Is Time Absolute or Relative: Bob Enyart argues it's absolute...

[temple2006]

Is there a gravity well everywhere? For instance earth's field and the sun's field do they meet somewhere?

 

[taoist]

Yup, sure is, temple, and they don't just meet up, they overlap. So does the moon's. It's like a tug of war out there with everybody pulling toward themselves, willy nilly. Some wells are deeper than others though.

But you can measure any of them by how much speed you have to put on to get out of the well from the bottom either all at once or a little at a time. Usually, you think of the bottom of a planet's gravity well as the surface of the planet, and getting out means you've put on enough speed you'll never fall in again.

So the moon's gravity well is about 2.5 kilometers a second deep, while the earth's is about 11.2, the sun's is around 600, and if you were to manage to get out of the solar system, putting on another 1000 will get you all the way out of the galaxy.

Yes, the galaxy will still be pulling at you, even after you've put on enough speed to escape, but it'll only pull so hard, and less and less as you go further away, and if you're over the escape speed, it'll never be able to put enough pull on you to make you stop.

 

[freelight]

time relative to infinity

time relative to infinity

It appears the supposition that time is absolute has not been definitively elaborated by the original poster. (If so please refer). Time being relative, seems irrelevant to a Mind that is Infinite (perhaps?) - also..... a mind conditioned by finite time dimensions and relative-bound perceptions (in other words 'human') cannot comprehend or perceive the Infinite or that which is from the perspective of the Infinite.(or can it?) In other words...only the Mind of God can know/perceive/comprehend God. (which is to say that a finite mind cannot know the infinite, ever. Also one questions if an infinite Mind would find any value or necessity to condition itself to any finite mind-perspectives or hold such as 'real' as mortals might perceive such). Time is relative - this bears its own evidence as definitively sound. The statement that time is 'absolute' is obscure without proper explanation.

Whatever the case or opinion......I wonder if Bob could provide a brief statement on how his hypothesis that time is absolute supports or correlates with his doctrinal perspective that he mentions briefly about in his OP. (embellish us).

On a latter note,...............I was wondering if any could share their perspectives on times relativity or absoluteness (if these terms are ever qualified)...and how such relates to infinity. From a God-perspective.....how does Infinite Intelligence(God) view time? Does Time exist in infinity.......and/or is time only a relative measure of finite dimensions within Infinity? So much appears to depend on perspective....as a reputable person once said, "what one sees depends on where he stands".

There is a certain school of philosophy that posits that since God is the Sole Absolute Being and Presence in the Universe or more specifically in Existence....that time does not really exist in Him, and He does not exist in time......He being the Sole, Ever-continual Presence and Power in Existence.....the divine ONE in perpetual BEING. (divine Being is forever NOW in the Is-ness of Existence, even if one speculates that this Eternal nowness of Being includes all time). This of course is held in the purview of God being All....the Infinite ONE, the ABSOLUTE, whose being or mind is Infinity Itself. If God is Absolute Being....being Eternal, wholly unconditioned by time or ruled by time....then time really doesnt exist for God as it appears to exist to us....we being so conditioned thereby. IF God is infinite, then he cannot be defined by finite description or dimension( this may include time-referentials). We could speculate that God who we may liken to Infinite Space.....contains all dimensions, all time within the allness of His Infinite Being, etc....so that all time and eternity forever exists in Infinity...infinity itself being dimensionless or undimensional. Perhaps the subject of Infinity is best reserved for its own thread.

Just a few thoughts for now,

paul

 

[Clete]

What is not effected? The phrase "time itself" is meaningless, unless by it you mean absolute time. If by "time itself" you mean absolute time, then Relativity shows that it does not exist. If you mean something else, explain what you mean.

That's why I put "itself" in quotes.
I understand that it is easy to lose track of what someone is saying when discussing this issue via the written word and if I had more time, perhaps I could find a better way to communicate it. It's much easier to discuss this verbally because you have so many additional clues (inflection, body language, etc) that help you follow the point that is being made.
The thing is that time is a concept that is so woven into our way of thinking that one simply cannot help but use it in their language, in spite of the fact that time "itself" doesn't actually exist. We are forced because of the nature of the English language to speak about time in terms of quantity (like I did in the previous paragraph for example). And it is not only unavoidable it is quite useful to do so and so I make no effort to avoid such conventions of language. I simply say what I mean and hope that I do so with sufficient clarity that people will be able to follow my meaning or that, if not, I will be able to explain myself with little effort.
In this case, the term "absolute time" is only objectionable to me in that it suggests that there is this thing out there with it's own independent existence which we are calling time. There isn't any such thing and so if time is absolute it is only so in the sense that it absolutely does not exist and so therefore cannot be manipulated.

