Spacetime

Space and time are not separate entities but aspects of the same underlying reality: spacetime. You can conceptualize yourself as always moving at the speed of light, most of that motion occurring through time. Together, spacetime forms the relational framework that provides entities with their positions relative to one another.

It is worth noting that what we perceive as spacetime may instead be a foundational pattern of existence, akin to particles. However, such a reinterpretation would alter little in our understanding of its relational and emergent properties.

What, then, is a moment in spacetime? For a moment to exist—a singular instance within the continuum—some aspect of spacetime must reach zero. Yet spacetime in its entirety cannot be at zero, for this would imply an absence of relations. Without relations, spacetime cannot change, begin, or end, and is thus reduced to nothing.

Moments in spacetime, therefore, are instances of existence constrained to either space or time. Two compelling examples illustrate this duality:

Black Holes: In these extreme environments, particles are concentrated to such a degree that they lose spatial extension and exist solely in time, relating to space only as a whole.

Sentience: Through the complex interactions of its parts, a sentient being perceives space. It exists solely within space, not directly in time, relating to it only as a whole.

Read next: The Space of Possibility