is not provable or disprovable. Kind of unsatisfying when you look at it that way.

It was a sad day for me when I heard all that and had to start re-examining my thoughts on the matter.

[akiva]

[Mike]

I have never read nor seen Slaughterhouse Five. Although, from the plot summary I just read, it sounds like the alien Tralfamadorians adhere to a concept of static time and claim to be able to "see" time in that manner.

This was a short story I read in ninth grade and I was sure it was in a book of Bradbury short stories. But I could be wrong. It's him giving the story of his life, while at every point of his life already seeing and knowing every other. So he knows from the moment he's born about the encounter with the creature on Mars that makes him the way he is, and he repeatedly tries to tell people what will happen and that he shouldn't go there (because he finds this horrifying), and yet somehow he goes into space anyway, comes across the creature that attacks/infects him, and then lives out the rest of his life. The point being that he can't ever change anything, because time is immutable. He can't change his fate because he's already going to do that. There's no way out.

[Kyle]

Bradbury and Vonnegut were hacks. They stole the idea from me because they can see in Static Time (trademark pending)-- an ability only developed after I just now invented it with the first post.

***

I can see some of you wanting to poke holes in this theft theory. Trust me. It's perfect.