we exist at a single point in the timeline, but have the illusion of time passing by because we remember the past and not the future. is this approximately correct?
No. It’s not really coherent or testable enough to be correct or incorrect. You can’t know if “we” even “exist” in the sense you’re describing. I know I exist (per Descartes), but that’s not evidence of any other part of your description. It’s possible that there is no continuity to my existence (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain for an example of how this could be).
A simpler description (for my modeling; I don’t know how to assert any objective simplicity measure) is that time is NOT JUST psychological, it’s an actual part of the universe, and the future is different from the past in at least the fact that it has higher entropy.
Related: I highly recommend https://smile.amazon.com/G%C3%B6del-Escher-Bach-Eternal-Golden/dp/0465026567 as an introduction to some of the concepts about time and cognition. Especially the part about the tortoise enjoying records (vinyl music recordings) by slapping them against his stomach to experience the pattern of grooves all at once.
time is NOT JUST psychological, it’s an actual part of the universe, and the future is different from the past in at least the fact that it has higher entropy.
No. It’s not really coherent or testable enough to be correct or incorrect. You can’t know if “we” even “exist” in the sense you’re describing. I know I exist (per Descartes), but that’s not evidence of any other part of your description. It’s possible that there is no continuity to my existence (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain for an example of how this could be).
A simpler description (for my modeling; I don’t know how to assert any objective simplicity measure) is that time is NOT JUST psychological, it’s an actual part of the universe, and the future is different from the past in at least the fact that it has higher entropy.
Related: I highly recommend https://smile.amazon.com/G%C3%B6del-Escher-Bach-Eternal-Golden/dp/0465026567 as an introduction to some of the concepts about time and cognition. Especially the part about the tortoise enjoying records (vinyl music recordings) by slapping them against his stomach to experience the pattern of grooves all at once.
Again direction(arrow) isn’t flow(passingness).