Time

[JDaniel]

I’m very comfortable as a Catholic and understand all the expectations, teachings ect. I have no quarrel with any of the teachings at all. I simply do not have a mind that can resist solving problems or what would be said to be mystery. Interest in creation is a compliment, I can’t be interested in something with…restrictions. For your information I thoroughly enjoy reading many
of the nihilobstat writings and fully believe these saints would be keen on exploring the God they pray to and live for with full zest and greater insight…thats in character what these writers were…if all thats done in the belief is dance around what is already written…where is the
personal belief exactly…the paradox is left un-attended to…the dialectic is void, no reconciliation
as theres nothing but a robot following rules…faith is a creative endeavor…not a rule book, once the idea is accepted the journey begins…otherwise theres no merit to the will…believing with the immediate will has no value.

I don’t think by reading your posts , that you are suggesting a Catholic is not allowed to “wonder”…perhaps a thread on the essence of love and the role wonder plays is a good idea.
Please do not be privy due to a public forum to create a common villain for non-constructive and so forth reasons…anyway if your intelligent, you will leave me alone or simply comment on some of my creative idea’s in a suitable way…I didn’t quote you either so what are you trying to
project here anyway?..never mind the direction is non-constructive…

back to topic. Time is vastly difficult to try and understand looking forward to some well trained
commentary…I fully reccomend…Paul Davies(physisist)…“about time”

Thank you FurtherSuntime:

I am good with your explication. Just know, that we are occasionally inundated with anti-Christians who come here to beat Christians up. You, sir, sound like the genuine article! Again, thank you, and my deepest apologies if my post sounded terse.

Oh, and by the way, since I have not had the pleasure, Welcome to CAF!

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

Why exactly and this is the philosophy forum, does man assume creation was created?

Actually, I don’t think one can call it an “assumption.” It is clear Church teaching. The Catholic teaching can be found in volume one of, The Teaching of the Catholic Church, A Summary of Catholic Doctrine arranged and edited by Canon George D. Smith, D.D., Ph. D. Both volumes can still, I believe, be found by searching the internet. I do not know their respective costs.

Here are a few lines from this volume:

“The question, then, being so weighty, and its inherent and incidental difficulties so many and so grave, it has pleased God, in his mercy, not to leave men without divine help and direction in the matter. He has come to man’s aid: by clear and repeated revelation he has made it easy for him to discover the certain truth, and by his grace he enables him, without much difficulty, to hold it firmly and consistently. This truth is summed up in the opening words of the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in God the Father, Creator of heaven and earth.” The revelation of this truth is, however, far older than Christianity. The Jews from the earliest times held the same belief. It is taught constantly and explicitly throughout the Old Testament. this doctrine is, therefore, one of those which, as regards their main lines, have undergone no development since the first days of the Church’s existence.” - pp 180 - 181.

1. Energy cannot be created or destroyed
2. it is appearing more and more likely that some kind of multiverse is in existence, even if
   there are only two universes, how do we know that they have not been expanding and
   collapsing in support of each others existence for eternity, just as the energy idea?

See Robert Spitzer’s new book, New Proofs for the Existence of God, Contributions of Contemporary Physics and Philospohy, Postscript to Part One, Inflationary Cosmology and the String Multiverse, by Bruce L. Gordon, Ph.D. (It is too long and complex to copy here, and anyway I don’t have permission. Find it at amazon.com)

1. Why would an individual idea or essence such as God create the responcibility of a “thing”
   such as humanity ? ( relative to the qualities we attribute to a creator)

I’m unclear as to what you mean.

1. If an idea of a reality such as God exists, wouldn’t it be more appropiate to asign a sense
   of collective unity on a grand scale to such an idea of the supernatural?

I think that you are asking if it would not be smarter to ascribe the “reality of God” to a group, or collective, rather than to an individual (God), is this correct?

1. If universe’s always existed producing consciousness , wouldn’t the product of that consciousness be infinate and possibly comprise the essense of a unified Godhead?

I don’t think that anyone is postulating that “universe’s always existed producing consciousness.” How would a universe “produce” consciousness?

