Yesterday I considered the notion of time flattened out across past and future, with the present being a passing illusion. With the notion of the block universe, a hypothesis that Einstein espoused, all is happening at once; spacetime being truly four-dimensional rather than three-dimensions in time. The block universe theory suggests all of spacetime exists as a single, unchanging block. Past, present, and future are all equally real, just with different perspectives depending on the observer. Einstein's theory of general relativity is compatible with the block universe, he came to acknowledge it as a likely consequence of his theories.
But we can posit something different. We can think about time as not being a straight arrow running along a single dimension from past into future, but maybe that arrow can be bent to run forward, but with an up/down vector, and with a left/right vector too. So three-dimensional time, though still in accord with the second law of thermodynamics, cannot run backwards. Entropy-driven, it can to run only from future to past. But if you bend that arrow far enough, and can be made to return to where it came from. The tighter you bend the arrow, the more recently in the past it can end up.
How many arrows of time are there? One, for literally everything, the entire Cosmos, every visible galaxy out there? Or one arrow of time for every particle in the entire Cosmos? And whether one timeline for the whole Cosmos or one timeline for every single particle, are those timelines bendable?
In A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking identified three main arrows of time: thermodynamic: (related to increasing entropy/disorder), psychological – our own perception of time flowing forward (we remember the past but can't directly experience the future) and cosmological: time progresses as the universe gets bigger.
Or is the hypothesis of time's arrow (bendable or not) unnecessary in a block universe in which past present and future are all flattened out, joined together eternally in a singularity of time?
The theological implications of a block universe would point to an omniscient Divinity, an alpha and an omega, existing at the beginning and end of time at the same time (and at all points in between). This would stand in opposition to an unfolding universe, patiently progressing from Zero to One, a universe of emergence and complexity co-existing with entropy and disorder, in which the Divinity would be a guiding purpose, a work in progress, not perfect, but steadily tending towards ultimate unity and understanding.
A block universe would have implications for reincarnation too – living all lives simultaneously across all time at one go, so flashbacks or dreams would be openings-up to events being experienced in real time elsewhere in the continuum, rather than having any quality of having happened in the past.
How do precognition and retrocausality – if they indeed do empirically exist – operate? By bending the arrow of time this way or that, or back upon itself – or by becoming as one with the block universe and simply reaching out across time in the same way I reach across my desk for my mug?
Both are fascinating ideas. We have no more than a intimation that precognition and retrocausality are real phenomena. Even if proven across thousands of experiments that a tiny, though statistically significant, effect exists, scientists have no idea how these phenomena could possibly work, and so dismiss them as pseudoscience.
Seeking a theoretical framework, I would join those panpsychists who posit the work of consciousness – both the Big-C Consciousness, the prime-mover, the reason, the purpose, the direction of the Cosmos, but also small-c consciousness of individual biological entities, willing an outcome which aligns with the Big-C purpose.
Lent 2023, Day 32
The Practice of Gratitude
Lent 2022: Day 32
The Search for Perfection
Lent 2021: Day 32
Meditation
Lent 2020: Day 32
Divine Intervention
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