The distinction between past, present and future is only an illusion, albeit a very
persistent one (Albert Einstein)
What is the connection between happiness and the concept of time?
We all were once born and we all will die one day. To a certain extent, we fear not even death itself but the fact of departure from life. We are afraid of the unknown. We are afraid of what would be there. We are even more afraid that there would not be anything
over there.
Based on my observations, those who believe that there is life after death are less afraid of death than those who do not believe in it. And what is happiness if not the absence of fear? For many, faith comes natural, originating from religion. I categorically disagree with the main modern religions and their ideas of afterlife. That is why I create my own ideas – about what was and what will be.
Let’s first consider an issue related to time. If we had a time machine and we could go back in time and change events there, our present would change. In other words, is it possible to change the present by changing some events in the past? This is a very popular topic in fiction. In one of Ray Bradbury’s best-known stories, A Sound of Thunder, a hunter named Eckels buys a safari ticket to travel back to prehistoric ages to hunt dinosaurs. However, this hunting party has a rigid framework – the hunter can kill only that dinosaur that would have still died after a few moments. During the hunt, Eckels travels along an anti-gravity path. He is obliged to stay on this path to avoid damaging even the grass blade. When the dinosaur appears, Eckels panics, steps off the path and accidentally kills a butterfly. After returning to the present time, the hunters discover that their world has
changed – the political system and even the rules of spelling English words have changed.
In the film "Back to the Future", high school student Marty is sent back in time – to a time when his future parents met each other. Marty accidentally interferes with their meeting and this jeopardizes his existence (his birth in the future). Any one who has watched this movie would remember how Marty’s brother and sister dramatically disappeared from the family photo brought from the present. Marty has to work hard to get his parents meet in order for him to remain alive.
So, as Marty and Eckels did, can we change our present by changing events in the past? Let me describe to you the picture of time as I see it.
We usually think that time is going. Let’s imagine time as an immovable dimension of space. Let it be a fixed road along which we are moving, or rather along which we are being moved. We are being moved along this road together with our entire universe. There are signs on this road like kilometer markers. Here, instead of kilometers, you have time units. Let it be years. Years are counted starting from creation of the universe, but the years can be translated into our chronology. For example, there are columns with the inscriptions 30 (meaning 30th year of our era), 1000, 2000, 2018, 3000. We are currently in 2018 and our entire universe is at this mark, constantly moving forward. Accordingly, days, hours, minutes and seconds represent meters, centimeters and millimeters of this road.
Now, in order to understand this better, we will move this road to the bottom of the ocean. Waves are running on the ocean above the road. One of these waves is carrying our universe – and us along with it. In other words, our wave is carrying our universe and is currently on the stretch of the road in 2018 and is moving along it.
Now let’s pay attention! Our wave is not the only wave. There are other waves in front and behind it – many waves; very, very many waves. All of them are running one after the other in one direction. A wave runs above any part of the road, i.e. at any one time. A wave runs through, followed by the next wave, and so on, and so on. Each wave carries a universe. Let’s just say that our universe (together with us) exists in every wave. The universe that we see through telescopes is only part of a more complete picture. It is only one wave of a huge number of them, just the tiniest section of a more global universe. Just like our personality, only a small section of the larger personality that we are. In this picture of the universe, time is motionless, and we are moving relative to it.
This movement occurs in Time, but this is not our time. It is the Time of the Universe. In the Time of the universe, the universe passes our year 2018 again and again. Now, we are passing it. People passed before us and will pass after us. Or to be more precise – we are passing through it again and again, again and again.
If we could fly up and look on this road, on the waves from the top, we could see our past, present and future at the same time. We could see what is happening now say 2000 years ago and what will happen in 2000 years. From the point of view of such an observer from above, any point at the time road – now, 2000 years ago and 2000 years later – exist now. Or more precisely – Now, in the Present Universe. This Present is totally different from our present. It includes our past, our present and our future. It is an infinite number of waves running through the ocean. This present changes because the waves keep moving forward and changing the overall picture of the ocean. This change in the Present is what we call the Time of the Universe.
That which is happening in the Present Universe, let’s say in the part of the road that is 2,000 years ago, can be very different from what was there when our wave passed (when we were there). Then was the Ancient Roman era, the time of Jesus. But, perhaps, there is no Ancient Rome Now, in the Present, i.e. in that wave, which is located Now in this area of the road. And perhaps our civilization is also not there.
Not only the future (the part of the road that our wave has not yet passed) but also the past (the part of the road that our wave has already passed) changes in the present. We can change the Past if we have a time machine. But such changes will not affect our world if we return back to the present on the same time machine. Fantasists and filmmakers do not understand this point.
Our world (our wave) has long ago passed this Past. It is now behind. When we change the Past, it will change that world in the Past, that wave in the Past. This wave behind us is moving forward, and this changed wave will someday reach our current time, 2018. And yes, if we change the past, then 2018 in the Time of the Universe will SOMEDAY be completely different than our wave. But by that time, our wave (together with us) must have moved to the future.
But on the other hand, We (with a capital letter as a more general part of us, which exists throughout the road) will be present in some form in that distant wave, in that distant world. So on the other hand, generally, We will also see the results of these changes. So fantasists are not that wrong all the same.