Would you believe? Time doesn’t really exist?

Good news for those racing a deadline. This from mathematician and philosopher Sam Baron:

So we know we need a new physical theory to explain the universe, and that this theory might not feature time.

Suppose such a theory turns out to be correct. Would it follow that time does not exist?

It’s complicated, and it depends what we mean by exist.

Theories of physics don’t include any tables, chairs, or people, and yet we still accept that tables, chairs and people exist.

Why? Because we assume that such things exist at a higher level than the level described by physics.

We say that tables, for example, “emerge” from an underlying physics of particles whizzing around the universe.

But while we have a pretty good sense of how a table might be made out of fundamental particles, we have no idea how time might be “made out of” something more fundamental.

So unless we can come up with a good account of how time emerges, it is not clear we can simply assume time exists.

Time might not exist at any level.

Sam Baron, “Time might not exist, according to physicists and philosophers – but that’s okay” at The Conversation (April 14, 2022)

Most readers are likely way too young to remember Maxwell Smart and Would You Believe? But couldn’t resist so here anyway:

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