God in timelss state cannot know what is the current time

[mytruepower2]

It is minds and Mind dependent. It is minds dependent since we experience changes, it is Mind dependent since changes occurs in Mind. The focal point between existence of Mind and mind is our bodies.

It sounds like what you’re saying is that what we call time is a sort of collective misunderstanding of our experiences, which is, in a sense, a view I hold myself. However, I don’t see how the view of the mind-dependance of time can be defended, for two major reasons.

1. If this were the case, events would cease to progress through time if all minds ceased to exist, and that clearly doesn’t work.
2. If this were the case, you would then need to develop a good explanation for what, exactly, experiences the illusion of time, and how it experiences that illusion without any sort of temporal process going on in its mind. In other words, you would need to present a time theory model.

I am not defending time, but events as only sole reality.

Insofar as the events of yesterday differ from the events of today, whether I like it or not, time must have some form of existence. It’s only a question of whether that form represents a single, dynamic, changing moment, or a sort of static timeline, in which all events are equally real. However, you can’t just -deny time- without explaining what you mean by that.

The events flow in certain order inside Mind based on laws of nature most importantly second law of thermodynamics. You can read more here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_%28arrow_of_time%29. We can never distinguish whether what we are facing, is one event changing or series of events flow in certain order. This depends on how Mind and minds function.

Events are in the external world, as well as the mind, and therefore your explanation fails to adequately explain the facts.

It is not hard to see that hence Mind has supreme memory of what happened in the past and that memory act as potential to bring new events/current state event to existence. Our minds do disturb the memory of Mind when an action is required which leads to new existence depending on state of our minds.

You’re confusing things again. First you reject time, seeming to imply that nothing “happened” in a temporal sense, then you start talking about memory “of what happened?” That’s a contradiction. Please study time theory if you want to understand where things really stand with respect to the intellectually-justifiable debate on time and its structure.

It has to be smaller since it give bigger liberty, performing creation.

Except it’s not smaller, because, in fact, creation of all temporal things -can’t- be performed inside of time, because things inside of time are -contingent,- and therefore are an insufficient First Cause of existence.

Furthermore, if one needed to be in time, in order to create temporal things, then temporal things could -never- come into existence.

In another word experiencing absolute chaos since otherwise one frame of the film has preference over another and cause a change in state of timeless.

You mean meta-time. I disagree that this is necessarily chaos, because, again, looking at a -string- of images in a roll of film, strung up on a wall, it’s not chaotic, and it’s not nonsensical. You can see all the images at once, and recognize that, if animated, they would depict a man on a horse, or whatever, even if you don’t perceive the animation yourself. There’s nothing chaotic about this, nor is it necessary to appeal to meta-time on this model.

I however think that God is in state of time after creation. I didn’t understand why the change in state of mind of God leads to infinite regression.

Because a timeless thing is also a changeless thing. Therefore, if God is -ever- timeless, he is -always- timeless, since he can’t -change- from timelessness/changelessness, into anything else. The only way to escape this would be to appeal to meta-time, but appealing to meta-time leads to an infinite regress, because then, is God timeless or temporal in the meta-time? If temporal, he is contingent, and therefore not God. If timeless, he couldn’t change to become meta-temporal, and you would need to appeal to meta-meta-time, but it would have the same problems, so you would need to appeal to meta-meta-meta-time, and so on to infinity. This is what I meant by “infinite regress.”

Now, you could only argue against this by suggesting that God has multiple -parts,- which are timeless or temporal, but the problem with this idea is that when you look at the temporal part of God, you find that it’s a contingent thing, which was/is never timeless, and therefore was/is not God.

 

[Ismael]

Here is the argument which prove God in timeless state cannot distinguish what is the current time:

1. Time is a concept related to occurrence of events with specific rate
2. There is time attached to series of events and now by definition is the time at which we experience events
3. There are a before and after for the events which means that time has a direction
4. Timeless mind state means, no events, there is no before and after so there is no sense of direction for time, there is no experience when there is no events so there no concept of now
5. God is in state of timeless means, he could not experience creation, he could not distinguish the direction of time, and he could not distinguish now

God is ETERNAL, not in ‘stasis’ like Lister in ‘Red Dwarf’ (wiki it fo you do not know it, a very funny show).

So when people in Theism say God is ‘timeless’, they mean eternal, beyond time (or not restricted by time) not ‘frozen in time’ as your argument assumes (as seen in (4)).

The correct picture, or analogy is that ‘God experiences everything in one single instant’.

