"Time" and the Multiverses.

[TruthSeeker]

I have already made the argument, and it might prove His existance. But it is just too complex of an argument and I still need to work on it a little bit...

Seeing the invisible through the funhouse of this multidimensional universe is fairly tricky. His image is fairly surprising and beyond the understanding of our simple minds.

...
But now I'm just being poetic...

 

[nameless]

But it is just too complex of an argument and I still need to work on it a little bit...

Hi Truth, do you not think that if something of the imagined magnitude of this 'imagined' god, that has no imagined 'material', sensory 'qualities' (qualities that WE can ascertain), of which nothing can really be 'said' that wouldn't be instantly contradictory... Do you think that adding layers of 'complexity' can reveal that which must, by present accepted thought be absolutely 'simple', if it actually has some form (hitherto unknown) of existence?

Seeing the invisible ...is fairly tricky.

Hmmm... Do you think so?? *__-

Is thinking about that which, if it has existence, thought and conceptualization is impossible, and which is impossible to define (other than imaginatively, of course) 'fairly tricky' also?

Throughout history, people have been trying to glue sequins on, paint with simple and complex colors, create stories of, KILL FOR, live for, die for, attach 'qualities to' a huge 'black hole' (unknown, as 'it' is impossible to 'know' as our 'knowing apparatus' is rather temporal and limited) in order to 'prove' it's 'reality', in order to 'desperately prove' an emotional 'belief'?

As history has shown, 'scientific proof' of a 'god' has been hitherto impossible. Those who WANT to 'believe' can turn all sorts of 'things' into proof sufficient for them; people who have no need/desire to 'believe' can look at that same 'evidence' and not draw the same conclusions.
Theres plenty of evidence, in other words, to believe, if that is your nature, and not nearly enough if 'belief' is NOT your nature.

Why attampt to cross the border into intellectual/scientific 'validation? Is one's 'belief' that 'unsound'? That 'tenuous'? That 'insecure' that we need 'external validation' by science? By large 'numbers of similar believing people' (proselytizing/evangelizing)?

How about,
"I believe because I choose to believe (assuming that it is volitional, but that is another thread, actually, so is this!) and if you can show me sufficiently adequate 'evidence' to stop believing, then I'll give up that 'belief'." And let it go at that? 'Numbers of believers' is a fallacy if used as 'evidence' for 'belief'!

and Hey, don't pooh-pooh poetry as a means of communicating that which is impossible to communicate intellectually and logically.

Now, to tie this into the topic at hand in this thread...
TIME is up, gotta go..
*__-

 

[Quantum Quack]

Agreed and actually a very powerful concept....that the state of nothingness really does not exist. If you have infinity, seems like theres' no "room" for nothingness

Ahhh now we might get somewhere....an opportuintity has arisen.....ha

consider this statement very carefully.

"If we have something that is infinite, then and then only can nothing exist."

Every"thing" has to be infinite, for nothing to exist.

If all there is is something then nothing exists....ha

The puzzle of nothingness.....hmmmmmm

 

[Quantum Quack]

maybe a better way of decribing is to ask the question:
What exists beyond the infinite? Or what exists in excess of the infinite?
The answer I feel can only be zero or nothing.

 

[Prince_James]

Truthseeker:

I look forward to your argument to be presented in full one day. That reminds me: I got to get to posting my theological arguments here on this board, also.

Quantum Quack:

Every"thing" has to be infinite, for nothing to exist.

If all there is is something then nothing exists....ha

The puzzle of nothingness.....hmmmmmm

How so?

maybe a better way of decribing is to ask the question:
What exists beyond the infinite? Or what exists in excess of the infinite?
The answer I feel can only be zero or nothing.

To say that "nothing" exists beyond the infinite, is to say the infinite has no end, not that nothing exists beyond it. The argument for "nothing" to exist beyond there based on what is simply a phrase, isn't that good. I have some theories on what nothing really is, though, and shall have to post about this sometime soon.

 

[nameless]

Another old mental albatross that we seem to carry from generation to generation seems to be the 'concept' of 'infinite'.

It pops up occassionally in the mental exercises of mathematics and philosophy. Some recent geniuses have made great strides in those 'disciplines' by discarding the concept completely. It is a non-question. It is irrelevent. Why? Why would it be relevant? What might we be able to do with it, besides 'complicate' our understandings of 'reality'?

We certainly cannot know if 'eternity' even 'exists' beyond our idle speculations. Does it play some role in our day to day lives? Three eggs, one cup of flour and a dash of 'eternity'... Perhaps the 'checkout line' at the store comes close?

Perhaps the 'concept' of 'eternity' is a natural 'by-product' of the 'concept' of 'time'. (WOW! Five semi-quotes in one sentence.. gotta be a record! *__-) It would have prima facie validity in the very definition of time. Whether a 'ray' or a 'line', infinity 'is'.

