[Flipside]

I think it's a horrid Catch-22 that every young person gets themselves into.

Damned if you do, not damned if you don't, if you'll pardon the pun

[Carl]

Originally posted by Flipside
Well, if I recall correctly, you actually only spend a certain amount of time there, depending on how naughty you've been.

i think you're thinking of pergatory.

[Goober5000]

I just thought of a crazy curveball I can throw into this discussion.

First, a necessary sidebar and presupposition.  Assume that time is finite.  This is not a new idea: although it was only popularized after the Big Bang theory was put forth in the 20th century, it was discussed by Muslim scientists as far back as the early Middle Ages.  It's basically a thought experiment involving proof by contradiction.  If time is infinite, then the timeline must have been in existence forever already (negative infinity on the timeline).  Thus there would have been more than enough time for all natural processes to run to their natural conclusion: the perfecting processes would produce perfect results, and the decaying processes would produce depleted results.  Since we can plainly see that no perfecting or decaying processes have come to a conclusion, we can say that time has not been in existence since infinity past.  Therefore, the timeline we occupy is finite and has a beginning.

That's the complicated but necessary postulate.  Now the fun part: The timeline we occupy has no reason to exist.

If eternity exists, and there is in fact an eternity past and eternity future, then this current timeline is somehow superimposed on top of it.  That just seems wrong, intuitively (not to mention that any finite number, compared to infinity, is zero).  Why superimpose a finite timeline on top of an infinite one?  Why shouldn't we be living in the infinite timeline right now?

On the other hand, if eternity does not exist, then the fact that time exists at all is an intuitive contradiction.  How do you describe this finite timeline existing all by itself?  It's finite, so it has no "anchor" to establish itself in the ether (for lack of a better term).  This seems even more unnatural than the first option.  At least there you have an eternal timeline that covers the ether and serves as a foundation.  Here, you have an unanchored finite timeline drifting through a void.

So we have a dilemma.  It doesn't make sense for the finite timeline we occupy to exist.  If eternity exists, then our finite timeline is redundant and mathematically insignificant, so we should be living in eternity right now.  But if eternity doesn't exist, then time itself should not exist either.

Am I making any sense to anyone here?

[aldo_14]

I don't think existence should make sense.   At least, not to our puny little minds.

(anyway, who's to say time doesn't loop infinately as well, so all processes will repeat?)

[Setekh]

Good points, Goober and Aldo. But in the end what you come up with is nonsensical to the limits of the human mind - I mean, I don't think existence should make sense. At least not to our puny little minds.

Anyway, who's to say time doesn't loop infinitely as well, so all processes will repeat?

[Singh]

Ahhhh....Eternity.

An eternal amount of fun can come from eternity, soon followed by eternal damnation, and then eternal boredom.

Perhaps, the cycle is repeating? Perhaps we are actually living now, with the ups and downs and the pains of life, just to resist boredom? Just to give us a sense of having DONE something instead of just sitting around in and wallowing in our self-pity? The life-span and triviality of the human life seems to be just long enough when it comes to giving us interest and pointing us in a direction, yet not long enough to give us time to ponder WHY we are doing it in the first place, and allow us to reach the eventual conclusion and answer......

Oh, and I beleive the time problem was actuallly fixed theoretically by Stephen Hawking, using something called imaginary time.....

[Flipside]

hehhehehe Well, no offence to anyone here, but saying our puny little minds can't handle eternity is sort of like walking away from the problem to my mind.

Our minds are only as puny as we keep them, we talk of the power of Faith in higher power, and yet fail abysmally time and time again when it comes to having faith in ourselves.

Mankind was meant to see Eternity, every animal is, it's up to us whether we make it or not.

[Sandwich]

Goob, I undeerstood the first part perfectly, and it makes sense IMO. But that second part contains a bunch of reasoning that in itself dosen't make sense.

