Is Time A Concept Or A Thing? Can Time Actually Be Created?

Is it possible to create time? If you accept the modern cosmological paradigm that’s exactly what happened 13.8 billion years ago. If you accept that, was the creation of time a once only creation or is the creation of time occurring even as you read this? Or, is the whole idea of literally creating time something only those smoking the good stuff could conceive of, while those of a less befuddled mind view as total bovine fertilizer? It’s the latter IMHO, or should be.

According to the standard model of modern cosmology, the Big Bang event 13.8 billion years ago created both space and time. Exactly what the recipe was isn’t given, but there was this act of creation nonetheless. Again, the standard model gives a scenario that even after the Big Bang event, right up to the present time (and presumably beyond our present time) space is still be created (out of nothing) and thus to make room for all this additional space, space itself has to expand (into what isn’t stipulated) and thus we have the popular phrase that we exist in an “expanding universe”.

But if space itself is expanding, then space is a thing, and things cannot be created out of nothing which is what those advocating an expanding space are, well, advocating.

I have elsewhere examined this issue of expanding space and found it to be IMHO utter claptrap. That’s because the concept of expanding space treats space, as noted above, as if space were a thing. Space is not a thing anymore than society, atheism, Wednesday or velocity is a thing; or beauty. Some thing maybe beautiful, but beauty is not a thing.

Now what about time? The alleged creation of time, unlike that of space, seems to have been a one-off happening at that Big Bang event – or is it? Was time, 13.8 billion years ago, created for all time, unlike space, or is the creation of time an ongoing process?

Time only seems to exist up to and including this very moment – right ‘now’. One second from now is in the future and future time does not yet exist. So is time constantly being created in order for there to be a future? If so, how is it being done, or again, what’s the recipe for creating or cooking up a batch of time? There can’t be a bona fide recipe; otherwise some nerdy geek could create a batch of time at the same time, or within time, which already exists! That concept of creating a bubble of time within existing time should make your head ache!

But relax, there’s no need for the aspirin. There has not been one nanosecond of time created by all the humans who ever were and are (and are likely to be), nor by any of humanity’s machines or devices. No theoretical physicist has ever claimed for example that the Large Hadron Collider could create time, even though it’s supposed to come as close as possible to creating the sort of energies though present at the Big Bang event. Tis a pity actually since many of us feel at times as if there’s not enough time in the day (week, month, or year) to accomplish everything. So wouldn’t it be nice if you could create a bit of extra time on the sly and have a 25 hour day or an eight day week. Sadly, that’s to be realized only in your dreams (or science fiction books and films).

The flipside that one second from now is in the future and future time does not yet exist, is what happened to the time that existed just one second ago? It’s gone. The only record of what happened one second ago rests in your memory or in some recorded device, natural or artificial, all of which only exists or is accessible in the current now. You might remember an event from five years ago, but you remember it ‘now’. A fossil might be evidence of a previous time, but that evidence only exists for your consideration ‘now’. A newsreel film might document an event that happened decades ago, but when you view it you see it ‘now’. When you look at the stars, you see their starlight that was emitted years before, but you see it ‘now’.

It would seem that the only bona fide reality time has is ‘now’. Past time is no longer tangible; future time is yet to be tangible. There’s something very profound about ‘now’ – it’s only in the ‘now’ that things change, and of course change is what gives the concept of time meaning.

But let’s suppose that ‘in the beginning’ time was created ‘in the beginning’. There was a slice of time created at the alpha point – that “now” that gives time ‘reality’ that from the beginning onwards moves forward (in time) until it reaches the omega point. Or, perhaps there was a “now” slice of time created at the alpha point, but that slice stays put while reality moves past it until the omega point is reached. Think of a factory line where there is a row of gizmos (reality) and a worker (time) walks on up the line from gizmo to gizmo and attaches a doohickie to each gizmo in turn from alpha to omega. Or, the worker (time) stands still while a conveyor belt with the gizmos (reality) on it rolls past the worker from alpha to omega while he attaches to each a doohickie in turn.

However, a slice of time is awkward if there’s a different ‘now’ occurrence for different people as viewed by different people. That’s actually a consequence of Einstein’s Special Relativity (see further below).

Why postulate a ‘slice’ of time? Well, as already pointed out, time has no existence in the past and no existence in the future. There’s only that slice of ‘now’ time. How thin is that slice of ‘now’ time? How short is that duration of ‘now’ time? Well there is a concept of the shortest possible interval of time with the caveat that nothing can actually happen in any sense of the term meaningful in any shorter interval of time. Any interval of time can be infinitely subdivided, but there does come a point where nothing of substance can happen if the interval is too short. How short is short? Let’s just say the number of shortest yet meaningful time units that would fit into one traditional second of time vastly, vastly, vastly outnumbers the entire human population past and present. When we say “short”, we really, really, really mean “short”.

But if time were created for the entire duration it would be required for, then that implies some foresight or foreknowledge on the part of the process that created time (or the cook that owns the recipe book). Speaking of the cook, it’s like the cook knowing in advance how big a turkey to buy and prepare for Thanksgiving dinner by knowing in advance how many guests will be present.

