How Would You Answer This?

[DarkScythe]

time is relative.

[blackstrap]

How long is NOW ? Time flows from the future to the past.Does it hesitate at NOW? NOW is infinitely small,so small that it is hard to imagine it exists at all,and yet it does. The' present ' can expand and contract to fit our need for expressing time.

When we look up into the night sky we basically see the past. Apparantly it is possible to see the future or at least a possible future. Is future time in a kind of spagetti loop were one can peek in?

[Questing Beast]

Time is not linear. Time does not move, we do. We are linear in our perceptions because we are "in" space-time. God is not. To God all is NOW, even though creation increases infinitely within God's purview....

[wolfcall]

did it happen and when it happened are 2 different arguments. i see alot quantum theory thrown in this. to say one thing existed at one point at one time is to give it a specific focal point at a specific time based on a rough idea of the conceptualization of time based on the people that witnessed it. ask 3 people to witness you driving your car ask questions about the position of the sun where they were positioned and where the vehicle stopped and make sure the question them seperately and im pretty sure you will have 3 different answers. time is merely a concept of measurement from the time of awareness to a time of non awareness that can be recognized as physical.

[onefour1]

To me time is a contrivance used to measure and also to coordinate our lives. God created the sun, moon, and earth. He caused the earth to revolve around the sun and we call it a year. He caused the earth to spin on its axis and one rotation is a day. We get our months from watching the moon in relation to the earth and sun. Man has further divided the day into hours minutes and seconds. All our time on earth is based on a relatively constant motion or change. The constant rotation and revolution of the the earth. The constant change of the hands on a clock. It is all based on change. Man was given the ability to remember past states before change occurs. It is called a memory. Because we remember past states of change, we perceive the past. Our minds also understand that change continues to occur and we come to expect future change. Being in this existence of change and recognizing past events and potential future events, and also because we are used to measuring our lives with days, months, years, hours, minutes and seconds, we have developed a sense of flowing through the these abstract concepts known as years, months, days, etc. This how I believe we came to have a concept of time. We have kept histories of past states and events and view them as somehow separate from our current existence. We contemplate future events of change and also view them as being separate from our current existense. We give these concepts names such as past, present and future. The more we use these concepts and read history and plan for future events, time begins to become a real entity in our minds. It becomes something that we believe actually exists and has always existed.

But if all change or motion stopped, even the change of thoughts in your minds, there would be no such thing as time. But things do change. So one thing for sure is that change does exist. I believe that time is a contrivance of God and man used to measure and give more order to our lives. I don't believe it is an actual physical thing that exist but that only change exists. Time is a concept that exists in our minds when we remember past events of change and contemplate future events of change. I believe that all that exists has always existed and it has existed with change. Only the instant of conscious present is what is real. We think about the past and future, but the only reality that we know is the present state. All that really exists is the now. Now is all that is real. The only time the past was real was when it was the present. The only time the future will be real is when it becomes the present now. The past is a memory of a previous state of the now. The future is a perceived idea of what the now will become. But the only reality is the now. The future and past don't really exist. Only the present now.

To me everything in existence has always existed and there really isn't a physical reality known as time. All that really exists is the change and the present now. Existence has always existed as the present state of being. There was no infinite past but simply the change that has always been going on in the now. The now will continue to exist and we might perceive that we are on a river of time, but I don't think so. I believe we are in an ever present state which happens to have change within it.

The concept of time is a useful contrivance that gives us meaning and order in our lives. But sometimes we need to step back and see it for what it really is. It is a tool we use for our benefit but it is only a conceptual measure and means to give order to our lives.

I don't believe that God or anyone has actually gone back into an existence known as the past while others still exist in the present. Nor do I believe that God or anyone has gone into the actual future while we exist in the present. Such a belief, in my mind, would destroy the concept of free will.

[volgadon]

Proof that Time Cannot be Infinite

Here is a simple proof, slightly modified from Kalam, that suggests time cannot be infinite.

1. An infinite amount of time has no end.

2. But now is an end in time.

3. Therefore, time is not infinite.

Looking at this from another angle, it is illogical to think that if an infinite past exists, that the present could ever occur. If the past is infinite, there isn't enough time to ever arrive at a present!

http://wiki.answers....s_time_infinite

I think he means that if an infinite past exists, there's too much time to ever arrive at the present, but either way, how do you answer this.

I mean if you don't believe that God is the ultimate Cause of time, and space, and everything, but see Him as a part of it (as I think most Mormons do), wouldn't you have to believe in an infinite past?

And if there's an infinite past, how would we have arrived at the present?

There are questions that this modified Kalam argument do not even begin to ask, let alone answer.

[Rob Osborn]

Proof that Time Cannot be Infinite

Here is a simple proof, slightly modified from Kalam, that suggests time cannot be infinite.

