I want to share with you my hypothesis about spacetime (reality outthere) and conscious observers (human beings, animals, ...). What do you think about my following hypothesis:
Reality, in itself, without observers, is a manifold, a 4D-object.
Spacetime is this 4D-object, which is not directly observable/measurable, but only deducable.
Spacetime is therefore, in my opinion, a Platonic entity, very real, even more 'real' then our relativistic observations of time and space, but pure abstract to us, and mathematical to us. We can’t observe it directly.
So, the mathematicians and theoretical physisists should like this idea that reality n itself, without minds to perceive/measure it, is only pure mathematical.
Einstein said that time is an illusion. Physicist Brian Greene also said that time is an illusion.
In my opinion: time and space are not an illusion: it’s just a way of reality (spacetime) to present itself to a conscious mind. Let me explain this.
Spacertime is all events from past, present and maybe future. (Einstein, Minkowski)
The interaction of minds (human or animal) with spacetime results in the experience of the unfolding of the events, moment by moment in the actual moment. That's how we experience reality. But that's not how reality, in itself, exists.
First there was spacetime. Undefined. Events from past, present and future existing together in a 4D object. (Einstein, the block universe of Brian Greene)
Then a conscious observer (an animal, a human, ...) came into being. He experiences these events, unfolding themselves, moment by moment in the actual moment. Which is not how reality outthere, in itself, exists. (see 4D-objects in 4D-spacetime)
These observers (humans) can deduce spacetime (reality in itself without observers), based on their relativistic observations of space and time. They deduce a mathematical 4D-object. The universe in itself. More absolute (not relative) then their relativistic observations of space and time.
The most important factor in this hypothesis is that 'minds' are involved in physics. Minds are, somehow, lawfully connected to their observations/measurement of the events through time. An observer is a mind in this context. I know that 'observer' in physics has another meaning. But only a mind can experience the unfolding of the events moment by moment. An instrument or measuring device cannot.
All steps of a scientific experiment exist together outthere in spacetime. And the measuring device, measuring or observing the universe, is a series of events, already existing in the past, present and maybe also the future. Only a conscious mind, like a scientist, can experience the scientific experiment, unfolding itself, moment by moment in the actual moment.
That’s a crucial the difference between a mind and a measuring device. The 'experience' of time.
All the phenomena, (even memories) only present them in the ‘now’ to a conscious observer, while reality in itself is events from past, present and future in this manifold, called spacetime.
Before anything can become a measurement or an observation there must be somebody to whom it comes.
We are the minds in which the phenomena appear and disappear.
All appearance and disappearance of the phenomena presupposes the interaction of a conscious mind with this purely mathematical 4D-spacetime-universe/Block universe.
Your life is a succession of events, while spacetime is all events together.
The mind cannot see the whole. (4D spacetime), it can only deduce it.
We, minds, have only access to the present, to the actual moment. While reality in itself (without minds perceiving it) is past, present and maybe also the future together. (Einstein, Block universe)
To have an observable universe as we see it through our telescopes, you need minds to capture the events moment by moment. The interaction of a mind with 4D-spacetime, results in the experience of the events through time, moment by moment!
Maarten Vergucht