Are We Really Choosing or Following Fate? Here's What We Know | Blog by Rohan Biswas | Phoenix

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I am 23+ years old and currently doing my master's in Sociology from Calcutta University. In one of my previous blogs, which was about Money Management, I shared how much I love to walk. Walking makes me feel good. It helps me think. Walking a distance of 1km is not a great deal for me. But for a small creature, like an ant? That's like crossing a continent, isn't it? I had this strange realization which kept me thinking. Now, this is known to all, that space, time, motion, are not the same for everyone. But, do we really understand what it means? Well, understanding Albert Einstein's theory of relativity might help us.




What is Einstein's Theory of Relativity?

It states that the speed of light is constant, and for objects moving near the speed of light (we know it's impossible to achieve), their mass increases, time slows down and length contracts. So, in other words, time and space aren't fixed. They can change depending on how fast we move. So, if you move really fast (not easy/not possible), time slows down for you and distances shrink. It also states that gravity is not a pulling force, but an effect of the curvature of spacetime. I had explained this in a previous blog.


So, I was wondering about all this, and thought of light. How fascinating light is! But, how does it work? How does relativity work? And, what do physicists really mean when they say that at the speed of light, time slows down, distances shrink?



Light, as we know it, is a form of energy, an electromagnetic radiation. It is both a wave and a particle (which is called wave-particle duality). Light is made up of tiny particles called photons. So, light acts as a wave when it travels, but when it interacts, it acts like a particle. It's very similar to how the uncertainty principle works. Coming to its movement, let's imagine that you are travelling at the speed of light. We know that according to Einstein's theory of relativity, if you travel at the speed of light, time stops for you and distances become zero. This made me wonder—what does light actually "see"? So, I imagined– What if I was light? A particle or a wave, travelling at a speed of 3 lakh kilometres per second. Time would stop, which means there won't be any concept of time for me. I won't experience the passing of time at all. And distance would cease to exist too. There won't be any concept of time or distance for me. In other words, light, or I, would be omnipresent. Since, time does not exist. Time is just an illusion. There's no distance either. I would just be everywhere. Not travelling, but existing. Because there's no distance to cover. I would be everywhere. What matters for time and distance to exist is how fast or slow you move. So, for humans, since we are slow, we experience time and distance. We know that there's a past and we also travel distances which takes time.



India got captured by the Britishers and it took time to get back its freedom. We read books, of history, analyze and judge the past. For us, the past existed, it consists of events that have already occurred, and the future is still unknown. For instance, I am a human. I am slow. I travel from my home to my university and it takes time to travel. I have a past. I was a student of Don Bosco Liluah. At present, I am doing my master's in Sociology from Calcutta University. I know what happened yesterday. I am just discovering (rather living) the present every second. I don't know what will happen tomorrow. But, if I were light, I would have been omnipresent. I would not have any timeline. I would have already seen everything all at once. I would exist everywhere and every "when". So, for me, the beginning and the end would be the same all at once. All would coexist. I would experience the origin and the fate of the universe all at once. Meaning, all are coexisting. So, the flow of time is a subjective human experience.

For us humans, spacetime is real, since we are slow. But if we were light, spacetime would have been meaningless to us. So, in that sense, spacetime is an illusion. Everything has already taken place. We are just experiencing it all through a timeline because we are slow.

Furthermore, if something has already happened, how can it be changed? It is fixed. Then, if I choose to book a cab to university tomorrow, instead of taking my regular bus, was it meant to happen? In other words, we don't really choose anything. It just happens as it's supposed to happen. And in that sense, we are not creating any alternate universe by choosing something and discarding the other. So, if I say that, if I had chosen Psychology for my graduation, my life would have been different now, but choosing Sociology for my graduation only created an alternate universe where I am studying Psychology. But that's not the case. I chose Sociology because it was meant to happen, and there's no alternate universe existing. You clicked the link and are now reading this. You were meant to read this. Not a choice. But something that was meant to happen, happened.

So, does science agree to it? Or, am I being philosophical here? I was worried. Science must have some explanation. So I searched, and I found. Turns out Albert Einstein himself believed in it and said time is an illusion (Zeh, 1989). Although, it might not be an illusion for us, we truly experience the passing of time. So, the idea of the past, present and future, coexisting, comes from his theory of relativity. It is the "block universe" idea that states that the universe is a 4d block and time is just another dimension like length, width or height. According to this idea, time is not universal. There is no universal "now". So, the past, present and future all just coexist. Time does not pass, we pass through it, since we are slow & our brain remembers the past and anticipates the future. That's how we are formed. To experience it all, one after another.



Conclusion—

Everything that I've mentioned so far, is mainly based on Albert Einstein's theory of relativity and whatever I understood and contemplated. It is to note that there have been discussed, similar ideas regarding the past, present and future all coexisting, by ancient philosophers (like Determinism) and even by religious preachers in Advaita Vedanta (absolute reality) and in Buddhism (time is a mental construct). But they were mostly philosophical or mystical, based on intuition and metaphysical reasoning, not scientific. They didn't have a systematic, evidence-based approach that helps in problem solving by observing, analyzing and critical thinking. But still, they are proof of how deeply the human mind can contemplate the nature of time and universe. Einstein's theory of relativity is no doubt one of the most important breakthroughs in the history of physics. It completely changed our understanding of space, time, gravity and the universal we exist in. However, quantum theory does not fully agree with this block universe idea. Quantum theory states that the future is not determined. There are multiple possible outcomes and when observed, only then one outcome becomes real. So, quantum physics brings in ideas of uncertainty, probabilities and collapse. Different interpretations exist, some agree, some don't. So, the question of whether the past, present and future truly coexist or not, is still an unresolved debate and more research is required. Until then, we don't have a final answer, not yet.
But if the Block Universe idea is real, what do you think? Are you choosing your path, or just watching it unfold?


Reference:-

Zeh, H. D. (2007). The physical basis of the direction of time (5th ed.). Springer.



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