With the advent of Relativity theory and the integration of what was once considered two separate things, space and time, into a single and connected space-time continuum, we must reformulate the age-old question of “why are we here?”, into “why are we here now?” so as to reflect this new understanding of the nature of reality. As concerns the ‘here’, Relativity theory shows that we can only place objects, positionally, in a ‘local’ reference frame, as there is no longer any single locus in the universe that serves to ‘fix’ all other points. All locations in space are relative to one another. Any and every point in space can be a ‘center of the universe’ if one wishes to specify it as such. We see this in the fact that wherever an observer sits, in space, they observe all space expanding away from that point, in time. The fact is, no point in space is ‘central’ as a reference to all others. So, as to the ‘here’ in our question, we can only use our local position to seek an answer. Questions regarding absolute positions in space appear to be beyond reach. As concerns the ‘now’, Relativity theory reveals, again, a similar conundrum. In his elaborations on Relativity, Einstein observed that there are no longer any sections of space-time wherein which a ‘now’ can be objectively represented. ‘Now’, like ‘place’, is a relative item. There is no, absolute, ‘now’ moment in the universe by which all other ‘now’s’ can be referenced, and so, no master clock by which all other ‘relative’ times are dependent. Hillary Putnam has shown, using relativity theory’s ramifications, that all past and future ‘now’ moments (from our antIs vantage point) are equally and actually as real as our experienced ‘here-now’. Yet for us, our antIs ‘now’ moments are experienced as, and seem, both objectively, and singularly, very real. So, with every ‘now’ moment in the universe endowed with equal validity as a real ‘now’,  we must recompose the question “why are we ‘now’?” into “how is it we find ourselves at this particular ‘now’ instead of any other?”. Modern science’s most widely accepted and accurate cosmological theory is called the Standard Model.  It stipulates the universe beginning at a singularity, some 13.7 billion years ago. From an infinitely small particle of infinite density and energy, it ‘inflated’ in what is called the Big Bang and has been expanding ever since. At this event, all space and time, as we know it, came into existence. So, here we are, at this ‘now’ some 13.7 billion years later, observing a universe ‘in the process of becoming’, right before our senses. Yet, according to Relativity, the ‘now’ moment of the appearance of the universe as well as all future ‘now’ moments are just as objectively ‘real’ as our currently experienced ‘here and now’; which is an antIs reality way of describing what Einstein meant in the above reference.

The first problem we have in describing how we come to be at this particular ‘now’, among all others, has to do with the ‘now’ at the ‘beginning’ of the universe. If we try to run the clock backward to the ‘moment’, the universe began, we can never reach a ‘zero’ moment. By definition, a ‘moment’ exists in time. Since a ‘moment’ in time is equivalent to a ‘now’ in time, there is literally no ‘now’ when the universe began. Whatever ‘nows’ we may experience, they have nothing to do with the nature of whatever or where ever this universe and its reality is rooted. The best we can say is; “The universe is not; the universe is, simultaneously!” The only other phenomena we see, in nature, that have  similar properties, are quantum state changes. An electron occupies one orbit or it occupies another orbit. There is never a ‘moment’ when it is ‘going’ from or to any orbits. In fact, a single electron can occupy more than one orbit simultaneously.  Physicist John Wheeler proposed a ‘one-electron universe’ where every electron and positron we see in the universe is but one electron moving through space, both forward and backward in time. But all of this is an antIs way of describing these phenomena. Nothing in nature is required to ‘experience’ either an antIs ‘now’ moment, or the flow of antIs time just because we do. If time does not ‘flow’ for an electron, it ‘is’ anywhere and everywhere. If time does not ‘flow’ for the universe, it ‘IS’, it does not ‘become’ and it never ‘was’. To speak of the ‘so called’ beginning of the universe, the best we can say is that ‘It is/is not simultaneously’. Because our antIs experience of reality does not constrain the actual attributes of totIs reality, time, whatever it is, is not constrained to ‘flow’. We do not know the position of the electron until we ‘observe’ it, but the nature of that observation is our biology’s creation and does not describe the actual nature of that electron, regardless of the observer’s fixing it in a ‘now’ moment of flowing time. The difference between quantum states of electrons as opposed to the state of the universe as a whole, from our antIs experience and perspective, is that, with the former, we are seeking to establish the reality of the electron, or of any particle for that matter, in a manner that comports with our antIs experience of a ‘now’ moment, a place in space time we believe to be the point where manifest reality is actual. As observers we are ‘sharing’ our antIs ‘now’ moment with the particles, which seems to be something we can actually do. However, in the act of observing such antIs phenomena, it is our generated experience that supplies us with the proofs that such space time positions actually exist in the manner that our experience of them dictates. In other words, we use and accept our own, generated, experiences as the proofs that those experiences represent actual reality. In the latter case of our experience of the universe as a whole, all points in totIs space time exist simultaneously, but we are unable to experience such a reality. Our own antIs ‘lifetimes’ last