Is time really a single, linear progression?

I have been thinking that perhaps time can be understood through at least two different dimensions—something like a horizontal axis and a vertical axis.

Of course, this is my own hypothesis, and I do not claim that it is an established scientific fact.

Generally, we perceive time as a one-directional sequence: past → present → future. This way of understanding time is consistent with both our everyday experience and the way time is commonly represented in physics. But if the future is not simply something that “does not exist yet,” and instead consists of multiple possible states or outcomes that are somehow structured, then perhaps time cannot be fully explained as a single line.

This is where I want to introduce two ways of looking at the axis of time.

The first is what I would call the “horizontal axis of time.”

This is the time we normally experience—the progression from the past, through the present, and toward the future. It is the framework through which we experience events, form memories, and establish the sequence in which things happen.

The second is what I would tentatively call the “vertical axis of time.”

This does not refer to the passage of time itself. Rather, it represents a way of looking at the multiple states, possibilities, or potential branches of the future that may exist at any given point in time.

If we adopt this perspective, the meaning of “predicting the future” also begins to change.

Future prediction would not simply mean using information available in the present to make an educated guess about what will happen next.

If the future exists as a structure containing multiple possibilities, then to “see” the future would mean perceiving some part of that structure.

But this raises a fundamental question.

If it were possible for a human being to truly “see the future,” would that person not need to understand not merely one future event, but the structure of the future itself—the way in which multiple possibilities are formed and connected?

In other words, knowing a particular point in the future and understanding the future as a structure are two completely different things.

For example, even if someone could accurately predict a future event, its meaning would depend greatly on whether that event represented the only possible future or merely one possibility among countless potential outcomes.

If the future has the capacity to branch into different possibilities, then truly understanding the future would require understanding those branches themselves.

It would also require taking into account the conditions of the present, the factors accumulated from the past, and the multiple possibilities that emerge from them.

From this perspective, truly “seeing the future” cannot necessarily be explained simply as a form of prophecy.

Perhaps it is better understood as the ability to perceive the structure of time from a perspective different from the ordinary, one-dimensional way in which human consciousness experiences it.

Of course, this is not a theory that has been scientifically proven.

However, even within modern physics, time is not treated simply as an absolute quantity. In relativity, time and space are unified into spacetime, while quantum theory deals with states and possibilities in ways that differ fundamentally from the classical view of reality.

For that reason, I believe the question of “What exactly is time?” is still an open question.

Even the moment we call the “present” may not represent time in its entirety. It may simply be a single point that human consciousness is capable of experiencing within a much larger temporal structure.

If that is the case, then perhaps the future is not simply “a place we have not reached yet.”

Instead, it may be understood as a region of multiple possibilities that have not yet been experienced from the perspective of the present moment.

And this leads to what I believe is the essential question:

How much of that structure of possibility are we actually capable of perceiving?

That, to me, is where the deeper question of what it means to “see the future” begins.

I believe that time may not be a single line, but a structure far more complex than we currently understand.

And if there truly exists an individual capable of perceiving the future, perhaps what they would need is not simply the ability to “see a point in the future.”

Perhaps they would need the ability to perceive the past, present, and future—and the countless possibilities that emerge from them—as one unified structure of time.

That is my way of looking at the axis of time.

未来視とは？

心晴れるまで

土屋梨沙