Time: Real or Illusion?

Is time real? The answer to this question may seem obvious: of course it is! However new developments and findings in physics suggest the non-existence of time is an open possibility i.e., time is an illusion. According to theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli, time is an illusion, as our naive perception of its flow doesn’t correspond to physical reality.

Albert Einstein, one of the most influential physicists to have ever lived wrote, "People like us who believe in physics know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." In other words, time is an illusion. Time is an arbitrary construct, which makes sense when you consider that it's how we make sense of ageing and growing older as the world changes all around us.

Thinkers have been puzzled by the discrepancy between our everyday perception of time and the scientific understanding of time throughout history. Since many in theoretical physics have come to believe that time is fundamentally nonexistent, the gap between the time of physics and the time of experience is now approaching its logical conclusion.

Reality is nothing more than a plethora of occurrences onto which we project timelines of the past, present, and future. The rules of thermodynamics and quantum mechanics, from which time is derived, govern the entire universe. According to Einstein, time is just a fourth dimension, and there is nothing exceptional about the present moment. Even the past and future are not always clearly defined. Due to the malleability of space and time, two events that occur far apart may potentially occur in the same order to one observer and in the opposite order to another. Our incapacity to fully comprehend the world relies totally on how we perceive time to move. We are unable to determine the locations and velocities of every particle in the universe due to quantum uncertainty.

The foundation of our lives is time. In light of what we know about the past, we make plans for the future. But if there isn't really a future to act for, what's the point of trying to make a change in the present? The realisation that time does not exist would seem to put an end to everything. However, the realisation that time does not exist may not directly affect our lives, even though it ushers in a new era in physics.