# Time Travel and Thinking By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2023-12-12 Within the realm of science fiction, time travel is a near-constant plot element. Sometimes, time travel gets people out of problems; other times, it is used to explore the human condition. Whatever the case, thinking of time as not fixed, unidirectional, and linear is freeing. One can imagine all kinds of alternatives and problems that might emerge. However, what if one imagines that time does not exist? As we commonly think about it, time is an index that allows for state changes. When the index called time is at zero, the baseball is in the pitcher's hand, and when the index is at 300, the baseball is in the catcher's glove. If time did not exist, how would one represent the state changes? In this time paradigm, one would be challenged to develop something as this appears to be a very good model of how things move and change. Instead, consider how one thinks about things that happen in the past. One can only experience the history within the present. Thus, does that past ever exist if it is merely a present memory? One cannot remember everything about the past to replicate it entirely in the present. What about the future? Can it be experienced in any other way than the present? No, the future is merely a thought about what might be that is experienced right now. It will never exist in the future. When time is thought of in this way, it becomes clear that time might not exist other than a mental index of what we believe things were or might be based on the present. When one grows accustomed to this thinking, one begins to see what was, is, and will be is the same thing. The human tendency to categorize them as different is a reflection of our mental state and existential anxiety. It is who one was, is, and will be. So, how does one progress beyond what they are? By deciding to make a state change in the present. Thinking is critical in deciding, but thinking does nothing by itself. It is merely a construct of sorting through the mental models of the universe to understand one's place. Thus, thinking combined with decision-making in the present is time travel with all the consequences written about in science fiction. How one thinks about the past alters one's past and present, and how one thinks about the future changes one's present and future. Hence, one should think and decide carefully, or else one will cause unpredictable shifts in one's personal timeline. #### Related Items [[Thinking]] [[Time]] [[Progress]] [[Past]] [[Present]] [[Future]] [[Paradigms]] [[Models]]