Whatever God is (another debate), God has always existed and always will exist. God is timeless. God exists outside of the universe and time.

However, because God is timeless, God could not actually create 'true time', only an impression of time.

God created the big bang as a reference point to start and measure implied time and the universe.

Everything within the universe exists in time (or rather our impression of time), but time does not exist outside of the universe.

When we talk of 'time' it is only our impression of time, as in the bigger picture (including outside of the universe) of 'everything' time does not actually exist.

OK, go easy on me because I have never read any books on the subject, just purely my own thoughts as far as I can work out when on my own late at night.

Any thoughts?


[edit on 23-7-2005 by tommyc]

Technically, Time is something we created in order to keep records of things. The "True Time" is something different than our time. I'm not religious, so I have no view on the "God is timeless" part.

You are right. Our conception of time stems from our need to keep track of events.

What is time? If the earth and ALL the celestial bodies were stationary how would we have recorded time? If the universe was static would time exist? If the earth, sun, moon and stars remained stationary how would we know when to sleep, when to harvest crops?

As the human brain acquired higher cognitive powers, man saw that there was a certain non-erratic, non-random pattern in the rising and setting of the sun. By this time, human evolution had probably reached a point where man could think for himself and realize that if he could keep track of these unchanging, constant celestial patterns, he would be able to plan ahead and be better prepared to provide for himself.

So is time a convenient creation of the human mind? A creation whose sole purpose is our self-preservation? The answer lies in the human mind.

If you are stranded in outer space without a watch and even the nearest galaxy is not visible to the naked eye, how do you keep time? You could count the seconds "One...two...three.." but "seconds" are once again a unit of a concept created by the human mind millenia ago and taught faithfully to succeeding generations.

Interestingly, in modern times, a second is defined as "the basic unit of time, now defined as the duration of 9,192,631,770 cycles of radiation emitted by cesium-133" (Webster's New World Dictionary). The purpose of such an accurate definition is solely for computational requirements. Time is undeniably an abstract concept. Unlike light or sound, our senses don't detect the presence of time. We percieve changes around us. When an occurence or event has been determined to be repetitive, the concept of time comes into play to determine when the next occurence will take place.

So then, what is 'True Time'? Does 'True Time' even exist? If it does, is the human mind developed enough to comprehend its properties? And the bigger, scarier question is "Who keeps track of 'True Time'?" since evidently our existence on this planet is of a limited duration and while we are alive we have no clue whether time is even a factor in the afterlife.

In Hinduism, God is described as 'the Eternal One' and 'the Unchanging One'. He is constant and has no beginning or end. He has always existed. Fathoming the meaning behind such profound statements is difficult and trust me, it gets scary the more you delve into it.




[edit on 7/25/2005 by chieftain]

True time does exist.

If stranded in space without a clock, you would not be able to tell time. But that does not stop your body from growing older. It does not stop the hair from growing on your body.

Yes, time is relative to us all. It's creation may be of human origin. Man needed a starting point to begin a project, and an ending point to know when the project was completed. The difference between them is time.



Interesting topic.

Originally posted by nathraq
If stranded in space without a clock, you would not be able to tell time. But that does not stop your body from growing older. It does not stop the hair from growing on your body.

Growth, and it's inevitable outcome--the natural process of the breakdown (decay/corruption) and recycling of carbon-based life is not proof of time--only proof of the second law of thermodynamics.

Man needed a starting point to begin a project, and an ending point to know when the project was completed. The difference between them is time.

No, that's what we call 'mortality'--it is the duration of conscious awareness for any given entity or (myself) group of entities (mankind).
AKA memory and remembered history.


Time is based on the movements of our Solar system, for those within its bounds, and there is a greater wheel of time which exists in the galaxy, which our own system fits within--the smaller gear proportioned to the larger gear in a base 10 proportion. 52 weeks make a earthly year, and 52,000 years make a great year.

So some sort of time exists, but only in the sense of regular movements which work together in harmony. Linear time is not existent outside of a finite mind. I think it certainly must be somehow of a spiral configuration that passes upon itself, much like DNA--perhaps.

As far as God and time--all aspects of any sort of time exist within God, and so therefore He is outside of time totally.

Originally posted by queenannie38
[Growth, and it's inevitable outcome--the natural process of the breakdown (decay/corruption) and recycling of carbon-based life is not proof of time--only proof of the second law of thermodynamics.

Yes, the natural process of decay, which occurs over a length of time.

No matter how a person paints it, or tries to overanalyze on whether or not time exists, the second law of thermodynamics, or whatever scientific terms a person needs to describe something, it does exist. Just as I am right now taking the time to write here. As each and every day I watch the children get older and the grass in the yard grow, I know this is a constant; a never changing or yielding fact of life. Time is coherent, recognizable and relative to everything in the known universe. All dieties aside, it is what makes everything mortal. If we lived outside of time, then yes, we would have a different state of being; something that would make us more than mortal, and more god-like in all of our endeavors.

