1. The puzzling issue about the past.
Time, as understood by Einstein (as I understand it), is a dimension along which energy is spread. Unlike spatial dimensions, it only allows movement in one direction. If objects could travel in the other direction, considered "the past" by us, what would await them there?
We are in the present, out of the past, and so is everything else around us. Is there still something left back there? A copy of the universe? A past version of all the energy and matter?
If so, we need to ask: what is the "refresh rate" of the universe? If the 4-dimensional universe consists of a series of frozen snapshots, arranged along the time dimension, how many of those snapshots do we need for e.g. one second of existence?
Or is existence truly continuous, so that no matter how small time interval you observe, you can always still find change in the state of the universe during that interval?
2. ...and the present
Also, I get it the theory of relativity (the general version) states that there is no fixed point of "now". Time moves slower with increased velocity. So my present becomes the future for a jet pilot, although the time lag is extremely small and can never be utilized. Still, objects with different velocities (like the jet pilot and me) co-exist despite the time lag. They share the same universe and can share information with each other. I assume that this co-existence in time equals the concept of "now" as we understand it, in relation to past, which we have no way of reaching or future, which we will reach only when a given amount of time has passed - not earlier or sooner.
3. The future?
As mentioned in 2., we can't reach the future - our relative future - earlier than what the relative passage of time permits us to. This implies, to my mind, that the future is fixed, set and waiting for us. It exists in the sense that the past exists, as is assumed here in 1. It exists immutable, connected to the events in the relative past but not dependent upon it.
4. A frozen, infinitely massive universe. What could be thought of this (1., 2. and 3.), is that time-space is a possibly infinite continuum of mass and movement (i.e., energy) that forms a series of events of logical and natural order; and, that causality or choice do not exist in the reality of this time-space continuum. The energy of the time-space (its mass) is the total of this continuum. If there is no "refresh rate" as in 1., i.e. if the time-space is truly continuous and has no gaps in the time dimension, it's mass would be infinite even if the universe had a fixed end point in time. According to current knowledge, however, there is no such end point to be reached - universe will just keep expanding infinitely. This leads to it having infinite mass even in the case time was quantized, so that it could only be divided so far and not further - a "smallest unit" of time existing. Even in this case the fact that the universe expands forever would make its total mass infinite, because the space continuum would be infinitely "long", or rather, of infinite duration.
2. ...and the present
Also, I get it the theory of relativity (the general version) states that there is no fixed point of "now". Time moves slower with increased velocity. So my present becomes the future for a jet pilot, although the time lag is extremely small and can never be utilized. Still, objects with different velocities (like the jet pilot and me) co-exist despite the time lag. They share the same universe and can share information with each other. I assume that this co-existence in time equals the concept of "now" as we understand it, in relation to past, which we have no way of reaching or future, which we will reach only when a given amount of time has passed - not earlier or sooner.
3. The future?
As mentioned in 2., we can't reach the future - our relative future - earlier than what the relative passage of time permits us to. This implies, to my mind, that the future is fixed, set and waiting for us. It exists in the sense that the past exists, as is assumed here in 1. It exists immutable, connected to the events in the relative past but not dependent upon it.
4. A frozen, infinitely massive universe. What could be thought of this (1., 2. and 3.), is that time-space is a possibly infinite continuum of mass and movement (i.e., energy) that forms a series of events of logical and natural order; and, that causality or choice do not exist in the reality of this time-space continuum. The energy of the time-space (its mass) is the total of this continuum. If there is no "refresh rate" as in 1., i.e. if the time-space is truly continuous and has no gaps in the time dimension, it's mass would be infinite even if the universe had a fixed end point in time. According to current knowledge, however, there is no such end point to be reached - universe will just keep expanding infinitely. This leads to it having infinite mass even in the case time was quantized, so that it could only be divided so far and not further - a "smallest unit" of time existing. Even in this case the fact that the universe expands forever would make its total mass infinite, because the space continuum would be infinitely "long", or rather, of infinite duration.
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