In any case:

Premise (1) might be irrelevant. Some scientists and philosophers say that what counts is onthological causality and that temporal causality only ‘emerges’ afterwards (for example space and time begin to exist at the big bang, so there is no ‘before’ in a temporal sense, but only in an ontological sense).

Recenly a paper in nature communication appeared where they showed that causal correlation is possible without ‘time correlation’ (doi:10.1038/ncomms2076, although the title seems to dismiss causality, what they dismissi is not causality itself but the fact that it has a ‘temporal ordering’) in quantum events.

Of course it was just a theoretical paper. If this is reality or not, for quantum events, in the case of our universe it remains to be seen.
Regardless, causality CAN exist without time-correlation.

Actually most Cosmological arguments (like Aquinas) do not assume there is an accidental (ie ordered in time) causality but only essential causality

(3) Again is doubtful.

(4) is plainly wrong from the from what discussed above.

+++++++++++++++

PS: if God was in time, he could not be God at all, since it would mean that time is more fundamental than God himself and this contraddicts the Theist conception of God.

Time is also a ‘creature’, i.e. something that in itself is not ultimately fundamental (and there is doubt that it is even physically fundamental, as said above).

 

[vz71]

What this has to do with our arguments? There could be reality that we don’t experience but we were arguing about the definition of nowness and the fact that it is related to what we experience at the spot.

So you agree to a reality we are not experiencing but you reject the notion that there is a way of experiencing reality that we do not participate in…

Interesting.

I have seen your particular philosophy on a t-shirt once.
“I reject your reality and substitute my own.”

No evidence or proof required.

 

[vz71]

Something must happened in that state of timeless as a cause for creation of universe which you cannot deny that, you can call it God’s will or action etc. This means change in state of timeless and once this happens, the state of timeless is gone so second action from that state cannot be performed from this state.

If cause and action are separate, as you infer by actually separating them in your sentence, then your logic again fails as you have now defined two separate actions taken by God in a reality you defined in which he can only do one.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Bahman will not be allowed to do experiments in my classroom. No one who thinks the world is an illusion is safe in the lab!!!

Linus2nd

 

[Bahman]

Post #253 isn’t very correct. The existence of God comes from a logical inference, which doesn’t make it an assumption, but a deductive assertion.

Second, I’m not enlarging omniscience - you’re the one restricting it. If it is true that one of the infinite possibilities that God knows accurately and instantly, will happen, and He’ll know which one is most likely to happen and can intervene for the possitibility He wants to happen to come, you can’t say He’s not omnipotent or omniscient, or that having these properties is logically impossible. They simply fit right with what I’m saying, and I’m neither enlarging nor restricting any property He has. He still has the power on all things, and He knows all things (including everything that could happen).

You better have some argument backing up that definition of truth, because that’s not exactly right. If He knows all possibilities that may happen, His omniscience is true. If these possibilities are accurate and He knows one of them will happen, you can’t say His knowledge of truth is false, nor His omniscience.

There is no truth that may happen! Truth is the state of knowledge of omniscience which should happen. There is one omniscience hence one truth. This means that at each moment we can only perform one true action and the rest are false.

 

[ServantPD]

There is no truth that may happen! Truth is the state of knowledge of omniscience which should happen. There is one omniscience hence one truth. This means that at each moment we can only perform one true action and the rest are false.

The concept of a prepposition being true or false boils down to the fact of wheter that prepposition conforms to the reality that seeks to describe or not. In a world where free will is allowed among the creatures within it (and that in a physical sense, as I’ve defended before, there’s no hard determinism that can be defended due to quantum mechanics), the value of truth of what’s going to happen in the future is uncertain.

Does that make God uncertain? No, because He knows instantly that if one of the infinite possibilities is true, what infinite possibilities can derive from it. This randomness doesn’t leave God wondering what may happen, as He knows what’s more likely to. And again, as He knows perfectly what’s most likely to happen (and He can make something deliberately happen by His own will to have far more certain outcomes on the reaction of it from the world itself, wheter humans or whatever, which is what we call miracles or divine commands), this doesn’t challenge neither omnipotence nor omniscience. If you’re really trying to attack this concept, you’re completley missing the target.

 

[hazcompat]

“And just as prayer is not in time but time in prayer,
sacrifice not in space but space in sacrifice, and to reverse
the relation is to abolish the reality…”

Ich Du
Martin Buber

 

[Bahman]

It sounds like what you’re saying is that what we call time is a sort of collective misunderstanding of our experiences, which is, in a sense, a view I hold myself. However, I don’t see how the view of the mind-dependance of time can be defended, for two major reasons.

