Time exists because of the intrinsic dynamism of matter. Electrons revolve around the nucleus. Planets revolve around the sun. Movement and time are intertwined. Remove motion, time stands still. But still exists as matter exists. Remove matter and time is erased. Matter is but energy personified. Electron protons neutrons, all oscillating between their elemental energy and physical forms. Pulsating between being and non being. When matter bursts forth from energy as an entity with mass, time is created. Time is but an entity, a manifestation.
Time is what makes this life seem like what it is. This perception of our minds that sees life as a passage through time.
Is time an illusion? Is time exclusive to this span between birth and death?
The past, present and the future are all singular at an instant. It is just our perception that stretches them out on a timeline, into the known and the yet unknown. Imagine consciousness as the pull of a zipper. As it runs along the two strands, experiences are locked into consciousness and the point of the zipper’s tag is perceived as the present moment, the zipped or intertwined part, the past and the free strands, the unknown future.
After all, the conscious brain started developing only a few million years ago and is evolutionarily still young, compared to other life functions. Consciousness seems to be limited to animals with brains. Are plants conscious? Or is their subconscious blissfully taking care of all the functions of living. Is consciousness even necessary to live? After all, all of our most important life sustaining functions are done unconsciously – breathing, blood flow, immunity..
Just like our perception of color and texture makes things seem so different than they really are, our perception of time is also an illusion Our conscious brain which is dependent on our senses is probably only capable of awareness at specific points and comes into awareness much as the zipper going through the teeth on the strands, the awareness and perception of present is defined as awareness of the conscious mind. The past present and future are always there like the teeth of the zipper. Its our awareness of those that moves, not our lives.
