The Unveiling of Time

 

We are living a life of expectations and predictable thoughts instead of truly experiencing life as it is. If we continue this way, we might die without ever knowing what life is. Philosophically, we can consider what we experience as time to be change. Therefore, everything changes, experiences time, and responds to it.

Is there anything that doesn’t respond to time? Is change a product of something that doesn’t change? It’s hard to imagine, because without change, is it even possible for anything to exist?

The Delayed-Choice Double-Slit Experiment and the Observer Effect

These questions bring to mind the delayed-choice double-slit experiment and the observer effect. I find this experiment to be mind-boggling and incredibly powerful.

In simple terms, when electrons are sent through a double-slit apparatus without a detector, they act as a wave, creating an interference pattern. However, when we place a detector to observe which slit the electron passes through, it acts as a particle, and the interference pattern disappears.

What’s even more fascinating is the delayed-choice variation. When two entangled electrons are used, one hitting a near detector and the other a far one, the outcome of the near electron’s fate is still dependent on whether the far one is observed, even if the far electron reaches its destination later. The near electron, which isn’t directly observed, still behaves as a particle because of the observation made on its entangled pair, regardless of the time delay. The fates of these entangled particles are completely dependent on each other; if you observe one, its wave function collapses, and the other instantly shows particle-like behavior as well, demonstrating that time doesn’t seem to matter in entanglement.

Entanglement, Time, and Reality

This suggests that entanglement itself may be a state that doesn’t “change” or respond to the passage of time. Some people suggest that this points to other possibilities, such as multiple realities.

In one interpretation, the delayed electron’s wave function doesn’t truly collapse. Instead, in one reality it behaves as a particle, and in another, it remains a wave. This also suggests that when a future outcome is fixed, realities are automatically revealed that are consistent with that future. No matter what we did or are doing in the past and present, it will lead to a fixed future. This raises questions about free will: perhaps our choices are illusions, and we’re simply choosing between different realities. Or maybe both realities exist simultaneously, and our consciousness simply “chooses” one to experience.

The most important takeaway is that the universe seems to be responding to us. It changes based on our observation. It's as If the universe is holding secrets or communicating with us.

Time  and entanglement .

This might suggest that time isn’t attached to everything. Instead, everything flows on its own, with time acting as a shared sequence, much like a flock of birds flying together

Instead of time being a chain that binds everything, imagine it as a river. All of existence—matter, energy, and events—are like boats on this river. Each boat has its own course, but they are all carried along by the current. This means that while things change at their own pace, they are all moving in the same fundamental direction, along with the flow of time.

This perspective challenges the common view of time as an active agent. In my analogy, it’s not that time makes the birds fly, but that the birds are flying within a shared context—the sky, which represents time. Similarly, everything changes and moves on its own, but it does so within the universal constant of time.

This viewpoint has interesting implications for concepts like entanglement. An entanglement could be seen as two birds in the same flock that are somehow connected, even if they’re far apart. Their movements are linked, not because of a direct, instantaneous command from a higher power, but because they are part of the same connected system moving through the river of time. This connection is not a violation of time, but rather a unique feature of how they exist within it.

Metaphorically

We can view everything in the universe as having been part of a single entity at one time. Due to a period of rapid expansion, these components spread throughout the cosmos. In the spaces between them, an invisible web of connections, or “threads,” was woven, linking each particle and giving rise to the fabric of spacetime. This fabric acts as a vast stage for the “actor” we call change.