If it is not defined, then it does not mean anything to say it fluctuates or it does not fluctuate.

Well the definition of terms seems to becoming the central point of this discussion, doesn't it? What is time? What do clocks do? What is a clock? What is a second? Etc.

The definition of time that I have offered is that time is duration and sequence. Another acceptable definition would be simply, the succession of events. I do not believe that anyone could demonstrate that time is anything more than that. All units of time, like years, days, hours, minutes, seconds, etc are all somewhat arbitrarily defined units of duration and sequences (seconds are first then minutes etc). I say somewhat arbitrarily because they are (or at least were at one time) based on something observable and regular but the point is that they could be based on anything because they are not themselves real things. They are simply conventions of language used to communicate duration and sequence, nothing more.

Which moment of time are you referring to in bold? In whose frame of reference?

Pick one. It doesn't matter. Both participants are always together in each other’s present. The present NOW is never left by anyone or anything, ever, including God. All that exists, exists now and only now. Relativity does not change this central fact of our existence. Nothing in Relativity ever predicts that anything ever leaves the present moment.
This is another way of saying that time is absolute, by the way, as well as another way of restating Bob's point in the opening post.

Resting in Him,
Clete

P.S. Sorry to have taken so long to respond. I'm up to my neck in work this week. Yesterday was crazy!

 

[PureX]

Both participants are always together in each other’s present. The present NOW is never left by anyone or anything, ever, including God. All that exists, exists now and only now. Relativity does not change this central fact of our existence. Nothing in Relativity ever predicts that anything ever leaves the present moment.
This is another way of saying that time is absolute, by the way, as well as another way of restating Bob's point in the opening post.

But this is an imaginary and ideal frame of reference.

All the objects in my house are in my house. They exist in the same house at the same time as the house exists, if the whole house is my frame of reference for claiming place and time. But they also each exist in an individual place and time within the house, and were we to reference time and place from the perspective of any of these individual objects, this would be apparent. So viewed with the house being the frame of reference, we say that all these objects exist in the same place and time, but viewed with the object as a frame of reference, they each have a unique place and experience of time. It's a relative determination. Relative to the house, they all exist in the same .... But relative to each other, they do not all exist in the same place and time.

You are not outside of the universe. So when you claim that everything in the universe is in the same place and time, you are claiming a relative perspective that you yourself can't inhabit. It's purely imaginary. You imagine yourself outside of the universe, and then claim the whole universe as the frame of reference when you say that everything in it is in the same place and moment in time. And it's this imaginary "divine" point of perspective that creates the idea of time being an absolute.

All our "absolutes" come from this same process of imaginary projection of ourselves outside the limitations of our own time, place, and intellectual limitations. This is not to say that were we to be able to actually view existence from the perspective that we are imagining ourselves viewing it, that such absolutes would not be verified, but the truth is that we cannot, and so we also cannot verify the absolutes that we "see" from our imagined "divine" perspectives.

We are only one of the many objects in "the house". From where we are sitting, all the other objects have their own unique place and are subject to their own unique physical conditions within the house, and these unique conditions include the rate at which time is passing for them. We just don't have the perspective to view the house from the outside, and declare that the whole house occupies one place and moment in time. We can imagine doing this, but imagined absolutes are not really absolute.

 

[freelight]

'existence' and 'time'

'existence' and 'time'


If we consider the Fact of Gods Absoluteness of Being/Existence......can we apply the definitives of 'time' to divine Being? I may presume with others from an Absolute Truth point of view (a particular school of thought which posits that God is the Sole One Being Existing thru the Entirety of all that IS) that God is Absolute - yet Gods Existence would be independent of anything else, Undifferentiated, Unqualified, Pure. Could we say if we could apply the definitive of time to Gods Being...that in the absolute sense...to divine Existence there is no time? (It appears we could in one sense, 'time' only being a relative concept as not actually existing but as a referential). Or we could say that in God there is an infinite or endless duration of 'time' for in the Infinite.....there is at any given time the generation of relationships where the referential of 'time' appears to come into being). With this purview we could say that divine Existence is both independent of time and inclusive of all time.

