I always think about the past, yearning to go back in time to my youth, when the world seemed a better place and life was full of endless possibilities. Sometimes I imagine waking up one morning back there, and finding that my life now was just a sad dream. Maybe, though, some day, we will be able to travel back to a better past.
Recently, I came across a theory of time that offers an interesting way to think about the past, present and future. It’s a model that, at least conceptually, opens the door to the idea of time travel.
It’s called the “block universe” or “eternalist” model, and it presents a simple and plausible framework for understanding time, free will, causality and even some mystical experiences.
One way to visualise it is to think of time as a roll of celluloid film. Each frame represents a moment in life. Your consciousness is like the projector’s lens, as each frame moves through it one by one. The passage of time, then, is not really “time” itself, it’s the experience of the projector “perceiving” each frame. In this model, past, present and future exist simultaneously, like all the frames on the reel.
In this framework, time travel is conceptually straightforward. Different versions of yourself (past, present and future) coexist independently. Interactions between them wouldn’t create temporal paradoxes, because nothing in the past is overwritten. Your younger self in 1981, for instance, exists separately from who you are today, and each retains its own continuity of experience. The so-called “grandfather paradox” dissolves, as all moments are already present, waiting on the reel for the projector to experience.
This model also provides a new way to think about free will. Our choices seem real and important because consciousness experiences events sequentially. Like the projector lens, we perceive decisions happening moment by moment. In that sense, free will might be more about perception than about controlling reality. We experience a life narrative, even as the frames themselves are already “fixed”.
Causality, too, harmonises into this view. The philosopher David Hume posited that we can’t prove causation; we can only infer it from repeated observation. The block universe model suggests that what we call cause and effect may simply be the pattern of frames. Events appear connected because we experience them as sequential, but the sequence itself already exists.
Some experiences that are unexplained (premonitions, déjà vu or fleeting intuitions) also make sense in this framework. Perhaps they are moments where consciousness briefly overlaps or “brushes” against nearby frames, producing a sense of familiarity or foresight.
Even ideas like karma can be encompassed in the block universe model, offering a new perspective. Many Eastern philosophies describe life as a web of cause and effect. In the block universe model, this can be envisages as: life unfolds along pre-existing patterns, not as cosmic reward or punishment, but as a trajectory already inscribed on the film reel. The sense of influencing one’s destiny might simply be part of the lens through which consciousness experiences the frames.
The beauty of the block universe modal is its versatility. Physics, philosophy and mysticism can be seen as different ways of perceiving the same underlying structure. Time doesn’t flow; causality is a habit of thought; free will is experienced sequentially; and karma is the path already laid out.
I can’t say whether this theory is true (or whether it can ever be proved) but thinking about time in this way helps make sense of many things that at present can’t be explained.
