Time (not a line or a circle. Not a shape)

Another comment I would like to make is..

Have we had any NEW inventions lately?... Like Electricity...
Anything REALLY new? .. no its all just recycled junk... I'll make this better... wonder why?

EDIT: Or time for that matter.. lol Because we didn't always have days months years and minutes and such .. remember...

[edit on 7/12/04 by dnero6911]

Originally posted by dnero6911
Thats because your whole life has been based on symbols.. you can't look outside the box.. lol

Might be why it doesn't make sense.. When you focus all your energy into something, especially engineering whatever or anything of that nature relating to science you can't percieve anything other than that because its all you've studied and come to know.... You come to rely on its functions.. breaking that cycle would throw your head in quite the spin..

This has nothing to do with how "narrow" my thinking is. I tried saying this already, I am perhaps the most lax out of all engineers I know in terms of terminology and analyses.

Can you not see that your broad terms can lead to MUCH confusion?

You guys are talking about "pancakes" and "tornadoes" for crying out loud without any reasoning or explanation. I'm still having a hard time understanding what you guys are describing. The topology of space? The topology of space-time? Or just time?

I'm just saying that what you guys are talking about is more philosophy than science.

"Time doesn't exist, it was made up by man, blah"
"Time is a cycle, circles within circles, blah"

The last guy I heard that claimed that "time is an illusion" offered a detailed explanation that included a comprehensive topological design for time and how it relates to entropy.

Besides that, all of you have failed to address the continuity of time (it COULD be discrete!).
We're still debating whether space is a continuum for crying out loud.

Philosophy and science don't mix?

Originally posted by elaine

Philosophy classes and science classes don't mix?

If you want to argue that way, then everything in the universe is related.

I can't argue with you on that.

I am related to a black hole; I have mass, so does a black hole.

Math is related to me, I'm taking a math class.

Philosophy classes and science classes are related too, they're both classes designed to teach students something.

Originally posted by AngelaLadyS
If you are 3 then turn 4, you do not stop being 3. Just because you are 4, you do not stop being 3.
I know, that may make absolutely no sence in this thread to some, but if you think about this, within the framework and subject of time itself ... it is definatley not a line, and it's not really a circle. We still think in shapes, but it's more like atmosphere - it's encompassing and to differnet degrees.

I don't know if this experience relates to what you're saying. Every once in a while I'll experience the now, a piece of the past, & a possible future at the same time. I will have to make note of how much real time has elapsed versus how long it felt the next time this happens. I'm sure they differ. Also hopefully if it occurs to me next time, I'll make note of it so I don't forget & determine if there's a connection I need to make.

Originally posted by sen5e

Originally posted by AngelaLadyS
If you are 3 then turn 4, you do not stop being 3. Just because you are 4, you do not stop being 3.
I know, that may make absolutely no sence in this thread to some, but if you think about this, within the framework and subject of time itself ... it is definatley not a line, and it's not really a circle. We still think in shapes, but it's more like atmosphere - it's encompassing and to differnet degrees.

I don't know if this experience relates to what you're saying. Every once in a while I'll experience the now, a piece of the past, & a possible future at the same time. I will have to make note of how much real time has elapsed versus how long it felt the next time this happens. I'm sure they differ. Also hopefully if it occurs to me next time, I'll make note of it so I don't forget & determine if there's a connection I need to make.

I've had several (and thinging back, not too many) times where those around me precieved hours (while I thought it was just a few moments) or seconds (and I precieved hours). Once even a span of time that I precieved and seemingly it was lost to everyone else. (I'm sure we weren't invisable and unheard, yet no one around us seemed to see or hear anything. Even my perception of that time was way out of kilter - enough that it left me dazed and confused...this one is reffering to the first time that I met that lady I did an update post on a few days ago)

Im surprised no one brought up the idea of Eternal Recurrence.

In The Gay Science(don't let the name fool you )Nietzsche introduced (or borrowed from Kaufmann) the concept of Eternal Recurrence. Here is a snippet from the book:

What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your live will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence--even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!' Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.' If this thought gained possession of you, it would change, you as you are or perhaps crush you. (GS 341)

For those of you that don't like to read words in little grey boxes, I'll sum it up for you. The Eternal Recurrence theory is basically stating that there is infinite time and a finite number of events. For example, consider the complex game of chess. While each game can vary greatly, if a game of chess is played over and over again for eternity eventually a game will be repeated since there is only a finite number of possible chess games.

With the explosion of the universe (Big Bang) and the implosion that is soon to come. The universe consumes and births itself. The earth existed many times before. In essence, this post you are reading now, you have already read eons ago.

So with this said, we have to assume that time is Circular. Nietzche believed that we are in a constant state of 'becoming'. We as in the universe

If the world had a goal it must have been reached." (WP 1063)

And you really can't blame him. He brings up an interesting point. There is no 'final-state'. No end. No totality. Nothing is essentially accomplished since there is no ending. It does not have a final state. Matter of fact, the universe avoids a final state.

"More strictly: one must admit nothing that has being--because then becoming would lose its value and actually appear meaningless and superfluous." (WP 708)

We believe time as well as the universe has certain 'laws'. We believe that if we throw a cat in the air, that it will land on it's feet. But we know that things do not always obey by laws since they are fictiously created by us. How can the universe be held and restrained by a mortals observation of it. We are in the universe. How can we observe it from a non-biased viewpoint? It's impossible.

So let me bring this post back on track. Liner time has been the traditional way we perceive time. This is solely based on Judeo-Christain teachings. Buddhist believe that time is indeed a circle much like Nietzche. The christian concept of time states that:
1.) There is a beginning (And in the beginning god created...)
2.) Middle (Tonight on ER tempers flare between...)
3.) And of course an End (4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse, remember those guys?)

Nietzche's concept of time is quite different. There is no beginning nor an end. Time is bent in a circle. There is no finality.

So what does finality have to do with anything?
Well time is not based on duration. Instead, the moment is the prime constituent of time. Each moment comes and goes. The previous moment allows for the current moment to exist. This allows you to read that. And of course with moment, there is no final end. The perishing of a moment is not a final state because the destruction of one moment allows for another moment to arise.

Yep, thats about it.

I heard of a theory similar to that.

Tegmark's Parallel Universes Theory, which describes that anything that can happen, will happen (assuming space-time is infinite, which is very probably is). (I can't find the article online, but people with "Scientific American" magazine should know what I'm talking about. I can't find my own copy, since this was looong ago.)

This essentially means the same thing as Infinite Recurrence, because what is happening now, happened before, is happening (in another place), or will happen.

At first I was thinking, "brilliant!" but after about an hour, skepticism covered me again.

Consider that the theory relies on two things we aren't even sure of to this date.

Both Infinite Recurrence and Parallel Universes rely on:

1. Discrete Space Universe
2. Discrete Probability Universe
(We don't know the topology of either).

I'm sure most people would understand this, but any requests for explanations are welcome and will be addressed tomorrow at the latest.

[edit on 8-12-2004 by Nox]