In a logical sense consciousness would then be responcible for itself. Man seems determined to assume creation had a beginning and was created, yet energy cannot be created or destroyed…its like why is man looking for what may define zero or nothingness and then call it
God"s starting point…how could that make sense…

Well, the book I mentioned above does a great job of laying it all out. But, what you point to is the precise reason why the universe had to be a creation event. Cause presupposes the existence of stuff existing prior to the “beginning” which God uses to craft a universe. If that primordial stuff did actually exist, and we could actually prove it, then you’d be right. But, since it is the doctrine of the Church that the universe had a beginning and that the general concensus of science is that the universe began at the Big Bang, and that nothing was in existence before that (in other words, there could be no “before” the Big Bang), we are the only universe. String cosmology came about in order to stave off the inferences from that (almost universally accepted cosmology)…

So here’s the BB…zero 0…1…2…3…4…5 (time
…collapse -5…-4…-3…-2…-1…0
The very existence of above 12345 in time, suggests the opposing expression in order to
answer to the momentum of time…12345 zero being the doorway of non-time which
relative to this scheme and the non-time attribute, does not exist and qualifies the interacting set of process’s

Again, the answer to your question requires a plethora of considerations, which can best be found in the aforementioned book.

continued . . .

 

[JDaniel]

continuation . . .

The one problem and many others I suppose that would be in play is the unusual circumstance’s
in a BB which ultimately destines life… the formation of elements, earth, and so on. But with a forest of universes the likelyhood is heightened. I can’t see a God sitting down in his timeless existence and saying today I am going to create…and we know with BB …there certainly was such a day…how could that “day” be indifferent to time yet still create within time? Something is missing… If multiverse always was, it is possible that the creation always existed along with a
supreme expression of its labor…the ultimate product of earned non materialistic consciousness…a unity in whole comprising the glow of creation or…God. This is my crazy idea and wanted to get it down. Man looks for an individual self, and assumes an individual God in his quest for self worthy understanding, problem is the individual self is worthless as
the only individual non reliant constant is light… Even with the natural and required unity within nature man still wants to be individual, with his individual God idea. nothing seems to make sense in this exploration of time and a creator in this line up of assumed givens.Again we all
believe the soul has an eternal reality. Ok…but still how can a God even relate with his product
once time has dissolved , or days come to a finish.Perhaps this is not a good way to go as skeptics would then jump on it and say…god is not required, although this shouldn’t interfere with thinking on things.I don’t think this contradicts Christianity either, simply the nature of God which would be divine and express the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in more exact terms.

The first thing is that there can be no such thing as an actual infinity. So, all we are left with is what is termed, a potential infinity. The word “potential” indicates that infinity is a fluid sort of thing. Whenever we think we have arrived at a number large enough to be “Infinity,” we can always add (or, subtract) one or more things or numbers to it. So, it actual infinity is an unachievable number, whereas potential infinity is acheivable. However, what we are left with is a huge number, but it is a finite one.

Furthermore, the concept of “infinite past time,” is contradictory. If we are here, at this stopping point in time, then we have certainly NOT achieved an infinity of past time. We are adding days to it every day!

So, if time is not infinite, and it isn’t, then it had to have had a beginning. Well, it just so happens that Big Bang cosmology provides us with a beginning. But, that said, it does not preclude that God has always been creating. We have been told that (sequentially) prior to the Big Bang, God was creating angels, and perhaps a couple of layers of heaven. So God has always been creating.

The idea’s in space time, relativity,
unification…all these intense area’s of knowledge do nothing to express help in the creator of
existence. For now my thinking is that energy always existed and therefore so did the material and likely consciousness. So …time always was as no time does not exist, if there is nothing in potencial for time…then it would have never come to be in the first place…so it always was leaving the non-time singularity or what ever they call it …actually non-existent…like the pause at the top of the golf swing…its there…but its not part of the swing because nothing happens…its a
non happening…a doorway going from one momentum to another…

The next question you have to ask yourself is, if there is no such thing as actual infinity, how did those finite things come to be? Our Church teaches, and logic prescribes, a creator exigency, outside of the universe and outside of time. We happen to call him God. He is understood to be the Judeo-Christian God from Revelation.

