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> we have imagined the existence of "eternity," a strange world outside of time that we would like to be inhabited by gods, by a God, or by immortal souls If f

> we have imagined the existence of "eternity," a strange world outside of time that we would like to be inhabited by gods, by a God, or by immortal souls If fundamentally there is no time, then fundamentally there is only eternity.

stareatgoats 8y ago
Yes, I suspect (without further proof ATM) that this is the main reason for this quest for timelessness which Sean Carrol (cited in another comment) finds so perplexing [0]. Eternity has traditionally and in various ways been associated with (especially) monotheism. Same with infinity (of which eternity is a sort of subset). A much simpler but perhaps more tedious way out of this apparent rational loophole for religions would be accept it. Religion may keep this final straw of rationality: we don't and can't know everything given a (probably) infinite universe. Religion is not best understood as a theory of physics anyway, but rather as a study of history, society and mind. [0] http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2009/06/17/timelessness/ http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2009/06/17/timeless...
- JohnStrangeII 8y ago
  What loophole are you talking about? As much as I try, I cannot see any connection whatsoever between religion and concepts of infinity and eternity in physics. Is the idea that anything that science currently cannot explain must be connected to religion? That would be a fallacy.
- AltruisticGap 8y ago
  The universe IS completely unknown, and forever will be. It is like a sandbox. As Alan Watts put it with his mischievous sense of humor: "Science is the art of prediction" Talking about religion, Christianity used to refer to this, then it lost its way. See eg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cloud_of_Unknowing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cloud_of_Unknowing
  - paganel 8y ago
    > Talking about religion, Christianity used to refer to this, then it lost its way. This is still true, to an extent, in the Christian Orthodox world, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite is still reguarded as one of the main “intellectual stars” (so to speak) of the Christian Orthodox thought. As for the “lost way” that you mention, I think that that change started in the West once the Reformartion took off and people wanted to “be sure” that they’ll get to live the eternal life. Here in Eastern Europe people do not think in absolute terms about life after death, as in nobody actually believes you can “earn” your way into Heaven, it all resides in God’s Will which is not possible for us to know. There’s also that New Testament parable of a guy asking Jesus at some point with whom of his wives will he be married in Heaven (the guy had been previously married to a different woman) and Jesus basically answered that that is a stupid question as nobody knows anything about Heaven.
    - kldavis4 8y ago
      Actually, he was addressing the unbelief in a resurrection by the sect of the Sadducees, as well as the simplistic idea underlying their question that life after death will be a direct translation of life before. The Sadducees were basically trying to make a clever intellectual trap.
      - paganel 8y ago
        That, too, but I think that the point that there’s futile for us to want to know the “details” of the after-life is also a valid one in reguards of this parable.
    - combatentropy 8y ago
      Just a nitpick, but the example the man gives is of a hypothetical woman who over time had seven husbands --- just one at a time of course, but one husband would die and then she would get married again. The question was, which one will be her eternal husband? > Jesus basically answered that that is a stupid question as nobody knows anything about Heaven. Jesus said it was an ignorant question, yes, "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God." But he didn't say nobody knows. He said that she won't be married: "At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven" (Matthew 22:29).
Lambdanaut 8y ago
The thing is, the observer is the one determining what is fundamental. If the God, sitting on his throne in eternity, determines the fundamental to be eternity, then from that framed perspective, there is only eternity. If the man, sitting on his porcelain throne in the bathroom, determines the fundamental to be a here-and-now framed by a past and future, then from that perspective, that is the truth. It is all illusion, including eternity. There are only frames we may peer at infinity through.
scroot 8y ago
This is summed up in Wittgenstein's Tractatus as: "If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present."
- icebraining 8y ago
  If there is no time, then nobody (or everyone) lives in the present.
analog31 8y ago
In my view, whatever we learn at a fundamental level, we know there is time. Thinking of an analogy, we know that a smooth piece of metal is smooth, and smoothness is "real," even if the metal is made of atoms, and the atoms are made of quarks and leptons. Similarly, I've seen pictures where they magnify somebody's nose a thousand times, and it looks gross, but the person has a perfectly nice nose. We experience periodic phenomena, such as the cycles of days and years, the moon, our heartbeats, and our pace when walking. Even if some of these are not utterly uniform, the general observation that there are so many days in a year, etc., are objective in the sense that they are experienced by everybody. A concept of time could be formed by associating events with days, and noticing that some of the timelines formed in this way always point in the same direction. For instance, birth is to the left of death on this timeline, never the other way around. Now you've got a clock -- the sun -- and an arrow of time -- birth to death. I describe a "theory of time" to myself in this way because I imagine that primitive people could form such a view, and find it useful enough to keep. For instance, knowing when it's time to plant, or when certain kinds of fish are likely to be found in a particular river, would improve the survival of a primitive group. At least, it would improve my survival in such a situation. So I think, even if time and space break down on cosmic or microscopic scales, they are satisfactorily real.

