This is the best explanation for the universe and time that I have seen. A quick overview:
Eternalism is a philosophical theory of time positing that all moments—past, present, and future—are equally real and exist simultaneously within a four-dimensional “block universe”. It rejects the idea that only the present moment exists, treating time as a dimension similar to space where no moment is inherently special.
Key Concepts of Eternalism
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The Block Universe: Time is viewed as a static, pre-existing structure (a manifold) containing all events from the Big Bang to the future.
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Equally Real: The past (e.g., the Roman Empire) and future (e.g., events 100 years from now) are just as real as the present moment.
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Indexical ‘Now’: “Now” is considered similar to “here”—a subjective, relative perspective rather than an objective, changing reality.
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No Objective Flow: Time does not “flow” or “pass” in an absolute sense; the perception of flow is an internal experience rather than a fundamental feature of the universe.
Theoretical Basis and Contrasts
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Physics Support: Eternalism is strongly supported by special and general relativity, specifically the relativity of simultaneity, which suggests observers cannot agree on a universal “now”.
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Contrast with Presentism: Presentism argues that only the present moment exists, making the past and future non-existent.
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Contrast with Growing Block: The growing block theory holds that the past and present exist, but the future does not yet exist.
This makes a lot of sense. Einstein showed that time is akin to another spatial dimension, and that there is no preference for the arrow of time to move only “forward” (from our perspective) and that other points in time are no less real than what we call the present moment. Likewise in modern physics there is an equation (I forgot the name of it) that was attempting to create a UFT by combining Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, when they combined the equations for both together into one equation the time variable ‘t’ cancelled out, vanished. Also Einstein said there is no preference for past or future “before” one another and there is a principle in physics that says causality can work just as well in reverse, if you boil things down to the tiny level of causes and effects. Think about that in terms of Thermodynamics, every action with its equal and opposite reaction.
All that being said, I will propose the idea that reality is a gigantic probability field, since that seems to be in line with what modern quantum theories say. Parts of the field become more ‘dense’ or physically solid-fixed in spacetime depending on logical necessity to be that way, what we call “observation”. Observation is one part of the probability cloud intruding or impinging upon another part, combining variables and vectors in a way that forces alignments into the same spacetime that must emerge from that merger congruent somehow, aligned and integrated. Like when we observe the photon it acts like a particle, when we do not observe it then it acts like a distributed wave.
If all of existence is like this, think about every part of existence as a set of many sub-units of the probability cloud.
This also explains things like alternate or parallel universes as well as procedural generation (simulation theory). The combination of eternalism with existence as a vast probability cloud makes sense from every angle. It can explain how existence has no start or end, it can explain eternal recurrence, it might even explain (or at least allows for) supernatural phenomena including the existence of what we call gods and higher beings. If the probability cloud is seen as vast and multi-dimensional, stacked with layers within layers, so that one layer can collapse while other meta- and sub-layers remain as they are. And these supernatural things from our perspective are somewhat phased out of our reality, we might have some vague experiences with them but generally they do not play a physical or primary role in our lives that we can observe, because they are parts of the probability space so out of sync and far away from us that if they were to directly interact they might cause significant changes to our part of reality. Like if a human tried to deliberately interact with an ant, what would that experience be like for the ant? Very dangerous and very confusing.
Lastly, eternalism and existence as a probability cloud explains the big bang and what happens at the end of the universe. The totality of our universe being one large aspect of the cloud, but not the entirety of the cloud since there are probably countless other universes and dimensions out there too, but in our particular realm of the cloud things unwind over time via entropy; energy stalls and assumes more chaotic forms, things get colder and more spread out, as science always says will happen to our universe in an eventual cold death because everything is gradually moving away from everything else. Eventually everything dissolves, even black holes, and all matter converts to energy and the tiniest subatomic particles again, spread out from each other more and more… this process is resetting the probability cloud.
Eventually the situation approaches the pure probability cloud itself, as all particles dissolve into pure energies and the entire ‘universe’ merges back into one gigantic quantum probability wave function again. At that point the universe is “reset” back to beginning. Then at some point another big bang event will occur, because it is statistically not impossible for such an event to happen. It doesn’t matter how long it takes because time is meaningless in this state. It could take a trillion trillion trillion years and it would be the same as if it took a fraction of a second. This also works well within the “block universe” concept of eternalism.
Anyway, eventually another explosion “big bang” takes place from within the probability cloud, energies interacting upon each other forming particles in physical spacetime and this keeps expanding until the total probability space is encapsulated by the event. A new universe has been born. All energy converged and exploded out of a single point, just like the wave function of a photon is forced to assume a single particle-like form at one point rather than spread out across space and time. Imagine that on the universal scale, that’s the big bang.
And it keeps cycling over and over, the “block” already containing every possible configuration and outcome of everything. 5D or 6D reality would be observing the block itself, it is self-observing or perhaps the cloud itself generates a minimum sufficient amount of observational effect. Each iteration of reality exists somewhere in the block, with every outcome in space and time that energy and form every assumed in past or present being one small point within the block. Each point is physically and metaphysically the same as every other point, none has special treatment or character. “We” are just a tube stretched out across a number of points, from our birth to eventual death, and we experience one point at a time within linear causality because to us, causality only acts in one direction due to how entropy works. The linearity of time as an arrow going forward only is simply the result of entropy creating the tendency of things to fall apart rather than spontaneously get put back together. While reverse time is logically possible it is very rare because of the statistical pressure of entropy always in the background of our universe.
Every thing, every event, every life, every moment is the result of a statistical possibility partly converged into a semi-stable result given parameters of ‘observations’ going on around it. Relativity shows that time is not one thing, and simultaneity is a lie which also means that the idea of there being only “one me” at this “one time only” is also false, there are countless other “me’s” out there at varied places and times all relative to other observers’ frames of reference. It all exists together, all possible points and configurations in space and time. All smaller parts and units of the larger totality of the probability cloud itself, locked forever in cycles between starting and ending universes as the cloud returns to original ‘pure’ form to reset the whole equation of itself again, only to eventually big bang another universe into being and the whole thing gradually unwinds again.