1. An infinite amount of time has no end.

2. But now is an end in time.

3. Therefore, time is not infinite.

Looking at this from another angle, it is illogical to think that if an infinite past exists, that the present could ever occur. If the past is infinite, there isn't enough time to ever arrive at a present!

http://wiki.answers....s_time_infinite

I think he means that if an infinite past exists, there's too much time to ever arrive at the present, but either way, how do you answer this.

I mean if you don't believe that God is the ultimate Cause of time, and space, and everything, but see Him as a part of it (as I think most Mormons do), wouldn't you have to believe in an infinite past?

And if there's an infinite past, how would we have arrived at the present?

No matter how you look at it, we exist as a paradox, at least as far as human reasoning goes.

All we know is that we exist and that we did indeed come from a point in the past and also- we shall continue always to some point in the future. If we assume, as our laws of physics state, that there must first be a cause before an action, then it sets up the paradox that there must be an endless amount of cause and action going into our past. As for numbering them all, which means to "know", all that can be counted is a finite number of cause and action meaning we would never "know" of any possible action or cause infinitely in our past and therefore assume the reality that the concept of applying "infinity" to something we number is futile and pointless.

On the other hand, if we assume there must be a first cause and action, it defies everything we know about science and the laws of physics which creates the other side of the paradox. So, no matter how one looks at it, it is all a futile paradox. No one can physically provide an actual proof either way and it is thus all opinion and conjecture.

[mfbukowski]

Proof that Time Cannot be Infinite

Here is a simple proof, slightly modified from Kalam, that suggests time cannot be infinite.

1. An infinite amount of time has no end.

2. But now is an end in time.

3. Therefore, time is not infinite.

Looking at this from another angle, it is illogical to think that if an infinite past exists, that the present could ever occur. If the past is infinite, there isn't enough time to ever arrive at a present!

http://wiki.answers....s_time_infinite

I think he means that if an infinite past exists, there's too much time to ever arrive at the present, but either way, how do you answer this.

I mean if you don't believe that God is the ultimate Cause of time, and space, and everything, but see Him as a part of it (as I think most Mormons do), wouldn't you have to believe in an infinite past?

And if there's an infinite past, how would we have arrived at the present?

Clearly we don't even exist. After all it is proven!

Now is now- it is not an end. Time is really nothing more than our minds thinking sequentially because we are so dumb we cannot concentrate on 87 billion things happening at the same time. It's a good thing God can.

Edited January 14, 2013 by mfbukowski

[Ahab]

We have a misunderstanding I was referring to direction of travel not the direction of the time. To me time does not flow but is a measurement. One can point in any direction up, down side to side or any variation of those directions and travel as long or as short a time as one chooses. Time is infinite when taken as a whole but can be divided into short segments with beginnings and ends.

Do you understand how I see time as a thing that flows, like a river? We live in the now but we get the now continually from the future, and once a specific point in the future gets to us it's gone just as fast as it came, as it then goes into the past. We are actually time travelers now, as we go into the future, and if we knew a way to go faster, or to get time to slow down as we continued to go through it at the same rate we are moving right now, then we would get to future events even faster. There is no way we can move into the past, though, or at least not as far as we know. We might imagine or fantasize that some kind of worm hole or something might take us back to the past but as of now we no know way to go backwards. We can't even stay still. All we can do is to keep moving forward. I believe God and even we can keeps good records of the past so we can see what happened, but I can't conceive of any way we would ever be able to actually move into past time. Even the act of getting there, if we could, would be another future event while interacting what has already occurred and is now in the past.

[ERayR]

Do you understand how I see time as a thing that flows, like a river? We live in the now but we get the now continually from the future, and once a specific point in the future gets to us it's gone just as fast as it came, as it then goes into the past. We are actually time travelers now, as we go into the future, and if we knew a way to go faster, or to get time to slow down as we continued to go through it at the same rate we are moving right now, then we would get to future events even faster. There is no way we can move into the past, though, or at least not as far as we know. We might imagine or fantasize that some kind of worm hole or something might take us back to the past but as of now we no know way to go backwards. We can't even stay still. All we can do is to keep moving forward. I believe God and even we can keeps good records of the past so we can see what happened, but I can't conceive of any way we would ever be able to actually move into past time. Even the act of getting there, if we could, would be another future event while interacting what has already occurred and is now in the past.

I see time as a measure for sequencing events. It is obvious(to me) that events do not happen simultaneously God created first, second ,etc. As some actions must be sequenced time is a measure for this sequencing.

[Ahab]

How long is NOW ?

It's very short, like a flash, unless you define now as a larger time period like maybe when asking what century are we in now.

Time flows from the future to the past. Does it hesitate at NOW?

No, it doesn't hesitate. Time is moving all the time but as it gets here from the future there is a brief moment before it goes quickly into the past. I have thought about the possibility that maybe we are the ones that are moving while time is always still but at this point it makes more sense to me to think of time as the thing that is moving.

