(6)The equivalence relationship between time and space

As a category of consciousness, the expression of time relation in consciousness is similar to that of space relation, or even the same. We often draw coordinate system with time as the horizontal coordinate and other motion changes (e.g., the height of a person, the size of a firm, the GDP of a country, etc.) as the vertical coordinate. On the horizontal coordinate, we can set the unit, that is, what 1 centimeter represents, whether it is 1 minute, 1 hour, or 1 year. If 1 centimeter represents 1 hour, then the spatial relation of 1 centimeter is equivalent to the time of 1 hour. This way of drawing coordinates is actually how we deal with the relationship of time in our consciousness, when we think of a length of time, we tend to think of a length of space. In other words, in consciousness the time relation is the spatial relation.

Theorem: The time relation in consciousness is a kind of spatial relation.

Any point can have a three-dimensional coordinate of space, and can also have a time coordinate as the fourth dimensional coordinate. There are two reasons why two cars can pass through the same point of a intersection without colliding. First, when two cars have the same x and y coordinates, the z coordinates are different because there is an overpass or there is a car that flies. Second, because when their three-dimensional space coordinates are the same, their time coordinates are different. Here the time coordinates and the space coordinates are equivalent.

Since structure is the spatial position relationship between objects or between parts of the system, spatial relations are all structural relations. And time relations are equivalent to spatial relations, therefore, time relations are structural relations.

Any line represents a functional relationship among three-dimensional coordinates of points. When each point on a line has the same time coordinates, the line is a stationary line, and the points on the line are stationary points. But if the time coordinates of the points on the line are different, the line can represent the motion of the points.