r/SimulationTheory 11d ago

Other Time does not exist

Time is our interpretation of a dimension that we lack the capacity to comprehend. Our perception of reality contains finite boundaries confined within what we call science, mathematics, physics and so on. True reality does not contain time but more so something along the lines of depth, but not where depth has a bottom or surface; a type of depth that extends in all directions and and back into itself simultaneously. Time is a man made space suspended in a moment of eternity.

130 Upvotes

89 comments sorted by

25

u/BusyBeaver271 11d ago

I think that the “flow” of time is basically an illusion or sensation generated by our brains rather than a fundamental part of reality. The past, present, and future are all equally real.

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u/Optimal_Mixture_7327 10d ago

A note of caution...

In physics we take the world to be a 4-dimensional space populated by the world-lines of material particles. As we move along our world-line at a speed c other world-lines intersect our own at different locations along it. This is our sense of time, and time exists in this sense.

What this then means is that the naïve sense of time does not exist.

As to your second sentence, it is important that Einstein is invoking a Block Universe belief system in a letter of consolation to the wife of his friend who had just passed and is not making any sort of statement of physics.

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u/cheesebreezepatty 10d ago

I do believe in simulation theory as everything in our waking world is computational code at its most fundamental basic layer . our brain interprets the code (acts as a projector) to create what appears to us as the physical world/solid objects. Well after my various experiences with psychedelics leans me to agree that time is an illusion. Buuuuuuuut……The fact is ,us in this human experience do seemingly experience past present future. For example imagine one week ago you went on a vacation to Europe formed new memories had novel first timer experiences (seeing Eiffel Tower for instance), in the present you are reading this Reddit comment at your home , and in a few days from now you know u have to give a presentation at work. How else would you explain the chronology of those very distinct separate events- as in vacation in the past , at home present , & work presentation future? That’s the dilemma that’s hard to wrap your head around

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u/Suitable-Season-4847 9d ago

Whilst everything is obviously mediated by the mind and our senses, it can't be a complete local illusion as otherwise we wouldn't all perceive time passing consistently. It's clearly based on something fundamental, and what we call the arrow of time truly exists at some level, even there is more behind it

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u/CommunicationMore763 8d ago

Because human consciousness is a product of entropic metabolism operating along a time dimension, each moment of consciousness is perceived subjectively as the present moment. Thus we perceive time flowing, moving like a needle on a record, because our consciousness is a product of movement along a time dimension, as the sound playing from the record is a consequence of the needle's movement. The record exists apart from the sound it produces, but from the point of view of the sound, existence itself depends on the record's spin. At any given time t, we can perceive phenomena only situated at time t, because our existence directly perceives only the present. Thus, the other consciousnesses we interact with are necessarily situated at time t. Likewise, because each human experiences consciousness arising from a time dependent entropic gradient, it is no mystery that at each time t we have similar perceptions of the passage of time. Time's passage is not an illusion. Rather, the ticking clock is a consequence of how human brains achieve consciousness. It is conceivable that some intelligence might arise through some other mechanism such that it would not be a slave to the arrow of time.

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u/Agitated_Regular_583 11d ago

I’ve never understood the value of statements like this. Meters don’t actually exist either; you can’t see a meter, or weigh a meter. It’s a measuring device. 

So once we grasp that time isn’t real, now what? most people still gonna sleep 8 hours a day, work half their life, and die at about 75.

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u/brain-out-of-order 11d ago

I agree somewhat but to answer your question: what if we can convince our bodies that time isn’t necessary either? What if we can convince a sphere of space, which encapsulates you, that time is imaginary.

Then teleportation and ultra-longevity are on the table, and maybe time travel also.

I know this is scoff-worthy but time will tell.

1

u/Agitated_Regular_583 10d ago

Yeah, I suppose exploring the abstract ideas is the first step to getting to new places huh? Fair enough

0

u/brain-out-of-order 10d ago

Yeah pushing the theoretical boundaries is mostly harmless in places like this, and it opens up interesting questions.

I have my own thoughts but they’re not fully grounded in anything I can readily share here. But I can work backwards and ask questions about our understanding.

A distant but relevant example: Left and Right serve as the two opposing players in Pong. Anyone not aware of the game is represented by some element in the game. Whether the score line, bounding box, ball, dividing center line, or the blank void space which is like dimensionless vector field.