If time exists, then we can surely manipulate it to suit our needs. If it is a physical thing, then we can analyse it and de-construct it, then put it back together how we choose.

Could gravity be loosley defined as time? if we bend gravity, or distort it in some way, then the light that travels through it is effected, thus time is effected..or our perception of time, relative to where we are observing the distortion from.

It is a conundrum, like the furthest viewable object from earth is 17 billion light years away, but the Universe is only 10 billion years old...how can an object so far away be older thn the known universe?

Or, if you set off in a rocket to the moon, at faster than light speed, found a can of coke, drank it, then set off back to earth faster than light, you'd arrive back before you left. You then tell yourself not to go....is the can of coke empty or full..and if you did'nt go, how could you return to tell yourself not to go.
Or upon your return are you merely seeing an image of yourself before you left?

Time is indeed a strange concept...

Wow. Excellent ideas.

All that you point out have something to do with light. And it brought a nebulous understanding that somehow, time is a product, or perhaps indicator instead, of an altered perception of light which we currently possess in order to progress to the point where we are 'qualified' to understand light how it really is.

If anything, I'd say light is a thing more real that that which we see because of it. Light is fascinating to no end--as is time, too. Regardless, I surely think man is incapable of 100% understanding in his present situation.

my stupid pc

makes me look like I stutter

3 times this post was repeated!

[edit on 7/28/2005 by queenannie38]

#2 repeat



[edit on 7/28/2005 by queenannie38]

this was #3

Can the moderator delete this unnecessary posts?

[edit on 7/28/2005 by queenannie38]

To clarify my original post (which started this thread).

The definition of what I term 'True Time' is what was before the universe
was created, and what is now outside of the universe.

The creation of the universe is like an expanding bubble. An 'impression' of Time (lets call it 'Universe Time') definitely exists inside the bubble (the universe) because the bubble had a starting point (big bang) and is expanding.

Time (Universe Time) didn't exist prior to the start (big bang) of the bubble (universe) because Time IS the expansion of the bubble and the stretching of everything inside the bubble.

Therefore, True Time ('time' before the creation of the universe and outside of the universe) does not actually exist as it is timeless.

I could simply this by saying that 'True Time is timeless'.

When we die, we escape the 'impression' of time within the universe, and we become timeless.

Therefore, outside of the universe could be labeled as 'heaven', and Heaven is timeless.

To try and imagine what True Time/timelessness/Heaven/outside of the universe is like, imagine what it would be like to be dead.

However, although that place is 'timeless' something must exist in that place as it created the universe.

It could be as simple as a positive charge and a negative charge that combined to create the big bang. The positive and negative could be referred to as Heaven and Hell.

Perhaps, have a positive effect in your life and you become part of Heaven, be negative and you become part of hell.

Anyway that's my theory, as far as I can work out for myself.

But time is 'relative', so how does that effect things? The faster you go, the more time 'dilates'. "Space=time" does confirm the idea that it only exsists with the context of 'creation'. Outside the universe is out side time.

[edit on 30-7-2005 by GrandCourtJester]

Originally posted by GrandCourtJester
But time is 'relative', so how does that effect things? The faster you go, the more time 'dilates'. "Space=time" does confirm the idea that it only exsists with the context of 'creation'. Outside the universe is out side time.
[edit on 30-7-2005 by GrandCourtJester]

I think it's safe to say that Time as we know it inclusive to a specific Universe (That's only valid if the theory of parallel dimensions is true.) and that the 'sea' that the universe exists in wouldn't have a dimension of 'time' as we know it.

Originally posted by BlueApocalypse

Originally posted by GrandCourtJester
But time is 'relative', so how does that effect things? The faster you go, the more time 'dilates'. "Space=time" does confirm the idea that it only exsists with the context of 'creation'. Outside the universe is out side time.
[edit on 30-7-2005 by GrandCourtJester]

I think it's safe to say that Time as we know it inclusive to a specific Universe (That's only valid if the theory of parallel dimensions is true.) and that the 'sea' that the universe exists in wouldn't have a dimension of 'time' as we know it.

You can say that again.

Time would be a relevant unit of analysis if the universe started at point 'b' and ended at point 'c', thus time would be considered point 'a'.

Imagine the universe as a bed-sheet, it has no starting point, nor any end. It ripples and moves in the 'wind' and different points can touch another at any given moment. Time would therefore be an irrelevance out side the bed-sheet. There will always exist a beginning and always exist an ending, with all of time and the universe connected through the thread that makes the bed-sheet.

The Universe and time is, just as electricity is, what we must not labor on is the exact meaning of is.
Electricty is, we can make our toast with it, light our house, or use it to execute criminals..electricity is.

Time IS, what we choose to do with it, how we plan to manipulate it, is the more important question...Time is.