stareatgoats 8y ago

Yes, I suspect (without further proof ATM) that this is the main reason for this quest for timelessness which Sean Carrol (cited in another comment) finds so perplexing [0]. Eternity has traditionally and in various ways been associated with (especially) monotheism. Same with infinity (of which eternity is a sort of subset). A much simpler but perhaps more tedious way out of this apparent rational loophole for religions would be accept it. Religion may keep this final straw of rationality: we don't and can't know everything given a (probably) infinite universe. Religion is not best understood as a theory of physics anyway, but rather as a study of history, society and mind. [0] http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2009/06/17/timelessness/ http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2009/06/17/timeless...

JohnStrangeII 8y ago
What loophole are you talking about? As much as I try, I cannot see any connection whatsoever between religion and concepts of infinity and eternity in physics. Is the idea that anything that science currently cannot explain must be connected to religion? That would be a fallacy.
AltruisticGap 8y ago
The universe IS completely unknown, and forever will be. It is like a sandbox. As Alan Watts put it with his mischievous sense of humor: "Science is the art of prediction" Talking about religion, Christianity used to refer to this, then it lost its way. See eg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cloud_of_Unknowing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cloud_of_Unknowing
- paganel 8y ago
  > Talking about religion, Christianity used to refer to this, then it lost its way. This is still true, to an extent, in the Christian Orthodox world, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite is still reguarded as one of the main “intellectual stars” (so to speak) of the Christian Orthodox thought. As for the “lost way” that you mention, I think that that change started in the West once the Reformartion took off and people wanted to “be sure” that they’ll get to live the eternal life. Here in Eastern Europe people do not think in absolute terms about life after death, as in nobody actually believes you can “earn” your way into Heaven, it all resides in God’s Will which is not possible for us to know. There’s also that New Testament parable of a guy asking Jesus at some point with whom of his wives will he be married in Heaven (the guy had been previously married to a different woman) and Jesus basically answered that that is a stupid question as nobody knows anything about Heaven.
  - kldavis4 8y ago
    Actually, he was addressing the unbelief in a resurrection by the sect of the Sadducees, as well as the simplistic idea underlying their question that life after death will be a direct translation of life before. The Sadducees were basically trying to make a clever intellectual trap.
    - paganel 8y ago
      That, too, but I think that the point that there’s futile for us to want to know the “details” of the after-life is also a valid one in reguards of this parable.
  - combatentropy 8y ago
    Just a nitpick, but the example the man gives is of a hypothetical woman who over time had seven husbands --- just one at a time of course, but one husband would die and then she would get married again. The question was, which one will be her eternal husband? > Jesus basically answered that that is a stupid question as nobody knows anything about Heaven. Jesus said it was an ignorant question, yes, "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God." But he didn't say nobody knows. He said that she won't be married: "At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven" (Matthew 22:29).

Lambdanaut 8y ago

The thing is, the observer is the one determining what is fundamental. If the God, sitting on his throne in eternity, determines the fundamental to be eternity, then from that framed perspective, there is only eternity. If the man, sitting on his porcelain throne in the bathroom, determines the fundamental to be a here-and-now framed by a past and future, then from that perspective, that is the truth. It is all illusion, including eternity. There are only frames we may peer at infinity through.

scroot 8y ago

This is summed up in Wittgenstein's Tractatus as: "If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present."

icebraining 8y ago
If there is no time, then nobody (or everyone) lives in the present.

analog31 8y ago

In my view, whatever we learn at a fundamental level, we know there is time. Thinking of an analogy, we know that a smooth piece of metal is smooth, and smoothness is "real," even if the metal is made of atoms, and the atoms are made of quarks and leptons. Similarly, I've seen pictures where they magnify somebody's nose a thousand times, and it looks gross, but the person has a perfectly nice nose. We experience periodic phenomena, such as the cycles of days and years, the moon, our heartbeats, and our pace when walking. Even if some of these are not utterly uniform, the general observation that there are so many days in a year, etc., are objective in the sense that they are experienced by everybody. A concept of time could be formed by associating events with days, and noticing that some of the timelines formed in this way always point in the same direction. For instance, birth is to the left of death on this timeline, never the other way around. Now you've got a clock -- the sun -- and an arrow of time -- birth to death. I describe a "theory of time" to myself in this way because I imagine that primitive people could form such a view, and find it useful enough to keep. For instance, knowing when it's time to plant, or when certain kinds of fish are likely to be found in a particular river, would improve the survival of a primitive group. At least, it would improve my survival in such a situation. So I think, even if time and space break down on cosmic or microscopic scales, they are satisfactorily real.