Arguments Against the Existence of Time

I would first premise that “time” as we conceive of it can have no beginning and no end. I elaborated on that thought fully in another article, “On Limitations,” but I will give a brief explanation of how I reached that conclusion here as well.

If we were to rewind the clock of time back to the supposed beginning of existence, what would we have witnessed? To believe in a “beginning” implies the existence of a time of non-existence. Do you see the paradox in this? If for a moment we allowed for the position that “something came from nothing,” the dictates of semantics and rationality would quickly bring this impossibility in from the cold, and into the folds of harmonious reason, saying that though it be featureless and indescribable in every way, by its connection to what exists, and by its recognition in the mind, it must necessarily be ranked among the mass of things that exist.

The same applies to an end, for going into the ground implies the existence of this “ground,” just as much as being unearthed from it. Even if it is a black and empty nothingness, if it can be referred to, if it is the state preceding reality as we now know it, even if it is impossible to define or describe, it must be said to have existed. Any finite conception of time is bound by this paradox at its start and end, and this paradox makes it infinite once more by necessity. It would be more sensible to simply try to wrestle with the fact that there is no beginning or end to the physical reality, though that requires the difficult undertaking of conceding that an assertion can be both undeniably true and forever incomprehensible.

Though time must go on infinitely into the future and the past, we conceive of time as something to be quantified. We promise to return in 5 minutes, or to see someone the next day, or to accomplish a goal by the end of the year. No one can argue that there is not a practical utility to the concept of time, but how have we cut a finite piece from an infinite whole? In truth, we have not. Einstein taught us this with his theory of relativity. The very next second you will experience passes in a moment for you, but may take a million years to pass for another. Students of Einstein’s theory will know that this is based on relative velocity — that is, the faster one is going the slower time moves for them — which brings us to our second point.

Einstein’s theory was hinted at in the formula for velocity, which predates him. The formula is as follows:

Velocity = distance/time

For those who aren’t fans of math, it simply reads that the more distance you’re crossing in the least amount of time, the faster you’re going. Naturally, if the time to cross that distance increases, the velocity is lower; if the time decreases, the velocity must be higher. Again, this formula that depicts an inverse relationship for velocity and time was around well before Einstein, and that inverse correlation is something many people probably noticed but took for granted, and thus didn’t fully unpack the ramifications of. But what we have here is the most fundamental understanding of time available to humanity, and it defines time only in relation to velocity and distance.

To show you just how fundamental this is, I would refer you to the analog clock, or even the sundial. What is an analog clock really, with its hands circling about so steadily? It’s a constant velocity. It’s simply something moving at a steady speed across set markers of distance. This was our standard for time before the digital clock, and before this was the sundial. The sundial used another revolving and steady velocity: the rate at which the sun appears to move across the sky throughout the day.

Time is defined everywhere only in terms of velocity. If everything in existence were to start moving a little bit faster, except for you, it would be impossible for anyone to argue that what happened was not everything else speeding up, but that time had indeed slowed down for you; and if everything besides you were to suddenly go slower, it would be impossible for anyone to argue that time had not instead just sped up for you. If time has no independent existence, if it is more appropriately called “relative velocity,” then how can it be said to indeed be?

“Time” as a concept is so natural to humans because of memory. We need to place our memories somewhere. They are pictures of things that happened, and the linearity by which we organize them leads us intuitively to this concept. But the reality is that linking our memories to a specific time is fine from a subjective point-of-view — and with the aid of a few steady, relative velocities — but linking them to a specific time in any objective way would be like drawing an imaginary circle on the surface of a river, and saying, “That water in the circle is what I’m referring to.” In your mind, the circle may stay in one spot, but the water rushes on and is indistinguishable from all around it.

Our intuitive sense that time must be a “real” thing is not dissimilar to how we must believe in the concept of “life,” when there is so much overlap between a car, a bacterium, a weather system, and a virus that it is hard to say how three are not alive while one is; or how we set about determining when life ends, since it may be when the heart stops beating, though that organ is often restarted, or when we stop breathing, though that function too has been reactivated many times; and it is perhaps even more of a challenge to say when it starts. “Life” and “time” are useful concepts for sentient beings, but they are ill-defined at best, and you wouldn’t find much to them beyond their subjective interpretation.

It is, of course, a hallmark of human behavior to overlay the imagined over what is, but in the words of Alfred Korzybski, “the map is not the territory.” We can give this or that a name, but that does not necessary allow it a discrete existence. We can call something a country, and we will define it by its government, land holdings, people, etc., but the land holdings will change, as well as the government and the people, and we will still call that country by the same name. We call a song a “song,” but no one can mark the point at which a slow transition from the sound of rain, or the sound of static, or the bouncing of a ball, finally becomes a song or not. These things exist for us subjectively, and we recognize them intuitively, but search for them in objective reality, and there is no such thing to be found.

We find it difficult to look at the world without these concepts. However, their utility doesn’t give them true validity. If we cannot ascribe time a beginning or end, or an existence beyond that of being a simple comparison of velocities, then we cannot grant that it actually exists. Gravity is a physical force that attracts matter to itself. Water is an inorganic compound consisting of H₂O molecules. A star is a huge cloud of gas collapsing in on itself and producing light and heat from nuclear fusion. These are things that can be given independent definitions and thereby deemed to have an actual existence. Time is a useful concept, but it does not exist.

Conclusion

The argument above is not for purely theoretical purposes. Look at the incredible significance of Einstein’s work proving that time was relative. It turned the world of physics on its head, and the nature of reality as was commonly understood by all. It served as a stepping stone for countless theoretical and technological advances that would follow in its wake. I believe that holding on to time at all as an objective component of reality, as opposed to a purely utilitarian concept, is an impediment to progress in the sciences.

It is a difficult conclusion to reach, but many of the most basic elements which we ascribe to reality are, quite naturally, based on the particular vantage point that we have as singular beings, but this point-of-view is inherently bound to a tiny fragment of the whole. The reality beyond our perception is a very different one from the reality that we perceive. Though I find the argument even more challenging to make, I believe the concept of distance itself has a purely subjective nature as well. Anything that can only be defined in relative terms is likely to be open to new and confounding interpretations. Greater minds than mine will eventually find answers to what lies beyond our subjective impressions, whereas I can only posit the question, but even I can see that there is no substance to one of the pillars of reality as we know it, and that it is likely to continue to pose an issue for us as we move into realms of existence beyond human experience, such as with quantum mechanics.

More important than any one discovery in this regard is this way of thinking itself. We need to learn to question our most fundamental assumptions of reality as we see it. There is a far-sightedness to human awareness, and the things that we hold closest to our base understanding often conceal our most critical blind spots.

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