Are we living in a time loop?

[peale]

I wish I was writer but here goes.

Throughout history mankind has been preoccupied with the future and what it holds for us. Destiny and fate are two words regularly used by many of us, who can say they never experience moments of de ja vu? But with our present understanding of the universe they should not exist as they require a predetermined future and this is something science cannot except even if religion can. Evidence of a mapped future cannot be obtained from any source more accurate than predictions documented throughout history, and with so many inaccurate predictions most rational minds will put these down to coincidence or educated guess work. A few years ago and with no back ground on my life a "psychic" predicted certain events would happen in my life concerning the internet, communications and banking. They where somewhat wild because at the time i was a farmer and happy with that, but over time things have happened and my life changed so much that I've become convinced of fate? It has been said that psychic predictions create nothing more than a self fulfilling prophecy, it you believe it will happen you will try to make it happen. But if the prophecy is totally outrageous, like the revelations and the Antichrist ruling the world, no matter how hard you tried you just could not make that happen. It is impossible to accurately describe an event that has not happened yet unless seeing the future is really looking very deeply into the past. The trouble is we know that now exists so for the future to be the past both have to join up somehow, there has to be a cut off point a single moment of return back to the beginning. Perhaps this is the much feared Armageddon. If this is the case then we are all fated to a life that we have already lived before and we are duty bound to live the same life again and again and again, in fact there cannot be an end, if there is no gap in the circle we would be in the proverbial time loop with no escape.

If we are in a loop of time would our lives always be identical or can we change them? The evidence I sighted for the loop is the same evidence that we can influence the future, as knowing the future, or at least parts of it offer us the opportunity to effect change. Each changes that we make should be carried on for the next visit hopefully culminating in a life we are satisfied with. So instead of being in a loop we might be in a very tight spiral, and if we are in a spiral then we have at least some element of free will. Religions are full of prophecy and if they did happen surely we would all have accept either god did it and that every little action and reaction is conducted by god or we are stuck in a loop of time, or be it a huge one encompassing the entire life span of the universe. Either way it doesn't matter because your not in control of anything much so sit back and go with the flow, everything is going to work out dandy.

[YO-ELEVEN-11]

Now that is really thought provoking. Reminds me of an episode of Star Trek DS-9, when captain Cisco had to explain the nature of "linear" time to a being that had no clue as to why people would want to exsist on a "linear" time path. That would explain how some people know things before they happen though. Could those people be further along on the circle than others?

[jiii]

You can only know anything at all in terms of the past. Every complex concept we have was developed by past societies. Our language is an inheritance that is given to us. Even our concept of ourselves is really based only upon information we gathered in the past. So, every idea about the future is inevitably based upon the past. Maybe that is why we keep on making the same mistakes so often...we have only the same old thoughts about the past to guide us along, so we inevitably manifest historical problems.

Each changes that we make should be carried on for the next visit hopefully culminating in a life we are satisfied with.

What you describe is very similar to the idea of the 'wheel of becoming', which is described by the Hindus and Buddhists in various ways. The idea being that everyone is constantly being reincarnated, and the process is painful and full of suffering. As we continue to go around in life after life, we try to resolve our karma, or disharmony. 'Enlightenment' is the result of halting the 'wheel of becoming'. Buddhists take a slightly different look at it than what you've expressed, though. The Buddhist asks," Is it really necessary to keep this up?" The Buddhists start from the idea that we are all constantly in the process of becoming, but this process is illusory and can never be fulfilled. You can't be anything but what you are, in the Buddhist perspective. So, the process of cycling is seen as the root of all suffering, and the Buddhist seeks to halt the process and finally give up the game of constantly becoming without anything to become, which is somewhat of the inverse of what you are talking about.

They say this because, quite simply, the past is just as much of a hoax as the future. Neither are actually real. All of them occur in the present moment. That is to say, the past is really nothing more than a memory in the present. The future never comes, but rather, is perpetually around the corner. We really can't influence the future, since there is no future to work on. In the same way that we never do get to look at tomorrows newspaper (until it's today's), the future is just as impossible to get to, influence, or change. We can only orient ourselves in the present. All of our ideas about the future, all of our predictions...they are actually only in the present, too.

So in Buddhism, the seeker tries to shed all of his illusions of the past and the future, his preconceptions he forms with them, and his actions which he inadvertantly bases upon them. Only then has he halted the wheel.

I suppose the big difference between 'each change that we make culminating in a life we are satisfied with' and the Buddhist perspective, is that Buddhism asks," Is there ever really going to be any other life you can be satisfied with besides the one you have in the present moment?" They seek to shed their conditioning by past perspectives, so they see the cycles as just so much run-around and avoidance of the present.

-jiii

[Dondi]

It has been my understanding, from the Christian tradition, that God operates outside the boundaries of Time. That Time was actually invented when the universe began at the Big Bang. Consequently for God, there is no time and every moment exists simultaneously.

There are people who have had near-death experiences that have reported this sort of suspension of time, a feeling of oneness of the universe, no sense of time passing. Perhaps this could account to the phenomenon of one's life flashing before one's eyes, time having no bearing of the events in view.

