What if the past, present, and future already exist? As you read this, you could be born, dead, and every event in between. This concept is Minkowski’s block universe model of understanding time.
In the block universe, time does not pass. What exactly does this mean? Imagine every event in the universe as a printed photograph stacked on top of each other, starting with the creation of the universe to its destruction, with everything in between — the existence and extinction of dinosaurs, the rise and fall of the Mongol empire, and even the birth and death of everyone you know. The accumulation of every moment in the universe becomes the height of the block-model universe, or what we understand as time. Thus, the philosophical concept of eternalism is born through the fourth-dimensional space-time continuum.
Viewing time as a fourth dimension to a three-dimensional world allows us to appreciate how the existence of time is solely validated by our perception of it. To this idea, Albert Einstein proposed his “theory of relativity.” If time exists regardless of our observation of it, then our perception of what is past, present, and future is not happening linearly, but rather in the relativity of what we understand as “now.” Block universe enthusiasts would argue that the universe is strung together by a series of “nows,” and therefore there is no basis for the distinction between the present time and the past or future because of the very reason that all-time coexists with equal status.
Confused yet? The events in the block universe are there for all time in every “now”—they are unchangeable. To be more clear, tomorrow will be experienced as the present tomorrow, and yesterday was experienced as the present yesterday. Everything is relative: one person’s past is the future to someone else in the space-time continuum, and vice versa.
“If time exists regardless of our observation of it, then our perception of what is past, present, and future is not happening linearly, but rather in the relativity of what we understand as ‘now.'”
Although Einstein’s theory of relativity is crucial in the space-time continuum because it emphasizes the block universe’s philosophical basis of eternalism, it would be against human nature to not also feel a sense of existential dread after understanding this. After all, the future is how it has always been; so is the past. Why would any choice we make in our lifetime matter if everything is predetermined?
Though quite nihilistic, the block universe has significant implications on how we view our experience when existing in the “present.” Within the idea of a fixed future, humans are restricted from acting in alignment with the way the future is already defined, which directly conflicts with the idea that humans have free will. As block universe philosophers argue against human agency because every event in the universe is immutable and fixed, nihilists argue in parallel that values are baseless and existence is useless. In other words, nothing matters.
What is the meaning of anything we do if it was never a deliberate choice we made, but events that were already bound to happen? Yikes. Let’s say that this model of the universe is true. Maybe life is meaningless and we have no free will. Is that so bad? Does it matter, especially if we act by the feeling that we do have human agency? This is philosopher Albert Camus’ opposition to nihilism: absurdism. Derived from the term “absurd,” a lack of reason and common sense, absurdism confronts one’s desire for significance in the meaningless human condition. Camus argues that engaging in the absurdity and pointlessness of life is what makes it worth living.
In death, happiness and its conditions of love and friendship again become nothing to the absurdist. Camus states: “Everything is permitted… it is not an outburst of relief or of joy, but rather a bitter acknowledgment of a fact.” We don’t have to accept the world as meaningless because we can live despite not knowing and not having meaning.