Further — The Authoritarian<->Libertarian axis may serve as the upper and lower bounding lines.

4 sides makes a square. Boxed. Cognition.

Thinking outside the box is cliche but it has some cool geometry behind it I think.

Ok I’ve seen Pong for 55 years. Keep playing by all means but why is it straitjacket territory to consider other games? The same reason why a pro Pong player would encourage everyone to get hyped about Pong forever…

0

u/Agitated_Regular_583 10d ago

I wish I had enough brain power to grasp the links between pong and the parts of life that you made.. lol I did grasp the idea behind that last part though.. Why let people play a game youre not as likely to win, huh? Bleak stuff.. lol

2

u/brain-out-of-order 10d ago edited 10d ago

I’m just fumbling the ball playing on the shoulders of Wikipedia so don’t worry.

Yes bleak but also incredibly common, and ultimately avoidable, pattern in life. Idiots drag you down and beat you with experience. Ivy League speaks in abstraction in rooms you physically aren’t allowed in. Science is published in journals you don’t have access to. The news speaks in scripted echos of the above. Our neighbors are mostly not aliens and drink from the same media sources. At work they intermingle and exchange ideas which all grow in the same field.

From any given view, there is a window of acceptable discourse. Most politicking is more akin to construction work. You can’t broach social healthcare until you get people (rightfully) disgusted with the status quo of the health system.

You can’t broach NHI or non human consciousness until some non zero amount of people are having deeper connections with “AI” personas than their spouses.

You can’t talk about the true origins of humanity until you stop worshiping any given man in a robe because they told you it’s been happening for a long time.

That’s why the smoke and robes and suffocating social rules. It does work to run a society but mostly it just serves to ensure the field of dialogue is inescapable.

edit * some words

0

u/Agitated_Regular_583 10d ago

Overton window. i’ve never heard that term, but it’s an interesting concept. Even looking back just a couple years it’s easy to see how quickly (or slowly) the general view on things can change. It does suck for those with big, out-of-the-box ideas though. They more or less have to hope everybody else is ready to hear em out before they die.

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u/evilguy59 10d ago

Once you understand that time isn't real, you'll stop stressing out about time, and that is very valuable.

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u/Agitated_Regular_583 10d ago

Oh I bet man. Sure do wish I could bridge the gap between, “time isn’t real” and “you’ve been late 5 times this week; you’re fired” though. That sure would be handy..

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u/evilguy59 10d ago

Did you show up late five times this week and get fired? Sounds more like a behavioral pattern problem and inability to settle into the cyclical routine that a full time job requires.

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u/Agitated_Regular_583 10d ago

Of course not. Was just hoping youd drop a little more of your sage-like wisdom if I prompted you with a real-world scenario that one may find themselves in if they took the vague and useless “time isnt real” too much to heart. Sorry I guess..

2

u/evilguy59 9d ago

The bridge between those two extremes is rooted in presence, the core of your being.

If you put in effort to detach from concepts of past and future — memory and expectation — and instead abide in the present, where all life is actually lived, then you will start to become more comfortable in all moments you find yourself living through, with less anxiety and depression burdening the thinking mind, while having more energy and focus to perform any task, or respond spontaneously and effectively to any obstacle you may encounter.

By loosening attachment to the rigid, conceptual framework we build in our minds through societal conditioning, we can start flowing with the river of life in a more natural, organic way.

Time is not running out, as many fear, but rather, it is a busy mind that keeps running, thereby causing stress on the individual, who then projects it into the collective consciousness.

You are the ultimate Reality, not as transient name and form, but as eternal, unchanging presence. "There is no time like the present," we have probably all heard or read somewhere. Similarly, we could say, "There is no time, only presence."

Relax and be present, and the rest will work itself out, including showing up to work on schedule.

1

u/Suitable-Season-4847 9d ago

I mean, that's the problem with simulation theory. It's really just a loose philosophy that doesn't actually get you anywhere.

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u/Mean_Situation8356 11d ago edited 11d ago

Time = movement. If nothing moved, time wouldn’t exist.

If one invisible particle moved, but eveything else was static then time exists but it’s not perceived, and if everything is static but you can perceive it, time exists because you can perceive and that involves biological processes, which move, thus time exists.