The way I see it is, (IMO, obviously!) quite simple, but it requires the use of the word and concept "God" as a reference point so forgive me.

This universe exists in linear time. We cannot travel in opposition to that flow of time, although we can slow things down or speed them up a bit through near-relativistic speeds or differing gravity fields - a scary concept in and of itself. But for the purposes of this thought excercise, we are restricted to linear time. Ok so far?

Now, imagine an existence not restricted by time's linear flow. God would exist in this realm, if that helps you understand. Time has no meaning in this realm - indeed, it is completely non-sensical - just like the concept of colors to a person blind from birth.

This realm is not "eternity" in our way of thinking of eternity - never ending and perhaps never beginning as well. "Beginning" and "end" are themselves time-based concepts, and therefore irrelevant where timelessness is concerned.

This realm actually contains this thing called "time", in which we mortals travel. From said realm, one can poke a finger into any point along the flow of "time" - an absolute POV from the outside on something that is completely and utterly relative from the inside.

[Setekh]

Like I said, timelessness. I think eternity is just a rough-and-ready way to describe that other realm - when in fact if we want to go for a stricter linguistic definition of eternity, we're in "it" now - the time continuum, going on as it has been.

[Flipside]

I suppose from an Astronomical point of view, the first mistake everybody makes about Eternity is thinking it exists, it's sort of like infinity in that respect. A human concept for a human misunderstanding.

Take Infinty for example. Theres no such thing. Distance is a human habit, time is certainly a human habit. Infinity contains nothing, it is the space between the stars.

People often say that there is a lot more Space than Matter. But what is space? For the main part it is pretty much nothing, possibly the odd H or He molecule going for a wander. It would be like saying an empty bookcase is actually full of air. Strictly speaking it's true, but since the case is for books, it really doesn't matter.

So why does infinity exist?

Because of the Human unit of '1'. We think of the Universe starting with us and moving outward. It's typical human thinking. Therefore we end up boggled as we travel further and further from ourselves and still don't find an ending. The same with Time and Eternity.

[Singh]

Isnt infinity a mathematical concept more than anything, signifying endlessness, or a result which is too large to be counted and hence signified by the word and/or term infinity/infinite?

[Flipside]

In mathmatical concepts infinity is cautiously defined as a number 'too large to represent'.

Though it has been argued that the lazy eight is a number of it's own accord, much the opposite of '0'.

Edit :

I think the first step towards understanding Eternity or Infinity is to realise that ‘here’ and ‘now’ are things created by us to define where we are and what we are doing. In Galactic terms, things just happen, it doesn’t matter if it takes 10 years or 10 Billion, it is only the fact we have an id and are aware that we live within a time bracket of years that makes us aware of it.

500 years is as good as Eternity to a Human, since they will not be alive to see it. So the only way to deal with Eternity is to take the thing on as a whole. Which seems impossible, but isn’t, at least theoretically.

Let’s take the moon as a good example.

The moon, with its unique orbit, combined with the sun, creates tides on Earth. The Moon is also responsible for ‘shepherding’ the Earth’s axis, always keeping it between around 24 and 27’. What is significant about this? Well, without our Axis being held in check, Earth would have had such violent environmental changes over the last several Billion years that life would certainly have struggled to hold.

So what has the moon got to do with Time? (Members of certain Egyptian Royal families would argue quite a lot, but that’s another story) Actually, it’s more the creation of the Moon that is so interesting.

When Apollo bought back samples of Moon Rock, they were analysed and found to contain silicates that were compatible with the Earth’s Mantle, the layer of semi-solid Lava that the continents hang around on. This opened up an interesting question about the origins and creation of the Moon. It was originally assumed that the Moon was created at the same time as the Earth, but it is actually now widely accepted that about 6-7 Billion years ago, Earth and Mars bounced off of each other, this tore a massive strip of the Earth’s Mantle into orbit (Earth was actually about 15% bigger than it is now). It was this massive stretch of Mantle that created the Moon.

