7. Relativity Theory¶
Core Argument¶
This chapter argues that relativity theory, far from endorsing subjectivism, confirms the dialectical materialist view of time as an objective expression of matter’s constant change. Time is inseparable from matter; its irreversibility—flowing only from past to future—is the sole absolute. The notion that time is an illusion is an idealist position, found in Buddhism, Plato, and Plotinus, while cyclical time reflects agricultural societies disrupted by capitalism. Big bang cosmology revives religious creation myths, and Kant’s treatment of time as “phenomenally real” but unknowable in itself is rejected: time is a property of matter. Newton conceived absolute time as a container independent of the universe; Hegel challenged this with a dynamic, dialectical view based on process and contradiction, anticipating later science.
Einstein’s special relativity (1905) resolved contradictions exposed by the Michelson-Morley experiment and radioactivity. Its equation E = mc² confirms that motion is matter’s mode of existence: mass and energy are one substance, “mass-energy,” with matter as frozen energy. General relativity (1915) shows space is inseparable from matter; near heavy bodies, “space is curved,” expressing the dialectical unity of space, time, matter, and motion. It explained Mercury’s orbital irregularity and the bending of light, confirmed by the 1919 eclipse. Every measurement is a ratio; properties manifest only in relation to other things. Time depends on a system’s movement—atomic clocks run slower at ground level than at altitude—but this does not make it subjective.
The author critiques idealist interpretations: relativity does not imply multiple “presents” or a pre-existing four-dimensional solid. Past and future combine in the present: the past is “congealed time,” fixed and determinate; the future is being-in-potential, an open set of possibilities from which only one actual state arises. The “multiverse” leads to mysticism. Einstein preferred “invariance theory”; he discovered absolutes (rest energy, the limiting speed of light), not subjectivism. Boltzmann’s thermodynamics demonstrated time’s objective irreversibility, contradicting the subjective idealism of Mach, which Einstein initially adopted but later regretted. The second law of thermodynamics states entropy increases towards the future, an objective process independent of any observer. Prigogine and Stengers draw an analogy between the conflict of dynamics and thermodynamics and the rise of dialectical materialism, which views nature as historical and capable of development. General relativity’s claims about black holes and time standing still are speculative; the theory is incompatible with quantum mechanics. Physics is in ferment, and the new theories emerging will contain no place for time-travel, multiverses, or singularities that compress the universe into a single point while forbidding further questions.