Are You into Time?

[PairTheBoard]

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PairTheBoard--
what would you describe your beliefs/spiritual leanings as? I guess I had you pegged as an atheist from most of your domination of the evangelical posters, would you consider yourself more in line with Buddhism?
I like the statement of how those "inside" haven't actually abandoned logic, others cannot see their logic. I love koans, although I am no Zen master, I have had moments where I definitely understand what they are saying. Would it then be clear to say your main issue with Christians is more along the lines of how many seem to point repeatedly to the Bible? It's not because they were moved to do so themselves, or have logic they can't explain, it is more of a herd/brainwashing mentality.

Excuse me if I'm making no sense, it is 430 in the morning and i'm taking a break from writing a paper.
essentially, PTB, you are the man.

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My main problem with Orthodox Christianity is its dogma of hell, understood as Eternal suffering or torment or torture or whatever softened form of the undesirable they try to sell, which is the fate of those after death who don't qualify for heaven under their cannonically approved qualifications. It's an inhumane doctrine. It isn't consistent with the God of Love they preach. And it sounds nothing like the Good News Jesus pronounced.

I also criticize those Christians who don't take the Reality of the Spiritual seriously and instead insist on a magical interpretation of spiritual events. By magical I mean physical magic which violates our common sense understanding of how things work in the physical world. An example is the Resurrection. A Spiritual Resurrection is not Real enough for them so they insist it was some kind of magical physical restoration of a dead body back to life. They shout down anyone who says otherwise when in fact it is they who cheapen the Event.

My most personal views are a work in progress and probably not the concern of this Forum. I'm open to a lot of things.

PairTheBoard

[evolvedForm]

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From everything I've been reading, it's looking more and more like time might not actually exist. Clocks? They are simply devices that measure movement, not necessarily time. We construe movement as time, but that doesn't mean there is such a thing as time. There also seems to be no good reason for time to point towards the future. If it existed at all, it should just as easily point towards the past.




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Looks like we're leading up to an interesting question here...



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does this increase or decrease the likelihood of a God?




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Oh, nevermind. Just another question about the existence of God.

All kidding aside, why do only God-related questions get asked here? If someone only slightly versed in philosophy glanced at this message board, he would mistake us for scholastics who've been propelled into the computer age. And its not the question-asker's fault; he knows he'll only get responses if he can somehow tie in his topic with that old firestarter.

End of gripe.

OP,

A further argument or backup info about the time topic would be very interesting, to me at least.

[PairTheBoard]

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So you think that those who have "stepped inside" are privvy to an understanding the rest of us aren't?

When I used to drop acid, I thought I was privvy to a whole other reality that was beyond most people's understanding too. The point is, there are all kinds of ways to "feel" an inner understanding. Whatever floats your boat. It doesn't mean you're any closer to the actual answer though. Logic simply is the realization of this fact.

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The thing with acid induced revelations is that they usually evaporate when you come down. Spiritual experience is an ongoing part of life. It has staying power.

You keep thinking in terms of "knowledge" and talk about being "privy" to it. It's not like that. You can't just dismiss the experience by calling it a "feeling". Something Real is happening. There are just limitations to language for describing it.

I think we are starting to repeat ourselves. Maybe we should give it a rest.

PairTheBoard

[Lestat]

Oh man, I have tons of questions/comments about this that are not God related. It's true I included the God question at the end, to get some response, butu also... because I really do think it takes away at least part of one problem that some atheists have (myself included) But you can substitute bang-bang for God and other things as well. If you don't need a beginning, then many more things are possible. Right, or wrong?

[Lestat]

<font color="blue">Why does it not also become more reasonable that the universe has always existed? </font>

I suppose it does. But one of my arguments against the explanation for a creator, is what created the creator? Without time, it seems plausible that creator didn't need a creator or even a beginning for that matter. Yes, the same would hold true for the universe, but without time, it does sort of quash the "what created the creator?" argument. At least I think it does... ??

[Lestat]

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Time is a measurement of change. If there was no change anywhere (ie everything was frozen), there would be no time, let alone a way of measuring it.

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There's an interesting thought experiment on this point. I can't recall who crafted it...

Imagine a 'universe' made up of 3 distinct areas. During 'normal' times, people can move from area to area freely. Each area is observable from the other areas.

Now let each area have a cycle of x = 3,4, or 5 years. Every x years, all change stops in an area. So after 3 years, all change stops in area 1. When change resumes, the inhabitants of area 1 look out at the other two areas and see a bunch of miraculous changes (plants appearing, people disappearing, etc.). To the inhabitants of areas 2 and 3, nothing unusual happened with time...there was just a 'freezing' in area 1.

