One of the problems with moving at the speed of light, is that the effective mass of an object increases the nearer it becomes, thus requiring exponentially more force to increase the speed of the object. Photons/light waves are able to attain this speed as they have no/negligible(another topic) mass. Time has also been shown to dilate with increase in speed. These ideas got me thinking, and if a=b, then b=a, right? Well, that plausibly doesn't apply here so simply, but it makes for some good thinking if you entertain the idea. So, speed is a determining factor in mass, but speed relative to what? The perceiver? But that would mean the mass changes based upon which reference point is used to calculate it.. In this theory I'm considering mass an illusion of perceived speed. Say we zoomed in on reality real-time. What might we see? Following this train of thought, I think we'd see nothing but white(the color of pure energy?), as these packets of energy seem to be in every position they will ever occupy at the same time, because they are moving at the speed of light. Now, say we could "pause" it. I see a sea of black speckled with dots of pure energy paused in place.
Now, because we "paused" reality and we know those balls of energy were moving, I'm going to zoom in a bit more and represent their direction with arrows.
We'll call these energy balls A and B, from left to right. A is moving at the speed of light upward, 90 degrees from the image frame, our perspective. B is also moving at the speed of light only at a different angle, 45 or 135 degrees, depending on your perspective, ;) from the image frame. From our perspective we see both as moving at the speed of light and, following the theory, having no mass. But how do these energies perceive each other? A would see B moving to its right, and back. Because speed is relative A would not see B moving at the speed of light, but actually closer to half the speed of light. Similar to viewing another car while you're driving. You may be doing 60 and they 50, but you would perceive the vehicle moving backwards at 10. That is if you could filter out the road and surroundings. If, as the idea goes, perceived speed determines mass, we would have 2 massless energies "seeing" mass in each other. This is where it really gets fun. For simplicity's sake, I used 2 energies in 2 dimensions, but in reality there are unimaginably more energies, and at least 1 more spacial dimension. maybe 8? All these energies would have their own directions and their own perceptions of each other which would exponent the number of different perceived masses. All of this takes place, mind you, in an instance, and changes just as fast. But what is an instance to energies separate of time? This trail of thought leads to the idea that time doesn't exist until a perception is made, and that "instance" is dilated into a span of time. You may also have inferred that there are countless "instances" and positions in which these energies can perceive each other, as they're moving at the speed of light and separate of time. This leads to the main points of this idea. Everything that can be has been and will be again. Multiple timelines/realities can exist side by side, while separate all together. Everything is the illusion of energys' perception dilated from a timeless massless instance. All of this is unsubstantiated, and just ideas I've thought over the years. Thanks for reading, feel free to give me some feedback or opinions.