There are plenty of things to talk about, and I will get to many of them eventually. However, I will begin with the topic that I end up talking the most about: time. The more I read and study and discuss, the more I tend to think that it does not exist. At least, not in itself. That is, time is a concept I use to describe something, so it does exist as a way for me to describe that something. But as a thing in itself, like a book or a table, perhaps not. Or even as an intangible thing, like gravity or magnetism, again I am not convinced.
This is an incredibly controversial position to hold. But if one thinks about it, perhaps it is not as controversial as one might think. After all, no one has “seen the effects of time,” at least not directly. When one suggests they do, what they really are suggesting is that they see erosion, or they see wear-and-tear, or they see old age. They do not see time, nor do they see the “effects of time.” They see the effects of erosion or wear-and-tear or old age. Time is a literary tool used to capture the plethora of effects we want to describe, so time is a way for me to describe something. But I am still not talking about time itself.
So what is time exactly? Or, when I want to talk about time itself, what am I trying to talk about? I think when time is used, it is used in various ways, which further confuses what it might be. Sometimes, time is intended to be a position on a long thread, similar to the idea of a location in space. In this way, one might be able to “travel” from one position to another, able to affect things related to that position. Thinking about time in this way, I think, is most common, and influences many science fiction stories and discussions. However, like locations in space, to “travel” from one position to another, I first need to occupy a portion of time, like I occupy a portion of space.
In the case of locations in space, I describe my manner of occupation in terms of length, and width, and depth. I am an irregular object, about two meters in length, perhaps three quarters of a meter in width, and maybe a half a meter in depth, though I do not fully occupy all of these dimensions. In similar fashion, I occupy a portion of time. I might call this dimension duration. That is, I occupy a portion of time that is the duration of my existence. Presently, I exist, and so now is a part of my duration. Many years ago, I began to exist, and so my duration would have began at that time. When I cease to exist, that will be the end of my duration. I will occupy about 80 years of time, though until I cease to exist, I won’t know for certain. This assumes that my existence began when I was born, and ends when I die; if my existence goes beyond, like if there happens to be life after death, then perhaps I will occupy much more time than I think.
This occupation of time could make travelling to another position tricky. When one thinks about “time travel” one usually assumes that their present self is all that they are, and so travelling to other positions in time seems mostly unproblematic. However, if I occupy a significant portion of time, how then might I change positions successfully? Does my “past self” need to travel back 10 years when my “present self” travels back 10 years? If I dismiss that I occupy time, as is often the case, then it leads to various paradoxes where I exist multiple times in the same position in time. Again, many science fiction stories have fun exploring what precisely might happen given these circumstances.
It seems like I’ve created a big mess already, and I’ve barely scratched the surface. If time is like a thread, and if I occupy a portion of that thread, then it seems to bring with it a lot of complications. Is time a bit like an empty space along a path that I take? In my next post, I will put many of these crazy ideas to the side while I try to get a better handle on what time is by considering how time is used in the literary sense.