Our native understanding of geometry, or rather our native misunderstanding of geometry, is a genetic mistake. It was never necessary, in the long past history of our race, for us to see space and time correctly.
It is not possible to have a universe of space without a universe of time. It is not possible to have space without time, or time without space, because space and time are opposites. If, between two events, the space separation between them is the same as the time separation between them, then the total separation between them is zero, as observed by Albert Einstein.
In electricity if we have the same amount of plus charges as we have of minus charges, say in the same atom or the same molecule, then that atom or that molecule is neutral. There is no charge seen from outside. Likewise here. If the space separation between two events is just the same as the time separation between those two events, then the total separation between those two events is zero.
I'll give you an example. Suppose we see an exploding star, say in the Andromeda galaxy. There's one going on there right now. It's been visible for about a month or so. Now the Andromeda galaxy is two and a quarter million light years away, and when we see the explosion now, we see it as it was two and a quarter million years ago. You see, the space separation and the time separation are the same, which means that the total separation between you and what you see is zero. The total separation, the real separation, the objective separation, that is, the separation as seen by anybody, between the event which you see and the event of your seeing it -- the separation between those two events is always zero. What we mean when we say that the space and time separations between two events are equal is that light could get from one of those events to the other in vacuum.
We see things out there, and we think they're really out there. But, you see, we cannot see them when they happen. We can't see anything when it happens. We see everything in the past. We see everything a little while ago, and always in such a way that the while ago just balances the distance away, and the separation between the perceiver and the perceived remains always at zero.
Our physics is on our side of space and time, if you like, but Einstein’s equations say that behind our physics there is this question: “What is it?” We know that it has to be beyond space and time.
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This is a difficult, but not impossible, concept to grasp.
Taking the example above of the stellar explosion in the Andromeda galaxy. There are two 'events' in this scenario. The first is the actual stellar explosion in the Andromeda galaxy. The second event is the observation by, say, this writer, at a certain time eg. at this present moment.
The real event of the stellar explosion 'happened' 2 1/4 million light years ago. It had already happened 2.25 million light years ago. That event is in the past, when we are referring to the event "now", in our "present time".
In this writer's mind, while i am seeing, or observing the first event (ie. the stellar explosion) now (in the present), all i am aware of is the explosion had already happened in my past. It had already happened a long time ago, in a distance far away while i was not even born yet.
But, according to Einstein (his Special Relativity postulate), this is a wrong perception of space and time. The time separation of 2.25 million years is the same as the distance 'space' separation of 2.25 million light years. So, in effect
To summarize again, even though the stellar explosion happened in the 'past' (2.25 million years ago in 'time', to be exact), the very nature of me seeing the explosion (2.25 million light years across 'space') happened at this 'present' moment means there is no real separation between the event itself and my observation of that event.
It does seemed like an illusion when we think about it. The thing is, no other living beings in this world could grasp this concept other than us humans.
The part about not seeing things or events as they happened but only seeing them in the past could be taken at another level. We do not see the result of our action now, today. If we did, we would not have learn the lessons that life would have to offer. Maybe that is the way we are supposed to live our life here in this world.
Perhaps also that we do not have the foresight to see into our future. But what we do have is our free will to live in the moment. To appreciate all the things and especially the people we care about in our lives. And to know that with this 'will', we could perhaps change our world for the better.
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