So much of this series has been on the side of: is it really not a problem in physics if there is no such thing as this fundamental time dimension or even a background spacetime container in which change happens?
It seems to me that wherever human beings go, and certainly human beings go into science, they bring shoulds with them. With science as this objective enterprise, it kind of makes sense that we would like a view of reality that is, in a way, a view from nowhere. Why would we want to tie our view of reality to something that is contingent on how fast the observer’s moving, or where the observer is located in space? We want to see that 4D spacetime block from nowhere inside it. We want reality to be invariant. We want it to be what it’s going to be—not a perspective on reality, but reality itself. And the power of mathematics makes it where we feel like it should be that the structure of a mathematical object like 4D spacetime—that’s what physics is telling us is real. That’s gotta be reality.
But Dr. Park just comes at this—the shoulds of how science should be—from the perspective of what is. What is it that we’ve got? What have we got to go on? In physics that at its basis is purely empirical, what we’ve got is experiments. Effects that we can replicate. And anything that relates to a valid or not valid reality view ultimately comes down to: does it have a distinguishable effect? That’s not always what we necessarily want to hear. But it opens the door for even taking our reality views themselves—this is what Dr. Park calls reality view equivalence—and see if they make a distinguishable empirical effect in the setting up, running, and measuring of an experiment. If nothing in experiment—nothing in experience—contradicts my reality view by revealing a distinguishable difference between whether I hold that view or some equivalent view, then it’s a perfectly good reality view by that criterion. It will never lead me astray in anything that can make a distinguishable effect.
What Dr. Park points to is that there’s a minimal information—position together with its changing, right at the moment—that he calls essential information, and the reality that corresponds to it, essential reality. And here’s the key: if any consistent information is added to essential information, there’s no additional effect. You can add the past. You can add the future. You can add dimensional time, or acceleration right at the moment—and none of those have any further additional effect than what’s already covered.
So we’re left with a perhaps shockingly minimal view of reality. We don’t need the entire construction of 4D spacetime. We don’t even need some kind of background structure called time. What we do need is changing that’s inherent, intrinsic, to just this moment—relational, relative changing, in 3D space. So there’s changing spatial relations, and that can be complete.
Considering this essential reality as the whole reality is the nowflow view. We could hold this view and never encounter a contradiction, so far as we know.
IThere’s no effect left out. There’s no effect that’s left over, left lingering, left partially here and partially not. Think about the Zen enso circle. Or Dogen—entirely worlding the entire world with the world. This is whole. Nothing left out. Nothing left over. This is it.
By showing how one moment is sufficient, essential reality gives us this option for a simpler view of reality that’s both consistent with physics and helpful in living. That’s the option.
No Time, No Problem?
An Honest Look at “Timelessness” in Physics and Living
What if there’s no time—and that’s not a problem for physics? What if there’s no time—could that be a solution for our suffering?
Rather than offering answers of what to think, this series offers ways of thinking that can move us past the pressures we put on ourselves: from the “should” of trying to “be present” to the “should” of being 4D spacetime worms to be compatible with relativity! Somewhere between those “shoulds,” I got stuck until physicist and Tai Chi Master Wonchull Park showed me how to think about nature simply, livably. Each session includes an hour-long meditation practice, where we get to try on different conceptions and perceptions of time to discover how equivalently valid options that physics provides can impact our levels of illusion and freedom. We’ll be reading together from a few sources—such as Wonchull Park’s Essential Reality & Time, Carlo Rovelli’s The Order of Time, Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now, Dogen’s Shobogenzo Uji—to deeply question the role(s) of time in our lives. Looking forward to our discoveries.
Thank you for Being with Being.
beingwithbeing.org
mackenziehawkins.substack.com
