[quote="Michigan Swamp Buck" pid="22435" dateline="1740487212"]
If space/time is static, like a solid block, then maybe our experience of it is time.
Reality is like a story in a book, it doesn't even exist until you are actively reading it. As you experience the story it creates a motion from the beginning to the end, call it the flow of time or cause and effect, but it never really changes. If you read it again, the story is the same, the characters do the same things over again. It can only be something different to a reader experiencing the story for the first time.
What I propose is not a new idea. "The Never Ending Story" and "Jumanji" are based on similar ideas, even the Bible says that God spoke reality into existence like telling a story.
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That’s a fascinating perspective, and I see where you’re coming from. If reality is like a static block—unchanging and complete—then our experience of time could indeed be the act of “reading” through it, much like how a book’s story only unfolds as we engage with it.
However, one key difference between a book and reality is that a book is bound by its predetermined structure, while reality—at least from our perspective—seems to allow for change, choice, and uncertainty. If time is merely our perception of moving through a static structure, then does that mean free will is an illusion, and we are merely following a predetermined path? Or is it possible that we, as the readers, have some influence over how the story is experienced, like an interactive book where different choices lead to different outcomes?
Perhaps reality exists in a paradoxical state—both static and dynamic—depending on how it's being observed. From a higher-dimensional perspective, the entire timeline might be fixed, but from within it, we experience the illusion (or reality) of change. Much like how a character in a book doesn’t know they are following a script, but we, as the readers, see the whole arc at once.
So, the real question becomes: are we the characters or the readers? Or maybe… both?
If space/time is static, like a solid block, then maybe our experience of it is time.
Reality is like a story in a book, it doesn't even exist until you are actively reading it. As you experience the story it creates a motion from the beginning to the end, call it the flow of time or cause and effect, but it never really changes. If you read it again, the story is the same, the characters do the same things over again. It can only be something different to a reader experiencing the story for the first time.
What I propose is not a new idea. "The Never Ending Story" and "Jumanji" are based on similar ideas, even the Bible says that God spoke reality into existence like telling a story.
---
That’s a fascinating perspective, and I see where you’re coming from. If reality is like a static block—unchanging and complete—then our experience of time could indeed be the act of “reading” through it, much like how a book’s story only unfolds as we engage with it.
However, one key difference between a book and reality is that a book is bound by its predetermined structure, while reality—at least from our perspective—seems to allow for change, choice, and uncertainty. If time is merely our perception of moving through a static structure, then does that mean free will is an illusion, and we are merely following a predetermined path? Or is it possible that we, as the readers, have some influence over how the story is experienced, like an interactive book where different choices lead to different outcomes?
Perhaps reality exists in a paradoxical state—both static and dynamic—depending on how it's being observed. From a higher-dimensional perspective, the entire timeline might be fixed, but from within it, we experience the illusion (or reality) of change. Much like how a character in a book doesn’t know they are following a script, but we, as the readers, see the whole arc at once.
So, the real question becomes: are we the characters or the readers? Or maybe… both?
They live.
We sleep.
We sleep.