1. If this were the case, events would cease to progress through time if all minds ceased to exist, and that clearly doesn’t work.
2. If this were the case, you would then need to develop a good explanation for what, exactly, experiences the illusion of time, and how it experiences that illusion without any sort of temporal process going on in its mind. In other words, you would need to present a time theory model.

Events wouldn’t cease to progress if all minds but Mind cease to exist. We are trapped in state of isolation if Mind cease to exist, simply no external experience but experiencing our beings. This is a hard state of being for imagination, but it should be similar to state of high meditation but with no return.

Insofar as the events of yesterday differ from the events of today, whether I like it or not, time must have some form of existence. It’s only a question of whether that form represents a single, dynamic, changing moment, or a sort of static timeline, in which all events are equally real. However, you can’t just -deny time- without explaining what you mean by that.

The fact that events do not repeat does not provide a proof that time exist. This is a property of Mind that evolve continuously such that each state of it represent a series of new events from which a part we/minds experience and interpolate the empty distance between two consecutive experiences so we have a sense of smooth motion.

Events are in the external world, as well as the mind, and therefore your explanation fails to adequately explain the facts.

There is no external or internal world. What exist is Mind and minds. Mind has a representation so called space which minds comprehend and we call it external world.

You’re confusing things again. First you reject time, seeming to imply that nothing “happened” in a temporal sense, then you start talking about memory “of what happened?” That’s a contradiction. Please study time theory if you want to understand where things really stand with respect to the intellectually-justifiable debate on time and its structure.

What a memory of past has to do with time?

You mean meta-time. I disagree that this is necessarily chaos, because, again, looking at a -string- of images in a roll of film, strung up on a wall, it’s not chaotic, and it’s not nonsensical. You can see all the images at once, and recognize that, if animated, they would depict a man on a horse, or whatever, even if you don’t perceive the animation yourself. There’s nothing chaotic about this, nor is it necessary to appeal to meta-time on this model.

It is nonsensical. Put all frame one after another and let light get through which is parallel way of looking at a film, what you see is what God sees a uniform chaos. There is nothing to comprehend.

Because a timeless thing is also a changeless thing. Therefore, if God is -ever- timeless, he is -always- timeless, since he can’t -change- from timelessness/changelessness, into anything else. The only way to escape this would be to appeal to meta-time, but appealing to meta-time leads to an infinite regress, because then, is God timeless or temporal in the meta-time? If temporal, he is contingent, and therefore not God. If timeless, he couldn’t change to become meta-temporal, and you would need to appeal to meta-meta-time, but it would have the same problems, so you would need to appeal to meta-meta-meta-time, and so on to infinity. This is what I meant by “infinite regress.”

Now, you could only argue against this by suggesting that God has multiple -parts,- which are timeless or temporal, but the problem with this idea is that when you look at the temporal part of God, you find that it’s a contingent thing, which was/is never timeless, and therefore was/is not God.

The process of creation also need a meta-time, hence God cause the creation so there must be two states of beings in which the first one is God and the second is God and creation. As you can see we have a sequence beings which requires the concept of meta-time again which this again leads to finite regression unless if you assume that the act of creation and existence of God lay at the same point which is against causality creation since God could not exist before creation (in causal way) to perform creation.

 

[Bahman]

So you agree to a reality we are not experiencing but you reject the notion that there is a way of experiencing reality that we do not participate in…

Interesting.

I have seen your particular philosophy on a t-shirt once.
“I reject your reality and substitute my own.”

No evidence or proof required.

I agree that there is a mode of reality that we do not experience. If there was a way to experience that mode of reality we were able to experience that mode as well.

 

[Bahman]

If cause and action are separate, as you infer by actually separating them in your sentence, then your logic again fails as you have now defined two separate actions taken by God in a reality you defined in which he can only do one.

Cause and action are same. I am sorry for misunderstanding.

 

[Bahman]

Bahman will not be allowed to do experiments in my classroom. No one who thinks the world is an illusion is safe in the lab!!!
Linus2nd

You again . The only reality is that we experience beings what are sole states of Mind which I think you agree with it.

 

[JerryZ]

Something must happened in that state of timeless as a cause for creation of universe which you cannot deny that, you can call it God’s will or action etc. This means change in state of timeless and once this happens, the state of timeless is gone so second action from that state cannot be performed from this state.

In reality you cannot even have two states first God and then God and creation since that define a sequence as well so the act creation and God existence lies at the same point, which means that creation is as eternal as God, and then state of timeless is seized by nothingness so God is either in state of time/changes or dead.