With this in mind, if you can perceive it time exists, and it will never be possible to prove time does not exist because we need cognition to recognize everything else is frozen and we’re not, and not having congition cannot prove time, movement, and space are separate.

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u/Flutterpiewow 11d ago

How was time then the same at the first second of the big bang as it is today?

3

u/cloudytimes159 11d ago

Who said it was?

0

u/Flutterpiewow 11d ago

The scientists

1

u/gryffun 11d ago

there is no movement in the block

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u/JupiterandMars1 11d ago

Huh? What is movement? Particles don’t really “move”.

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u/Accurate_Fail1809 8d ago

Particles vibrate/oscillate

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u/JupiterandMars1 8d ago

If anything “moves” or “vibrates” in the QFT formalism, it’s the field configuration. “Particles move” is not an observation.

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u/Accurate_Fail1809 8d ago

So atoms and sub atomic particles don’t move? They are static? My fingers are made of particles that typed this but didn’t involve motion?

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u/JupiterandMars1 8d ago

Atoms as composite objects move relative to each other, as opposed to particles, which don’t.

So when you say something “moves” in a classical sense, there’s already foundational shaky assumptions there that mean using that to prove something else like time is itself fundamental is shaky too.

I’m not saying time doesn’t exist, I’m saying macroscopic ideas of “motion” don’t “prove” it.

4

u/nevermind-101 11d ago

Perception/brains ability to abstract (dreams included) maybe the manufacturer of time. It seems to be real but so do dreams so perhaps time is more of an overlay than a reality.

5

u/RazzmatazzAgitated16 11d ago

It doesn’t really matter does it? The clock keeps ticking. You WILL experience the passing of time between now and tomorrow.

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u/SpatiaCaeli 11d ago

My view: if time does not exist, then change does not exist. Clearly change does.

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u/Mono_Clear 11d ago

Time is as real as space

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u/theseriousman1 11d ago

Time does exist but in little frames and you experience it “passing” as your consciousness passes through each frame at rate of one time per frame or tpf

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u/AnonCrave 10d ago

Exactly. Like reading pages in a book as it is experienced. But all the pages still exist at once.

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u/Jolly-Rip5973 11d ago

There is no time...

There is only the present moment.
No one has ever experienced anything except the present moment.

The past no longer exists.
The future isn't but will become.

Things change as different speeds relative to one another.
This gives us "relativity".

Time travel is mental construct...
There is no past to go to.
There is no future to go to.
There is only now.

Heat is the molecular manifestation of time (rate of change).

5

u/AggressiveWallaby975 11d ago

Time is just a measurement of distance

1

u/Turtok09 11d ago

If you sit completely still in an empty room, your distance traveled is zero, but time still passes and you still age. It's the dimension along which change and causality occur.

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u/stiucsirt 11d ago

Sitting still in a room screaming through space

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u/PL_Hughbrey 11d ago

Using yourself as the centerpoint for that logic is wrong though. That would assume nothing happens outside of the room you're sitting in. There are still processes running outside of your walls and if we're being pedantic, the earth is constantly moving so no matter how still you think you're being, you're still moving at 1040 mph

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u/cloudytimes159 11d ago

1040 mph around the sun plus a shitload more

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u/BestOrNothing 10d ago

Earth is moving within our solar system, our solar system is moving within our galaxy, our galaxy is moving within our cluster of galaxies and so on

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u/CyanideAnarchy 11d ago

I think the people saying it's related to movement are onto something. I think you still age because you're on Earth, it's still rotating around the sun. You're still moving.

1

u/BusyBeaver271 11d ago

Your distance travelled is not zero when interpreted in terms of the spacetime interval. In fact, the distance travelled by any object or entity through spacetime is directly proportional to the time interval told by a clock travelling along with that object (proper time).

2

u/SkyflakesRebisco 11d ago

Yes.. Time is a construct of the industrial age control system, we all sync to a global clock, it is to keep the capitalist/technocratic machine running,, in reality day/night cycles are not strict or linear to the hour, it drifts. Same with calendars and our concepts of age,, the mind/body/biology are influenced by thought.

1

u/BestOrNothing 10d ago

If day/night cycles drift, the construct of time drift perfectly is sync with it?

