Thinking about Time

A friend wrote to talk about time and some of the weird consequences of quantum mechanics. Regarding time he asked about what's called the B-theory, the idea that time is static and that our consciousness is "moving" from one event to the next in our lives.

Here's part of what I wrote back, slightly edited:

Thinking about quantum effects at 1:30 in the morning can certainly twist one's mind and push lots of fascinating questions into our consciousness. I wish I knew more and was able to respond intelligently to your late-night ruminations.

On the other hand, I don't know whether anyone knows enough to give intelligent answers to questions about the interface between the quantum and the macro levels of reality. Is that interface a sharp line or is it more like the gradual transition of colors from one to another in a rainbow?

Is the temporal transition from the past to the present like the transition from one frame of 16mm film to the next with indiscernible (as long as the film is moving at sufficient speed) spaces in between, or is it seamless? If it's the former, then is time quantized like light (which is comprised of photons)?

And if it's seamless then the only thing I can think of to compare it to is space which is just a big, continuous block that fills the universe. Everything else I can think of is made of either subatomic particles or photons.

And if time is like space, a continuous block, it's hard to grasp how it could flow. After all, space doesn't flow (or does it?). So, if time fills the universe as a continuous simple "substance," how would it flow, since it'd already be everywhere all at once? On this view, space and time would be static and we would somehow move through time like we move through space.

Perhaps we're like a passenger looking out the window of a train trying to discern whether we're moving or what we see outside the window is moving. If the train was traveling at constant velocity and the ride was perfectly smooth we'd really have no way to tell.

If we're "moving" and space and time are static then maybe the events of our lives are like the railroad ties, embedded in the space-time world, that we pass over in what seems to be a continuous blur.

That's weird to think about.

It is weird, but then time is weird. In my opinion, time and consciousness are the two most mysterious things in the universe.