If time can be created even if only as a slice of time, then time can cease to be created.

If time were to stop being created, we’d never know since nothing would or could change (which is what time measures – rate of change). We only perceive time because things change from second to second; minute to minute; hour to hour, etc. If time stopped, our hearts would stop in mid-beat, clocks wouldn’t tick, boiling water would stop in mid-boil, and photons on route from the Sun to your eyeball would freeze in mid-space. Presumably if this had ever happened, you’d be none the wiser since that would imply that time was rebooted.

Another fly in the ointment is that while everyone perceives their personal rate of time flow at one second per second (and a second of time by the way is an artificial manmade unit of measurement), not everyone views everyone else’s time flow rate as being one second per second. The flow rate of time, as Einstein pointed out (Special Relativity) is relative. Further, depending on frame of reference, one can see Event A happen before Event B while someone else sees Event B happen before Event A, while a third body sees Event A and Event B happen simultaneously. That’s because it’s the speed of light that’s the physical constant. It does seem odd that in the beginning (assuming a beginning) it wasn’t time or space that was created as being a constant rather it was the speed of light. Actually that makes some sense since both time and space are not things, but light is a thing. However, it’s as if the speed of a batted or thrown baseball was always fixed and the dimensions of the ballpark and the playing field shape-shifted from second to second to accommodate the required outcome!

But adding Special Relativity to the creation of time equation just makes the creation of time recipe super complex. So let’s just drop the idea of time as a thing. Depending on point of view, events happen more or less quickly to others than you think is natural from your frame of reality. You just by force of habit translate that into time units, a habit you need to break.

When it comes to the concept of time, it is second nature to suppose that no matter what starting or alpha point you presume, a question “what came before that?” is obvious even to blind Freddy. Therefore, it is way easier to adopt the philosophy that there was no alpha point (or omega point) – that time has always existed (and will always exist). Therefore, there was no need for time to be created.

If time wasn’t created, was there ever a first moment when time came to be? That would be the case if (and that’s going to be a mighty bug if): 1) time was an intrinsic property of matter and energy, and 2) if matter and energy were created from scratch. Leaving Point 2 aside for another day, time is not a property of matter and energy*. It’s not difficult to imagine a universe with just one electron in it. As far as that electron is concerned there is no time since there is no change to the state of that universe since there is no change, cannot be any change, to the state of the sole inhabitant of that universe – the one and only electron. Therefore time is not an intrinsic property of matter (and energy).

Finally, you cannot see, hear, taste, touch or smell time, nor can any mechanical instrument. You can say that time can be measured, but what are you actually measuring? What you are measuring are the changing properties of things you (or an instrument) can see, hear, etc. What about a clock? What changes on a clock? Well the minute hand moves from 4 to 5 or on a digital watch the reading changes from 4 to 5. There is a change in the properties of the clock or the watch that you can see or hear. You just label that change in the clock’s properties, time. Your label of time is a concept, a human concept.

All concepts, like society or beauty, are created, but in the minds of living things, and not just by human beings either since one can imagine non-humans appreciating beauty. No doubt my cats view a full food bowl as something of great beauty! Of course that means in another sense that time has been created, but by humans (and maybe by other animals) for humans. Just like mathematical concepts (more human inventions) help us come to terms with, or help us explain, reality, ditto our artificially constructed concept of time. You certainly don’t hear cosmologists talk about the Big Bang creating concepts like mathematics, society, Wednesday, birthdays, beauty, atheism or velocity. Concepts like these have no tangibility – you can’t weigh them or put them under a microscope.

Conclusion: Time is the most mysterious facet of the cosmos and of your daily life you ever have to come to terms with, though most people don’t bother. But it needn’t be if you stop thinking of time as a thing and view time as a concept, like say your birthday. Unfortunately, way too many cosmologists imply that time is a thing and that the thing we call time was literally created. It’s very easy to say that time was created at the Big Bang event and those hundreds of cosmologists say exactly that. But it’s quite another thing to produce the recipe for how that was accomplished, and on that point these same cosmologists are very strangely silent on the matter. Extraordinary claims (like stating that time was created) require extraordinary evidence – one of those mantras the scientific community love to hurl at those advocating anything they call pseudoscience – but none is given by those very same cosmologists.

What the Big Bang event did do was set in train all those laws, principles and relationships that govern the cosmos and govern change in the cosmos, which is what our concept of time measures.

So, was time created ‘in the beginning’ – no; ‘once upon a time – that doesn’t work either. No matter how you slice and dice things, the idea that time can be created, like space, is also IMHO utter claptrap. That’s because the concept of creating time treats time as if time were also a thing. Time is no more a thing anymore than space is a thing. But if time itself is being created, then time is a thing, and again things cannot be created out of nothing which is what those advocating the creation of time are, well, advocating.

The easiest way to deal with the concept of time is that that’s exactly what time is – a concept, an abstraction, but not a thing. If time isn’t a thing then time could not be created. If time isn’t a thing, then time travel isn’t possible. You can travel in a thing (i.e. – a car), not in a concept.

*If you consult any science reference book on the fundamental properties of matter and energy, time will not be listed, though things like mass and charge and spin, etc. will be.