Assuming there is no such thing as time, how do you describe motion in a hypothetical universe?

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lemondiesel said:
I will research anything related to understanding what this reality is. Just how far does this rabbit hole go?
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Good question! I undertook the study of physics 50+ years ago with the intention of cleaning up the flaws I’d identified in high school. It turns out that I was working from an attenuated version of physics, and the flaws I’d found were not in real physics.

However, there were others. Even at the freshman level, physics excluded my (Catholic) God concept. This needed to be dealt with. Two years later I took a Quantum Mechanics course and found another set of flaws more significant than anything I’d imagined, which I had no clue how to deal with at the time.

Years later, I’ve suspended working on the ideas and focused upon their presentation. I will leave this wretched place with more things left mysterious than I’d ever imagined.

The rabbit hole, for me, turned out to be a prairie-dog den, full of maze-like tunnels and branches, complete with annoyed ranchers with varmint guns waiting for any little head to poke aboveground and wait too long admiring the scenery.

In a way this is frustrating, but in another way, what could be better? For those who play games only to win, the search for genuine understanding must terminate in some form of arbitrary and therefore false dogma to which he can apply the “truth” label.

For those who play games in hopes of being invited back to play again, I can imagine none more interesting than the full resolution of the physics-theology conflict. You will probably never have time to explore all the tunnel branches, much less the few that have answers waiting at their terminus, but you may meet some interesting tunnel rats along the way.
 
If time was not real, then there could be no separation of cause and effect. Hence there could be no reward and no punishment, no judment, no Heaven and no Hell. Catholic belief thus requires time to exist, at least during the time we are on Earth.
 
Cirdan_XII said:
If time was not real, then there could be no separation of cause and effect. Hence there could be no reward and no punishment, no judment, no Heaven and no Hell. Catholic belief thus requires time to exist, at least during the time we are on Earth.
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Centuries ago the Church made the assumption that it could derive valid principles of physics from its theology. It has since learned its lesson, but seems to have neglected to pass the message down to you.
 
Cirdan_XII said:
If time was not real, then there could be no separation of cause and effect. Hence there could be no reward and no punishment, no judment, no Heaven and no Hell. Catholic belief thus requires time to exist, at least during the time we are on Earth.
Click to expand...
Time is real. In the same way that matter is real, that your material body is real, and likewise the entropy that will put an end to your body.

It is not ultimate reality, though. It is limited to physical being.

Shalom, ICXC NIKA
 
greylorn said:
Centuries ago the Church made the assumption that it could derive valid principles of physics from its theology. It has since learned its lesson, but seems to have neglected to pass the message down to you.
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Out of curiosity, are you always this rude to people? Or is it something reserved for when people make mistakes in physics?
 
greylorn said:
Centuries ago the Church made the assumption that it could derive valid principles of physics from its theology. It has since learned its lesson, but seems to have neglected to pass the message down to you.
Click to expand...
A thought of God as loving, intelligent energy is not incompatible with the the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, I think you’re mistaken on a couple of fronts. No matter really though because the truths of Faith and Morals are above the physical. That is a lesson that has been very faithfully handed down by the Church, and I think most of us got that message, whether we all recollect it as we should from time to time would be a different problem.
 
brumano said:
A thought of God as loving, intelligent energy is not incompatible with the the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, I think you’re mistaken on a couple of fronts. No matter really though because the truths of Faith and Morals are above the physical. That is a lesson that has been very faithfully handed down by the Church, and I think most of us got that message, whether we all recollect it as we should from time to time would be a different problem.
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The notion of God as some kind of “energy” being may not be incompatible with Church teachings. However, it is fourth-rate pop-theology which makes no sense from the perspective of physics.

It is popular for religionists to hide behind the ineffable spiritual, and I’ve become accustomed to assuming that anyone who, in a physics conversation, reverts to something described as spiritual, understands neither perspective.

If God is “intelligent energy,” then by definition God is physical. You cannot have it both ways.
 
A few humble questions :
Katholish said:
“Time is a property only of mutable things”
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Isn’t time a dimension, …not a “property” (?)…** in** which “existence” takes place.
Katholish said:
God cannot change, hence there is no change to measure, and no time.
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Then why do ALL the properties which we attribute to God, (“knowing”, “loving”, “begetting”, 'creating", 'getting angry") REQUIRE time. Those terms are meaningless without the passage of time. They are ALL “actions”, that have a beginning and end, and have meaning only if time exists.
Katholish said:
the incarnate Word
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implies that at one point there WAS no Incarnate Word. This argument is counter to faith. If the “Word BECAME flesh” then that means, it was NOT always so, according to your argument, no ?
Katholish said:
God have thoughts which change.
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“Having a thought”, implies a temporal PROCESS, or the word is meaningless. The very use of the word “eternal” implies God exists in, (a very long) time.
 
Jason_Firestone said:
A few humble questions :

Isn’t time a dimension, …not a “property” (?)…** in** which “existence” takes place.

Then why do ALL the properties which we attribute to God, (“knowing”, “loving”, “begetting”, 'creating", 'getting angry") REQUIRE time. Those terms are meaningless without the passage of time. They are ALL “actions”, that have a beginning and end, and have meaning only if time exists.

implies that at one point there WAS no Incarnate Word. This argument is counter to faith. If the “Word BECAME flesh” then that means, it was NOT always so, according to your argument, no ?

“Having a thought”, implies a temporal PROCESS, or the word is meaningless. The very use of the word “eternal” implies God exists in, (a very long) time.
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Jason:

If all motion ceased, would there still be time?

God bless,
jd
 
:rolleyes: Not sure that answers my question…I will think about it. Thanks.

As far as the “potency” thing below goes, I agree… even the “potency” would have to arise from something, (a “set of laws/conditions”).

Ultimately, I am a “mystic”. I believe in the “Cloud of Unknowing”. God is not “apprehendable” by beings “zipped up” in 5 senses. 😛
 
**“If all motion ceased, would there still be time?”

Right now I don’t see how that does answer my question, because ALL the actions I mentioned involve some sort of motion. Also the dimensions of space-time, (we know from Relativity), are not independent. “Empty” space is not really “empty”, (it’s full of motion), so the idea of “all motion ceasing” seems impossible to me, thus the question is hmmm … oh well… thinking**. 😛
 
greylorn said:
Good question! I undertook the study of physics 50+ years ago with the intention of cleaning up the flaws I’d identified in high school. It turns out that I was working from an attenuated version of physics, and the flaws I’d found were not in real physics.

However, there were others. Even at the freshman level, physics excluded my (Catholic) God concept. This needed to be dealt with. Two years later I took a Quantum Mechanics course and found another set of flaws more significant than anything I’d imagined, which I had no clue how to deal with at the time.

Years later, I’ve suspended working on the ideas and focused upon their presentation. I will leave this wretched place with more things left mysterious than I’d ever imagined.

The rabbit hole, for me, turned out to be a prairie-dog den, full of maze-like tunnels and branches, complete with annoyed ranchers with varmint guns waiting for any little head to poke aboveground and wait too long admiring the scenery.

In a way this is frustrating, but in another way, what could be better? For those who play games only to win, the search for genuine understanding must terminate in some form of arbitrary and therefore false dogma to which he can apply the “truth” label.

For those who play games in hopes of being invited back to play again, I can imagine none more interesting than the full resolution of the physics-theology conflict. You will probably never have time to explore all the tunnel branches, much less the few that have answers waiting at their terminus, but you may meet some interesting tunnel rats along the way.
Click to expand...
I wonder who the “tunnel rats” are… 😉
 
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