Nothing “happened” to the state of timelesness of GOD, HE remains there.

The changes occur WITHIN and TO our Universe.
God did NOT disintegrate at the moment of Creation of the Universe. Stop trying to bring Him inside your mind, it is incapable of holding Him.
I will give you a poor analogy.
Let’s imagine we have a supercomputer running a simulation, inside the “mind” of the computer we have a simulation of a human being that has all the characteristics we have, including intelligence.
Can the human simulation grasp within his intelligence the nature of the supercomputer?
Think about it. The same happens to us, except we are not a simulation and God is NOT a supercomputer. We are however limited to how much we can understand God.

The Universe is Not eternal never was, It had a beginning and most certainly it has an end. Of this much we are actually sure, we have enough scientific evidence of this that we can be very very confident of this to be true. Unless God decides to change the laws of physics.

–

 

[vz71]

I agree that there is a mode of reality that we do not experience. If there was a way to experience that mode of reality we were able to experience that mode as well.

And yet you refuse to acknowledge that there is a reality that transcends time.

You admit all the evidence but refuse to admit the logical conclusion of it all.
Of all in this thread it would seem yours is the close minded one.

 

[mytruepower2]

Events wouldn’t cease to progress if all minds but Mind cease to exist. We are trapped in state of isolation if Mind cease to exist, simply no external experience but experiencing our beings. This is a hard state of being for imagination, but it should be similar to state of high meditation but with no return.

Yes, they would. That’s what it means for something to be mind-dependant. It ceases to exist when minds cease to exist.

The fact that events do not repeat does not provide a proof that time exist. This is a property of Mind that evolve continuously such that each state of it represent a series of new events from which a part we/minds experience and interpolate the empty distance between two consecutive experiences so we have a sense of smooth motion.

Repeat in terms of what? You’re denying the existence of time, so there should -be- no more than a single set of events, which don’t involve progressing from one state to another. Evolve through what? Evolving requires the ability to change, and change is impossible unless there is a “before” and an “after.” Experience how? How can we experience anything, unless there is a process through which we come to understand information, and how can there be a process without time? Consecutive experiences? How can they be consecutive without time? A sense? What senses it, and how can it sense anything that it didn’t sense before, unless there is time through which the sense perception changes? Your view of time is so self-contradictory, that no reasonable person would be justified in basing an argument against (or for) God on it.

There is no external or internal world. What exist is Mind and minds. Mind has a representation so called space which minds comprehend and we call it external world.

You’re wrong. You’re making up a philosophical fiction for which you have no proof, which is contrary to all authentic reason and evidence.

What a memory of past has to do with time?

Because unless time exists, there can be no “past,” and therefore no memory of the past.

It is nonsensical. Put all frame one after another and let light get through which is parallel way of looking at a film, what you see is what God sees a uniform chaos. There is nothing to comprehend.

Except that when it’s strung up on a wall, you -don’t- put the frames one after another so that they blur together. You put each frame up by itself, though they may be connected by the film. So, each frame is seen much more clearly, and through the use of a little imagination, an observer can guess how they might look if they were moving. If you’ve ever worked in film development or cell animation, you know what I’m talking about.

The process of creation also need a meta-time, hence God cause the creation so there must be two states of beings in which the first one is God and the second is God and creation. As you can see we have a sequence beings which requires the concept of meta-time again which this again leads to finite regression unless if you assume that the act of creation and existence of God lay at the same point which is against causality creation since God could not exist before creation (in causal way) to perform creation.

Creation would need meta-time -if- it was a process, but on my view, God’s act of creation is not a process, but is a pure, eternal action, which was always being done by him, and will always be being done by him. Creation begins at a certain point, and ends at another certain point (at least material creation does,) but these points don’t need to be timeless. Only the creator himself is timeless. Material creation is temporal, and so isn’t present within timelessness, and doesn’t need to be explained in terms of how it could exist timelessly. It simply doesn’t exist timelessly.

In fact, this objection seems to confuse God’s -act- of creation, with the -result- of that act (material creation as an existing thing.) God’s -act- is timeless, while the -result- of his act exists in time.

 

[Bahman]

And yet you refuse to acknowledge that there is a reality that transcends time.

You admit all the evidence but refuse to admit the logical conclusion of it all.
Of all in this thread it would seem yours is the close minded one.

And what is reality? Timeless state which we of course cannot experience it but can define and imagine it. We in fact can define it since we can imagine it.

 

[Bahman]

Yes, they would. That’s what it means for something to be mind-dependant. It ceases to exist when minds cease to exist.

