In a footnote to one of my papers on physics (See Footnote 7 of A Unified Model of the Gravitational, Electrostatic, and Magnetic Forces), I introduced but didn’t fully unpack a simple theory that defines a space in which time itself exists, in that all things that actually happen are in effect stored in some space. The basic idea is that as the Universe changes, it’s literally moving in that space. That said, you could dispense with time altogether as in independent variable in my model, since time is the result of physical change, and so if there were no change at all to any system, you would have no way of measuring time, and therefore you could argue, that time is simply a secondary property imposed upon reality, that is measured through physical change.

However, we know that reality does in fact change, and we also have memories, which are quite literally representations of prior states of reality. This at least suggests the possibility that reality also has memory, that stores the prior, and possibly the future states of the Universe. Ultimately, this may be unnecessary, and therefore false, but it turns out you can actually test the model I’m going to present experimentally, and some known experiments are consistent with the model, in particular the existence of dark energy, and the spontaneous, temporary appearance of virtual particles at extremely small scales.

The basic idea is that you have a source, which generates what can be thought of as a Big Bang, producing an initial state of the Universe, . That initial state is then operated upon by the laws of physics, producing the next state, . Obviously time is discrete in my model. We can allow for non-determinism by simply viewing each as a set of possible states, so that for example contains one state, whereas could contain any number of states. Conservation of momentum seems to be inviolate, whereas conservation of energy is plainly false, given that fields for example produce unbounded acceleration, and therefore an unbounded amount of kinetic energy. As such, if we want to allow for non-determinism, and therefore multiplicity, we can assume that the net momentum of any is zero, which will guarantee that momentum is conserved, even if we allow for the eventual unbounded generation of energy (recall, each is assumed to physically exist, and propagate through a space). Therefore, in a Universe that allows for non-determinism, that nonetheless conserves momentum, it must be the case that contains at least two instances of the Universe, each with offsetting momenta, or a single instance that has a net momentum of zero.

If we imagine the elements of each as snapshots of the configuration of the Universe at a given moment in time, that are moving through some space, then it must be the case that something prevents them from colliding in any noticeable manner, with any noticeable frequency, since that plainly does not occur from our perspective. This can be accomplished with a force that is attractive to all energy within a given , yet repulsive to all other energy in any and all , for all . That is, this force would be attractive to all energy within a given instance of the Universe, producing cohesion, despite its velocity through the space of time itself, yet repulsive to all other energy, insuring that each snapshot of the Universe stays independent, without interacting with any other snapshot of the Universe. This force is obviously gravity, and moreover, the repulsive force completes the missing symmetry of gravity, producing a repulsive force between masses in some cases.

However, if we allow for small scale violations to this general idea of each snapshot of the Universe being independent, we could produce virtual particles that temporarily enter and then leave our timeline. This could also be the source of Dark Energy, that would constitute an unlikely, but possible macroscopic intrusion of energy from other timelines.

If the source at inception fires repeatedly, then you would have multiple instances of initial conditions that propagate in this space, but that’s perfectly fine, given the attractive and repulsive forces of gravity. If the source at inception generates the same initial conditions every time, then you’ll just have multiple instances of the same evolution. In this case, depending upon where we are positioned in the space of time itself, other snapshots of the Universe could literally contain our futures. If however, it generates different initial conditions, then you will have multiple evolutions. Ultimately, if the space of time truly exists, in this manner, then whether or not you have a multiverse, the past should be observable through some means, in particular, it should be possible to produce a virtual particle, that is a real particle in our timeline, and a virtual particle in another, and if it “comes back” with momentum that cannot be explained, then this would be evidence that it had in fact travelled to a different timeline, and interacted with an unknown system. Another test would be the existence of any wrong-way motion between energy that can’t be explained by other forces, suggesting the energy in question is not from our timeline, since in this view, mass that is not from our timeline is repelled.

Note that you don’t need a multiverse theory to explain either superposition or entanglement, at least in my model. Instead, superposition simply takes the fixed energy of a system, and allocates it to some number of possibilities, each being truly extant, with a fraction of the total energy of the system. Similarly, entanglement would occur in this view because you’ve simply taken the energy of some system, and split it macroscopically, creating two instances of the same system, each with less than the total energy, with the sum of the two equal to the total energy, that are therefore entangled, because they are one and the same system.