THE INDIAN DREAMER

We can not measure time. We can only measure how fast a clock moves or ticks. And then it is only measured in units of another reference clock. Whereas with distance or a physical object, we can measure aspects of the object - again with a reference ruler for a standard.

But there is nothing to measure about time itself.

Time does not exist as a thing to be measured. And therefore it is questionable if it really exists at all. All we have is our experience and that is limited to our real time experience of the world and our real time experience of our memory and of our imagination. The idea of time travel is based on our idea of the past or future being a real thing. But we have no evidence that the past or future exists and our only reason for considering them to be real is our memory and our imagination - which exist in the present.

Now, this is not the way most physicists approach time. They almost always treat time as a real thing since it works so well in their equations. However, it is a big leap, and perhaps one that is not justified, to say that time exists in the same way that distance or physical length exists.Physics depends on time as a concept and it works in the equations to make predictions that can be measured. But to extend that to the idea of time travel is not supported by anything but math. And math can show relationships, but it can not prove its own theorems unless you make some initial assumptions. So although time appears to work in the physics of the universe, it is a mathematical thing and not an experiential thing.We do not sense time. We sense movement. Of the clock or of our own internal clock. So time does not exist in the sense of a physical thing like distance. But it exists as a useful concept for ordering our experience. Something that goes on in our head, but not out here in the world.

Time in the practical sense is all about the speed of relative movement rather than about the passage of time. The river of time does not exist. The present is the only thing that exists.And in this present moment we can remember something, or imagine something but there is no reason to think these are places to go. Hence the past and the future do not exist now in any real sense. If they do exist then human existence is immediately reduced to the equivalent of a strip of movie film, where each frame of the film represents one instant of time and inside that one frame, nothing moves or lives. Maybe you have to use this as some sort of "alternative" view, since it is an idea that only a few people embrace. Most want to believe in time travel and the reality of their past and future. Although they don't like the idea of a fixed future, but for some reason they want a fixed past.