What is Time ?

aquaris · 10-26-2004, 01:43 PM

Time Immemorial
It has been since ever and will remain till ever.
Every thing will end even the whole universe if we are to consider the Bigbang theory etc.
Even according to Quran. God said "BE " and every thing was there... so in essense affirms the Bigbang theory which says ..out of void with a Bang matter evolved and then condesed to form everything Stars, Suns, Galaxies....etc.
.... But what is Time...?
another dimension of our perception..?
or something concrete something tangible.!
Eienstien famous experiment on the TwinParadox proves it has different velocites .. that is time moves at different rate under different conditions.
( Like the twin who went to the journey and came back was supposed to be younger then the one who stayed back and both spent the same time )
Other have said time is river in which Life flows only One way.....
But who knows....
In the begining there is always a desire then a fantasy then a dream and then reality.
Like the conquest of Moon...man first desired to go to the moon... then he started fantasising about it , dreamnt about it and then it became a reality.
and these all flow in the river of time the desire to go back in time the fantasy and the dream is there who knows it might one day become a reality..
To travel in the river of Time ..not oneway but both way.

Virtual_Cliff · 10-26-2004, 05:47 PM

Isn't it part of the space-time continuum that the universe is made of? So it will always be a part of that universe. But God is greater than and beyond - as well as within - that universe. Thus for God all time is as if spread out on a table before him, so he can see the beginning and the end without impacting our free will in any way. Strange how many people can see that and yet it has not yet become accepted wisdom. Or has it?

For atheists the same concept applies - the existence of something beyond the space-time continuum. What I don't understand is, if time began with the big bang, then it was preceded by timelessness; but without time there can be no change. So how did the big bang happen?

WolfgangvonUSA · 10-26-2004, 10:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Virtual_Cliff

Isn't it part of the space-time continuum that the universe is made of? So it will always be a part of that universe. But God is greater than and beyond - as well as within - that universe. Thus for God all time is as if spread out on a table before him, so he can see the beginning and the end without impacting our free will in any way. Strange how many people can see that and yet it has not yet become accepted wisdom. Or has it?

For atheists the same concept applies - the existence of something beyond the space-time continuum. What I don't understand is, if time began with the big bang, then it was preceded by timelessness; but without time there can be no change. So how did the big bang happen?

A few of my thoughts on time:
John 8:57 Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?
John 8:58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.

Jesus is not so much saying that He is older than Abraham, but actually, on a higher level, that He exists beyond time. He is an extra-dimensional entity that exist BEYOND time.

By the way, this concept of being BEYOND the merely human constructs of this world is also found in the study of Quantum Mechanics and the apparent duality of light as a particle and a wave. In my opinion, particles of light, photons, do not actually travel from point A to point B as particles. They travel as waves and 'become' particles when their wave function 'collapses' by interacting with a measuring device (such as a phosphor screen) into a discrete quanta called a particle or a photon. In their wave state they exist only as a potentiality. In their particle state they exist as an expression of that potentiality.

I would use the illustration that Yah is like the Wave, an unmanifested source of energy that does not have material existence or DEFINITION prior to its interaction with a perceptual device or receiver of this world, i.e., the Virgin Mary.

Yahshua is an expression of Yah. He is a manifestation of the Infinite unexpressed Potentiality of the Almighty Yah whose Entirety can never be fully expressed as a limited and defined material object or person in our lower level of reality. And yet Yahshua is in Yah just as Yah is in Yahshua. They are One and the same, although Yahshua is not the full expression of the One who can never be fully expressed and thereby limited or defined in our 3 d world. When I speak, the voice is of me, but I am much more than the voice that speaks. When you speak, the voice is of you, but you am much more than the voice that speaks. When Yah speaks through His son, the Son is of Him, though He is still greater than the Son. They are different and they are the same.

So since Yahshua is of Yah, it is equally true that He existed with Yah (in an unexpressed form until He came to earth as flesh)and therefore He existed before Abraham. But since Yah exists BEYOND the mere human construct we humans call Time, He says "Before Abraham was, I AM."

For YAH everything has already happened. But for us it's like we're living in a movie but do not realize it. The end of the movie has already happened when the movie was produced, but even so, we still have to play our roles and react to deterministic stimuli that we encounter along the way which propels the plot forward to BECOME WHATEVER IT WILL BECOME. Our conversation right now is a part of that drama, and it will cause whatever it will cause to unfold future events we will not understand but from the land of Retrospect, and then we will see the Grand Panorama, and why it was necessary for everything to happen the way it did.

Vajradhara · 10-26-2004, 10:42 PM

Namaste all,

time is a human conception to make sense of the arising and ceasing of moments of concsiousness within the human mind stream.

at least this is how i've come to understand the concept.

as for the BBT... that is one, to be sure, however, i think that it lacks some of the predictive power of the No Boundary Proposal as posited by Hawking and Turok.

theists have no issue with things coming from nothing and neither do atheists, really. it's simply a matter of perspective. the theists argues that God is the uncaused Cause whilst the atheist argues that the Universe is the uncaused Cause. ultimately, they are one in the same for science.

if the Universe was caused by something beyond or outside the universe or if the Universe is uncaused, science will never know. science can only work on phenomena that are inside this universe. anything outside this universe is outside of science and thus, at best, is philosophy.

Virtual_Cliff · 10-27-2004, 01:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WolfgangvonUSA

A few of my thoughts on time:
John 8:57 Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?
John 8:58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.

