A Brief Reflection on the Nature of Time

Chris Harding

I have long puzzled as to the nature of time. Many have pointed to the strange one-way nature of time. Recently it has occurred to me that space and time are not in fact at all different from each other. One has only to picture a straight line or one-dimensional object then draw another line at 90 degrees to this. One has a 2-dimensional sheet. From an anchored perspective of the first dimension there is only one direction away from the first line; since the distance is at the point of experience of the second dimension already zero. The same applies to a line drawn at 90 degrees from the sheet. It is only when we move from the third to the fourth dimension that we see again the identical process re-enacted before our gaze. Thus to each of the dimensions the one above them appears ‘time-like’ in its nature. The critical thing is the imbeddedness or starting point of the perception. Thus the laws that operate to create the perception in the first place are a lowest common denominator expression of simplicity. For this reason there will be no laws of the universe which operate in the reverse direction. To the fourth dimension the fifth is equally one-way. But such higher laws will act above space-time and will have no bearing within our ~world~. They are simply too complex to fit into the limited and limiting complexity of ~our~ world. For this reason the laws knowable within our simple universe will be finite and few in number since the number of possible combinations is easily exhausted.

Copyright © 2008 by Christopher P. Harding. All rights reserved.

 

Noesis 187