Submitted for your edification... In The Beginning

[Da Blob]

There has been some controversies over the ages as to the authorship of the Bible. Has anyone considered the storm of controversy has must occurred as a result of the very first sentence of the Scripture. "In the Beginning, God created ..."



Was there a very clever man who managed to invent both linear time and the concept of a creator in five words, or was this Law of Physics revealed to him?
That is to say that until these words were written down, mankind had no conception of linear Time (See WIKI: Time), but rather symbolized Time as a snake eating it own tail. Time was conceived as having no such thing as a "Beginning". It was an unalterable cycle of celestial events: a daily cycle of the sun, a monthly cycle of the moon and an annual cycle of the stars. The week as describe in Genesis may have been the first unit of time not based on celestial cycles.
A rereading of Ecclesiastes would reveal the Preacher's lamentation are based upon the cyclic conception of time and not linear time. So is Time an illusion (see Thread)? Can modern physics be based on any conception of Time other than linear Time?

[grey matters]

"Time is an illusion, Lunchtime doubly so." Douglas Adams

[FusionKnight]

"This must be a Thursday... I never could get the hang of Thursdays." -Arthur Dent

[Duty]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics#Space_and_time

The philosophic questions about time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time%27s_arrow

The physics answers to concepts of time.


The most interesting, imo, is the question about taking all matter away...would there still be space and time or are these things only terms that describe relativity of objects compared to others?

[Agent Intellect]

Originally Posted by Duty

The most interesting, imo, is the question about taking all matter away...would there still be space and time or are these things only terms that describe relativity of objects compared to others?

that would be the Machian conception of time, but general relativity tells us that time is, in fact, a dimension that can be bent and warped depending on velocity and acceleration. although, there would probably be no concept of a direction in time if there was no increase in entropy.

[Vrecknidj]

I'm not convinced that a universe would even need time or space in order to exist. A universe of universals without particulars seems possible to me. In other words, a universe with, say, "horseness" but without horses. Not really sure about that though--seems kinda weird to suggest.

But, back to the topics at hand.

1) The Judeo-Christians offered a wonderful boon to science by offering an alternative to the Greek (and other) concept of cyclical time. Can't get too far in physics when time is cyclical.

2) I don't know if time is an illusion, but simultaneity is.

Dave

[Da Blob]

Originally Posted by Vrecknidj

I'm not convinced that a universe would even need time or space in order to exist. A universe of universals without particulars seems possible to me. In other words, a universe with, say, "horseness" but without horses. Not really sure about that though--seems kinda weird to suggest.

But, back to the topics at hand.

1) The Judeo-Christians offered a wonderful boon to science by offering an alternative to the Greek (and other) concept of cyclical time. Can't get too far in physics when time is cyclical.

2) I don't know if time is an illusion, but simultaneity is.

Dave

Yes, I'm a believer in a co-occurring parallel "Subjective" universe
(obviously a bit metaphysical nonsense)
But I wonder what the "Four" dimensions of such a universe would be?
Something to do with Applied Signal Theory Transforms, plasma physics, System Theory....?

[Duty]

Originally Posted by Vrecknidj

I'm not convinced that a universe would even need time or space in order to exist. A universe of universals without particulars seems possible to me. In other words, a universe with, say, "horseness" but without horses. Not really sure about that though--seems kinda weird to suggest.

But, back to the topics at hand.

1) The Judeo-Christians offered a wonderful boon to science by offering an alternative to the Greek (and other) concept of cyclical time. Can't get too far in physics when time is cyclical.

2) I don't know if time is an illusion, but simultaneity is.

Dave

You sound very...Plato.

Objections and affirmations to him are very very widespread in ancient and modern philosophy, so I won't address them here.

[Vrecknidj]

Admittedly, I'm a fan of Plato. I'm also a fan of a huge pile of others, not all Platonic.

Still, it's a fun way to consider universes.



Dave

[Chronomar]

Originally Posted by Vrecknidj

Admittedly, I'm a fan of Plato. I'm also a fan of a huge pile of others, not all Platonic.

Still, it's a fun way to consider universes.



Dave

First...Plato!!! I admire this guy so much I actually read the entire "The Republic" book, which, at first, was pretty boring.

Second:

"Time is just a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey...stuff."

Not. Linear.

Nice idea, though, never knew it was written first in the bible.

It's interesting to think about how ideas that we take for granted as simply existing, like linear time, or negative numbers, at one time were unknown or disregarded.

Which makes you wonder, because in my mind most things in this universe work both ways, how many ideas have been lost that were really true.