Imagining Space and Time
04 Feb 2007
Our notion of reality and existence are based on us experiencing space and time. We move around in space, stumble upon objects, and see the changes around that we perceive as time.
What most of us experience as empty space and solid objects we can crash into are made of atoms. Or is it? It is an observable fact that only 4 percent of the universe is made of atoms. The rest of it is made of invisible unknown inhabiting vacuum. But what about us, we are obviously solid objects that hurt ourselves bumping on a solid wall. Are we? We surely are made of atoms. But what is an atom anyway? Is it a solid ball roaming around? Atoms are 99.9..9% empty space. What is the remaining 0. ..01% then? 1/100,000 size of a hydrogen atom occupied by a stuff called proton in the middle, and 1/100,000,000 by another stuff called electron whizzing around the proton. What is that electron anyway? Is it a small dot of solid object? Unfortunately it is not. It's a cloud-like wave of probability that made it look as if it is a matter popping in and out of existence. What is the proton anyway? Is it something solid then? Unfortunately it is breakable into an even smaller and smaller elusive sometimes-matter-like probability wave.
Our body that we think is obviously solid as observable by our puny senses is nothing but empty space with dots that even their existence are doubtful. On the fundamental level we are waves of existential probability. These are all observable and demonstrable facts.
If our hands, our room, and everything that we see around us at this instant moment are actually empty and unreal, what about time? Is time real? We feel that time moves because we see changes around us. Nights turn to days, people get older, thus we feel that time is real.
It is an observable fact that time beats differently on different places in the universe. Time slows down, even stops at the mouth of a black hole. What does it mean that time 'stops'? What is wrong is not with the time itself, but our perception of time. Just like there is something wrong with our perception of matter that we misunderstood it as reality.
Time is fundamentally nonexistent. What we perceive as changes in space and matter around us is probability waves splitting themselves infinitely, manifesting themselves as events upon time that we perceive. But these waves are timeless. Everything that had ever happened are waves of probability, so are everything that can happen. They have always been around, and will always be around.
What most of us experience as empty space and solid objects we can crash into are made of atoms. Or is it? It is an observable fact that only 4 percent of the universe is made of atoms. The rest of it is made of invisible unknown inhabiting vacuum. But what about us, we are obviously solid objects that hurt ourselves bumping on a solid wall. Are we? We surely are made of atoms. But what is an atom anyway? Is it a solid ball roaming around? Atoms are 99.9..9% empty space. What is the remaining 0. ..01% then? 1/100,000 size of a hydrogen atom occupied by a stuff called proton in the middle, and 1/100,000,000 by another stuff called electron whizzing around the proton. What is that electron anyway? Is it a small dot of solid object? Unfortunately it is not. It's a cloud-like wave of probability that made it look as if it is a matter popping in and out of existence. What is the proton anyway? Is it something solid then? Unfortunately it is breakable into an even smaller and smaller elusive sometimes-matter-like probability wave.
Our body that we think is obviously solid as observable by our puny senses is nothing but empty space with dots that even their existence are doubtful. On the fundamental level we are waves of existential probability. These are all observable and demonstrable facts.
If our hands, our room, and everything that we see around us at this instant moment are actually empty and unreal, what about time? Is time real? We feel that time moves because we see changes around us. Nights turn to days, people get older, thus we feel that time is real.
It is an observable fact that time beats differently on different places in the universe. Time slows down, even stops at the mouth of a black hole. What does it mean that time 'stops'? What is wrong is not with the time itself, but our perception of time. Just like there is something wrong with our perception of matter that we misunderstood it as reality.
Time is fundamentally nonexistent. What we perceive as changes in space and matter around us is probability waves splitting themselves infinitely, manifesting themselves as events upon time that we perceive. But these waves are timeless. Everything that had ever happened are waves of probability, so are everything that can happen. They have always been around, and will always be around.