Pogovor:Julian Barbour

Dott. Amrit Sorli Dott. Kusum Sorli Osho Miasto Institute Podere San Giorgio 16 53012 Chiusdino (SI), Italy phone: 0039-3488127445 e-mail: spacelife@libero.it

TIMELESS UNIVERSE

In the universe the passing of physical time cannot be clearly perceived as matter and space; one can perceive only irreversible physical, chemical, and biological changes (hereinafter referred to as "change") in cosmic space. On the basis of elementary perception (sight) one can conclude that physical time exists only as a stream of change that runs through cosmic space. The terms "physical time" and "change" describe the same phenomenon. Physical time is irreversible. Change A transforms into change B, B transforms into C and so on. When B is in existence A does not exist anymore, when C is in existence B does not exist anymore. The question arises: Why is it that irreversible physical time is experienced as past, present and future? The answer is obtained by analysing the scientific way of experiencing. The eyes perceive a stream of irreversible change. Once elaborated by the mind, the stream of change is experienced chronologically through psychological time that is a part of the human mind. Let's look at the relationship between physical and psychological time by carrying out an experiment. Take a pen and move it from the left side of the table to the right. You can perceive only the movement of the pen in space, but you experience that the pen has also moved through time. How come? Perception passes first through psychological time and then the experience occurs. That's why you experience the movement of the pen in time. But on the basis of elementary perception (sight) one can only state that the pen has changed position in space. By observing the continuous stream of irreversible physical change humans have developed psychological time through which we experience the universe. Psychological time is reversible. One can go back into past. This creates an idea that physical time also has a past, but this is not so. General Relativity allows for speculation about time travel. Someone could travel through a black hole with a spaceship , go back into the past and kill his grandmother. The consequence is that he could never have been born (1). Travelling into the past through black holes is not possible because physical time is irreversible; the past exists only as psychological time through which it is not possible to travel with a spaceship. The speed of psychological time does not always follow physical time, it depends on one's well-being. The more relaxed you are the slower the speed of psychological time is. In modern society time passes quickly, in so called primitive societies time passed slowly. In an altered state of consciousness, such as meditation, ecstatic dance, deep prayer, psychological time stops. Already in a normal state of health there are, every now and then, aberrations of subjective time such as acceleration or deceleration of lapse of time. Under several mental disturbances (like those characterising serious mental psychoses, drug-induced states, trances, mediations, as well as other deep "altered" states of consciousness), these anomalies / peculiarities become more pronounced. The flux of time may even cease completely (the sensations usually described as "time standing still", or "suspended", arrested" time or expand without limit (the feelings of "everlasting now, eternity") (2). Human consciousness has the capacity to watch the human mind. Everybody can watch his thoughts and emotions. By watching them the speed of thought and the intensity of emotion calms down. Once the mind stops, human consciousness can watch and recognize itself (4). When the mind stops, psychological time stops too. One experiences physical time as he/she perceive it: as a stream of change. One can imagine consciousness as his/her inner space and psychological time as a stream of thoughts running in the inner space. According to the Buddhist tradition the inner space in which stream of thoughts run and outer space in which material change run are undivided. Allan Wallace says: The distinction between external and internal is an illusion; internal and external space are ultimately non-dual. This is the absolute space of phenomena. In Buddhist literature, this is the Great perfection out of which the entire universe originates (3). The understanding of physical time has changed over the ages. For ancient Greeks, Indians, and Mayans, time was considered a cyclic phenomenon; time moving in circles, with no beginning and no end. When Judaeo-Christian civilization arose in Europe, another understanding of time became prominent - time going forward in a straight line. According to this civilization, time has its beginning with God’s creation of the universe and will have its end with the Last Judgement. In Newtonian physics, physical time is an independent quantity (absolute time), running uniformly throughout the entire cosmic space (absolute space). In the General Theory of Relativity, time is no more an independent physical quantity - it is linked with space in four-dimensional space-time. Here physical time is understood as a stream of irreversible change that runs through cosmic space. It is not that change happens in physical time, change itself is physical time. The image of space-time has developed into the image of space in which change runs. We can measure with clocks the duration and speed of change. Experiments with high precision clocks confirm that change runs slower in the parts of universal space where the gravitational field is stronger. The speed of clocks near the sea in Venice is slower than on the mountain Monte Rosa, because gravity is stronger near sea level. The special theory of relativity has put forward the famous "problem of twins"; according to the special relativity, time runs slower in a fast moving space ship than on Earth, so if one of the twins were to travel through space on a fast space ship and return to Earth after five year's time, he would find himself younger than his brother who would have stayed home. Experiments with high precision clocks taken aboard fast planes have verified this. And this is where the question arises: Does time in fast flying planes really run slower than on Earth? To be empirically consequent, one has to admit that by means of an elementary perception (sight) it is only possible to conclude that the speed of clocks in a moving plane is smaller than on Earth. It is only by indirect reasoning that we interpret different clock speeds as meaning different time running speeds in the plane and on Earth. By observing the clocks in the plane and on Earth, it is only possible to state that the speed of change in fast moving inertial systems is lower than in slower inertial systems. Take two space ships heading towards one another on two parallel straight lines, the former moving at v1=0.5 c, the latter at v2=0.001 c (where c = speed of light). In the moment the two space ships meet, the clocks are set. The clocks on the former will run slower than the clocks on the latter, spacemen on the former will grow old slower than spacemen on the latter. The hypothesis that time as a physical quantity runs slower on the first ship than on the second, is only our deduction, and it cannot be empirically proven. According to this understanding time is not a consistent part of the universe. It exists only as a "by-product" of the matter that change in the cosmic space. In the universe time does not run. Universe is an eternal self-renewing system in dynamic equilibrium. Big bangs are cyclic, they have no beginning and will have no end (4). Researches of several scientist confirm the that thesis: Kompanichenko from Russia, Turok from Cambridge and Steinhardt from Princeton. It makes sense only for humans that morning is before the evening, that father is born before the son. From the point of the universe "change before" and "change after" makes no sense, they all happen in the eternity. The idea of creation of the universe belongs to the past. There is no God that has created Universe, Universe itself is God. That's why all over the universe matter has an intrinsic tendency to evolve into life and then into conscious species (5). Human evolution is directed towards discovery of the divine quality of the universe.

References 1. Paul Davis (1995), About Time, Chapter 11, Time Travels: Reality of Fantasy?, Orion Productions 2. Rosolino, Metod, Endo-Physical Paradigm and Mathematics of Subjective Time, Frontier Perspectives, Volume 12, Number 1 3. Alan Wallace (2001), The Potential of Emptiness: Vacuum States in Physics and Consciousness, The Scientific and Medical Network Review, No 77 4. Sorli (2002) Conscious Experience of The Universe, The Journal of Psychospiritual Transformation, Numer 3, PSRI PRESS, New York 5. Sorli (2003), Evolution As An Universal Process, Human Evolution Research Institute, Madrid, "http://www.humanevol.com/doc/doc200309200123.html"