This brings us back to the subject of MIND being that Infinite Intelligence we call 'God'. We deem God as the Sole, Original Absolute.....being a Consciousness that is infinite and eternal. What is forever constant is the Fact of this primeval Awareness of Being which constitutes the 'I AM'. All conceptions/perceptions of things/beings/objects/creations/relativities within this infinite consciousness inter-relate within a network of time while the original consciousness of the I AM is independent of these timal relations/creations.....divine Being being truly Absolute - the very ground, substance and MIND in which all things/creations/relativities are forever arising...as long as MIND is dynamic and forever living(creating, conceiving, perceiving creations, dimensions, relationships transpiring in what appears to be the network of 'time'). In this way we discern both the absolute and the relative in reference to the phenomena of 'time' and deem such a wonderful inevitability in the dimensions which include its conception.

We speculate by our own perception that All that exists only exists NOW in the actuality of Being. Yet this Being-ness must include all that is within the perception of our awareness..and this includes all timal references/relationships as far as mind can perceive. To further stir our reflections....we might ask ...'is it possible for there to be an existence that is wholly independent of time'? Time appears to always enter the perceptal picture wherever relativity exists. Another question is can there be consciousness that is wholly free of relativity..... or awareness that does not include a perception of duration, sequence, relationship? As a little boy it hit me once that thru-out all eternity I would always be experiencing, being in the NOW-moment....regardless of whatever succession of time appeared to be....all I would ever be 'in' was 'now'. This is a most fascinating subject....and all I am conscious of now is composing this commentary. If I recollect past events or project my mentations in the future....these are only mind-shifts or I guess one could call it 'psi-spacing' - a process where I focus my mind on past memories and project potential actualities or dreams in a future state....all these dynamics happening in 'mind'. This may have interesting implications in our whole theological perceptions and eschatology as far as events happening in 'time' - whether these will actually be matter-ialized events and/or states of consciousness independent of 'time'.

The divine Name 'I AM' or 'I WILL BE' (ehyeh asher ehyeh) implies not only be-ing but also be-coming showing the existential and creational aspects of consciousness. I know that I AM....and I perceive that I can be-come anything that I will to be-come in the relative realm of creation/relationship...while the eternal "I" of the I AM remains absolute as infinite Intelligence, the true divine Self. This brings into the picture that generative space where actuals generate potentials and potentials become actuals in the dynamic of Mind. What remains however is the Consciousness or Intelligence that is conceiving/perceiving all things and including in its Awareness all that is and all that ever will be because there is nothing that can exist outside of Consciousness. 'Being' itself then must be absolute and whatever Being conceives and the relationships which arise within the ocean of Being(Mind, Consciousness) are relative only from a referential point of view.

Just some more thoughts,


paul

 

[Clete]

PureX,

The whole idea of something existing except in the present is irrational. You have no evidence, either logical or imperical that anything ever will or ever has existed outside of the present (whenever that present was). In other words, the past only exists as memories and the future will not exist at all until it becomes the present and then it too will imeditately fall into the nonexistent past. The past isn't there for us to travel too, nor is the future, neither exists at all.

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[taoist]

I can't check you on consistency for that, Clete. If nothing but the present exists, there's no occasion for repentance. At least, that's how I read it. No future means no future accounting. No past means no actions to regret.

 

[simply one]

Greetings, temple,

Squeezing space is what gravitational wells do. So the closer you come to a massy object, like a planet, or a star, or a black hole, the more your personal space gets squeezed compared to somebody further away from a planet, or a star, or a black hole. And when your personal space gets squeezed, your personal time gets dilated.

...because Time and Space are intrinsicly(sp?) linked in our 4 dimensional universe.

 

[PureX]

PureX,

The whole idea of something existing except in the present is irrational. You have no evidence, either logical or imperical that anything ever will or ever has existed outside of the present (whenever that present was). In other words, the past only exists as memories and the future will not exist at all until it becomes the present and then it too will imeditately fall into the nonexistent past. The past isn't there for us to travel too, nor is the future, neither exists at all.

You're speaking from a perspective that you don't occupy. The only time you can call "the present moment" is your own.

And it's not irrational or illogical that the passage of time would increase or decrease in different places according to the varried conditions to which time relates in those places.

 

[taoist]

Whoops, overlooked this inference ...

... no evidence, either logical or empirical that anything ever will or ever has existed outside of the present ...

Dead wrong, Clete. Causation in empirical application of logic requires precedence in time.

 

[freelight]

Relative theology and absolute Truth

Relative theology and absolute Truth

I can't check you on consistency for that, Clete. If nothing but the present exists, there's no occasion for repentance. At least, that's how I read it. No future means no future accounting. No past means no actions to regret.

