For millennia, humanity has experienced time as a flowing river, relentlessly carrying us from past to future. We speak of time “flying,” “waiting for no one,” and constantly moving forward. But what if this fundamental experience is not a property of the universe, but a deeply ingrained psychological projection? New research suggests that the passage of time isn’t a physical phenomenon, but a cognitive construct, a way our minds make sense of a static reality.
The Ancient Roots of Doubt
The idea that time as we perceive it might be illusory isn’t new. Ancient philosophers, long before modern physics, questioned the very notion of change. Parmenides of Elea, a 6th-century BCE Greek thinker, argued that if the future isn’t yet real, and the past no longer exists, how can events possibly move from one to the other? If something is real now, it simply is ; there’s no transition from potential to actual.
Similar skepticism appears in the work of Aristotle, in ancient Hindu Advaita Vedanta, and even in the writings of St. Augustine. These thinkers recognized an inherent contradiction in describing time as a flowing entity when the very notion of “flow” implies movement within time itself, creating a circular logic.
Einstein and the Static Universe
The 20th century brought scientific backing to these philosophical doubts. Isaac Newton had posited an absolute, universal time that flowed independently of observers. But Albert Einstein’s theories of relativity shattered this notion.
Einstein demonstrated that the speed of light is constant for all observers, regardless of their relative motion. This seemingly simple fact has profound implications. To maintain the constancy of light, time itself must be relative. Two observers moving at different speeds will disagree on the timing of events. An observer on a moving train will experience time differently than someone standing still.
Under relativity, all moments in time—past, present, and future—are equally real. There’s no objective “now.” Everything that has ever happened or ever will happen exists simultaneously. This concept, known as eternalism, eliminates the notion of time as a flowing river. It’s not that time doesn’t exist; it’s that it doesn’t flow.
Psychological Projection: The Real Illusion
If time doesn’t flow, why do we experience it that way? The prevailing explanation often calls the passage of time an “illusion,” suggesting a misperception of reality. However, philosopher Adrian Bardon argues that it’s more accurate to describe it as psychological projection.
Just as color isn’t an inherent property of an object but a product of how our brains interpret light wavelengths, the passage of time isn’t a feature of the universe but a way our minds organize experience. We project a sense of movement onto a static reality.
Consider how we use GPS. The device provides coordinates that represent our location and destination. It doesn’t mean the GPS is a conscious entity that thinks or feels. It simply processes data and presents it in a way that makes sense to us. Similarly, even though physics doesn’t support the dynamic passage of time, we still experience it as real.
The Inevitable Perspective
Bardon argues that any description of reality will inevitably be infused with our subjective experience. We can’t describe the world without referencing time, just as we can’t describe color without referencing wavelengths. The error lies in confusing our perspective with reality itself.
The passage of time isn’t an illusion to be corrected; it’s an unavoidable condition of being human. It’s not a mistake to perceive time as flowing; it’s simply how we make sense of a universe that, at its core, may be timeless.
The illusion isn’t that time doesn’t exist; it’s that we mistake our perception of it for its fundamental nature.
The true revelation isn’t that time is an illusion, but that our experience of it is inseparable from the very act of perceiving.
Source: Adrian Bardon. 2025. A Brief History of the Philosophy of Time (Second Edition). Oxford University Press, ISBN: 9780197684108. Author: Professor Adrian Bardon, Wake Forest University
