time is relative.

[danielost]

Time and distance are relative.

It would take about a day for a person to walk ten miles.

To an ant that same trip would be a generational trip, if it was walking.

To an immortal, it would take no time to walk it. This is why god can travel at the speed of thought, maybe.

All three examples experence time and distance differently.

I was taught in church that god doesn't experance time.

[jugoso]

Time and distance are relative.

It would take about a day for a person to walk ten miles.

To an ant that same trip would be a generational trip, if it was walking.

To an immortal, it would take no time to walk it. This is why god can travel at the speed of thought, maybe.

All three examples experence time and distance differently.

I was taught in church that god doesn't experance time.

Would an ant have the awareness of time in order to know it was generational? Doesn´t this apply only to human beings that have a distinct sense of past and future? In other words, only humans have the ability to the awareness and ability to measure this and therefore time is relative onty to them. Just a thought.

[White Crane Feather]

Would an ant have the awareness of time in order to know it was generational? Doesn´t this apply only to human beings that have a distinct sense of past and future? In other words, only humans have the ability to the awareness and ability to measure this and therefore time is relative onty to them. Just a thought.

Not only that. Time is nothing more than a recognition of change. Signals through space. That's it.

[Frank Merton]

Yea -- we think of the past and the future as places, but general relativity works fine (although mental conception is harder) if we think of only the present as really "existing" and the passage of time being the occurrence of changes.

[Royal]

Yea -- we think of the past and the future as places, but general relativity works fine (although mental conception is harder) if we think of only the present as really "existing" and the passage of time being the occurrence of changes.

I'm not following you're train of thought on this. Could you elaborate.

[Frank Merton]

It is the intuitive sense of time: there is only the present. As things change the way things were becomes what we call the past, and what we call the future is the way things may become. Only the present exists.

If time is quantized, then we can think of it as a big chessboard where the pieces move according to certain rules (events happen according to the laws of physics, or randomly in certain proportions, or whatever) once each quantum time. These "jumps" are so short (vastly shorter than even the time scale of atoms) that it seems a smooth transition, but actually happens in little bits. Relativity is accomodated by saying that Plank time intervals vary based on relative motion.

If time is not quantized, it becomes harder to describe because we run into the paradoxes of motion in an infinite field (of Zenoic fame).

The other way of viewing time, as a dimension, has the problem of forcing us to think of the present as a dimensionless boundary between two solids, the past and the future, and somehow this boundary is in motion at varying speeds from one to the other.

[danielost]

From our point of view, the immortal and the ant don't care about time. Because, to th immortal time doesn't exist and the ant such a short life span time doesn't matter.

I find it curious that according to the bible we are in day thirteen and the universe is supposedly thirteen billion years old.

Edited March 17, 2013 by danielost

[krypter3]

From our point of view, the immortal and the ant don't care about time. Because, to th immortal time doesn't exist and the ant such a short life span time doesn't matter.

I find it curious that according to the bible we are in day thirteen and the universe is supposedly thirteen billion years old.

If the immortal was a human immortal, time would be irrelevant. If he were some other crazy creature then it would not matter for him/her or the ant. Because we have our own concept of time, just because we see the world in minutes, hours, days, months, years. Doesn't mean everyone else does. Part of modern science, we as humans create an idea and then we just happen to think that it is a constant throughout the universe. Don't get me wrong, I love theory and science but it just seem's arrogant to think that we are so enlightened that our theories are correct and are true for everything else.

Though I know some don't think that.

[Frank Merton]

I think if we were immortal we would still have to get up at 6 am and go to work.

[danielost]

I think if we were immortal we would still have to get up at 6 am and go to work.

You go to work to pay for food. As an immortal you wouldn't need food. In fact after his resurrection, Jesus told his followers as much when they ffered him food. He did eat with them. I don't know the scripture.

[StarMountainKid]

My cats don't seem to experience time, but we humans do. I suppose this is an evolved ability. If this is so, our sense of rate of change evolved to be convenient for our survival. In other words, we don't sense motion as being too fast or too slow for us, time passes at just the right speed for us.

I think in this view, we determine the rate of time for the universe within our heads. We create the rate of time that we experience.

A fast moving animal like a bee or a fly may experience time as moving more slowly than we do. They may not experience past or future, but their present time may be ticking slower than ours.

So, what is the rate of change for the universe? Rates of change may be subjective to living things and in the external universe everything may have already have happened or may be moving very slowly in comparison. Or rate of change may be meaningless to the universe as a whole.

If we create time for ourselves, what does time mean in the external cosmos?

[markprice]

Time and distance are relative.

It would take about a day for a person to walk ten miles.

To an ant that same trip would be a generational trip, if it was walking.

To an immortal, it would take no time to walk it. This is why god can travel at the speed of thought, maybe.

All three examples experence time and distance differently.

I was taught in church that god doesn't experance time.

Why would god travel if he is everywhere? Unless you mean a god among many gods existing outside space/time. If He did travel it could be a lot faster than the speed of thought.

[White Crane Feather]

It is the intuitive sense of time: there is only the present. As things change the way things were becomes what we call the past, and what we call the future is the way things may become. Only the present exists.