God bless,
jd

 

[FurtherSuntime]

MindOverMatter2;8519257]
It depends on what you mean by a natural cause. I mean unintelligent motion. In the context of science, natural causes in reference to events are a collection of instances that are not intrinsically intelligent in the sense of being moved by a direct intervening intelligence. Their interaction is a manifestation of their particular natures. The “kinds” of motion they have is a consequence of the laws which govern them.

FS…ok

MOM…

You are talking about limitations in scientific knowledge; but you are not giving me any reason to think that you understand its particular epistemological approach to truth. For the metaphysician, what science knows about time is irrelevant, since change is a brute fact for science, and science does not dictate what constitutes logical interpretation. Science is in the business of measuring change. The scientific method cannot measure or meaningfully categorize that which is not in time or does not have a process. Its epistemological approach is as such that it cannot answer questions which require knowledge of things which exist outside the measurable continuum of time; thus it cannot possibly measure the cause. When science asks what the nature of time is, it is asking what physical properties it has. But science cannot answer what caused all time to exist, since that is a question which takes science beyond the legitimate bounds of its epistemology.

FS/ exactly and the effects of time are a part of the scientific evidence , effects can help
add to the approach, a property is only one affair in findings, everything is relative and excluding this fact would seem narrow in exploration…can we not argue these things…

MOM…

Those scientists who speculate about the cause of time, are doing philosophy not science. Science deals with time in a different context to metaphysics. Science deals with the particularities of change, the kinds of change which exist. However, metaphysicians do not need to understand the particularities of change. He or she need only know what change is in general. Change is the actualization of potentiality. That which was at one point only potential has now become actual. That is what change is on a fundamental level. Also, he or she can know the cause by understanding what it means for something to be a sufficient cause. I do not need to consult the sciences in order to know this.

It is not a mechanism. a mechanistic cause has a physical process; and thus change would have to first exist before the process could occur. What ever the cause is, it is certainly not a physical event.

The only problem i have is your refusal to see the epistemological difference between a scientific claim and a metaphysical claim. You have not really addressed anything i have said. All you have done is given reasons for why you think you should be excused from acknowledging the problem.

FS
Ok well , I’m very aware of the SM, … :metaphysics: a division of philosophy that is concerned with the fundamental nature of reality and being and that includes ontology, cosmology, and often epistemology…I don’t want to be short but I think I’m obliged to reply to another posting
beneath…it looks in depth so possibly any issues or error which you may be finding can be isolated or corrected.

 

[FurtherSuntime]

Thank you FurtherSuntime:

I am good with your explication. Just know, that we are occasionally inundated with anti-Christians who come here to beat Christians up. You, sir, sound like the genuine article! Again, thank you, and my deepest apologies if my post sounded terse.

Oh, and by the way, since I have not had the pleasure, Welcome to CAF!

God bless,

jd

This is wonderful and a good day , in all

 

[FurtherSuntime]

JDaniel;8519701]continuation . . .

The first thing is that there can be no such thing as an actual infinity. So, all we are left with is what is termed, a potential infinity. The word “potential” indicates that infinity is a fluid sort of thing. Whenever we think we have arrived at a number large enough to be “Infinity,” we can always add (or, subtract) one or more things or numbers to it. So, it actual infinity is an unachievable number, whereas potential infinity is acheivable. However, what we are left with is a huge number, but it is a finite one.

Furthermore, the concept of “infinite past time,” is contradictory. If we are here, at this stopping point in time, then we have certainly NOT achieved an infinity of past time. We are adding days to it every day!

FS/ (not being argumentative so I don’t want to push something which is reliant on a multi verse idea)…yes I see, in a true sense though with a multi verse that cannot be created or destroyed
we have our infinite past time, infinite forward time, by virtue of each unlimited progression, each justifying infinity on behalf of each other

JD
So, if time is not infinite, and it isn’t, then it had to have had a beginning. Well, it just so happens that Big Bang cosmology provides us with a beginning. But, that said, it does not preclude that God has always been creating. We have been told that (sequentially) prior to the Big Bang, God was creating angels, and perhaps a couple of layers of heaven. So God has always been creating.

