so, its 2:19 in the morning and I can’t sleep…
so I start to think because I don’t have anything better to do at 2:19
in the morning…
I am just thinking and I come across thinking about time…
on the kitchen table, where I am currently, I leave about papers
on subjects and notes I want to cover here… and I have one on
time, I haven’t gotten to… so I was thinking about time…and I
got around to thinking about Einstein and what was his thoughts
about time… and I thought, wait didn’t he write about space/time…
as one subject…not two, not space…then time, no, space/time…
as one subject… we say that the next galaxy, the nearest galaxy
to us is the Andromeda galaxy which is 2.5 million light years from us…
this galaxy is 2.5 million light years away… now what is 2.5 million
light years? is it a distance? or is it a measure of time? yes…
2.5 million light years is both a distance and time… space/time…
because 2.5 million light years is so inconceivable as both time
and distance, we have no real sense of just how far away the
Andromeda galaxy really is…if we could, we can’t, but if we could
travel at the speed of light, it would take us 2.5 million years
to reach the nearest galaxy…at vast distances, time and space
are truly the exact same thing…but what of more mundane
matters of time/space…he lives 5 minutes from here…
now if we can decide on the method of how to travel that 5 minutes
we can gauge the distance that “he” lives from us…in high school,
many, many years ago, I could run a mile in 5 minutes… so, we could
say that by running, those 5 minutes are the same as a mile…I don’t run
anymore, so I most likely mean driving…and we can still gauge
that those 5 minutes are most likely within a mile or two…depending
on how fast I drive…so we can convert our time given into miles…
space/time is not just out there, it is in here…among us…
we can understand space and time as the same thing…
and so we can convert time into space… and space is nothing
more then distance… I am 59 years old…is that convertible
into distance? I was born about 2000 miles from where I am now…
that is distance…we count a year as the length of time
it takes the earth to travel once around the sun… distance creates
or is time…I have traveled around the sun 59 times in my life…and within
a year, I have seen the sun rise 365 times, so we can take 365 times it by
59 years and come up with the number of time, I have seen the sun rise in my
life…as I don’t have a calculator on hand, I don’t know the number…
and what we are doing is understanding both time and distance…
as they are the same thing…we can do this with much smaller
distances… the TV is about 7 feet away from me… or about
3 seconds walking…now in regards to this, we tend to say
the distance rather then the time… the couch is 10 ft away from me…
but it is 4 seconds from me… the act of walking to the couch is
both distance and time… we just don’t think of it that way…
we tend to think about such smaller distances in terms
of distance and not in terms of time…but for the average
person, we could just as easily say, the couch is 4 seconds away
from me and we can very easily understand the distance the couch
is from me…it is a matter of preference that we use distance rather
then time, when speaking about such small matters… but we could just as
easily use time as well as distance…but what does this mean?
it means we use space and time as a description
in a rather arbitrary manner… we could just as easily
use time as well as space/distance to describe our relationship
with things… and that is what we use space/time to do…
we give a description of our relationship to something…
I am 59 years old… that is a relationship of mine to
the number of times the earth has traveled around the sun…
and the couch is 4 seconds away from me… another
relationship… by giving you either time or space/distance
I can describe all kinds of relationships I have with people, places,
and things in my life, past, present, future…my younger sister whose birthday
is April 7, today, is one year younger then me… I have created several different
descriptions in that one sentence…she has traveled around the sun 58 times…
distance creates time and time creates distance… we measure both the same
the sun is 93 million miles away from us…the light of the sun take 8 minutes
and 20 seconds to reach us… on average… depending on if we are slightly closer
to the sun or slightly further away…as we know the speed of light, we can convert
the distance of us to the sun either by time or by distance…
it is preference again… but what if… what if an alien race wasn’t
so casual about space/time as we are… we if they decided on using both
methods equally… they could then say, the couch is 4 seconds away and
leave it at that and it is clearly understood the distance of the couch from us…
so we have space… which at one time was thought to be a distinct and separate
matter from time… and time which was thought to be a distinct and separate
matter from time… two complete and different things… which then became
two sides of the same coin and now they are one and the same…
so as we grow, we tend to think of things as distinct and separate…
isolated and different from each other… but perhaps, perhaps
that is the wrong way to approach matters… we should begin, not
by seeing things as distinct and separate, but seeing things as one and
the same… all we have to do with understand the connection between
what looks like two distinct and separate things and soon, they will become
two sides of the same coin and then, if we evolve enough, not two things,
but one… and that is the sign of our growth and maturity as a person
and as a species… where we once saw two distinct and separate
matters, we now see one… we think love and hate are two distinct
and different matters, but we realize they are two sides of the same coin and then
we begin to understand they are the same thing…
so the real effort is not finding out what are the isolated
matters in our life, but in finding out the connections, the
relationships in our life… as space and time are the same thing,
and love and hate are the same thing… is space/time and love/hate
the same thing? Yes, you just have to find the connection between them…’
and soon we shall have the connections between different and distinct
matters and we shall see how things, every thing is the same…
we begin the trip of understanding not the differences between
things, people and places, but the sameness of things, people
and places…
and why does this matter?
because if we change the nature of how we see relationships,
we change everything, politics, science, philosophy, religion,
laws, it is not the differences that makes the universe knowable
but the sameness… and once we see that… and understand
that… and live that… everything will be different and then
the same…
and just an FYI: upon finding a calculator, I note that I have seen the sun rise roughly
21,535 times… as it is not exactly 59 years… but some days difference
for me…
Kropotkin