According to the idea of the block universe, the passage of time is an illusion. The past, present and future all coexist, along with space, in one big frozen block in which nothing ever happens. But the emergence of life and the existence of genuine novelty in our corner of the cosmos contradict this picture. The passage of time is not an illusion, it’s a fundamental aspect of reality, something that existed before even The Big Bang. By studying the nature of novelty, the life sciences could help us prove time fundamentalism, argues Lee Cronin.

I think that time is the most misunderstood aspect of reality. This is because physicists have concluded time is emergent and the universe somehow exists in a timeless state. According to this view, time is a dimension to be travelled in backwards and forwards, but we have no evidence this is true. We have only experienced time travel in one direction, from the past to the future. We cannot go back in time. Whilst we appear to be able to imagine being frozen in time, or going back in the past, the thing is, we need time to go forward and do any of these things. Time is the resource that allows things to happen.