This Will Bake Your Cookie

Time only means anything if we measure it.

When I was in school, I learned about tolerances.  The idea that you can only measure something to half the size of the smallest division on the scale.  If your ruler only shows inches, then you can't measure closer than a half an inch.  Like that.

A while back, I watched a show on cartography that basically showed how the more accurate the scale, the longer the coastline gets.  If you start by measuring in feet, it's X length but as your scale gets more accurate, you can measure each fold in the land more precisely and those extra folds make the shoreline longer.

Stay with me.  This will pay off.

As you measure more accurately, you realize that there really is no end to this, as every improvement in the scale leads to longer and longer coastlines, even though in practice nothing has actually changed.  For the purpose of a walk on the beach, the coastline is still X length but the true nature of the universe allows for that coast to be quite a lot longer if you're interested in spending time measuring it.

So, back to time. 

You and I are sitting the same distance from event X.  Say a runner breaking the tape at the finish line.

Well, even though we think we're the same distance away, as we've seen above, that's pretty much impossible.  Light, despite its amazing speed, does require time to get from A to B.  Measure accurately enough and my eye and yours will be slightly different distances from the event.  Add to that the length of time that my brain takes to process that light input vs. how long yours does and by the numbers, we're at vastly different distances.  On a small enough scale.

Here's the cookie baking bit.

That means that what I think of as "now" can never and does never occur at the same instant as your "now".

By the numbers, every organism experiences its own now, never sharing that moment with any other organism. We all live in our own version of time.  While in practice we share this reality, this "now", in truth that sharing is an illusion.  We can still watch that race, but each of us will be watching in an infinitesimally different time, perhaps even a separate reality despite our shared belief that we are watching the same event unfold.

That's what I get for watching Legion.