NOW is infinitely small, so small that it is hard to imagine it exists at all,and yet it does. The' present ' can expand and contract to fit our need for expressing time.

I can see that.

When we look up into the night sky we basically see the past. Apparantly it is possible to see the future or at least a possible future. Is future time in a kind of spagetti loop were one can peek in?

I think that while we may be able to see the future based on what we know things will do, we don't actually get there until it gets here, before it is gone. We may be able to find a way to get there faster someday, though, or to get time to slow down while we go through at the same rate. Like putting some things in the river of time so that at specific points it slows down, or goes around us, as it continues to go into the past. I don't think we could get it to totally stop, though. I can't imagine putting a stop to all time, for any amount of time, because then how would you be able to say for how long you got time to actually stop, or slow down?

p.s. Btw, I have thought of how interesting it is that time seems to go by faster, sometimes. Like when I was a child an hour seemed like such a long time, and summer time seemed like it would never get here while I was in school. Now, though, at 52 years of age, in Earth years, time goes by or at least seems to go by a heck of a lot faster than it did when I was younger, and every year seems to go by even more quickly. I think part of that is because as I get older a year is a smaller percentage of my Earth time than when I was younger, like how at age 10 a year was 1/10th of my time here on Earth, and now it's 1/52nd. Imagine now fast time must seem to go by for God. I'd bet a year in Earth time hardly registers at all to him now.

Edited January 14, 2013 by Ahab

[Ahab]

I see time as a measure for sequencing events. It is obvious(to me) that events do not happen simultaneously God created first, second ,etc. As some actions must be sequenced time is a measure for this sequencing.

I can see that as one of the definitions of time, but I'm talking about time itself and not just a measure of time. Without a watch or time measuring instrument there would still be all 3 phases of time, the future, now, and the past. To say time is a measure only addresses part of the issue, because you're not mentioning what you are measuring.

[Ahab]

To me time is a contrivance used to measure and also to coordinate our lives.

Try to see time as something that exists independent of all other things in existence... existence before an event, after it, and the exact moment when that event happens.

God created the sun, moon, and earth.

In the past. Right. Before he created those things they didn't exist as they did before he created them, and then he created them and they did exist (in the "now" moment then), and now we speak of them in the past tense because they have already been created. There is and always will be all 3 phases of time.

He caused the earth to revolve around the sun and we call it a year.

Whatever you call them, we're still talking about 3 phases of time. Before they revolved, when they revolved the first time, and all of the revolutions that have come after the first one.

He caused...

There was a moment before he caused it, and there was a moment after that too. You can't get around that.

...

Edited January 15, 2013 by Ahab

[ERayR]

I can see that as one of the definitions of time, but I'm talking about time itself and not just a measure of time. Without a watch or time measuring instrument there would still be all 3 phases of time, the future, now, and the past. To say time is a measure only addresses part of the issue, because you're not mentioning what you are measuring.

I think that the definition is the thing. If is is not what is defined then the definition is invalid. Past, present and future are names for a sequence.

[Ahab]

I think that the definition is the thing. If is is not what is defined then the definition is invalid.

I agree with that that. The important thing is to understand what we're talking about.

Past, present and future are names for a sequence.

Yes, a sequence, with all 3 involved in the sequence, collectively, even though you can focus on only one part of the sequence.

Collectively, the sequence starts in the future then moves to the now and then it goes into the past. That is the sequence.

You can talk about a little part of only one phase in the sequence, but collectively all 3 are involved as time goes from the future to the now and then into the past.

[ERayR]

I agree with that that. The important thing is to understand what we're talking about.

Yes, a sequence, with all 3 involved in the sequence, collectively, even though you can focus on only one part of the sequence.

Collectively, the sequence starts in the future then moves to the now and then it goes into the past. That is the sequence.

You can talk about a little part of only one phase in the sequence, but collectively all 3 are involved as time goes from the future to the now and then into the past.

You keep saying the sequence starts in the future. You are moving backward. The sequence starts in the past and is observed in the present as the future has not yet been determined. The sequence cannot start in the future as the future is determined by the past and the present and has not yet been determined.

[Stargazer]

Proof that Time Cannot be Infinite

Here is a simple proof, slightly modified from Kalam, that suggests time cannot be infinite.

1. An infinite amount of time has no end.

2. But now is an end in time.

3. Therefore, time is not infinite.

Looking at this from another angle, it is illogical to think that if an infinite past exists, that the present could ever occur. If the past is infinite, there isn't enough time to ever arrive at a present!

http://wiki.answers....s_time_infinite

I think he means that if an infinite past exists, there's too much time to ever arrive at the present, but either way, how do you answer this.