Now think about this, two planets collided billions of years ago, a cataclysmic event at best. The outcome of that was a satellite that undoubtedly helped make life as successful on Earth is it is. You see, time very much depends whether you are on the receiving end of it From the Universes point of view it all happened in the blink of an eye, from ours it’s inconceivably long ago, and yet, without it, we wouldn’t be here to be not-conceiving it

Oh just to cheer you up, in about a billion years, there’s going to be some serious trickshots going on between the inner 3 planets, which may well result in Either Earth or Venus taking a permanent holiday from the Solar System, or at least ending up orbiting at around the distance of Neptune.

[Lightspeed]

Well, most people here think of time as something a lot too constant. Time is no constant thing you can measure.

Time is a very tricky thing. Only because we (apparently) pass through it in a more or less linear way does not necessarily mean it is "the way time works". We must not forget that we only percieve a ridiculously small fraction of "reality". A fraction that applies for us, here.

Time is not necessarily an ubiquitous thing - it might come to an end, but would that mean the end of reality?

[Flipside]

I personally think that 'Time' does not end because 'Time' itself does not exist.

What would be the outcome of Time stopping? Planets freezing in their orbits. Stars frozen mid-thermonuclear reaction? I don't see time as a tangible thing that can be manipulated, or can collapse in on itself or the like.

For time to end would mean every law of physics would have to not end, but 'remain fixed' at their current value. Which, to my mind is impossible, it is the weight of the universe turning that creates what we percieve as time. If nothing moved and nothing changed, we would not be aware of it's existence.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Flipside
[snip]

Oh just to cheer you up, in about a billion years, there’s going to be some serious trickshots going on between the inner 3 planets, which may well result in Either Earth or Venus taking a permanent holiday from the Solar System, or at least ending up orbiting at around the distance of Neptune.

Space:1999!

[??????]

Someone correct me:

The faster you go time slows down, it's been proven.
Now does time stop at the speed of light?
Because if it does then light would see eternity even though we see it go out

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by ??????
Someone correct me:

The faster you go time slows down, it's been proven.
Now does time stop at the speed of light?
Because if it does then light would see eternity even though we see it go out

Nope.  I don't know the exact dilation, but it's nowhere near 'stopping' at that speed.

I think it's not so much time slowing down as a sort of relativistic change.  The scientific explanations escapes me, though.  Think it's related to the curvature of space-stroke-gravity.

[Flipside]

Because a Photon is a very strange particle/wave.

The closer you travel to the speed of light, the less you change visibly to the outside world which is in 'normal' time.

Now, imagine something like a Photon, which travels at the speed of light, for those of us who are stationary in comparison, it cannot age. So, from our point of view, it makes no difference whether the photon is a stable thing, or if it only exists for an instant. because it would not change to our eyes, and from it's experience an instant would last forever.

Light can be affected by gravity, which suggests a particle, but it's speed can only be achieved by a wave, which has no mass. So light sits somewhere between the two, and no-one is quite sure what it is.

Edit : Exactly Aldo, the theory of Relativity is about time from a Human point of view, that was one of the points Einstein was trying to make. Time does allegedly 'stop' at Light Speed, but the rate of change is exponential, so 1m/s below light speed is quite notably slower.

[castor]

Originally posted by Liberator
I mean, think how quickly you can get bored with something, now imagine having done everything(literally) and been everywhere(literally) and still have till the end of time to do it all again.  One word:  Boring

Boredom == a craving for something you think you don't have, for someplace (elsewhere) you think you should be..
But why do you need to think if you already know everything?

[Clave]

Eternity by Calvin Klein...

Oh, OK think about this then: Time is infinitely variable and depends on the person who is experiencing time passing.  

Not true? Well, how long does summer last? not long and then you are back into autumn and winter.  Now think back to when you were a kid during the summer holiday/vacation, how long did it last then? an eternity maybe?....