Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: Bill S on 27/04/2018 18:31:47
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He said:
“Yet I say with confidence that I know that if nothing passed away, there would be no past time;
and if nothing were still coming, there would be no future time;
and if there were nothing at all, there would be no present time.”
How would we know if this were the case?
Jeffrey said:
Re: Is the "gate into yesterday" the gate to cloud cuckoo land?
“The more ordered universe no longer exists”.
If this is right, does that mean that everything we consider as a past state no longer exists – so there is no past?
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If this is right, does that mean that everything we consider as a past state no longer exists – so there is no past?
Semantically, it can be no other way. Terms like "exists" and "is" are present-tense. For the past, we have to say "existed" or "was". Saying that the past "exists" or "is" is an oxymoron.
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Saying that the past "exists" or "is" is an oxymoron.
English grammar is a hodge-podge of conflicting contributions from various warring nations.
It wasn't designed to deal with the concepts of a 4-dimensional spacetime.
But until someone invents an effective form of time travel that go both forwards and backwards by a variable amount, it won't have to... (I recall reading a science fiction novel many years ago where they gave a tutorial on grammar for time travellers, with monstrous constructions to cover situations like "events that are in the past for the speaker, but in the future for the listener" and "events in the past that would have occurred only someone came from the future and changed them"....)
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Imagine, for the moment that St Augustine was right.
So what?
A stopped clock is right twice a day.
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In my opinion bill time is but a mere construction of conciousness, and like confucious says with no one to witness the reaction rates of matter and space does it make a sound ?
2 and 2 make 4 however, it is the recognition of interlectual conciousness that gives these references actuallity. Are we travelling through time ? Everything that has existed exists and will ever exist is now, and it is merely the commencement or cessation of things in the present. To be or not to be that is the question.
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Semantically, it can be no other way. Terms like "exists" and "is" are present-tense. For the past, we have to say "existed" or "was". Saying that the past "exists" or "is" is an oxymoron.
Of course, that’s right, but Augustine didn’t say that; and nor did Jeffrey.
The situation is probably more complex than the semantics. Possibly we should think in terms of “here and now” rather than just “now”. This admits things like “The past may not exist here, but it could still exist in some other place”. Thus, “the past exists” becomes acceptable.
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Everything that has existed exists and will ever exist is now,
As Marcus Aurelius said: “No man liveth more than that infinitesimal point of time that is the present”.
…..and it is merely the commencement or cessation of things in the present
That’s an interesting thought; it gives duration to the present. So, how long does the present last?
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Things move. Once they have moved they no longer occupy the place where they were. It's that simple. Time is an irrelevance. Think more in terms of a change in state de-coupled from our concept of time.
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He said:
“Yet I say with confidence that I know that if nothing passed away, there would be no past time;
and if nothing were still coming, there would be no future time;
and if there were nothing at all, there would be no present time.”
who said that ?
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An event ocurrs once, but can be perceived many times. The images propagate in space to be intercepted in the 'future' of many.To return to the scene of the event is imposssible, since there are no historical markers for tourists. If anyone offers you time travel for a fee, invest your money in pizza.
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Things move. Once they have moved they no longer occupy the place where they were. It's that simple.
That's true, but when a thing has moved, the place where it was still exists and, discounting extraneous factors, it can move back to that place . However, it cannot, as far as we know, return to the same time/place, so in that sense, time is relevant.
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who said that ?
St Augustine.
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Things move. Once they have moved they no longer occupy the place where they were. It's that simple.
That's true, but when a thing has moved, the place where it was still exists and, discounting extraneous factors, it can move back to that place . However, it cannot, as far as we know, return to the same time/place, so in that sense, time is relevant.
The tourists stop by the old timer on the roadside to ask him for directions. He tells them, "it's about 5 miles that way, where the old schoolhouse used to be."
Joe eats lunch every day at maude's diner. Does he eat at the same place everyday?
Only locally, relative to the town, and earth geography. The earth moves every day along its path relative to the sun, in addition to being dragged along with the sun along its path, etc.
There is no univarsal reference object known to enable a return to a specific place.
To elaborate a bit on Jeffreys point, the configuration of the dynamic universe does not repeat itself due to its complexity. On a much smaller scale, why doesn't the broken glass on the floor reassemble itself?