What is time?

"What do you want to do, Paige?" I asked my best friend, Paige.

"I don't know. We've already gotten quite far with the programming and everything. We played a few chess games before. I'm getting bored," she answered with visible boredom in her voice.

"I have an idea. Let's talk about philosophy," I said excitedly.

"Philosophy? Interesting. I'd love to have a philosophical debate with you," Paige said with excitement.

"Let's start with our favorite philosophical sentence. Mine is 'Cogito ergo sum,'" I began.

"Very good choice. Mine is 'Know thyself,'" Paige said.

"Not bad," I praised.

"So, what should we choose for our debate? It should be something elemental, something mysterious that accompanies us every day, hour, minute, and second," I said. As I spoke, an idea struck me. "Let's talk about time," I said with excitement.

"Let's start," Paige said, equally excited.

"You can start," I said.

"Time moves in a linear fashion, from the past, through the present, and into the future. Everything we do in the present affects the future. Everything we did in the past has already affected the present. And everything we do in the future won't affect us now. Everything is linear. Time is also predictable. If you know enough about particles, you can even predict it, but that's almost impossible," Paige began strongly.

"I disagree. What is time? We don't know. Time can be anything. Linear? Of course, it can be perceived as such. But what if I said that time is cyclical? We have one starting point at our core. From there, every single choice we make pulls a different circle in front of us. It forms our life. There are bad circles and good ones. It's somewhat similar to the linear function you mentioned, but now something completely different and new.

What if time is nothing? It doesn't move in a straight line or in circles. It isn't even anything. What if we are in the past, the present, and the future all at the same time? What if we are currently in the past? We actually are. I said this sentence a second ago, which means we are in the past as we speak. Every time we talk, we are in the past. Every time our brain processes information, we are in the present, and every time we think, we are in the future. The past is stored in memories, the present in echoes, and the future in our knowledge.

But that still isn't true. As I think about the information I say, is it already in the past? That would mess up my whole theory. Every single theory about time could be true. In a certain sense, they are true, but the only truth is that we aren't advanced enough to truly understand time. This is my main theory. Time can also be seen as a dimension. 1D is only length. 2D is length and width. 3D is length, width, and height. Space is complete with this. 4D combines space and time: length, width, height, and time. It's magical. 3D is like some movies we know, but no movie could ever represent time. We live in 4D. We know the past and the present, and, in some special cases, the future. In movies, this isn't possible. I think we aren't advanced enough. Only a five-dimensional being can truly understand time. The fifth dimension should be the subconscious, able to control its consciousness fully," I shared all these thoughts with Paige.

"Wow. Very interesting theory. Combining the 4D of time into something accessible for us, yet not really accessible. That's a very good idea," Paige marveled.

"You've probably thought about these things often, right? I've only done it once before," Paige said, trying to reclaim her pride.

"Yes. I often think about time. Is the me in the past, the present, and the future the same me? Is there a me living in the future and in the past at the same time as I am living in the present? We don't know. But I want to know everything. I want all the knowledge I can obtain. That's my goal," I shared my aspiration with her.

"That's impossible," Paige said, stunned.

"Nobody has done it before. I will probably not be able to do it either. But I want to become the person closest to it," I was still immersed in the thought of knowing everything.

"That's a huge goal. But we still don't know what time is. What could it be?" Paige pondered.

"We didn't know in the past. We don't know in the present. Maybe we will know in the future," I told her.

"But the question for the current past and the present is—what is time?"