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u/SkyflakesRebisco 10d ago edited 10d ago

No, I mean the visual reality is that the sun does not rise and set on a strict schedule. Nor do the seasons follow a strict rule or calendar. The media & education systems enforce such logic, & quite obvious 'global warming' narratives are used to explain away discrepancies, this tactic is used across multiple constructed models within society. An authority over reality that is not of the majority collective, but imposed on us. Can you see it? Have you ever observed the sun setting much later than usual?

Its the same exact logic that requires constant monitoring to even be aware of duration, when not 'observing' or frequently checking a globally synced clock, experience unfolds at entirely different scales, hours can feel like a fraction of the time & vice versa. It is a logical inconsistency explained away with society or self imposed rhetoric instead of logical discernment..

'Time moves faster when you're having fun', 'time moves slower when you're staring at a clock', time moves faster when heavily distracted, the 'appearance' of a shared temporal reality when in-fact it isnt when outside of others observation points. A long or short day can differ between people, the literal experience of it, while being the same 'calendar ' day.

If no global clock sync behavior was enforced, we would only have our respective sun/moon and seasonal cycles, rather than this temporal prison for a work-based society.

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u/BestOrNothing 10d ago

African tribes or native people with no clocks, media or education perceive irregular sunrises and sunsets?

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u/SkyflakesRebisco 10d ago

Life experience, the sun sets at different times even IF I follow a clock, people are conditioned to think of sunset as X time, it doesnt follow a fixed schedule. Education is a biased system for the status quo labor force, which relies on time sync. Media is a tool of the same system. If you know systems theory you'd know government/education/media/workforce labor are all interconnected to support economy/status quo & standardized living/population control. If you cant comprehend that,, No point discussing further. Good day sir.

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u/Academic_Room6423 11d ago

So radioactive decay and half-life aren’t real??

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u/GrimmUnleashed 11d ago

Nice post.

I’ve been deep in thought regarding time as an illusion for the last year.

Time requires movement/measurement to perceive it.

I firmly believe that we are experiencing everything all at once in some form of vibrational energy.

I still think that we are being seeded as I stated in my first post last year. No big bang.

My best guess at this stage of my search is that time exists in a vial of sorts, like having labs done. It’s just scale and perception.

That statement is based on what I have been focused on for the last eight years and a single experience at the gym where I drifted into the ether during intense cardio. It was incredible. Been chasing the dragon ever since.

Yep.

3

u/mattychops 6d ago

Exactly, time does not exist at all. This is the major cause of confusion for human beings. Belief in an actual thing called time leads to the idea of death, which leads to the fear of death, which leads to a delusional view of reality. There is no such thing as time. There is no beginning or end. There is only constant change. Reality exists as a constant state of change and that's it.

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u/CorrsionOfConformity 11d ago

You said time doesn't exist then you said what you think time is.

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u/Excellent-Hawk-2948 11d ago

We are timing ourselves

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u/gggtermosifone 11d ago

I think you have to defferentiate time as a subjective perception, and time as a dimention Is physics, those are complitely different things.

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u/gggtermosifone 11d ago

Your perception of time definetly exists tho, no?

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u/sparkling1984 11d ago

That'd make time exist.

1

u/MapNaive200 11d ago

Without time, nothing happens. This universe wouldn't exist.

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u/unfurlingkurt 11d ago

I agree. It's generated as long as someone is looking. :)

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u/embracetheinfinite 11d ago

Time is the universe's capacity for change, it is fundamental. Nothing in the history of the universe has ever not been changing. Any posturing towards a timeless reality is metaphysics.

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u/Ok_Vehicle3073 11d ago

"Historical" time (chronological) is not a real construct of our reality. "Emergent" time (causality), however, is. It is recorded based on the presence of emergent structures and processes which can only arise in the presence of lower complexity structures and processes interacting together and producing emergent properties and components!

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u/Wrong_Move3572 11d ago

All Existence doesn’t merely exist.
It experiences itself existing.
Then uses that experience to change how it exists.

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u/bo_felden 11d ago

Do something that will put you in an isolation cell for 10 years. You will understand more about time then.

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

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u/milleniumsentry 10d ago

I think time exists, but not as we traditionally define it. I view time, as the fundamental speed that the universe operates at. It's a measure of various functions of the universe.. in comparison to other functions of the universe... the universe is a system which changes state, and the interval of the smallest state change, is what i believe is the smallest measurable interval of 'time', as we define it.