FS/ yes this is what I believe… sometimes in order to envision a wholeness , the mind wonders. …certainly not making any kind of proposal, would rather read and learn a little more and will do in keeping with what appears to be very good recommendations shortly

JD/
The next question you have to ask yourself is, if there is no such thing as actual infinity, how did those finite things come to be? Our Church teaches, and logic prescribes, a creator exigency, outside of the universe and outside of time. We happen to call him God. He is understood to be the Judeo-Christian God from Revelation.

FS/
My notion for the moment was a possible multi-verse may have always existed and always will… infinite. …Universe’s trading off energy which cannot be created or destroyed. The cycle or entirety of creation , multi-verse in this scheme, would seem to express same infinite potential, as the parts resemble the whole in nature-principal.(energy) An infinite cycle

Thank you for having a look, I’m not passionately keen on the idea and as you know weeding out is part of the process. It seems interesting in a curious way . Will be having a look at some of the writings you mention…I like to take time on things so will duck back a little later…
The time subject catches my attention and enjoy the whole idea of all the super work man has been able to come to understand, and not understand. Someone was saying, or it came up about the mechanism of time being an improper question…I don’t believe it is, The universe from what I understand does not have different times…if it did , the idea would throw havoc into BB…so I believe there are only relative different times available through motion. The mechanics which must be in order for time to exist in each moment to moment instance, to my knowledge are un-known

God bless,
jd

 

[inocente]

In my, albeit limited, view, He didn’t create Time. He created Space (and matter and energy) because physico-material objects must be provided place. Man deduced Time by observing the regularities of mobile being.

I didn’t understand – why would place by more fundamental than time?

If we accept the big bang, then everything – energy, matter, space, time – must all be the same at some deep level, since it all came out of the same event. Perhaps there’s an underlying proto-substance, but that doesn’t seem imaginative enough, my bet would be on something unexpectedly wacky - something abstract (geometry? love?).

And now, even this firmly held belief might get skewered!
latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/09/speed-of-light-.html

I happened to watch their announcement conference, they published to get views on where their calculations might be wrong. They’ve now got feedback on improving signature matching (I’m not a physicist but what they were doing sounded very finger in the air). Even if the result is confirmed, the constant speed of light is said to be safe.

And, we’re positive that the instant of the initial physical interaction of masses is slower than the speed of light? Seems to be correct, otherwise we could never get out of the way of any falling object! But, I wonder why.

Gravity waves, aka gravitons, are postulated to travel at the speed of light.

So, Time may be slower than the speed of light?

No, couldn’t be, as speed is distance / time. Taking a deep breath - a second is defined as “the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom” and the meter as “the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299 792 458 of a second.” (physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/meter.html). Our understanding here has to follow whatever the physical world does, we can’t do things like defining pi to be 3 to make the math easier .

But wait: I can’t get my mind around this. If space were to be created, but matter/energy had yet to be created, and space had stopped expanding, in anticipation of matter, there would be no need for Time, would there?

I guess what the Lord giveth the Lord could taketh away, but it sounds a bit Heath Robinson. Also, although I’ve no proof, I don’t think space is possible without matter, or matter without space, in some way they’re two sides of the same coin.

I looked into getting one implanted, but the cost was too high!

The downside of a digital watch implant is you’d never have an excuse for being late.

Actually, he concluded that space was a context for Place, inasmuch as there exists mobile beings. Time, then, was postulated as a, sort of, gauge to measure motion.

I think Thomas would be happy to give up postulations in favor of evidence. So would any of this alter his metaphysics?

 

[JDaniel]

I didn’t understand – why would place by more fundamental than time?

If we accept the big bang, then everything – energy, matter, space, time – must all be the same at some deep level, since it all came out of the same event. Perhaps there’s an underlying proto-substance, but that doesn’t seem imaginative enough, my bet would be on something unexpectedly wacky - something abstract (geometry? love?).

Inocente:

Well, I’m not certain that it does, but, I see place as that which must exist as it is required by the objects of reality. It is the location of an object in space, if you will. (I define “place” as the innermost surface of a surrounding body: without limiting “body” in any way.)

I happened to watch their announcement conference, they published to get views on where their calculations might be wrong. They’ve now got feedback on improving signature matching (I’m not a physicist but what they were doing sounded very finger in the air). Even if the result is confirmed, the constant speed of light is said to be safe.

I agree. Very interesting, but, much ado about . . .

