floyd (02/28/83)
"Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and
clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping
houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair, hot wench in
flame-colored taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be
so superfluous to demand the time of the day."
"I wasted time and now doth time waste me."
- William Shakespearegds@mit-eddie.UUCP (Greg Skinner) (03/01/84)
I think that the concept of "before time" is fairly ludicrous, for a
couple of reasons.
1. It is generally held that time is circular, like the universe.
2. If time isn't circular, it runs from -inf to +inf, like a time line.
In any case, before time makes no sense. About "outside time", it is
postulable that a being could exist "out of time", that doesn't
necessarily make him exist for all time, but just that he is not
constrained to the flow of time. I have considered what would be
mathematically necessary for someone to travel in time (not just faster
than "c", but to be able to traverse the time line/circle just as we
traverse a highway or the globe). It would be necessary for that being
to "step out" of the time stream, i.e. to extend his "navigable"
universe into the fourth dimension. An example.
Consider an ant walking a wire of infinite length and zero width.
Also assume it is impossible for him to fall off, therfore he can only
go forwards and backwards. Also assume the ant is of zero mass/volume.
(try hard :-) For him then, the universe is parameterized as
f(x,t), where x is the forward/backward distance he travels, and t is
the time for traveling from point x1 to x2.
Note that he has no concept of y or z -- although they exist (as we
observe them) they do not exist for him because it is impossible for him
to travel in them. Now, if we replace the wire with a flat plane, his
parameters now increase to (x,y,t).
Now consider "us". We live in the three-dimensional world,
parameterized by f(x,y,z,t). Like the ant had no navigational ability
of y and z, we cannot navigate t. We are subject to the flow of t, but
cannot move independently of t. For us to move "outside of time", we
must move out of 3-space into 4-space, into something like (x,y,z,t,q).
Far be it for me to fingure out what q is though.
I hope I haven't lost anybody. My main point was to illustrate that
"before time" is not relevant, but God probably exists outside of time
in the sense that he is able to travel within it and not necessarily
that he exists at every point in time.
Back to flamage :-)
--
By the power of Grayskull!
Greg-bo, Prince of Eternia, Defender of the Secrets of Castle Grayskull
{decvax!genrad, eagle!mit-vax, ihnp4}!mit-eddie!gds (UUCP)
Gds@XX (ARPA)ark@rabbit.UUCP (Andrew Koenig) (03/02/84)
Time is Nature's way of preventing everything from happening all at once.
rej@cornell.UUCP (Ralph Johnson) (03/02/84)
Here is a proof of determinism. Let p be the proposition "On March 4 I will dye my hair green." By the law of the excluded middle, (p or not p) is true. Suppose p. Then if I do not dye my hair green there will be a contradiction, therefore I HAVE NO CHOICE but to dye my hair green. Suppose not p. Then if I dye my hair green there will be a contradiction, therefore I HAVE NO CHOICE but to refrain from dyeing my hair green. Conclusion, I HAVE NO CHOICE ... determinism is true. Now, I don't believe this proof. The problem is with using the law of excluded middle to compare a future event with a current event. However, I think this proof is just as valid as the ones claiming that Omniscience implies Determinism. The problem is that these ideas are very difficult to reason about. (For those who are confused, net.religion has been engulfed in a long and seemingly futile discussion of the premise that Omni => Det.) (This "proof" may also be used as an argument for constructive logic.) Ralph Johnson rej@cornell decvax!cornell!rej
laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (03/04/84)
Ralph Johston is not quite correct in demonstrating that the law of excluded middle proof for determinism are equivalent to the "omniscience implies determinism" argument. he is quite correct in entitling this article "time", however. the Law of Excluded Middle is a slippery proof. You must ignore things like Shroedinger's cat, for instance, but this is merely a side-issue. The basic issue is "what is Truth?" (so howzzat for a basic metaphysical question?). the question is, is it time dependent. The existence of a creator-God pretty well defines Truth to be a) absolute and b) not-changing with time. Thus, The Law of Excluded middle is a useful proof when talking about omniscient creator-Gods. However, if you do not have a creator-God to worry about (as I never do unless I am arguing in net.religion!) then the definition of Truth becomes crucial. I believe that truth is very time dependent. Truth is *what is now*. Truth is also *what was before*. Truth has nothing to do with future events. When the future event that is predicted passes through the precise moment of time known as "the present" then, and only then can the truth of the predicition be known. Okay? Here is what this means -- 2000 years ago, it was not a true statement to say "Reagan is president of the United States in 1983." In 1983 it is a true statement. In 1982 it is a prediciton which can be considered to be likely. 2000 years ago, it is meaningless noise, and thus not-true. 2000 years ago, there was no "United States" and there definitely was no Reagan. There was no calendar dating from the time of Christ. There was no modern English. There were no things called presidents. Even if you translated the sentence into words that would have meaning in the countries of that time you still would have something that could nt be said to be 'true' . Of course, it could not be said to be 'false' either -- in that its contradiction "Reagan is not president of the United States in 1983." is not true. What have I done? Opened up the "middle". Good bye, "law of excluded middle", for I beleive tha you only refer to the truth of something which is very time dependent. This claim, though, you not was not made of God. I have not claimed that determinism follows from God knowing my past -- just His knowing of the future, which in fact says that "truth" (defined as what God knows) is eternal and not time dependent. This one, of course, I do not buy. -- Laura Creighton (NOTE NEW ADDRESS) utzoo!laura
mam@charm.UUCP (Matthew Marcus) (03/05/84)
Time is an illusion; lunchtime, doubly so.
