What is Time?

Time is indeed a topic of mystery. Though time is intimately woven into the fabric of our everyday lives, few can succeed in even defining what it actually is! What is it about time that makes it so hard to approach? Perhaps we can best confront time by means of using an analogy to understand it. What model, what analogy, or what example, could be set down as a means of better conveying to us what time is? One way of doing so would be to think of the universe as being a giant, cosmic "movie". This, quite clearly, makes sense, because the playing of a movie involves time, as does the evolution of the universe. Let us take this a step further. Imagine that we have before us a VHS video cassette. Contained on the magnetic surface of the video tape is a full-length movie. This movie represents all of time - from the beginning of the universe, to its very end. For all practical purposes, we are to consider the video cassette to represent GOD - all and everything that is.

When the cassette is played in a VCR, the metal reading head of the VCR both receives, as well as experiences the passing by of, sections of the magnetic tape, as the VCR reels through the tape one inch at a time. Hence, when a movie is playing, it advances in a linear, sequential manner. What this means, in turn, is that for any given time during the active display of the movie, a determined, specific inch of the tape will be in contact with the metal reading head. This is our experience of the tape in the cosmic VCR: we experience the movie according to a passing present moment. God, however, experiences the movie all at once: he needs no metal reading head. What does this mean? It means that God experiences the movie "timelessly": though to us the tape moves past the metal reading head one inch at a time, there as a matter of fact happens to be simultaneously contained within the video cassette the entire movie from beginning to end - coiled up around both reels - regardless of what part of the tape is in contact with the metal reading head at the moment. This is what we call existing "outside of time" - being aware of the entire tape in but an instant - which is how God experiences the cosmic movie. Let us move on.

Let it be made clear that though the moment-to-moment scenes displayed when the movie is being played are always in a state of constant transition, the movie on the video cassette tape itself, take note, never changes. The movie, quite simply, has been filmed, recorded, and completed, you see, in its entirety. When the movie is played, it is shown exactly as it was filmed, no exceptions. What does this tell us about the real world? It tells us that all of time - from the beginning of the universe to its very end - already exists! (That is, it has already been filmed, so to speak, and is all on tape.) This further tells us that if the universe is a giant video cassette playing in a cosmic VCR, the future already exists and cannot be changed!

This poses a problem. The human experience tells us that we do not live in a universe in which the future 'already exists', and that in reality we are actually making decisions in the present moment that affect a yet-to-be-created future. To question the idea that we are in fact affecting an uncreated future, quite evidently, would seem an absurd point of view. However, I, based upon my own convictions, will present my opinion on this issue in an attempt to resolve the apparent conflict. Let us do so. There are, then, 2 elements one will find in every movie - moving pictures and sound. They are 2 separate entities, however - each is not aware of the other: they run "side by side". In the movie that we call the real world, there exist 2 similar elements at work - mind and matter. How does this fit in to a future that we can change through present-moment decisions? What must first be realized is that mind and matter, as with the famous mind-matter proposition of Descartes, do not interact: they are not 'connected' in the way in which we have come to understand them as being connected. Given this, thoroughly consider the following mental proposal - only an idea, but yet one worthy of consideration.

In the cosmic VCR, only the matter aspect of reality is recorded (unlike with a typical VCR in which both aspects - moving pictures and sound - are recorded). For every nanosecond from the beginning of time to its very end, all matter in the universe assumes the state that is in precise accordance with what is recorded on the cosmic video tape. Mind, however, exists independently of the matter. What do I mean by this? Mind "comments" on the 'gear-and-bolt' clockwork matter that it encounters everywhere. It observes, takes notes, and ponders. Matter, you see, will always assume its time-designated state appropriate to the precise present moment in time, regardless of whether or not mind is in accordance with it. This theory serves as an explanation as to why we perceive the future to be uncreated, affected by present-moment decisions, when it actually already exists: what our minds think and believe, take note, is not recorded on the cosmic video tape, and we are free to think and believe whatever we wish, which may in fact be the belief that our present-moment decisions affect an uncreated future. Quite simply, nothing we think or believe will ever affect the matter aspect of what is recorded on the cosmic video tape.

The reason it appears that our thoughts and decisions affect the matter is because our minds have "taught" themselves to follow along with the matter that they observe. Think, for example, of a person reading a book: though the person's thoughts change as they advance through the book page by page, what is in the book does not amongst those thoughts change in any way whatsoever. Put this into consideration. In conclusion, then, it is apparent that we are in as little danger of altering the future as we are of altering the past. And who is there among us who thinks that he can alter the past? This, in summary, has been but a humble effort to shed a dim light on one of the many sides of the mystery that we call time.