Thoughts About Time - by Doc Nolan
Many think of time as a river in which “that which once was” fades -- and “what will be” is just imagined. When one thinks of time that way, one looks not at “time” but at our brains.
Memories (recordings) fade. The past is and was as solid, detailed, and specific as the present. The past doesn’t fade. Our memories of the past are what disappear! Here’s an analogy. It’s like your childhood toys. You can’t remember if your first bicycle was red or blue, but it’s still in grandma’s attic, unbeknownst to you. The bike is whatever color it always was (and still is). Your mind cannot “see” it very well, however, since Grandma lives on another continent. Ditto the past. Another way of saying this is that you’re trapped in the present and are blind to “what was.” It’s still there; you just are locked away from it forever!
Similarly, the future is what it is. The future as it’s lived is not imaginary. It’s real. Just because you can imagine any number of futures doesn’t mean multiple futures. Most of your musings are just mistakes, almost surely never reflecting what will genuinely happen. How do you discover the true “to be”? You wait. It turns from “not yet” to “Here it is!” Again your brain is trapped in a place called “now.”
How does time relate to the other dimensions? Let’s look at them. I’m here (at my desktop) and not there (scuba diving in the Seychelles islands). I am locked in one geographical set of coordinates. Similarly, I am stuck in another set of coordinates: the temporal ones.
How has this impacted my perception of time? I now think of my great grandparents (who I never met) as not existing but as existing in a temporal location that I’m locked out of. A different room, so to speak. Regarding the future, taking my home as my reference point, I know that my house will not be at some point. That is for sure. Will it burn down, be demolished, or vanish in a nuclear airburst? The only way to find out is to wait. If I go poof before it happens, I’ll never know what happens, but it will happen.
Also, I find some comfort in facing death by thinking this way. (Not the process of dying which may be horrible, but the fact of being dead!) The world didn’t notice my non-existence before my birth, and it won’t see my non-existence for the rest of eternity. My son, my grandsons, and (possibly) other generations I’ll never know or meet will exist – and not really know or care that I lived, except in the abstract way that they literally “would not be” had I not existed.
Last thought on a different note (don’t ask if an octave higher or lower!): Wouldn’t it be fascinating to return to your present exact location every ten years (for just five minutes) to look around and see “the end” of my house or office or whatever building you’re in now? Will it be here in 10 years? 20 years? 50 years? 150 years? 500 years? As for the last time in this series (2523), I know this wood structure and this room I call “The Cave” will be gone. I wonder when it will meet its doom!
Now having taken some of your time, let’s all get back to time traveling – from one frame to the next one, along our separate rivers. You don’t need any special equipment to time travel. Just wait.
Comments
Post a Comment