Ford Prefect, a character in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
by Douglas Adams
{BTL}!charm!mamellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) (04/30/85)
>>> This would leave me with one of two conclusions; either >>> 1- the universe is infinitely old, or >>> 2- there was a cause which is not of this universe that started >>> the whole thing. Why not the third possibility: 3- the universe has finite age, but no first moment. It may be distasteful to some, but need not contradict the assumption that each moment has a predecessor. It's extremely difficult for the vast majority of humans (me included) to hypothesize the difficulties of such problems. Anyone who's ever checked out texts on general relativity is aware of how bizarre and unintuitive regions near black (or white, I suppose, in this case) holes can be. Following a timelike path backwards towards the initial discontinuity would be analogous to asymptotically approaching an unreachable point, assuming you could go backwards thru time in the first place. Can anyone out there who understands general relativity comment? Is there such a thing as a person who understands general relativity? -michael
john@x.UUCP (John Woods) (05/03/85)
> Why not the third possibility: > > 3- the universe has finite age, but no first moment. > > It may be distasteful to some, but need not contradict the assumption > that each moment has a predecessor. It's extremely difficult for > the vast majority of humans (me included) to hypothesize the > difficulties of such problems. Anyone who's ever checked out > texts on general relativity is aware of how bizarre and unintuitive > regions near black (or white, I suppose, in this case) holes can be. > > Following a timelike path backwards towards the initial discontinuity > would be analogous to asymptotically approaching an unreachable point, > assuming you could go backwards thru time in the first place. > > Can anyone out there who understands general relativity comment? > > Is there such a thing as a person who understands general relativity? > > -michael > I don't completely understand general relativity (having not taken the right Physics electives at MIT), but I have here a paper by Dr. Stephen W. Hawking of the University of Cambridge, who does understand general relativity ("and a whole lot more!"). The title of the paper is "The Edge of Spacetime". The paper talks mostly about Friedmann's model of the expanding universe, and how most of the ways of solving it come up with singularities at T=0; ie, an "edge". The current search for solutions not involving a singularity involve using quantum mechanics. I will quote the last three paragraphs, for your enjoyment; they don't answer the question, but they at least talk about it. "In the classical General Theory of Relativity, which does not incorporate the Uncertainty Principle, the initial state of the universe is a point of infinite density. It is very difficult to define what the boundary conditions of the universe should be at such a singularity. However, when quantum mechanics is taken into account, there is the possibility that the singularity may be smeared out and thus space and time together may forma closed four- dimensional surface without boundary or edge, like the surface of the Earth but with two extra dimensions. This would mean that the universe was completely self-contained: it would not have any exterior infinite region and it would not contain any singularities at which the Laws of Physics would break down. One could say that the boundary conditions of the universe are that it has no boundary. "It should be emphasized that this is simply a _proposal_ for the boundary conditions of the universe [emphasis in the original -jfw]. One cannot deduce them from some other principle but one can merely pick a reasonable set of boundary conditions, calculate what they predict for the present state of the universe and see which agrees with observations. The calculations are very difficult and have been carried out so far only in simple models with a high degree of symmetry. However, the results are very encouraging. They predict that the universe must have started out in a fairly smooth and uniform state. It would have undergone a period of what is called exponential or "inflationary" expansion during which its size would have increased by a very large factor but the density would have remained the same. The universe would then have become very hot and would have expanded to the state that we see it today, cooling as it expanded. It would be uniform and the same in every direction on very large scales but would contain local irregularities that would develop into stars and galaxies. "What happened at the beginning of the expansion of the universe? Did spacetime have an edge at the Big Bang? The answer is that if the boundary conditions of the universe are that it has no boundary, time ceases to be well-defined in the very early universe just as the direction "North" ceases to be well-defined at the North Pole of the Earth. Asking what happens before the Big Bang is like asking for a point one mile North of the North Pole. The quantity we measure as time had a beginning but that does not mean spacetime has an edge, just as the surface of the Earth does not have an edge at the North Pole." I don't know if I can distribute this paper; he handed out several copies when he visited CRDS last year, but I have no idea of his opinions of further distribution of his papers (he also handed out an interesting paper entitled "The Unification of Physics" on GUTs). His address, according to these papers, is S. W. Hawking University of Cambridge Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics Silver Street, Cambridge, England, CB 3 9EW. Or, find any and every book by him and buy it -- I, at least, find Dr. Hawking's writing very enjoyable. -- John Woods, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, (617) 626-1101 ...!decvax!frog!john, ...!mit-eddie!jfw, jfw%mit-ccc@MIT-XX.ARPA "MU" said the Sacred Chao...
ark@alice.UUCP (Andrew Koenig) (05/05/85)
Time is nature's way of preventing everything from happening all at once.