Greetings taoist,

As I noted...the implications of time relative to Universe Reality and divine-Mind perspectives....may seriously affect our theological views and upset prevailing theories/beliefs about God, atonement, salvation, etc. It appears that most of the redemption or atonement doctrine centered in the person of Christ is 'historic' taking place at a special place in 'time' where this event somehow then enforces an effect or remedy that is supposed to be eternal. How we view 'time', 'God' and our relationship with these concepts/realities will certain colour our theosophy and shape our cosmology.

One of my teachers, Alfred Aiken who was a major pioneer in Absolute Truth teachings....has a chapter in his book "Now" entitled 'Guilt'. He touches upon this issue of guilt as it relates to the teaching-beliefs associated with the 'fall', the idea of seperation from God, and other religious myths that have their root in a finite, human, relative, mortal frame of reference....and shows these views (having their conception only in 'duality') to be untrue concerning the native, Absolute state of Truth/Being/Existence where it is impossible for there to ever be a 'fall' from grace or a 'seperation' from God,...since God is the Sole Ground of Being, the All, the One....the entirety of all that exists. In the Absolute View of divine Being...being 'ALL'....there cannot be duality or another besides God because God is All there IS. This gets into deeper metaphysical speculations contextually speaking....but it relates to the concept of 'repentance' you bring up.

It would seem in the relative world of cause/effect(karma)....the cycles of repentance, reform, restoration, advancement, ascension, spiritual evolution/progress are innate to the system,....yet when one considers the Infinite and Absolute Now wherein there is only divine Perfection, the totality of God-Presence......there is only God - and a state wherein there is only God...there can be no time, but only the infinite ALL. The whole premise of redemption/salvation in a christian purivew has its story and culmination in 'time' and could not exist without relativity/duality/seperation which only exists in a finite mind that is not the Mind of God, Gods Mind being wholly All that IS....ONE Eternal undivided Being. NOW in God there can be no sin, seperation, division, fallen state, humanhood, duality, mortality, evil......and to abide in this realm of Spirit-reality....and to mind only such is life and peace.

Repentance then would appear to be a human exercise for ones own personal betterment of changing ones mind in a more wholesome direction, effecting a change of consciouosness, a new direction and embrace of a divine kingdom. It must be a pure state of being like this that God refers to when he says all remembrance of sin shall be forgotten and all transgressions shall be blotted out - there will be no more consciousnes of sin or anything unlawful...for all shall be consumed and permeated with divine Love. Love itself then must be a living resonance-state of being/mind/spirit wherein only the harmony of God exists in total and everlasting Perfection. All time-referentials not consistent with eternal perfection and wholeness must be non-existent or non-binding in this state...wherein there is liberation from all conditional karmas and things associated with sin and death.

As an end note,.........if one holds that God is All......and this is an absolute Truth...then there never was a fall where one needed to be restored to God since God has never been dismembered or divided from Himself. - this opens up another chapter with many dimensions to explore!

just surface gliding,


paul

 

[Johnny]

Also, while we're discussing the whole "present" issue, special relativity implies that the present experience is also relative. As I have argued quite extensively in another thread, special relativity enables certain conditions in which present realities will certainly differ..at extreme speeds or extreme distances. The speed of light is the protector of causality. In other words, if instantaneous communication were possible (or even faster than the speed of light), the future could be relayed from one inertial frame to another. Thus, there exists an inertial frame in which all your decisions have already been made. The speed of light forbids this information to reach me before I make the decision itself, and so causality is preserved. However, this doesn't mean that the future can be known.

Here's a good article that I posted elsewhere: Relativity, FTL and causality.

My argument has always been that if God is omnipresent and is all-knowing, then He necessarily knows the future. The only way in which He wouldn't is if one part of His existence couldn't transmit information to other parts faster than c.

Just more food for thought.

 

[Clete]

Dead wrong, Clete. Causation in empirical application of logic requires precedence in time.

I think you need to translate this into English for me but if I understand correctly my response would be that an effect does not require that its cause coexist with it. All that is required is that the cause exists BEFORE the effect exists. When the cause existed it was the present then that particular cause "fell" into the nonexistent past, and then, in the next moment, when the resulting effect existed, it too was in the present. All that is required is sequence not coexistence of the past and present.

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[Clete]

Also, while we're discussing the whole "present" issue, special relativity implies that the present experience is also relative. As I have argued quite extensively in another thread, special relativity enables certain conditions in which present realities will certainly differ..at extreme speeds or extreme distances. The speed of light is the protector of causality. In other words, if instantaneous communication were possible (or even faster than the speed of light), the future could be relayed from one inertial frame to another. Thus, there exists an inertial frame in which all your decisions have already been made. The speed of light forbids this information to reach me before I make the decision itself, and so causality is preserved. However, this doesn't mean that the future can be known.