Gravity waves, aka gravitons, are postulated to travel at the speed of light.

That’s what I seemed to almost remember.

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

No, couldn’t be, as speed is distance / time. Taking a deep breath - a second is defined as “the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom” and the meter as “the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299 792 458 of a second.” (physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/meter.html). Our understanding here has to follow whatever the physical world does, we can’t do things like defining pi to be 3 to make the math easier .

I thought it must be something like that!

I guess what the Lord giveth the Lord could taketh away, but it sounds a bit Heath Robinson. Also, although I’ve no proof, I don’t think space is possible without matter, or matter without space, in some way they’re two sides of the same coin.

Hmmm. I’ve no proof either, but it seems as though it would. Of course, that presumes we’re talking about an absolute vacuum as space. But, if we are, then matter would not be required, would it?

However, I agree; matter requires space. Without space there could be no place for the individuals of matter, would there? Nor would motion be possible, internally or externally.

The downside of a digital watch implant is you’d never have an excuse for being late.

Bummer. I had not thought of that.

I think Thomas would be happy to give up postulations in favor of evidence. So would any of this alter his metaphysics?

I don’t think so. Aquinas regarded Time as having a sort of imperfect existence on its own. He saw Time as Number (successionary numerability), which could only exist in the mind. Successionary numerability he saw as the before and after of material exigencies. In other words, before and after he did not define as comprising Time, rather, they were in matter in motion: e.g., a train traveling through a tunnel. Otherwise, our definitions of these things would be circular, defining Time as Time, or defining parts of Time as Time.

That said, he admitted that Time had real existence, but that it had imperfect existence outside of the mind.

God bless,
jd

 

[FurtherSuntime]

inocente…if you have time , I’m confused with something

apparently the BB took place before the anti-matter…matter question which enabled material
to be in fact a reality in the universe which was created…this seems in the way of your above
relay

“I guess what the Lord giveth the Lord could taketh away, but it sounds a bit Heath Robinson. Also, although I’ve no proof, I don’t think space is possible without matter, or matter without space, in some way they’re two sides of the same coin.”

 

[inocente]

Hmmm. I’ve no proof either, but it seems as though it would. Of course, that presumes we’re talking about an absolute vacuum as space. But, if we are, then matter would not be required, would it?

apparently the BB took place before the anti-matter…matter question which enabled material to be in fact a reality in the universe which was created…this seems in the way of your above relay

An atom is mostly empty space, so “solid” matter is too. The nucleons at the center of an atom are made up of quarks and gluons, and an interesting thing is that if you add up their masses, it’s far less than the mass of the nucleons. As it were, the forces between them give mass to empty space. I’m no expert here, but Frank Wilczek at MIT is: youtube.com/watch?v=ECkG_JdodMA

The video also shows that space is a froth at the quantum scale, anything but empty. All this implies (to me anyway) that empty space and mass are different aspects of the same unity, kind of like electricity and magnetism being unified into electromagnetism, or space and time into spacetime.

So while we can imagine an empty universe, it’s a fact that the only one we know of consists of spacetime, energy and matter. That seems to mean that the physics of our universe demands all three come out of its creation - if God wanted to create an empty universe, He’d need to use different laws. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Aquinas regarded Time as having a sort of imperfect existence on its own. He saw Time as Number (successionary numerability), which could only exist in the mind. Successionary numerability he saw as the before and after of material exigencies. In other words, before and after he did not define as comprising Time, rather, they were in matter in motion: e.g., a train traveling through a tunnel. Otherwise, our definitions of these things would be circular, defining Time as Time, or defining parts of Time as Time.

That said, he admitted that Time had real existence, but that it had imperfect existence outside of the mind.

Got you. To me, he confuses objective and psychological aspects, and if all observers have to have the same Now it’s incompatible with relativity. Though I like the digital-osity of it, you could brand it as iTime .

 

[Kismetji]

But, since it is the doctrine of the Church that the universe had a beginning and that the general concensus of science is that the universe began at the Big Bang, and that nothing was in existence before that (in other words, there could be no “before” the Big Bang), we are the only universe. String cosmology came about in order to stave off the inferences from that (almost universally accepted cosmology)…

There could be time. Just not time as we currently perceive/measure it due to the obfuscating “now.”