Since each area can observe the cycles of the others, they could figure out what the cycle times were, and could likewise figure out their own cycle time. They could then infer that every 60 years, all 3 areas would 'freeze' simultaneously...

Does it really make sense to say that time doesn't exist during the 60th year?

(Not that I agree with it neccesarily, but I think it's an interesting argument)

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Also, how does this relate to time coming to an almost standstill at the speed of light? I never understood that anyway, but could it be possible that at the speed of light there can be no movement relative to the object traveling at such speed. Hence, time is merely our perception of movement and doesn't really exist. I wish I understood more about this stuff. As it is, I can probably seriously injure my brain trying to think about it.

[Lestat]

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So you think that those who have "stepped inside" are privvy to an understanding the rest of us aren't?

When I used to drop acid, I thought I was privvy to a whole other reality that was beyond most people's understanding too. The point is, there are all kinds of ways to "feel" an inner understanding. Whatever floats your boat. It doesn't mean you're any closer to the actual answer though. Logic simply is the realization of this fact.

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The thing with acid induced revelations is that they usually evaporate when you come down. Spiritual experience is an ongoing part of life. It has staying power.

You keep thinking in terms of "knowledge" and talk about being "privy" to it. It's not like that. You can't just dismiss the experience by calling it a "feeling". Something Real is happening. There are just limitations to language for describing it.

I think we are starting to repeat ourselves. Maybe we should give it a rest.

PairTheBoard

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I can stop after this one last question...

What makes you so sure these "feelings" are real and not just the product or by-product of chemical reactions taking place within the brain? This is what I mean. If you feel something spiritual and feel it's powerful, you assume that it's real, when it may be nothing more than the way your brain is interpreting it's surrounding. Sensory perception may in fact be quite unique.

There may in fact be a spiritual world out there, but it's wishful thinking at best. I might seriously feel my dead great granfather is guiding me. You can't prove he isn't, but you'd be right to assume it's likely nothing more than my imagination or my unique interpretation. The human brain is capable of powerful hallucinations even without drugs. I'll read your response if you have one, but I'm done trying to make sense.

[PattdownManiac]

All I know is when this cop was telling me to tilt my head back, close my eyes, hold my arms out, estimate 30 seconds in my head, then tell him "stop", if I replied that time is not real I so would have been screwed.

[PairTheBoard]

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So you think that those who have "stepped inside" are privvy to an understanding the rest of us aren't?

When I used to drop acid, I thought I was privvy to a whole other reality that was beyond most people's understanding too. The point is, there are all kinds of ways to "feel" an inner understanding. Whatever floats your boat. It doesn't mean you're any closer to the actual answer though. Logic simply is the realization of this fact.

[/ QUOTE ]

The thing with acid induced revelations is that they usually evaporate when you come down. Spiritual experience is an ongoing part of life. It has staying power.

You keep thinking in terms of "knowledge" and talk about being "privy" to it. It's not like that. You can't just dismiss the experience by calling it a "feeling". Something Real is happening. There are just limitations to language for describing it.

I think we are starting to repeat ourselves. Maybe we should give it a rest.

PairTheBoard

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I can stop after this one last question...

What makes you so sure these "feelings" are real and not just the product or by-product of chemical reactions taking place within the brain? This is what I mean. If you feel something spiritual and feel it's powerful, you assume that it's real, when it may be nothing more than the way your brain is interpreting it's surrounding. Sensory perception may in fact be quite unique.


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Again you translate "spiritual experience" to "feelings". And now further to "by-products of chemical reactions in the brain". How do you know you would be so quick to put "spiritual experience" into those terms once you actually had such an experience? You are trying to tell people what their spiritual experiences are when you don't even know what it is to have one. Maybe instead of trying to tell them about something you haven't experienced you might consider what they tell you about what they have. Listen to the language they use rather than the language you apriori want to impose on them. That's the language they find most suited to Their Experience.

When you walk into a class on Galois Theory do you insist the class be taught using only the terms of differential calculus?


PairTheBoard

[Duke]

Time is obviously variable, but we haven't yet found any way at all to reverse it. This is key, and this directionality that it exhibits is intrinsic - at least as far as we know.

If there is some new net of experiments of which I'm unaware where grenades explode and then reassemble in the same manner, then I'll have to rethink my own basic understanding of it.