4 ms·

Concept of time and eternity - we are in time that flows in one direction, everything has a beginning and end. A being in eternity outside time views all moment

Concept of time and eternity - we are in time that flows in one direction, everything has a beginning and end. A being in eternity outside time views all moments of time all at once (like all individual pictures of a movie), hence no origin is necessary/defined in eternity.

dleeftink 3y ago
The viewer then, has infinite capacity at its disposal (according to texts of old). The question then is, where could this power be drawn from?
- treprinum 3y ago
  Concepts of "capacity" and "power" could be another creations of that viewer, not existing in eternity per se, only in our universe.
- KMag 3y ago
  Outside our universe, presumably. Perhaps where the physics of our universe does not apply.
  - b3lvedere 3y ago
    Something like Star Treks subspace?
exe34 3y ago
A being with no time is unable to act.
- jeremysmyth 3y ago
  > A being with no time is unable to act. This assumes a single linear timestream. If you're the "being", and you're running a simulation of some system, you can absolutely create many parallel timestreams with different initial conditions. You can even return to some point in the simulation and try several intermediate conditions, resulting in different causal outcomes. The many worlds interpretation would absolutely allow agency on the part of such a "being".
  - exe34 3y ago
    If you can create, then you are subject to time. This means you had a start. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
skhunted 3y ago
Believing in the existence of such a being implies that one is comfortable with the idea that something exists without having been created. People who believe such a being exists should not then argue, “If there is no god then where did everything come from?”
- prmph 3y ago
  Because we are arguing from the our experience in this universe. In a sense, a self originating physical universe would have to have infinite intelligence for it to be plausible, which we don't see. What we see is intelligence in human, who period and scope of existence is but a very tiny part of the universe. I guess this is why people think there must be something bigger than the physical universe out there, and I think it makes sense.
  - skhunted 3y ago
    I think you miss my point. There are those that find the notion that a being can have always existed without being created as plausible but not the notion that another type of "thing" could have always existed without further elaboration on why that "thing" could not have always existed. That you have a more nuanced view on the matter just means you are not in the group of people that I'm referring to. At any rate, you believe something can exist without being created and in this we are agreement. I too believe that something can exist without being created.
    - skissane 3y ago
      > That you have a more nuanced view on the matter just means you are not in the group of people that I'm referring to. I don't think "the group of people" you are referring to actually have any significance. You are attacking a strawman version of the cosmological argument, which no philosophically sophisticated theist would defend – and if it so happens that a handful of philosophically unsophisticated theists actually believe your strawman (because they can't see the obvious holes in it), so what? There are philosophically unsophisticated atheists too, who argue for atheism on grounds that intellectually serious atheists find embarrassing. When evaluating any point of view, we ought to focus our attention on its most thoughtful defenders, not the thoughtless ones.
tkahnoski 3y ago
Lately I've wondered... what if this flow of time wasn't true? at least not at universe scale? Messier than just gravitational affects but actual weird topography in time? There is nothing scientific about this conjecture, simply a thought I haven't had time to fully contemplate. What if there were loops and turns such that light and energy from distant galaxies would loop back around not just in space but in time creating weird feedback loops.
- b3lvedere 3y ago
  Isn't it sort of not true at the extreme universal levels like black holes where spacetime gets incredibly weird?
  - prettyStandard 3y ago
    All SpaceTime curves start at the Big bang, and they all end at black holes. Also time and space get flipped inside a black hole. All of your futures point further into the black hole.
- tkahnoski 3y ago
  A few quick googles... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_timelike_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_timelike_curve as usual early thinkers on General Relativity were already going down this road.

dleeftink 3y ago

The viewer then, has infinite capacity at its disposal (according to texts of old). The question then is, where could this power be drawn from?

treprinum 3y ago
Concepts of "capacity" and "power" could be another creations of that viewer, not existing in eternity per se, only in our universe.
KMag 3y ago
Outside our universe, presumably. Perhaps where the physics of our universe does not apply.
- b3lvedere 3y ago
  Something like Star Treks subspace?

exe34 3y ago

A being with no time is unable to act.

jeremysmyth 3y ago
> A being with no time is unable to act. This assumes a single linear timestream. If you're the "being", and you're running a simulation of some system, you can absolutely create many parallel timestreams with different initial conditions. You can even return to some point in the simulation and try several intermediate conditions, resulting in different causal outcomes. The many worlds interpretation would absolutely allow agency on the part of such a "being".
- exe34 3y ago
  If you can create, then you are subject to time. This means you had a start. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

skhunted 3y ago

Believing in the existence of such a being implies that one is comfortable with the idea that something exists without having been created. People who believe such a being exists should not then argue, “If there is no god then where did everything come from?”

prmph 3y ago
Because we are arguing from the our experience in this universe. In a sense, a self originating physical universe would have to have infinite intelligence for it to be plausible, which we don't see. What we see is intelligence in human, who period and scope of existence is but a very tiny part of the universe. I guess this is why people think there must be something bigger than the physical universe out there, and I think it makes sense.
- skhunted 3y ago
  I think you miss my point. There are those that find the notion that a being can have always existed without being created as plausible but not the notion that another type of "thing" could have always existed without further elaboration on why that "thing" could not have always existed. That you have a more nuanced view on the matter just means you are not in the group of people that I'm referring to. At any rate, you believe something can exist without being created and in this we are agreement. I too believe that something can exist without being created.
  - skissane 3y ago
    > That you have a more nuanced view on the matter just means you are not in the group of people that I'm referring to. I don't think "the group of people" you are referring to actually have any significance. You are attacking a strawman version of the cosmological argument, which no philosophically sophisticated theist would defend – and if it so happens that a handful of philosophically unsophisticated theists actually believe your strawman (because they can't see the obvious holes in it), so what? There are philosophically unsophisticated atheists too, who argue for atheism on grounds that intellectually serious atheists find embarrassing. When evaluating any point of view, we ought to focus our attention on its most thoughtful defenders, not the thoughtless ones.

tkahnoski 3y ago

Lately I've wondered... what if this flow of time wasn't true? at least not at universe scale? Messier than just gravitational affects but actual weird topography in time? There is nothing scientific about this conjecture, simply a thought I haven't had time to fully contemplate. What if there were loops and turns such that light and energy from distant galaxies would loop back around not just in space but in time creating weird feedback loops.

b3lvedere 3y ago
Isn't it sort of not true at the extreme universal levels like black holes where spacetime gets incredibly weird?
- prettyStandard 3y ago
  All SpaceTime curves start at the Big bang, and they all end at black holes. Also time and space get flipped inside a black hole. All of your futures point further into the black hole.
tkahnoski 3y ago
A few quick googles... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_timelike_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_timelike_curve as usual early thinkers on General Relativity were already going down this road.