Page 722 - Atlas of Creation Volume 4

Along with ab so lute space, Einstein dis card ed the con cept of ab so lute time—of a steady, un var y ing in ex o ra -

ble uni ver sal time flow, stream ing from the in fi nite past to the in fi nite fu ture. Much of the ob scu ri ty that has
sur round ed the Theory of Relativity stems from man’s re luc tance to recog nize that a sense of time, like sense
of col our, is a form of per cep tion. Just as space is sim ply a pos si ble or der of ma te ri al ob jects, so time is sim -

ply a pos si ble or der of events. The sub jec tiv i ty of time is best ex plained in Einstein’s own words. “The
ex pe ri en ces of an in di vid u al,” he says, “ap pear to us ar ranged in a se ries of events; in this se ries the sin gle
events which we re mem ber ap pear to be or dered ac cord ing to the cri te ri on of ‘ear li er’ and ‘lat er.’ There ex -
ists, there fore, for the in di vid u al, an I-time, or sub jec tive time. This in it self is not meas ur a ble.” 132

In Barnett’s words, Einstein shows that “space and time are forms of in tu i tion, which can no more be
di vorced from con scious ness than can our con cepts of col our, shape, or size.” According to the general

theory of relativity, “time has no in de pend ent ex is tence apart from the or der of events by which we mea-
s ure it.” 133
Since time is a per cep tion, it is al so a rel a tive con cept that de pends on the per ceiv er. The speed at
which time pass es va ries ac cord ing to the ref er ence we use to meas ure it. There is no nat u ral clock in the

hu man body to con firm the pas sage of time with ab so lute ac cu ra cy. As Lincoln Barnett has stat ed, “Just
as there is no such thing as col our with out an eye to dis cern it, so an in stant or an hour or a day is noth -
ing with out an event to mark it.” 134
When we are left in a closed room where we can not know the time and can not see the ris ing and set -

ting of the Sun, we can nev er de ter mine how fast time goes by nor how long we re main there. What ma-
kes us think a spe cif ic amount of time has gone by is noth ing more than the ris ing and set ting of the Sun
and the move ment of the watch es on our wrists. When these are re moved, any thing we say about the ti-
me we im ag ine has passed must be con jec tur al and sub jec tive—be long ing to our selves alone. For ex am -

ple, time goes by quick ly for some one tak ing an ex am in a lim it ed space of time. Yet the same amount of
time seems very long to that per son’s friend wait ing out side.
If time were an ab so lute re al i ty, then it would not be a var i a ble con cept, de ter mined by our per cep tions.

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