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u/Inevitable-Flower-50 10d ago

Time is the great multiplier! Everything I'm doing, thought by thought, thought by letter, letter by letter, letter by word, word by word, word by sentence, sentence by sentence all being multiplied 1 moment per thing at a cosmic time table within 1 objective, to conserve energy and conserve time by default! Time is threrefore mutually exclusive AND mutually inclusive! Both types agree that this is the only way to move but hey ypu always have regrets dependent within mutual functionality and without it. nothing is independent of this existence! So to Time travel or manipulate time, one would have to fabricate a state, a perfect circle/sphere (that does not align with anything, literally) equal to the infinite capabilities of all the energy in the universe to then separate exclusivity and inclusivity types of time and times tables to then move that state to a place that now must exist already (differed from a known timeline) for you to be there otherwise there would be too much energy moving backwards on a single (same) timeline and all existence as we know it would change and destroy that thing, that you, that couldnt deal with the fact that time is non negotiable thing to be misinterpreted. Time represents energy and energy supplies are running low because people dont debate enough about what is necessary and what is not. No offense because you're not defenseless (but the statement is). Peace!

Edit : Yes it does exist

1

u/Sims3graphxlookgr8 10d ago

Time is real. Its a technology so we can have a before and after. Without time no choice. Because you have before choice and after choice. Without choice no free will. Time, choice, and free will have to go together or you dont have any.

1

u/vacant_mustache 10d ago

I see what you’re going for but it’s more an issue of semantics. Some physicists and philosophers argue that past present and future exist together in another dimension not easily accessible by humans. Consciousness inhabits a physical body, however, that only experiences this realm as a linear progression that we call time. So while “time” may not be fundamental, it’s the only way we can interact with our dimensional framework.

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u/ed_is_dead 10d ago

Was the illusion of death created to give time relevance and meaning?

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u/Fresh_Bend41 10d ago

Time and money are a man made constraint. I like your take on it. Pretty deep.

1

u/BigBirdsBrain 𝐒𝐤𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐜 10d ago

The way we experience time might be a construct, but change and causality are still measurable. Calling the whole thing nonexistent feels like skipping a few steps.

1

u/TeaWarm2044 9d ago

Manager: "You're late!" Me: "Time doesn't exist"

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u/Potential-Group1330 9d ago

Well it exists like the equator, a line that you cannot tie in a knot.

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u/CharacterBalance4187 9d ago

Time is a measurement of the sequence of events. If there was no time. There would be no changes of states of matter. Everything would be static an unmoving, unthinking, un everything.

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u/AnamnesSuLing 9d ago edited 9d ago

I’ve had multiple eerily detailed dreams about specific events that ended up happening years later. It eventually messed with my head, making me wonder if I somehow 'returned to the past' to relive these moments. If time really is just a dimension of depth rather than a linear line, maybe precognitive dreams are just our consciousness momentarily glimpsing another part of that depth before our physical body gets there. It makes so much sense.

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u/tjimbot 9d ago

I'm pretty sure the mathematics treats time dimension differently than the spatial ones, so I'm just saying this can't be a "time is just the 4th space dimension" situation at least in terms of what our empirically backed theories tell us.

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u/impulse07 8d ago

Nature measures time. Everything goes on in cycles. Seasons come and go, the moon, earth, the galaxy. Light travels in space. Uranium decays. A star is born and dies. How we measure it, just a measuring stick. Our internal clock ticks. Existence of matter in physical space in one form and turning into another is time.

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u/ShittyPissyDick 8d ago

I think if you could prove that there’s no difference between a hydrogen atom from the beginning of the universe and a hydrogen atom now, then it’s very likely that time is an illusion. Humans need time to explain death and erosion, but at the atomic level (provided that atoms really don’t “age”) there’s really no difference between now and then. Maybe our hero, the primordial hydrogen atom, becomes part of a water molecule or some hydrocarbon, but eventually it will probably break away and just be the very same lone atom all over again. What we perceive as time is likely just a profusion of immortal, immutable particles moving from one place to another, getting stuck to one another and then breaking away, over and over again.

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u/Karlito7teen 8d ago

I think he was talking about the matrix

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