G
Guest
Surely all we can say is that "things change".
Intelligent life comes along and notices the changes and wants to observe them, understand them, categorize them. It decides that things change in a certain amount of "time". It comes up with a scale - a way to measure different rates of change.... it comes up with units to measure with. It decides you cannot give the absolute location of anything unless you include "when". So it starts to think of time - once a measurement of change - as a dimension in its own right. And dimensions, as we all know, can be travelled through. "Look," the intelligent life thinks, "we are travelling forwards through time now, aren't we? Then maybe we can move backwards..... etc etc.
But stop. WHAT exactly - apart from the word 'time' - IS THERE that you are supposed to be able to travel through? Nothing. It's not there! It's all just playing with terminology.
Intelligent life comes along and notices the changes and wants to observe them, understand them, categorize them. It decides that things change in a certain amount of "time". It comes up with a scale - a way to measure different rates of change.... it comes up with units to measure with. It decides you cannot give the absolute location of anything unless you include "when". So it starts to think of time - once a measurement of change - as a dimension in its own right. And dimensions, as we all know, can be travelled through. "Look," the intelligent life thinks, "we are travelling forwards through time now, aren't we? Then maybe we can move backwards..... etc etc.
But stop. WHAT exactly - apart from the word 'time' - IS THERE that you are supposed to be able to travel through? Nothing. It's not there! It's all just playing with terminology.