I mean if you don't believe that God is the ultimate Cause of time, and space, and everything, but see Him as a part of it (as I think most Mormons do), wouldn't you have to believe in an infinite past?

And if there's an infinite past, how would we have arrived at the present?

Aren't logical paradoxes fun?

When it is said that "If the past is infinite, there isn't enough time to ever arrive at a present!" then consider an arrow shot at a target. Before the arrow can arrive at the target it must traverse half the distance. Before it can close the remaining distance, it must traverse half the remaining distance. And so on. Logically, therefore, the arrow can never arrive at its destination.

Clearly arrows do arrive at their destination, so the premise (closing half the distance) is absurd.

But besides all that, the universe is only 13.8 billion years old. There has not been infinite time before the present.

As to what happened before then? Who knows? God, probably, but He seems to be keeping that under his hat.

It is very difficult to conceive of non-infinite time, just because of the question of what happened before 13.8 billion years ago. But time must be infinite or else nothing exists. Don't think about this too long or your head will explode. Reality really bites. And it is the same for atheists and for theists alike. The existence of the universe is a BIG question. Why is it there? Where did it come from? It can't have always been there, right? But what is outside it? What came before it? Circles and circles.

Edited to fix a misunderstanding on my part.

Edited January 15, 2013 by Stargazer

[Ahab]

You keep saying the sequence starts in the future. You are moving backward. The sequence starts in the past and is observed in the present as the future has not yet been determined. The sequence cannot start in the future as the future is determined by the past and the present and has not yet been determined.

I've thought about that but I still say that time actually starts to flow from the future. It's only when a moment gets here that you have time to do what you're going to do, and then before you know it that time is over as it goes into the past of what you actuallly did then. Without the future you wouldn't have any time to do anything else other than what you're doing, or have done.

Imagine that time actually stopped right now. Where do you think any more of it would come from?

[Ahab]

The existence of the universe is a BIG question. Why is it there? Where did it come from? It can't have always been there, right?

No, that's not right, and thinking there was a point when everything began is a big reason some people don't understand reality.

Just as time never began, neither did the universe, and neither did the kind of being we call God. And with our knowledge that God is a kind of being which can produce offspring, including us on this planet, that means we never began either, because we have always been a part of the kind of being called God.

But what is outside it? What came before it? Circles and circles.

Just so you know, I and many other people think of the universe as the one place where everything is, including an infinite amount of empty space which is filled with matter like quarks and atoms and planets and stars and nebulae and galaxies all the teeny tiny little specs that make up all of the larger collectives of matter. It's not all just lifeless matter, though. There are living being in the universe, and our kind of being is only one kind out of all in existence. The most supreme of which is the most supreme we can be.

[Nofear]

Background information on Kalam cosmological argument.

Since I side with something along the lines of presentism (only "now" exists) the assumptions of the argument are disregarded.

However, even if I were into eternalism or growing block universe, one needs to establish the idea that an actual infinity cannot exist for the argument to be valid.

[Ahab]

Background information on Kalam cosmological argument.

Since I side with something along the lines of presentism (only "now" exists) the assumptions of the argument are disregarded.

However, even if I were into eternalism or growing block universe, one needs to establish the idea that an actual infinity cannot exist for the argument to be valid.

It might be helpful to understand what someone's definition of the word "exists" is, too, in their perspective.

I can see how only now exists now, but there are also things that once existed along with things that will exist in the future.

Existed, exists, and will exist. All 3 phases of time are involved in time and they all fit together, collectively, but you can speak of only one phase and talk about that in its own phase of existence.

Edited January 15, 2013 by Ahab

[mfbukowski]

Imagine that time actually stopped right now. Where do you think any more of it would come from?

That's why I can never get anything done- I am always out of time.

But since I am outside of time then I should have more than I ever need. But then my time magazine comes in the mail and I have more time.

Time flies when you're having fun, but the last thing I want to do when I am having fun is put a stopwatch on some flies buzzing around.

Besides when I put the watch on them they would get squished.

[Ahab]

That's why I can never get anything done- I am always out of time.

But since I am outside of time then I should have more than I ever need. But then my time magazine comes in the mail and I have more time.

Time flies when you're having fun, but the last thing I want to do when I am having fun is put a stopwatch on some flies buzzing around.

Besides when I put the watch on them they would get squished.

Hey mski. It's about time you said something, again, this time. Good to see you around.

[mfbukowski]

Hey mski. It's about time you said something, again, this time. Good to see you around.

I'm not that round- I'm on a diet.

[Nofear]

It might be helpful to understand what someone's definition of the word "exists" is, too, in their perspective.

It's defined relative to "now". Eternalism asserts that the past, present, and future are all equally real -- they all share the same ontology. Our perception biases the "now" but according to eternalism other times are not less equally real. Philosophers are a crazy bunch but one thing they have learned to be good at is defining what they mean and what they are saying. See Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Time.