[2] Or maybe the Universe has no 'time' element (or dimension) to it. It simply is. It does not age, while everything in it (or on it) does 'age'.
[3] Or maybe it's turtles all the way down. : )
RE: [1] -- Two-dimensionality is the property of a universal mathematic object, the plane. Two-dimensional objects do not appear in nature, no more than a perfect sphere does.
A "plane" in the natural world is not perfectly achievable. At best, plane-like things in nature are approximations of the ideal plane. But this 2D object in mathematics implies 3D in nature. If only the third spatial dimension is one particle "deep," we have a third dimension. And if you don't have that third dimension, would you be able to directly observe the plane at all?
Again, for all of Eugene Wigner's truthful observation about the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the Natural Sciences," one still cannot find a perfect plane or sphere in the natural world.
[2] If the Universe has no "'time' element" in it, then mankind has forever existed in a state of pure delusion. Yet it seems to me that we, like the rest of the natural world, are creatures "caught in the net of Life and Time." And for us humans, time is irreversible. Which is why we can't "go back" and correct past "mistakes."
The above describes how "time" regularly "appears" to us -- as linear, sequential, irreversible. To me, though true to a point, this ia a partial view; the poet T. S. Eliot captures subject of "time" as it bears on humans exactly right, IMHO:
Man lives at the intersection of time and timelessness.So put that in your pipe and smoke it! LOL!!!
[3} As for those "turtles all the way down," that is a favored saw used by progressive thinkers to stop people who believe in a beginning of the Universe in their tracks. Its object is to make fun of Christians, to suggest they are superstitious morons because they believe in Creator God.
But it's pretty lame as far as describing the etiology of anything real. What the "turtles all the way down" presupposition really is: A baseless defense of the theory of infinite regress.
And infinite regress has no internal principle or explanation for the instantiation of anything in particular. It is a non-answer answer.
Infinite regress is a theory of "becoming" that never can "become" for lack of an efficient cause....
As ever, there are more questions than answers.... Thank you for writing, UCANSEE2.
And ALL that is why I became a multi-dimensional object.
(Thanks for the rebuttal. Good info.)