[The 14th Colony]

I have had a series of deep thoughts that I thought to introduce, and it is about time. Not about time that I do so as if I had been postponing it, but it is about time itself.

This is not an argument to prove that time does not exist, it is merely an exercise in deep thought. I have oft said that God is outside the realm of time, that he exists in the past, the present, and the future at the same time. While not to suggest that we are on the same level as God, I present my deep thought that maybe we too exist in a realm where there is no time, where the past, present, and future exist as one and our definition of “time” is just a translation or analyzation or perception of what we are within.

To understand this strange new concept of time or time-non-existent, we must think for a moment about light and color.

White light is the equal amount of red, green, and blue light. When we look around us outdoors under the sun we see everything illuminated by white light. Daylight is white light. Though it does not appear as "white" to us, it is nonetheless white light. White light is made up equally of the 3 main colors of the light color spectrum, red, green, and blue. Our atmosphere is hit by white light from the sun but it only allows the color blue to pass through, while red and green are deflected. That is why the sky appears blue. You can also look through specific color filters which inhibit one of the colors of white light and then see an object cast in the color of the other colors remaining in the spectrum of white light. So any or more of the primary colors of white light can be blocked to enable us to see the other two colors instead, but without such method it appears as white light and not as 3 separate colors, red, green, and blue. Just white.

We can easily see red on its own, green on its own, and blue on its own, but put them together, as in red, green, and blue light shone on the same point or along the same line, and we see only white light and not the three that comprise it. Ponder this hypothetical:

What if we compared time to color? Let us say that red was the past, green was the present, and blue was the future. In our existence we can see the red(past), green(present), and blue(future) as 3 seperate colors easily distinguishable. But what if in reality, time was like white light, equally comprised of the 3 colors blended together to exist as one? In other words, like within white light, the past, present, and future were three equal things co-existing at the same exact time with no separation, wholly unset apart from each other. But how could that be possible, one might ask? How could one accept something like that anyway? Hold that deep thought.

To understand this strange new concept of time or time-non-existent, we must think for a moment not just about light and color, but of vibration and sound.

If a tree falls in a forest but no ear is around to hear it, does it make a sound? No. The tree falling or hitting the ground makes vibrations, vibrations are detected by eardrums which translate into signals which are sent into the brain where they are understood as sound. So, if a tree falls but no eardrum is around to hear it, it makes plenty of vibrations but simply no sound. When an eardrum receives the vibrations and sends the signals into the brain for translation, the comprehension of the vibrations by the brain is that of sound. No ear to hear, plenty of vibration, absence of sound. You could argue that sound is not real at all, but merely a perception within the mind; the brain’s way of explaining to itself the meaning behind the vibrations.

We have seen that white light is made up of red, green, and blue yet we can see the red, green, or blue parts of the white light only when some natural or human-made device is used to enhance one of the 3 colors or prevent us from seeing the other two. Thus within the white light the 3 colors are indistinguishable without a means to separate them. We have also seen that sound does not exist outside the mind, but that vibrations are translated and understood as sound within the mind, ergo just our imagination. It’s all in the mind.

So to sum up, “sound” is the brain’s way of understanding vibrations, and white light appears as only one color until something is used to separate one primary color from the three to let it be visible to us. So now imagine that “time” is only one present “now” rather than comprised of past, present, and future; and we exist in a space where there is no time behind us and no time in front of us, but only the white light which includes what we understand as the red light(past), green light(present) and blue light(future) all combined as one….while we have the eardrum and brain’s equivalent of intercepting and understanding vibrations into sound; and the light filter’s equivalent of separating and sensing the 3 main colors of white light, that intercept, separate, sense, and understand the combined oneness of time-unmoving. You did not begin reading this post 3 minutes ago (or 14 minutes ago for those who are slower) from now, and you won’t finish it 30 seconds from now. You are reading it now, you began reading it now, and you finished reading it now. But the passage of time was a trick of the mind, a tool or device, to separate the first now and the third now from the present now in order to give the reading meaning. You were born right now. You reached middle age now. You were married now. You turned 16 now. You had a child now. You saw your child graduate college now. You turned 4 years old now. You saw SW:Episode III now. You grew old and lost bladder control now. You died now. A person born “40 years after” you died (now) turned 26 now. Moses saw a burning bush now. President Lincoln was shot now. You brushed your teeth now. You had your first tooth now. You got dentures now. It all happened now, not before, not later, not then, not after, but now. Except that in your mind the now of now is like white light, and there is something that separates the 3 parts of white light into red, green, and blue so that they can be distinguished and enjoyed separately, understood separately. And so time, like the sound that is understood after the vibrations are received and translated, is what is understood by living beings after the now is received and translated and the 3 aspects of it are separated to be understood. Without that understanding, time does not exist.

I conclude with another way to view this concept of absense of time in the true universe. It is sure to conjur a Spaceballs joke, but oh well. Take a video tape of a movie. You have the start of the movie, the middle, and the end. While watching the middle of the story, the beginning was the past, and the end is the future. The story told in the movie has a timeline just like real life, with a past, present, and future. But turn the tape off, eject it, and step back and look at the video in your hand. The past, present, and future in the movie all exist at the same time right before your eyes. In fact, looking at the tape alone, it has no past, present, and future. It only has the NOW which exists at the same time in front of you. It is only when you watch the movie that the seperation between past, present, and future takes on meaning; otherwise it all blends together. Now imagine that that video is the universe itself, life and existance as we know it. Now imagine stopping the film, ejecting the tape, and holding it in your hand. Right there is the past, present, and future existing at once, as NOW. Like plugging into the Matrix, you turn on your awareness of time movement only when it is translated via some device. Otherwise, it is just NOW.

Eject the tape and stare at it. See it in your mind, the beginning, middle, and end; past, present, and future, existing as now, as one.

That is all for now. See you later. Or now. It’s only a matter of time. Or is it? That was my deep thought for today. Or for now. In another time I will post another of my deep thoughts, but that I will save for another time, a time to come later. Or now. Or before.

:light: