We are constantly travelling through time but what truly is it?

• Source: http://www.guoguiyan.com/time-wallpapers.html

---

Physical, Natural and Historical

In basic terms, some may say that time comes in three forms: physical, natural, and historical.

Something like physical space-time is linear. It arose when the Big Bang singularity underwent some sort of quantum fluctuation causing the spontaneous unravelling and rapid expansion of the universe that continues to this day and people may mark time starting from the beginning of that point.

Natural time consists of life and death. It is a cyclical structure that keeps forever looping and at the end followed by 'rebirth'. These cycles repeat over physical time, being perpetuated by natural processes such as the evolution of stars, the rotation of planets, and the life cycles of organisms. As @kiligirl said, 'we are all stardust'.

Moreover, by rebirth, I'm not saying you come back as another human in your attempt to reach enlightenment. In this case, I'm talking about how your body and natural compounds are returned back in o the ground to carry on this cycle of life.

When we talk in regards to historical time, this would contain things like documentation of human affairs which combines both linear and cyclical times.

What truly defines time?

If time is defined as a dimension then, if time doesn't change/move/flow then change wouldn't occur. So my question is, is time an agent of change or is it change which gives time legitimacy?

Time as we know it seems to flow in one direction and dragging everything along with it, much like gravity which pushes us down. Our entire lives, most of us will fight this downward force but we have also been able to experience no gravity so is there a possibility to experience no time or something close to it?

The closest thing to it may be time travel, it would open up the possibility of paradoxes occurring, but this in itself is not enough to make time travel itself impossible. If time is affected by the gravitational forces of a black hole, then time is physical and not abstract and something we may not be able to manipulate and control.

Many of us realise this but we are constantly looking at the past. It takes time for light to travel. The further away an object is, the further back in time we are looking. It also takes time for our brains to process the information it receives. So even when looking in a mirror at your own reflection, you are seeing a fractionally younger version of yourself. If that mirror was far enough away, you could see yourself coming to stand in front of the mirror. One man's past could be another man's future.

We see all these stars twinkling above us at night (well that is if you are lucky enough to experience this) could be the light of starts that have died many years ago but we wouldn't know it.

Presentism

There are other stances such as presentism which is the philosophical position that only the present moment exists, ie the past and future do not exist. Time is the process by which 'future' is transformed into 'past'. Non-presentism is the position that the past and present exist equally which is the stance I hold. I think you will always have the future and I've written about before how the future can be predetermined despite the fact you may be living in the present now.

Conclusively, I think that time is the distance that is created between two events. If all events everywhere are simultaneous, there is no time. If there are no events, there is no time. However, If I go from one event to another, I have travelled through time. You have certain milestones, bridges and events to pass reaching new places and in this action, you are going through time.

This quote made me laugh so I'd like to share it with you:

Thank You for Reading!