Physics And Time

To perform any physics experiment, there must first be some kind of matter to observe.  For matter to exist, there must already be space to hold it.  Furthermore, the only reason why a specific object or particle has its own identity is the laws of logic, and the only reason why scientists can have intelligible sensory experiences and contemplate their experiments is the fact that their intellects allow them to grasp those laws of logic.  For an experiment to be carried out, though, there is another key factor that needs to be acknowledged: time.

Time is required for all physical events to occur, including experiments intended to investigate the laws of physics as they are manifested in the macroworld or at the quantum level.  Nevertheless, time itself is not part of the natural world, like a plant, stone, or cloud is; it is an immaterial existent, although it is often mistakenly described as if it is something physical by many scientists.  Cosmology has been particularly distorted by people who equate time (and often space as well) with the cosmos.

Although matter cannot react or change without time, time is not made of matter because it has no tangible or visible presence and, more importantly, it could exist even if there was no matter at all.  Physics therefore cannot be the study of time, which is a strictly metaphysical endeavor: physics is the study of matter and its behaviors as they occur in time.  The observation of matter as it reacts to various events does not reveal truths about the metaphysics of time itself.  Rather, logic and immediate experiences do.  The scientific method can only reveal our perceptions of how matter behaves in a sequence of events within a given duration.

Scientific inquiries can only take place because logic, space, time, and the external world already exist (the former two exist by necessity, and the latter two exist because of the chain of events started by the uncaused cause).  None of them are demonstrated to exist by the scientific method.  Only reason can reveal its own self-evidence and then fully establish that time and matter of some sort exist.  As far as time is concerned, one must already recognize the passage of time before one can venture out into the natural world and begin the process of observing a phenomenon during measured periods of time.

The conflation of time with the physical universe is one consequence of the popular misconception that literally all aspects of reality somehow revolve around physics.  On the contrary, all aspects of reality hinge upon logic!  Physics is the ultimate science by virtue of containing cosmology, chemistry, and the physical elements of biology, but science is nonetheless inferior to reason on every level.  No matter how much further it is developed, physics can never encompass a "theory of everything" unless only everything physical is ascribed to it, as immaterial existents like logic, space, consciousness, and time must be explored in other ways.