Infinitethoughts:
1) You are saying time has it's own dimension? You are completely wrong.
Time does not have it's own dimension, it is wholly dependent on the human being. This was the basis of Einstein's Theory of Relativity. He took it so far, and now the next generation takes it further.
If it did have it's own dimension, then the experience of time would be universal. If you were bored, it would flow exactly the same as if you were doing something that held your interest.
If it did have its own dimension, you would be able to take me to a place to view it objectively.
You can't. It does not have its own dimension. It is relative to the human.
"Even in Newtonian terms time may be considered the fourth dimension of motion" -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time in "Time and Physics".
And in the notion that "time flies", as the saying goes, when one is having fun, are you seeking for some...actual physical change in relaity as opposed to what an imagined conception of time's change? That is absurd. The reason for this shift in perception, is that suffering is more immediate and dislikable to oneself than pleasure, and due to that fact, an experience of pain forces one's focus into the moment, as opposed to the absent-mindness which pleasure provokes.
Ontop of that, the speed of light? Always the speed of light to all observers no matter what. Physical constant.
Furthermore, your attack on time's dimension being rooted in the fact that reference frames exist? Flawed. The fourth dimension is realized in measurement of things moving through a three-dimensional - or I suppose, any dimensional - space. Movement requires a fourth dimension. This fourth dimension then becomes real, in that there is a difference betwixt meeting someone at the park at 1 pm, or meeting them at 1 am.
2) The past does not exist in the Experiential Now, it is memories. That's all. If you want to base a scientific study on memories, go ahead.
The breaking up of something that is undivided, IE: the Now moment, is a process of the human intellect. But that is the downfall of a section of modern science, isn't it? The dissection into smaller and smaller pieces. The compartmentalization and labeling of something that ultimately cannot be compartmentalised.
Then what happened? Quantum physics came along and when they tried the old way of compartmentalization, they found this method does not work anymore. The more they tried to compartmentalize, the more it moved away from the old Newtonian science of "hard and true facts", to the bizareness and strangeness of the Quantum world. They found out the universe we live in, is much stranger then ever imagined.
It is time for a the old Science to make way for the New discoveries AND the new methods that Quantum Physics forces us to use. But breaking old habits is hard to do.
Oh stop with your prophetic claptrap! "Time for the old Science to make way for the New discoveries"! Oh come now. Stop being so silly with your clarion calls to actions. It is getting quite dreadful.
Memories? Yes, memories, a very important thing. They demonstrate the past, for they think of a different now, a now once experienced, and now no more! But a now -experienced-, and thus, a now which was -real-, on one level or another. This "past now" then becomes "the past" to the observer, and indeed, one knows that other pasts exist in relation to that past, prior to it, and after it. So then we have a past in which all prior actions took place, and thus, a past that exists.
And things can't be compartmentalized? Surely they can. They can, in fact, be done so indefinitely, because nothing can be made of itself alone, and must always be able to be divided in half, as it were, and split into its component parts. Quarks will lead way to smaller particles, or smaller whatever they might be, and in turn, those will be broken apart. It is the nature of things to be as such. Yet, though this may be so, it is still worthy cataloguing them. It's like calculating pi to the last digit, even if that last digit can never be reached. More and more accuracy! A worthy goal if ever there was one.
Quantum Physics, you will also know, has not dispensed with the idea of "hard and true facts", but in fact, bolstered the concept. We have come to knowledge of Quantum Physics, have we not? And then come to the knowledge of "hard and true facts" of reality, nay?
Anyway......We've reached the point in the discussion where I'm wasting your time, and you are wasting mine. I keep pointing out that the that one cannot use the old methods of science any more, and you are not seeing this. We are no longer dealing with "hard and true facts" in the world of Quantum Physics. But if you don't get what I'm pointing out, why continue?
You keep pointing out...with -no foundation-.
Onefinity:
Believe me, I don't casually say that you can't prove that the past exists. The example you try to pose is an obvious one. Just like a photo of my grandmother. Or an example of carbon dating. Etc. Etc. However, all of these are registered only in the present. I may have a memory, but it is a present memory of a present image, even though my pragmatic patterns tell me that it lay in a place called "the past."
If the memory does not lay in the past, then how can I imagine it? If this moment is the only moment in ever, how can I think? How would I be able to create these things in my mind at all? I'd have no knowledge in the least, of anything.
Nameless:
A 'Planck moment' (after Max Planck, physicist) has been determined to be approximately one ten to the 43rd power of a second. a minute fraction of the time that it takes light to traverse a neutron. A 'packet' of moment too small to need 'time' to exist. So the tiniest moment takes 'no time'.
Actually, it needs time by the very notion that it is time. It doesn't take 'no time', it takes 'an extremely small amount of time that is almost instantneous to things so macroscopic as we, and which can be considered a base unit, because it becomes extremely difficult to, at the present, precisely measure anything smaller than it, but by the very notion that neutrons aren't the smallest things we know, there is, in fact, time periods even smaller than it".
Each moment of our 'lives', each moment of the 'omniverse', ever, 'exists simultaneously. One Planck moment. BANG! After? Nothing. No 'during', so no 'after'. All temporal constructs. Time is the foundation of all of our fiction; materiality, space/time, cause and effect (there is no such thing ever proven because there IS no such thing! Much better described as 'two features of the same event'.), different dimensions, strings, bananas, whatever ad infinitum... As everything is a fiction, so is time. Good riddance! We have been bending over backward long enough to try to verify a hypnotically fundamentally religious belief in the existence of 'time' with no real evidence other than that of the senses. And they cannot be trusted to accurately tell us anything other than the state of our own mind.
So now you are saying space and time do not exist? How do you know that -you- exist then?
WOOPS! Logical inconsistancy alert! Logical inconsistancy alert! RINGRINGRING!
"everything is a fiction"
An absolute statement claiming truth, when it says it all is fiction! Invalidates itself!
You sir, are our millioneth arm chair philosopher to fall victim to the "No Absolutes" fallacy! Congratulations! You win an all expense paid trip to Truth Land! Where you will find that your statement is invalid! Paid for by Prince James Airlines!
There seems to be another variable in the equation that has not been mentioned. I was just reading today a bit of Charles Hoy Fort's writings where he shows (as does QM) that the distinguishing of 'this' from 'that', 'now' from 'then', 'me' from 'you' is a purely arbitrary distinction of convenience. And that science is solely involved in these false dichotomies. Science cannot tell us where one thing ends and another begins. Actually, other than in our imagination, there is absolutely no evidence of such a distinction. Science has NEVER proven anything exactly because there is 'nothing' to prove!!
WOOPS! Logical inconsistancy alert! Logical inconsistancy alert! RINGRINGRING!
There is nothing to prove, yet you are claiming to prove - or claiming someone else is proving - something!
Nameless, check out my "Argument Against Idealism" thread. Refute my points there.
And I'll get to refuting your nonsensical parable based on Zeno's Paradox sometime.