If time is quantized, then we can think of it as a big chessboard where the pieces move according to certain rules (events happen according to the laws of physics, or randomly in certain proportions, or whatever) once each quantum time. These "jumps" are so short (vastly shorter than even the time scale of atoms) that it seems a smooth transition, but actually happens in little bits. Relativity is accomodated by saying that Plank time intervals vary based on relative motion.

If time is not quantized, it becomes harder to describe because we run into the paradoxes of motion in an infinite field (of Zenoic fame).

The other way of viewing time, as a dimension, has the problem of forcing us to think of the present as a dimensionless boundary between two solids, the past and the future, and somehow this boundary is in motion at varying speeds from one to the other.

This brings up the interesting Idea that there are rules between the quanta that govern the way the quanta exchange information thereby makeing the universe fundamentally based on rules instead of interactions of barionic matter.

[danielost]

Why would god travel if he is everywhere? Unless you mean a god among many gods existing outside space/time. If He did travel it could be a lot faster than the speed of thought.

(Mormon belief). I believe god has a body simuler to ours. Meaning he can't be everywhere at once.

[StarMountainKid]

This brings up the interesting Idea that there are rules between the quanta that govern the way the quanta exchange information thereby makeing the universe fundamentally based on rules instead of interactions of barionic matter.

I think so too. Perhaps the universe is basically information, the elementary particles being a manifestation of this information. Rules have to be in place before the game can begin.

Time is also relative in the phenomena of time dilation.

[White Crane Feather]

I think so too. Perhaps the universe is basically information, the elementary particles being a manifestation of this information. Rules have to be in place before the game can begin.

Time is also relative in the phenomena of time dilation.

Yes well time dilation is simply a function of the speed of light and how fast information can transit. The conductivity of space dictates the speed of light. Basically it's how fast virtual particles can cary the information. I think the reasons why time dilation occurres shows us without a doubt that "time" is not a thing at all. we are only perceiving changes in energy states and positions measured by ticks of our own energy states and positions. This is time. It creates the illusion of being an enabler, when in fact it's merely a record.

Edited March 18, 2013 by Seeker79

[StarMountainKid]

Yes well time dilation is simply a function of the speed of light and how fast information can transit. The conductivity of space dictates the speed of light. Basically it's how fast virtual particles can cary the information. I think the reasons why time dilation occurres shows us without a doubt that "time" is not a thing at all. we are only perceiving changes in energy states and positions measured by ticks of our own energy states and positions. This is time. It creates the illusion of being an enabler, when in fact it's merely a record.

Then, time dilation is a variation of rate of change according to frame of reference. Rates of change is what we measure, and we call this "time", but our concept that time exists as a real dimension separate from space is therefore an illusion . Is this what you are saying?

[White Crane Feather]

Then, time dilation is a variation of rate of change according to frame of reference. Rates of change is what we measure, and we call this "time", but our concept that time exists as a real dimension separate from space is therefore an illusion . Is this what you are saying?

Yeah... I think. We are entities that measure. Our measurements come from signals, we perceive it as time.

[kystranger]

This may sound weird, but I see time as a function of this universe. As members of this universe we are affected by all forces/qualities of this universe ... gravity, time, etc. God, being outside of this universe, is not affected by time as it is a function of this universe. I think this is why in some stories about angels, they move in time differently than us. For example, I recall reading a story years ago about a guy that was almost in a car wreck. As the wreck became closer, he saw his guardian angel appear and begin to help by pushing his locked steering wheel. From what I remember (and granted this has been years) the guy in the wreck was aware of the passage of time, but it slowed considerably while he was in the presence of his angel. This could just be an altered awareness on his part, or it could be that angels (again outside our universe) are unaffected by the forces of this universe and the angel extended this effect to the guy getting ready to crash his car. I'll have to see if I can find the story, but regardless that's the way I see time.

[Frank Merton]

When you are terrified the psychological passage of time does slow. That has happened to me a few times, but I didn't attribute it to entering angelic realms but instead to some brain mechanism providing me more detail than it normally does, resulting in a seeming slowing of time.

[markprice]

(Mormon belief). I believe god has a body simuler to ours. Meaning he can't be everywhere at once.

(Jewish belief) The body of God is the entire universe. (Hermetic belief) The Mind of God is all. I believe in that kind of thing minus religion and oaths.

[danielost]

(Jewish belief) The body of God is the entire universe. (Hermetic belief) The Mind of God is all. I believe in that kind of thing minus religion and oaths.

I'can get behind both of those ideas on god.

[moonshadow60]

I don't know about ants, but the older I become, the quicker time seems to pass. Some days, it feels like I pretty much have to hold on tight to something to keep from spinning out into space because time has sped up so much. Everything seems to be happening all at once in the past few years, in my perception.

[Rlyeh]

Time and distance are relative.

It would take about a day for a person to walk ten miles.

To an ant that same trip would be a generational trip, if it was walking.

To an immortal, it would take no time to walk it. This is why god can travel at the speed of thought, maybe.

All three examples experence time and distance differently.

You've left out the most important factor, speed. You've given no reason why an immortal would be traveling faster than a human.

BTW the speed of thought is a lot slower than you seem to think.

[Frank Merton]

If something takes ten minutes to do, it takes the same ten minutes for anyone, immortal or not, to do it. Besides, we all live under this illsion that we are immortal anyway, and waste our time accordingly.