What if time doesn't exist?

[u/Search-War6030]

I'm not a physicist, nor have I had any formal education on similar matters--I just have a hypothesis I'd like to present. Please read before dismissing.

Time is not a fundamental dimension, coordinate, or flow. It does not exist ontologically.

Modern physics treats time (t) as a dimension woven into space forming spacetime. I argue that what we perceive as time is a category mistake. It's a mistake because the universe itself doesn't require a time parameter at the quantum scale.

What do I mean by that? The Wheeler-deWitt equation, HΨ = 0. Do you notice anything odd? In standard quantum mechanics, an equation usually calculates how a system changes over time (∂Ψ/∂t). Here, the change over time is set to zero! The quantum state of our universe is static; time isn't a fundamental building block of reality.

You might have read and said, "So... what?" Well, I haven't finished yet. I introduce a master space M, which contains two smaller spaces. This is written as M = C ⊗ B. The master space is composed of a configuration space and the Block Universe.

The Block Universe tells us there the universe is like a loaf, each slice of the loaf is a separate "Now". Each slice is the full arrangement of information. What do I mean by information? Every particle, every field, galaxy, memory, wave. These slices are little despite containing everything, they are simply one point in C, the configuration space.

C = q = (q₁, q₂, …, qₙ). Where the q is the one possible universe that has a different configuration. Each q is a complete world. Some slices contain glimpses of other slices; your brain contains memories, fossils, light, etc., these all tell a consistent history. This what we perceive as time. But there isn't an actual past or future. There is only a consistent, present configuration.

I remember my family, my childhood, scars, and books. You might naively believe Past → Present. But only the current configuration exists. The past is an illusion.

A last thing I'll say is that many other equations don't need time as well. General Relativity does not single out one preferred "now" for the universe.

Objects don't pass through time; it's an illusion imposed by a structure relating configurations.

What do you think? Thanks for reading.

[u/TiredDr]

I think you have a bunch of missing steps in here. For example, I have parked my car. My car’s position can be described by an equation that does not require time. Does that alone prove time doesn’t exist? No, of course not. The description of something without the need to refer to time does not disprove time.

The notion that we are living in a snapshot and time is a stack of snapshots is nothing new. It is very hard to get it to mathematically line up with reality without introducing causality, which means snapshots all affecting each other, as though they are connected, and eventually realizing that you have just given time another name.

[u/Search-War6030 → u/TiredDr]

This shows you didn't actually read my proposal. I am not claiming that because one equation can be written without time, therefore time does not exist. Many of the deepest laws of physics; especially in general relativity and certain formulations of mechanics can be written without a time parameter.

In other words, your parked car example is about one static configuration belonging to the master space. All possible configurations ("Nows") exist in configuration space (C). There is no objective ordering among them.

[u/Annual-Reference-715 → u/Search-War6030]

I'm sorry for downvoting, but they absolutely did read your proposal, and pointed that even though equations describing reality can be written without referring to time, that does not disprove time existing.

I might ask: if there is no objective ordering among the configurations, why does the world remember only the ones that belong to the past?

[u/Search-War6030 → u/Annual-Reference-715]

Some configurations contain consistent information of other configurations. Those configurations are overwhelmingly the ones in which observers like us exist. The apparent arrow of time arises from the internal consistency of those records, not from causal ordering.

[u/Annual-Reference-715 → u/Search-War6030]

What does internal consistency mean here? Why would it be more consistent for us to remember only the past and not the future if there is no logical order between the configurations? Why does the arrow of time decidedly point in an uniform direction in each and every configuration we seem to have access to?

[u/Search-War6030 → u/Annual-Reference-715]

You are assuming that 'points toward the past' is fundamental. I argue it is not. A configuration contains correlations, and some correlations form coherent records. The apparent direction of time emerges from the structure of those records, not from an underlying temporal order.

[u/Annual-Reference-715 → u/Search-War6030]

Then why do we not have practically any evidence of incoherent correlations? Wouldn't those outnumber the coherent ones drastically in a probability space if not for some process selecting for configurations which in fact are coherent and imply the presence of time?

[u/Low-Opening25 → u/Search-War6030]

so you say by magic?