The Theory of the Block Universe and the Minoan Skeleton in the Museum

The time is the fourth dimension, akin to length, width, and height. the past, what we designate as the present, and the future all co-exist simultaneously, like distinct cross-sections of the four dimensional continuum known as spacetime. This perspective, at least, is the tenet of the Block Universe theory, a concept derived from the mathematical framework of relativity.

The theory says time is a static dimension, and the past and future are the same as the present. This entire sensation of time that we experience is subjective. All events already exist in the block universe. 

In the city of Heraklion, a museum hosts an impressive exhibit. It is a skeleton, placed within a large pithos (storage jar), buried thousands of years ago according to the customs and practices of its time-customs common in Crete during the Minoan era, perhaps around 1450. The real miracle is that the pithos was not broken open to discover what was inside but was found in the form seen in the image. 

And at this point, the attractive theory comes to intrigue the mind. We see the form of that person in the museum, as a skeleton, but he or she still exists in their own moment, approximately 3000 years ago, living their daily lives in Minoan Crete. For him or her, the stories Homer and Hesiod once wrote were not just mythology. Perhaps they did not even know about those gods, perhaps they worshipped deities that are unknown to us. Maybe they knew what Linear A truly says, or perhaps they had never heard of it-the ''maybes'' are many. 

The theory does not claim that this person lives in another dimension or a parallel universe where they are still alive, but rather that all moments of his or her life are frozen at different points in the spacetime block, much like a film. These frames do not change or evolve, they simply exist. The Minoan is not still alive in the sense that he or she continues to live parallel to us, but the moments of its life continue to exist in the block, just as the present moment exists. 

The moments are not outside the universe, they are simply different coordinates in the spacetime continuum. Just as we do not ask a certain killometre marker is on the road-which is a coordinate of space-similarly, the moments of the past are simply different positions along the dimension of time. 

Consciousness is limited to experience only one moment at a time, moving along this temporal dimension, similar to watching a film where you see each scene individually and not all scenes simultaneously. It's akin to the experience of reading a book, where you can only focus on one page, one paragraph, one sentence at a time, despite the simultaneous existence of all pages, paragraphs, sentences. The Minoan maintains his or her perception of the present in ancient Crete, while we hold our perception of the present in the Heraklion museum. Both perceptions are equally real.

The connection seems both paradoxical and fascinating. When someone take a picture of the exhibit, they are not merely taking a souvenir-the remnants of a person who once lived-but are interacting with a different slice of the same four-dimensional being who, at a different coordinate, continues to live his or her life, completely unaware of his or her future as a museum exhibit. This relationship is an invisible bridge between the past and the present, the observer and the observed, constituting a kind of timeless connection, even though each individual is locked withing their own perception of the present.

Author: Theocharis George Paterakis  

References:

      Wikipedia contributors. (2025, October 10). Growing block universe. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growing_block_universe

         ABC News. (2018, September 1). The block universe theory, where time travel is possible but time passing is an illusion. https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-09-02/block-universe-theory-time-past-present-future-travel/10178386 

         Wikipedia contributors. (2025b, November 17). Eternalism (philosophy of time). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternalism_(philosophy_of_time)

          Wikipedia contributors. (2025c, November 27). Spacetime. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime 

           Wikipedia contributors. (2025c, November 17). Minoan civilization. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_civilization

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