Wu Wei
The Taoist view recognises that opposing sides
transform into each other, and Wu Wei is the art
of
acting
in a subtle, non-forcing, hardly noticeable way.
Whatever is to be made to fall,
first must be raised.
If you want to become whole,
first let yourself become broken.
If you want to become straight,
first let yourself become twisted.
If you want to become full,
first let yourself become empty.
When you demand nothing of
the world, nor of god,
when you want nothing,
seek nothing, expect nothing,
then the Supreme State will come
to you
uninvited and unexpected.
That without substance
can enter where there is no room.
For sometimes things are ahead
and sometimes follow behind;
Sometimes they blow hot
and sometimes cold;
Sometimes they are far
and sometimes near.
And so the world is mastered by
letting things take their course,
It cannot be mastered by interfering.
Therefore the Wise Ones do what
needs to done, unconcerned and
without striving.
See, all things howsoever they flourish
Return to the source from which they grew. For the timeless net has been cast wide, Coarse are its meshes,
yet
nothing slips through.
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From the perspective of a photon, "no time and no distance" is mathematically supported by Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity:
- Time Stops: For something moving at the speed of light, "time dilation" becomes infinite. To a photon, zero time passes between its birth (emission) and its death (absorption).
- Distance Vanishes: "Length contraction" also becomes absolute at light speed. To a photon, the distance between two points shrinks to zero.
- The "Instant" Universe: From a photon's point of view, it is emitted and absorbed at the exact same moment and location, effectively touching both points in space-time simultaneously.
Because light travels on what physicists call a "null geodesic," the "distance" it travels through spacetime is mathematically zero.
- Proper Time is Zero: For a photon, the "proper time" (the time measured by its own internal clock) never ticks. This is often referred to as temporal singularity.
- The "Atemporal" View: From the photon’s point of view, its entire existence is an instantaneous event. It doesn't "experience" the journey; it is emitted and absorbed at the same moment.
- Spatial Point-to-Point: Because of extreme length contraction, the photon's perspective collapses the universe's depth to zero along its path. It is as if the source and the destination are touching.
In simpler terms, one could call it an eternal now. While we see light crossing vast distances over billions of years, from the light's own "perspective," there is no journey—only the start and the finish happening at once. If one views the universe from that "null frame" (the perspective of light), one moves away from a sequence of events and into a state where everything exists simultaneously.
In modern physics, this Block Universe theory (also called Eternalism) is a widely supported scientific interpretation of Einstein's Theory of Relativity. It suggests that time does not "flow" but is a static, four-dimensional structure where the past, present, and future all exist equally. Ultimately, the Block Universe is the most mathematically elegant way to reconcile Einstein's discoveries, but it still needs to be unified with Quantum Mechanics and quantum randomness. |
