Is time travel possible? (Yes.) Can we alter the past? (No.) Can we "branch" the universe by going backwards in time and there altering the past? (Probably not.) Is time infinite? (Yes, but the total amount of time that has transpired at any point in time is finite.) And what is time, anyway? Is it just another dimension? (No - it stands very distinct from spatial dimensions.) Can it be resolved into the ulimate Theory Of Everything? (Not as merely another facet of gravitation, light and magnetism.) Will there be time in Heaven? (Yes.) How old is God? (About 6,000 years - although before you stone me, remember that there was nothing to measure the length of His existence by before He created years. Therefore, in terms of anything measurable, He's only existed for about 6,000 years.)
All these questions are easily answered when approaching the topic from the right perspective.
A note on perspective : modern philosophy adulates the purported incomprehensibility of all things. Hey - this article looks pretty incomprehensible upside-down through a stained-glass window, especially if you've never seen Latin letters before. Point being : if from 99 perspectives it looks incomprehensible, and from one it all makes sense, you're earth's biggest fool if you deny the comprehensible perspective on account of the purported incomprehensibility of it all.
Our analysis will start by answering the hardest question of all : what is time? - and the rest will flow from there.
Different types of time
"I have lots of dough." Do I mean money, or something edible? Using one word for two different things is fine, but if the hearer doesn't realise that the one word can have very different meanings, they end up very confused.So it is with "time". There are at least five different types of "time".
In a nutshell :
- Time type "A" : An event - a moment - the smallest unit of time;
- Time type "B" : A series of events or moments - a period of time;
- B1 : Personal experiential time;
- B2 : Group experiential time;
- B3 : Physics reference time;