a mere 80 years or so. How can we experience both the end and the beginning of the universe? We are only capable of experiencing reality through our antIs created ‘now’. We have no biological process that will allow us to access time in any way other than that which it creates for us. But, in both cases, the antIs act of observation ‘creates’ the position/attributes of any particles we are observing as well as the universe as a whole. The difference is that we believe we are ‘here-now’ sharing the moment of manifest reality with the particle that appears to be ‘here-now’ as well, but we have no way to share the ‘beginning/end moment’ of the entire universe, nor any multiple ‘moments’ in between, simultaneously, so we default to this ‘now’ experience as the basis of the universe we observe as well. So how do we find ourselves at this particular ‘now’ moment in the history of our universe? We have seen that both place and time are relative elements, and that there is no central, objective, ‘now’ moment upon which all other ‘nows’ are dependent. Likewise, we’ve seen that all ‘nows’ are as real, in actuality, as our so called, ‘here and now’. The fact is, there is only one element in this scenario we call our ‘here and now’ that acts to ‘authenticate’ its reality, and that is the observer. We believe that our observations of reality, which in fact is antIs reality, are equivalent to totIs reality, but we’ve seen, in previous posts, and in the book TotIs, that this is not the case. And yet, this fact does nothing to stop us from believing that since we’re ‘observing’ this universe, it will maintain the same form and contain the same attributes when we’re not here to ‘observe’ it. This is simply not so. Our observations, based on our antIs experience, are, for all intents and purposes, illusory. The ontological nature of ‘being’ in the totIs universe is very different from the ontological nature of ‘being’ in the antIs universe. How do we define IS in a totIs universe? Because time does not flow in toIs reality, our antIs ideas of sequence, causality, place, and determinism, do not equate with what these phenomena look like, if they even exist, in the totIs universe. Lacking any now’s, with their antecedent flowing time, ‘to be’ becomes an absolute value. Existence contains no ‘been’ or ‘will be’. What is, IS; everything, coincident, from our antIs view’s interpretation of a beginning to an end. TotIs, with an absolute nature for being, would likewise attribute an absolute nature to ‘non-being’ or, what ‘is-not’. In totIs, what is, is, what is-not, is-not. The nature of being in an antIs universe is very different. In an antIs universe, being occurs in the ‘now’ moment between past and future. The flow of time is an a priori condition for ‘Is’, and includes non-existence, or ‘is-not’.  Being and non-being come and go depending on their location in space time. ‘Is’ resides at the fulcrum of ‘was’ and ‘will-be’, meanwhile we see that something ‘was’ but ‘is-not’ now, or ‘is-not’ now but ‘will be’. These states are a description of an antiIs perspective of being. AntIs reality is a function of biology’s interaction with totIs reality; this interpreted product creates our entire, and only, ‘experience’ of totIs reality. The ‘observer’ is a function of the created, antIs, ‘now’ moment in relation to antIs reality. The observer and antIs reality are a self sustaining pair. The observer must always ‘occupy’ a point in space time to exist, and the antIs ‘now’ moment supplies that point. The nature of being in totIs and antIs realities are not only very different, but mutually exclusive as well. An antIs observer, literally, can not exist in a totIs framework. To be an observer, by definition, is part of a biologically created platform for observation that views the universe from a single but moving point in space time, the ‘now’ point. This is the point in space time we now find ourselves, as observers, occupying. For a biological entity to experience two separate points in space time simultaneously, let alone all points in space time simultaneously, is not possible. As biology, we have neither the structure nor the nature for such, and to do so would cause existential annihilation for the observer. It is important to note here that the observer and the biology are separate functions. It is possible for biology to exist without an integrated observer, but the observer, as we understand it, requires a functioning biological entity to exist. So the question; why are we here, now? has led us on a journey, and to a conclusion that ‘we’, that is, the ‘observer’, is essentially isolated from any experience of the actual nature of space or time. This isolation is due to the nature of the observers dependence on the biologically created antIs experience for its existence, and it is from this illusory experience of being that the question is asked. For all of human history, the question, and mystery of being has been explained using mythopoetic and religious imagery and description. These accounts have often described human consciousness as separate, fallen even, from the grace of nature or the divine. But those same myths have, concomitantly, fed our belief in the divine, and super natural source of our consciousness as well. We have used such beliefs to place ourselves, the human observers, at the pinnacle of nature and until very recent times, at the very center of the universe, and creation, itself. Indeed, most humans today still believe in some form of this. The ability to distinguish the genesis of our consciousness, arising from within the antIs experience generated by our biology in its interactions with totIs reality, now gives us a new appreciation for, if not our place and time in the universe, at least our essence, which, much like Moses’, as described in the bible, works ceaselessly for entrance into the promised land, but, in the end, remains barred by its very nature, forever.