What is time?
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What is time?
What is time? Is it positive or negative? Is it going in the forward direction or the backward direction? Actually, what are these 'forward' and 'backward' directions? When we say 'forward', does it really mean positive, like going ahead or something like that and when we say 'backward', does it really show the negative way? But the question is, where are those directions and what are their meanings? Where is 'time' taking us? Is it really taking us somewhere or just moving in the same cyclic order round and round and round? Is there really a destination? Or just an infinite 'black pocket'?
These questions are so common these days. The number of experimental physicists is booming everywhere. So the questions are arising frequently. But the theories don’t give them so much to visualize an experiment. Sometimes their brains are so populated with the complicated theories of other people, they don’t get enough scopes to give and examine their own theories. But that is not the main problem either. I think the main problem is Einestein's words about time.
According to Einstein, "The dividing line between past, present, and future is an illusion” So time is not absolute, it is an illusion and we all can understand that, there is no existence of time in this reality.
Is this really enough for us? Wait, actually what does the word ‘enough’ mean here? Is this some kind of joke or a deep, thoughtful ‘einsteinish’ theory?
Let's come to the point. At least we got something here, for the beginners like me of course. We can understand very clearly that time is nothing but an illusion which is causing a lot of disturbances in our life. But how can we believe this kind of nonsense? Where is the proof? Let’s not think about this right now. Let’s start from the very beginning.
Last week I met a friend. But I was not in the mood for discussing our daily life. So , I was thinking how I could change the topic. Suddenly I asked him, “What is time?”. My friend was not ready for it but he was not surprised. He understood me and thought about it. After some time he answered, “Let’s ask google.” I smiled at him and said, “ok. Try it.” The answer on google was ‘1.30 pm.’ Excellent answer. Actually, that was the reality. If you ask someone about time, he will show you the watch or give you the time from google or phone or something else. But what is this 1.30 pm? Common people will say, “it's time for lunch. Let’s eat.” Everyday we are facing this kind of thing. It is time for breakfast, time for school, time for office, time for doctor’s appointment. Everything is on time, on schedule. After a day’s work we come back to our bedroom, take a bath and go to sleep. That’s it. My day is over and my thoughts are like, It was a great day, I got my certificate, I got my promotion, I got married, I became a mother today etc. And the next day, the cycle starts again. Same morning but different situation, same sun but different character, same sky but different weather. So something is not right here. Something big is going on but we are not looking into that. Something is being overlooked by everyone. What is that thing? The answer is very simple. ‘Time’.
There is a great saying, “Time and tide waits for none.” I agree with the tide but I am not going to agree with time here. Time is not going anywhere. It is stuck into something. It is distracting us from itself. It is distracting us from the truth. It is not real. It is an abstract belief which is dominating all over the world, all over our minds. But the beginners can ask a question here. “What is the difference between time and age?” This is actually a good question. Age is not an abstract thing. It is really a big deal. But the real question is, does it really increase with time?. The answer is ‘no’. It does not increase with time. It increases with nature. By the system created by God, nature is building up our body and our mind. It is a fixed system, that everyone will grow old. It’s a natural happening. There is nothing unusual here. This is a time-independent natural system. But if we say, age is increasing with time, that would be a very big mistake. Because time is stuck. It is not going anywhere. Then our age should be stuck like, every morning I get up from bed and look at the mirror and say, “oh, i am back.” After getting up from bed my age is 7.00 am, at noon my age is 2.00 pm and the beard is growing very fast and at night when it is 10.00 pm and my dinner is done, I see that my hair is gone and my teeth are shaking and then I go to bed to have a sound sleep to recover myself and after that, in the morning everything is renewed again. This way our life would be stuck like time and maintain a cyclic order. Then we could say very easily that time is not an abstract thing. It has a real impact in our life. But it is not our daily life. Our daily life is clearly showing us that we are not stuck in the same moment and we are growing old. So, we can find a theory here that nature is not time-dependent. Nature has its own way of evolving. So, age is not an illusion. It is an abstract belief with a visualization and it is real.
So now we can differentiate between time and age. Age is just an evolutionary system of nature. Now another question arises. What does the word ‘forward’ mean? As time is stuck into something and age is not related to time, then what is the reason behind ‘the future’? What is taking us to the forward direction or the future? The answer could be very simple. As the past, the present and the future are related to time and the time is stuck into something, so there could be no function like past, present and future. That is really strange. Our whole life is dependent on these terms, but now we see that there is nothing in it. Actually these terms do exist in our reality but the variable is not time. All of them depend on the age. Basically age is the main variable for the past and the future. Let’s analyze these terms- ‘after 40 years’, ‘after 2000 years’, ‘last 16 years’, ‘before 100 years’. All of these terms are telling the age of the situation, not the time. These are the terms to define the age of the earth or the civilization or the natural evolution of the earth which is not showing any connection with time. So if we use the term ‘the future’, then it is clear to us that it is the upcoming situation of evolution. So now the answer to the last question is very clear. The word ‘forward’ means going to the next level of nature. Similarly, when we use the term ‘the past’, it means the former situation of nature or the earth. ‘The present’ is the most important term. Because it is the main reason why we confuse ourselves with time and age. The present is nothing but a bridge between the past and the future. It is like connecting the both ends of two generations of nature. So, again a theory can be declared here that ‘going forward’ means we are heading towards the next evolution of the natural situation. And now we can answer another question which was declared in the first paragraph. Time is not taking us in the forward direction. It is age which is taking us to the future. Time never served us in the past. It was age who had been taking us from the past and going forward.