That's more or less how I see it too. But for a slightly different take on these verses, have a look at http://media.isnet.org/off/Islam/Jes...ch1.2.4.2.html

khut · 02-21-2005, 05:23 PM

what is time? what is a cm or a kg.
they are just a system of taking big blobs and making smaller blobs that can be defined.

time is just a ruler, without something to compare it to it ist there.

width , length, bredth, time.

its like the reason everything has 3 (ok 4) dimentions because we said it does.
you can use more if you want, but knowone will understand you.

truthseeker · 04-09-2005, 07:37 PM

Time is the measurement of the cycles of the earth upon it's axis and around the sun. It is how me measure the distance between day and night and year to year. Time on Mars would be different as would on Venus or Pluto. Time on the sun would not exist. Time, in the heavens, do not exist as we understand it because the points of measurement must be entirely different.

Quahom1 · 04-10-2005, 05:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by truthseeker

Time is the measurement of the cycles of the earth upon it's axis and around the sun. It is how me measure the distance between day and night and year to year. Time on Mars would be different as would on Venus or Pluto. Time on the sun would not exist. Time, in the heavens, do not exist as we understand it because the points of measurement must be entirely different.

Time/Space is a four dimensional description of the universe. Time as we know it is a man-made and animal-made concept and is defined to be the measurement of a series of events. Without events occuring we would have no way of measuring time, as we would have no reference point. Time is unique to the observer and his vantage point to an event, hence the term relative.

Time can be warped and twisted, sped up and/or slowed down (simultaneously), depending upon what is taking place within an event, and those observing the event and from where.

v/r

Q

truthseeker · 04-10-2005, 05:16 AM

That's deep, Quahom.

path_of_one · 04-10-2005, 06:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quahom1

Time/Space is a four dimensional description of the universe. Time as we know it is a man-made and animal-made concept and is defined to be the measurement of a series of events. Without events occuring we would have no way of measuring time, as we would have no reference point. Time is unique to the observer and his vantage point to an event, hence the term relative.

Time can be warped and twisted, sped up and/or slowed down (simultaneously), depending upon what is taking place within an event, and those observing the event and from where.

v/r

Q

Great post. Interestingly, there are cultures in the world whose language reflects the event-oriented nature of time. That is, they had no tenses that indicated past or future outside of events. Time only passed if an event occurred. If nothing important occurred, no time had passed.

I do think time is a human-made construct that helps us orient events in space and in what we perceive to be the one-way flow of our lives. BUT... time does not flow one way, not even in our lives. It is difficult to comprehend, but I do think it's possible that there are time loops in and between our lives, ways to slow down/speed up time (as Quahom1 has said), etc. There are glimpses of the eternal, even though we feel confined to this one-way stream of life. It is possible that we exist in many different forms in different realities, all at the same time, and it is only our limited perspective that keeps us from the recognition that past and future are actually now. After all, past and future are only references to our own current space in the universe. For God, who exists outside the boundaries of space, time would not exist. It would not just be that God can see the past and future anytime It wants, but rather that for God, there is no past and no future. It is an eternal moment of all events at once. That is my best guess, anyway. In our limited understanding, we perceive it to be a logical progression of events, but without orientation in space, that perception is worthless.

Ciel · 04-11-2005, 01:10 AM

Path of one, great perception.

You say, "For God who exists outside the boundaries of space, time would not exist. It would not just be that God can see the past and future anytime It wants, but rather that for God there is no past and no future. It is an eternal moment of all events at once."

Then the eternal and timeless moment completely fullfils itself, yet not as empty space, for it is alive and vibrant. It generates and regenerates into new formation. It becomes a formative vehicle of life. And the same for us as a smaller image of the greater, to take time off from time in the evolving stillness of the present moment we are returned to a closer sense of being, regenerated and made whole.

path_of_one · 04-11-2005, 05:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ciel

Then the eternal and timeless moment completely fullfils itself, yet not as empty space, for it is alive and vibrant. It generates and regenerates into new formation. It becomes a formative vehicle of life. And the same for us as a smaller image of the greater, to take time off from time in the evolving stillness of the present moment we are returned to a closer sense of being, regenerated and made whole.

Lovely- yes, this is my feeling. That the deeper "ultimate reality" is this "eternal and timeless moment" that is infinitely alive and vibrant. Within this moment, all creation exists, and thus all change, all learning, all enlightenment of all creatures all at once. When I manage to step away from what I am taught is reality, to be in the still place of my soul, I get a glimpse of this one moment. In that transcendent moment, I experience God.

Quahom1 · 04-11-2005, 06:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by path_of_one

Lovely- yes, this is my feeling. That the deeper "ultimate reality" is this "eternal and timeless moment" that is infinitely alive and vibrant. Within this moment, all creation exists, and thus all change, all learning, all enlightenment of all creatures all at once. When I manage to step away from what I am taught is reality, to be in the still place of my soul, I get a glimpse of this one moment. In that transcendent moment, I experience God.

Be assured I am not making fun of anyone here. What I am doing is pointing out that what is being described as an eternal moment?...sounds alot like a singularity. I personally would not want to be caught within the influence of one. I want time to continue, and I want to experience it, and I want to be able to note it and notice its passing.

But that's me.

v/r

Q

Ciel · 04-11-2005, 01:13 PM

Mmmmmm Q,
Maybe it's a case of lost in translation.
The ideal is to live the everlasting moment in the continuity of life.
A total appreciation and life affirmative.

path_of_one · 04-12-2005, 04:16 AM

Yep, that's what I mean. Sorry if it seemed a little like an odd statement. It's difficult sometimes for me to explain my feelings or experiences in these matters. I mean "eternal moment" more as a metaphoric device than referring to physics. It is like getting lost in a moment, and therefore experiencing the timelessness of it, rather than being attentive to the progression of time as we generally experience it. It is stepping outside of the boundaries of "reality," as we are taught to understand it, allowing ourselves to experience the perfection of the moment and also of God. It is living so much in the "now" that one finds indescribable beauty and joy in the communion with God and the world around one, so that one is regenerated.