So instead of a loop or a spiril, perhaps time is a singularity outside of the boundaries of the universe or in another diminsional plane. This can account for prophecies since the events are occuring at the same time as the prophecy itself.

Just my theory.

[YO-ELEVEN-11]

Wow Dondi, that's kinda of Star Trekish too. Maybe I'll just call "Science officer" Dondi from now on.

[Snoopy]

I wish I was writer but here goes.

Throughout history mankind has been preoccupied with the future and what it holds for us. Destiny and fate are two words regularly used by many of us, who can say they never experience moments of de ja vu? But with our present understanding of the universe they should not exist as they require a predetermined future and this is something science cannot except even if religion can. Evidence of a mapped future cannot be obtained from any source more accurate than predictions documented throughout history, and with so many inaccurate predictions most rational minds will put these down to coincidence or educated guess work. A few years ago and with no back ground on my life a "psychic" predicted certain events would happen in my life concerning the internet, communications and banking. They where somewhat wild because at the time i was a farmer and happy with that, but over time things have happened and my life changed so much that I've become convinced of fate? It has been said that psychic predictions create nothing more than a self fulfilling prophecy, it you believe it will happen you will try to make it happen. But if the prophecy is totally outrageous, like the revelations and the Antichrist ruling the world, no matter how hard you tried you just could not make that happen. It is impossible to accurately describe an event that has not happened yet unless seeing the future is really looking very deeply into the past. The trouble is we know that now exists so for the future to be the past both have to join up somehow, there has to be a cut off point a single moment of return back to the beginning. Perhaps this is the much feared Armageddon. If this is the case then we are all fated to a life that we have already lived before and we are duty bound to live the same life again and again and again, in fact there cannot be an end, if there is no gap in the circle we would be in the proverbial time loop with no escape.

If we are in a loop of time would our lives always be identical or can we change them? The evidence I sighted for the loop is the same evidence that we can influence the future, as knowing the future, or at least parts of it offer us the opportunity to effect change. Each changes that we make should be carried on for the next visit hopefully culminating in a life we are satisfied with. So instead of being in a loop we might be in a very tight spiral, and if we are in a spiral then we have at least some element of free will. Religions are full of prophecy and if they did happen surely we would all have accept either god did it and that every little action and reaction is conducted by god or we are stuck in a loop of time, or be it a huge one encompassing the entire life span of the universe. Either way it doesn't matter because your not in control of anything much so sit back and go with the flow, everything is going to work out dandy.

[flowperson]

Consider that:

The most often used sacred symbol in ancient worldwide cultures is/was likely the gyre or spiral. It is/was most often used in the symbolic representations of things or events having to do with the sun and its positions at certain times of the year. Perhaps the most famous of these symbolic uses is at the 9,000 year old burial mound at Newgrange Ireland, an ancient agricultural settlement near Dublin.

On the morning of the winter solstice, and only for a few moments on that morning, a small shaft through the mound allows the light of the rising sun to penetrate to the center of the huge burial mound to illuminate a stone upon which gyre patterns have been carved. This is quite likely a cultic structure to symbolize that even in the midst of death and darkness resurrection, renewal, rebirth, replentishment, etc... occurs with the return of the light. A very important symbolic understanding for farmers of any era. John Rutter has written some beautiful choral pieces based upon this cultural theme which has remained a constant truth for humanity all of these 9,000 years.

I am also fascinated with the fact that ALL OF COMPUTER SCIENCE is based upon recursive algorithms, mathematical constructs, which are designed and are of a nature to allow/direct software programs to bend back or loop back to their beginnings or origins as the most essential aspect of their composition. Aside from go and stop, begin and end, yes and no, there is always default. In the symbolisms of the ancient times this is sometimes represented by concentric circles.

Just about all of the electromagnetic devices that we will interact with in the not too distant future will be digital and programmed. The world , IMHO, is inexorably moving towards being reborn as a digital construct as opposed to continuing into the future as an analog construct as it appears to have always been. But then we all know that appearances are deceiving.

Relativity has shown that time and space are fabrics stretched throughout the universe that we are inescapably imbedded within, and inevitably there are intersections involved.

Put it all together and what do you get ? Fate and destiny perhaps ?

flow....

[moseslmpg]

OK, I don't have much to add here except that time itself is just the 4th dimension and that it is totally possible for us to be in a loop. It may be far larger than we can comprehend, like with the Mahakulpas in Hinduism and the Life of Brahma. Maybe we've done all of this before and we're here to keep doing it all again until everyone gets everything right finally, and then it all ends, and we start all over again for whatever reason. The eternal return and ouroboroi, etc.

Anyway, here's a thought provoking link about the ten dimensions that sort of helps with understanding time a little. I can't remember which dimension it is exactly, but it has to do with the moebius strip, and the characteristics of different dimensions can be applied to time....Yeah, just watch it and maybe you'll see what I mean. (Go to imagining the tenth dimension to see the movie).

[Snoopy]

or how about the four dimensions are one?

[moseslmpg]

I think the 4 dimensions are 4. But you can treat them as the base for the 5th dimension onwards, or something. It's not for us 3D flatlanders to know.