Every morning, we project ourselves into the day ahead without ever thinking about it. That gesture rests on a certainty we almost never examine: the future does not exist yet, it remains to be filled in like a blank page.
What if it were the other way round?
In my new article, I follow the thread of a dizzying idea that physics and philosophy have been working on for a century. From Einstein’s relativity and its block universe, where past, present and future coexist, to Everett’s many worlds, by way of Leibniz, Bergson and the paradox of freedom.
The time we think we live in a straight line would be a construction. Useful, impossible to dislodge, but a construction all the same. Which leaves a question that neither physics nor philosophy really settles: if every possible future already exists, what does choosing still mean?
A podcast for anyone kept awake at night by time, consciousness and free will.
Find the full transcript of this episode, along with all the sources and plenty more, at: Time is a chimera!