Here's a good article that I posted elsewhere: Relativity, FTL and causality.

My argument has always been that if God is omnipresent and is all-knowing, then He necessarily knows the future. The only way in which He wouldn't is if one part of His existence couldn't transmit information to other parts faster than c.

Just more food for thought.

Do I understand you to be arguing that God is somehow required to work within the laws of physics in order for Him to know the future (assuming for the sake of conversation that He does know the future)?

 

[Johnny]

No, I don't think He has to. But since some have insisted that He is bound by our present experience, then He could use the laws of physics since He has no other option.

 

[Clete]

No, I don't think He has to. But since some have insisted that He is bound by our present experience, then He could use the laws of physics since He has no other option.

Just to be clear. I am not one to argue that God is limited by our present experience but rather that God is limited to reality. God can do the supernatural but he cannot do that which is irrational (like knowing the unknowable, seeing the nonexistent, or just in general, doing the undoable).

With that having been said, I wanted to ask you whether you think that there is now or will ever be any way to confirm experimentally the idea that "the future could be relayed from one inertial frame to another"? Could you even postulate an idea of how such an experiment might be carried out, disregarding current limitations of technology on speed and other such things?

I don't know enough about the science to say for certain but my intuition says that whatever you suggest, if you are able to suggest anything at all, will be irrational (meaning illogical not stupid) in one way or another.

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[elohiym]

... I wanted to ask you whether you think that there is now or will ever be any way to confirm experimentally the idea that "the future could be relayed from one inertial frame to another"? Could you even postulate an idea of how such an experiment might be carried out, disregarding current limitations of technology on speed and other such things?

One experiment that I heard of involved subjects being shown pictures on a computer screen. Some pictures contained shocking images, other pictures did not. Researchers measured reactions to the shocking images that registered PRIOR to seeing those images. In other words, they knew the future.

Would that experiment fit the bill?

 

[elohiym]

"Dr John Hartwell, working at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, was the first to uncover evidence that people could sense the future. In the mid-1970s he hooked people up to hospital scanning machines so that he could study their brainwave patterns.

He began by showing them a sequence of provocative cartoon drawings.

When the pictures were shown, the machines registered the subject's brainwaves as they reacted strongly to the images before them. This was to be expected.

Far less easy to explain was the fact that in many cases, these dramatic patterns began to register a few seconds before each of the pictures were even flashed up.

It was as though Dr Hartwell's case studies were somehow seeing into the future, and detecting when the next shocking image would be shown next.

It was extraordinary - and seemingly inexplicable.

But it was to be another 15 years before anyone else took Dr Hartwell's work further when Dean Radin, a researcher working in America, connected people up to a machine that measured their skin's resistance to electricity. This is known to fluctuate in tandem with our moods - indeed, it's this principle that underlies many lie detectors.

Radin repeated Dr Hartwell's 'image response' experiments while measuring skin resistance. Again, people began reacting a few seconds before they were shown the provocative pictures. This was clearly impossible, or so he thought, so he kept on repeating the experiments. And he kept getting the same results.

'I didn't believe it either,' says Prof Bierman. 'So I also repeated the experiment myself and got the same results. I was shocked. After this I started to think more deeply about the nature of time.' To make matters even more intriguing, Prof Bierman says that other mainstream labs have now produced similar results but are yet to go public." (source)

 

[taoist]

I think you need to translate this into English for me but if I understand correctly my response would be that an effect does not require that its cause coexist with it.

All that is required is that the cause exists BEFORE the effect exists. When the cause existed it was the present then that particular cause "fell" into the nonexistent past, and then, in the next moment, when the resulting effect existed, it too was in the present. All that is required is sequence not coexistence of the past and present.

Resting in Him,
Clete

Insufficient, Clete.

There must be more than an ordered sequence of events to infer causality. The events must also be connected. The aggregate of these connections is what we refer to as time. Any discontinuity in these connections, even one less all-encompassing than non-coexistence of the discrete elements of the sequence, would break the chain of causality. A single discontinuity among these connections would in effect isolate the sequence of events into two causal chains.

Thus the logic of empiricism includes the assumption that time is continuous, that every moment must be attached continuously to the moments that precede and succeed it. Without an unbroken chain of events, without the continuity of time itself, there is no implied causality that can be read from the sequence of events.

As ever, Jesse