Does Relativity prove the past and future exist?

Most scientist would agree that Einstein’s equations seem to suggest that under certain conditions we could possibly go back in time, e.g. if we could exceed the speed of light.

Odd as it may sound, Relativity doesn't prove anything about ‘time', Relativity does of course say a great number of very accurate things about the state of the universe. And it is written in a language that assumes more than just matter and motion, and rates of change, and warped areas of space exist. It is written as if Time exists, but Relativity does not prove that time exists.

What can be said is that If time does exist, then relativity 'confirms' this, and tells us a great deal about it.But Relativity does not prove that time exists. It can also be seen that If just matter and motion (and warped space etc) exist, then relativity just confirms this instead.

All that relativity exposes is still essentially completely valid,(apart from ideas relating to 'time travel' etc) but just needs to be interpreted in timeless terms.

From what I have read and seen, the questions that arise when scientists look this area or relativity, generally seem to be about whether this part of his equations are correct. Or whether we could indeed travel faster than light, or warp space to create the same effect. Or whether nature intrinsically prevents this kind of thing in all cases.

But I believe these questions all miss a critical point, which is that these parts of Einstein’s work are in no way any kind of proof that time exists, or that a temporal record of all past events is constantly created, and might be visited. Neither do the equations prove that ‘all of time’ or, ‘every moment time’ exists all at once, and thus all different times are always ‘somewhere’ ready to be visited. As far as I am aware, no part of relativity proves that the past, or the future, exist in any way.

What Einstein’s reasoning and equations effectively say is not, that time exists, and time travel may or may not be possible. But that If time exists , then time travel may be possible.

I believe that seeing relativity as a proof of time is a subtle case of us mistakenly putting the cart before the horse.

It seems Einstein was brought up with, and half bought into, the idea of time existing, but may not have considered that perhaps the suggestion that the past was a real thing was just an over extrapolation of what the contents of his mind (memories) proved (see >>- 'X'-plaining away 'The past'. ). And that what he saw as the future constantly arriving, was just energy being released in orderly, chaotic, or intelligent ways (see >> 3∆ The Future.).

In short, it seems to me that relativity was written in a language that 'presumed' time existed, but if relativity is read in terms of just matter and motion existing, then all the relatavistic effects can be seen as making sense just 'here now' and not 'stretched over a fourth dimension of time'.

It is worth noting that the notion of a 'fourth dimension' came not from the scientist Einstein, but from the fiction writer H.G.Wells.

(See Time travel for beginners John Gribben "It was Einstein, as every schoolchild knows, who first described time as "the fourth dimension" -- and every schoolchild is wrong. It was actually Wells who wrote, in The Time Machine, that "there is no difference between Time and any of the three dimensions of Space, except that our consciousness moves along it"." )

(see also >> -aspects-are-not-dimensions)

M.Marsden.