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ART- None of those terms are "clear" if you don't take into fact the point taht any word is just an assignment of an idea into language. Frankly, it's not "clear" what you're saying outside of your own mind, in so much as my interpretation may be different. Being excessively particular about such things gives a lean towards a nihilist attitude.
As for space being linear in regards to alternate universes, those universes could exist in dimensions we are not familiar with (outside the 4 known, observable dimensions). Aside from that fact, alternate timelines are often envisioned as infinite forks in the road, which at least gives two dimensions to time rather than one (making it non-linear).
Black holes and worm holes are not the same thing. A black hole more than likely does NOT have a protrusive point somewhere else in spacetime. A worm hole, theoretically, does. You could not likely use a black hole for travel, as the density at the singularity more or less squelches the existance of composed matter. A good reference on this type of thing is "The Illustrated A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking. It's a great read, even for the non-science-minded.
The fact that we do not "live before we are born" and other such oddities has nothing to do with time, but merely or observation of time as limited by human perception. Our lives just happen to have a linear path. Therefore our perceived timeline corresponds with our psychological timeline. That doesn't mean that this is a requirement of universal laws. On a side-note, this can be explained to some degree by chaos theory and the increase of entropy in the universe.
As for not being able to observe without changing the past, I'd have to disagree. People observe you every day without changing the course of what you do. The "butterfly effect", if you believe in such a thing, does still have some limitations. While someone standing in a spot, leaning on a wall and watching might alter time, it very well may not (chances are actually against it). The observation of someone (which happens constantly) does not play a large role in the outcome of our lives. The key is to ONLY observe and NOT interact. I don't believe they are mutually inclusive.
tecoyah - good point. Once again, the perception of time is limited to exactly that... how we perceive things. There's an experiment that was done which is usually glorified by the story of the twins, where one twin lives on Earth and the other is put on a space craft that travels at the speed of light. After 20 years, the space craft returns and the brother on Earth has aged 20 years, while the brother on the space craft has aged less. The proof of this was using two EXTREMELY precise timepieces on a clock tower. Over the course of time, the clock lowest to the ground had moved more quickly through time. The effect is theorized to occur due to gravity's interaction with space-time.
As for looking at it through religious eyes, since it's all theory anyway, feel free. I have a spiritual set of beliefs, though persoonally I think spirituality and "higher powers" are a result of the universe, not the creators of it. There's no better proof one way than the other. Chaos from order, order from chaos, chicken and the egg...
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