Einstein told us that the dividing line between past, present and future is an illusion. It is true when the division is processed by time. But it is not true when it comes to age. Age has the right to draw a line between them. Age is the main factor here. Time is not absolute but age is absolute. Time is nothing but an illusion, but age has its own existence in reality. But we can not answer all the questions by solving this mystery. New questions are arising. Why do we need time then? Why is time so important in our life? What is a time machine? Actually the last one is a joke. Because how can you travel through time where it has no existence! You cannot travel through an illusion. But, then another question arises. I think everybody is assuming it. If there is age, there can be an ‘age machine’. These questions are not so important right now. The questions which really need to be answered right now are the importance of time in life and its cyclic order, how it can be stuck like this forever and what is the reason for this ‘stuck situation’.
Some sayings of the great minds show us the importance of time in our daily life, like- ‘ Lost time is never found again’, ‘Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend’, ‘Time is the wisest counselor of all’ etc. These are all true words. No one has the capability to prove these words wrong. But one needs to understand the meaning of ‘time’ in these lines. Here the word ‘time’ actually shows the lifespan of one’s life. Somewhere the word tries to relate to your family or the society. Sometimes it means to focus on your life. But what these lines are telling us is not our concern right now. They are important for us but right now we need to understand the difference between the two things. Let’s give them two names. The one which we need to understand right now will be called ‘scientific time’ or the ‘s-time’ from now on and the other one will be called the ‘philosophical time’ or the ‘p-time’. The names are given only for the sake of the explanation, nothing else. The p-time is not an illusion. It is related to your life or the society. Sometimes it also can be related to ‘age’ which was explained earlier. It is situating a bridge between your lifespan and the age of nature. Actually it means- don't waste your lifespan or give importance to your social activities at the right moment. It is also an abstract thing like age but it is not an illusion, like honesty, which is abstract but not an illusion. It has a visual impact on human life. It has circumstances and results. So we cannot deny the p-time. Now come to the other type which has been called the s-time. All our questions are related to this thing.
If we ask someone, “what time is it?” then we get an answer like this, “ it is 1 pm.” or something like that. This is actually the s-time. When the age and time were explained, we actually differentiated age with the s-time. The p-time and the age are not completely same but they are related. But the s-time is the thing which is the main reason for every confusion. The main problem with this s-time is that; it is important in our daily life and in the same situation, it is not important completely. The s-time is a mathematical function which helps us to measure a day and maintain our daily routine. Actually, without the s-time, we cannot measure the age. On the other hand, we should not mix up the s-time with age because it is not flowing forward. The age is flowing forward which has been explained earlier but not the s-time. It is just a unit to measure age. So this s-time or we can call it ‘the clock’, is not taking us anywhere. It is just a unit to define a moment of age. So, it can be said that the s-time is not totally cyclic. It feels like it is moving in a cyclic motion but it is stuck. Actually it is nothing but a measurement of age. Now we need to understand the relationship between the s-time and the p-time. P-time is actually a feeling. It is a singular thing. It only defines the lifespan of a single human being. It declares the importance of social activities during one’s lifespan. It is related to age because age is the natural thing and it will never stop expanding. Lifespan is the part of this natural thing. One lifespan is a really a small unit compared to age when age is defining a whole generation. So, age can be defined as the collection of many lifespan at the same era. Again, the s-time is needed to calculate age. So, we can say that a lifespan which is defined by p-time can also be calculated by the s-time. So, the s-time is important because our daily routine needs to be maintained and the only thing that can help us is the s-time. Now we can say that the clock is just a human-made instrument to give us the s-time to calculate the p-time which is our lifespan and the age which is needed to define a whole era or generation.
At last we can conclude the whole explanation in two or three lines. The s-time which is named as a 'clock' is merely a machine. It is not taking us anywhere nor is it stuck in the same moment. It is only an instrument which gives us some numbers and with those numbers we can calculate the age and our personal lifespan. What Einstein said is that time is an illusion. Of course, it is an illusion but the question is ‘which time’. The s-time or the clock is the illusion in the sense that it has no visual impact. Some of us think that the clock is taking us forward but it is not. Age is taking us forward but it is only a natural expansion which has no limit. Here, the word ‘forward’ means ageing. It is not a direction. The clock is only helping to calculate age. And the lifespan of a human is the most important thing for himself because the age will not stop expanding and as lifespan being a part of age it will not stop either. So, the p-time is the most important thing for our life. We need to take it more seriously.
Read an analysis on the movie 'INCEPTION'.
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