12/07/2025
What if the passage of time is just a mental glitch?
Philosopher Adrian Bardon thinks that’s exactly what’s happening. In his new book, he argues that time – or at least the flow of time – is a psychological projection. It’s not an illusion in the optical sense. It’s a cognitive error: a misunderstanding of our own internal experience.
The theory builds on decades of work in physics. Einstein’s relativity showed that time isn’t absolute. It’s relative to the observer. People moving at different speeds can disagree on what “now” means, and both are right. That broke the idea of a universal present.
Physicists now describe time as part of spacetime: a four-dimensional block where all moments – past, present, and future – exist at once. In that framework, the universe doesn’t change. We just experience different parts of it, like reading frames of a film.
So why do we feel like we’re moving through time?
Bardon says that sense of movement is something the mind adds – the same way it adds color to light wavelengths or pain to tissue damage. We’re not seeing time directly. We’re building a mental model that includes it.
Learn more:
"What is time? Rather than something that ‘flows,’ a philosopher suggests time is a psychological projection." The Conversation, 2025.