Changes are caused with Mind, minds just solely experience changes so changes persist to exist if all minds cease to exist.

Repeat in terms of what? You’re denying the existence of time, so there should -be- no more than a single set of events, which don’t involve progressing from one state to another.

Repeat in term of nothing. Events are either repeating like the glass which is on my table or change like drop of rain that is falling outside.

Evolve through what? Evolving requires the ability to change, and change is impossible unless there is a “before” and an “after.”

Change is possible without before. Event X happens on instant on the spot then it is gone, either we experience it or not. Event Y happens on the spot after X as the result of event X.

Experience how? How can we experience anything, unless there is a process through which we come to understand information, and how can there be a process without time?

Our minds is capable of experiencing things on instant since it is not physical beings hence time is an unreal thing to mind. Our brain is not our minds but interact with it. The fact that we experience things temporally means that our body cannot completely cope with our mind feeding it completely hence we experience time.

Consecutive experiences? How can they be consecutive without time? A sense? What senses it, and how can it sense anything that it didn’t sense before, unless there is time through which the sense perception changes? Your view of time is so self-contradictory, that no reasonable person would be justified in basing an argument against (or for) God on it.

Consecutive means events come after another without any delay. Our bodies including our brains are capable absorbing a part of it hence producing a delay so called time. Compare/imagine what you experience with what a fly or a very fast animal like a bat experience. Do you think we have the same impression of time?

You’re wrong. You’re making up a philosophical fiction for which you have no proof, which is contrary to all authentic reason and evidence.

What is space then if it is not our impression of Mind?

Because unless time exists, there can be no “past,” and therefore no memory of the past.

I don’t see the relation between time and memory. We memorize what happen on the spot if we have chance to experience it and call it past once we retrieve the memory.

Except that when it’s strung up on a wall, you -don’t- put the frames one after another so that they blur together. You put each frame up by itself, though they may be connected by the film. So, each frame is seen much more clearly, and through the use of a little imagination, an observer can guess how they might look if they were moving. If you’ve ever worked in film development or cell animation, you know what I’m talking about.

I can imagine what you are talking about but what you are explaining is logically impossible for timeless being to do.

Creation would need meta-time -if- it was a process, but on my view, God’s act of creation is not a process, but is a pure, eternal action, which was always being done by him, and will always be being done by him. Creation begins at a certain point, and ends at another certain point (at least material creation does,) but these points don’t need to be timeless. Only the creator himself is timeless. Material creation is temporal, and so isn’t present within timelessness, and doesn’t need to be explained in terms of how it could exist timelessly. It simply doesn’t exist timelessly.

In fact, this objection seems to confuse God’s -act- of creation, with the -result- of that act (material creation as an existing thing.) God’s -act- is timeless, while the -result- of his act exists in time.

Lets call it pure act, we still need a meta-time to differentiate between two states of God and God+creation if we accept that God cause the creation.

 

[Gorgias]

Change is possible without before. Event X happens on instant on the spot then it is gone, either we experience it or not. Event Y happens on the spot after X as the result of event X.

But if X is gone, then Y is not ‘change’, it just is. If you want to point to Y and say “it’s a change from X”, then you likewise need a W to which you can point and say “X is a change from W” (even if W is ‘the void’ in an act of true creation).

You may choose to ignore W, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist as a state…

Consecutive means events come after another without any delay

I think that this notion of ‘delay’ is problematic. In any sequence, there would be a ‘delay’, whether infinitesimal or of great duration. Consecutive Super Bowls happen every year; consecutive Olympics happen after many years.

I can imagine what you are talking about but what you are explaining is logically impossible for timeless being to do.

Why is that? To a being outside of time, all moments of time exist in the ‘now’. Why couldn’t such a being, who experiences all moments of our existence without mediation, be unable to perceive the temporal relationships therein?

Lets call it pure act, we still need a meta-time to differentiate between two states of God and God+creation if we accept that God cause the creation.

No – because if you posit God as existing in two ‘states’, then you are saying that God is mutable. Since, by definition, God is immutable, there’s only one state: ‘God’. That state does not change; there is no distinction between them, so there is no need of a ‘meta-time’ to differentiate …

 

[vz71]

And what is reality? Timeless state which we of course cannot experience it but can define and imagine it. We in fact can define it since we can imagine it.

And that is the flaw within your logic.
You limit God to what you can imagine.

God is not bound by that limitation.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

You again . The only reality is that we experience beings what are sole states of Mind which I think you agree with it.

Do you really live in Plato’s cave?

Linus2nd