Now, I KNOW that the concept of time is a very useful concept in our day to day lives. So much so that we measure it, play with it, compress it, study it, make expensive clocks to tell us 'what time it is', and cheap clocks for the rest of us, celebrate it, mythologize it. We measure the 'distance' between 'events' with it. Life is just full of events, right? All events seperated from each other, of course, otherwise there could be no time, and hence, no 'eternity'. If there were no 'time' then there could be no things. Stuff takes time to 'exist'.

No time = no existence? No wonder we 'worship' it!! Kill for 'more'!! Hoard it dearly and bemoan 'wasting' it...

So, if so, and 'time', like 'infinity', 'eternity', are simply 'mental constructs', so must everything else be that are 'constructed' on/from 'time', the whole material omniverse, everything that 'is'..

Science also tells us that it (science) can not (so far, anyway) tell us where one thing actually ends and another thing begins. Where one 'event' ends and another 'event' begins.

Perhaps the illusion of time is a naturally arising concept concurrent with the concept (illusion) that 'things' are individual and seperate from everything else in the omniverse. We have the western (predominately) philosophers to thank for that too commonly accepted 'delusion'. Can it be in mind alone that the onniverse exists?

So to throw around words like infinite, eternal as if they really 'are' something, yet no one has 'evidence' of their existence beyond mind, we just take it all for granted as we have for thousands of years. I'll tell you what is real, my son, you listen to your daddy, grandfather, teacher, neighbor... We'll all agree on what ways are acceptable to 'see' 'reality'.

I dunno, folks, but if you see 'reality' as a bunch of disconnected bits of matter, with moments of your lives following each other like cars on a train, this thing causing that thing, then we must live in very different worlds indeed! Perhaps I am Mad. After all, to all of our senses, all 'appearances' are that 'events' are 'happening' in a linear fashion. I don't believe that my senses provide an accurate representation of anything besides the 'state' of my mind. For me to 'believe' that there 'exists' anything beyond my mind would require some sort of non-self-referential evidence, lest I fall into delusion.

The universe that I 'see', 'live' in, day to day, is a dream, a hologram of the mind (at least until I find some 'evidence' that it is 'other' than that). I know no real difference between chair stuff and electrical stuff and water and space and thought stuff. I say that it is all 'dreamstuff', ultimately. Science has it's reasons for saying that all time/space is a seemless unity. The sages have been telling of their experience for milennia. I do make believe that it 'exists' and I am enjoying the hell out of this dream. I think that 'lucid dreaming' might have something to do with it. When you know that you are 'dreaming', you can 'play with the rules' a bit. Of course one can be dreaming lucidity, but, I can 'play' with the 'rules' a bit, so I take that as a certain indicator and evidence of 'state of mind'.

Have we not heard not to 'judge books by their covers'? So, as we critique our occassional 'book', we rarely critique the 'cover' of that book which we be calling our world. We are waaaaay too trusting of appearances, especially if they are appearing to us!! Ego is such an enemy. "I'm independent and unique from you (says the senses/mind), therefor I must be better, more 'special', because one has to be 'right' and the other must be 'wrong' if 'different' (so says the ego). So, mix the old accepted irrational 'beliefs', a heavy dose of ego to uphold and season our 'perceptions', (strengthening, aiding and abetting our self-deception), a bit of chaos for 'interesting times' and a few other unsavory ingredients (an unhappy childhood or a failed romance or public humiliation for instance) and we have our 'understanding' of our world. Could it be true when the sage said that "the only thing we can truly possess is 'delusion'"?

Here truly does lie Madness, Divine Madness, of what value to you is 'Truth' if you are unwilling to sacrifice your (very comfortable) 'sanity'.

*__-

 

[TruthSeeker]

Hi Truth, do you not think that if something of the imagined magnitude of this 'imagined' god, that has no imagined 'material', sensory 'qualities' (qualities that WE can ascertain), of which nothing can really be 'said' that wouldn't be instantly contradictory... Do you think that adding layers of 'complexity' can reveal that which must, by present accepted thought be absolutely 'simple', if it actually has some form (hitherto unknown) of existence?

I know what you are saying. But the fact is that altough the argument itself is complex, the truth is not. The fact is that God is SO simple that He requires from us a great deal of thought in order to understand Him.

Is thinking about that which, if it has existence, thought and conceptualization is impossible, and which is impossible to define (other than imaginatively, of course) 'fairly tricky' also?

God is not impossible to define, though once you define Him you lose His definition. Ever studied taoism?

God is so simple that once you define Him, you lose His definition.

Throughout history, people have been trying to glue sequins on, paint with simple and complex colors, create stories of, KILL FOR, live for, die for, attach 'qualities to' a huge 'black hole' (unknown, as 'it' is impossible to 'know' as our 'knowing apparatus' is rather temporal and limited) in order to 'prove' it's 'reality', in order to 'desperately prove' an emotional 'belief'?

Well, that's a rather pessimistic view of something that has been so widely and wildely discussed throughout the history of philosophy.......

As history has shown, 'scientific proof' of a 'god' has been hitherto impossible.

I'm talking about a philosophical approach combined with scientific hypothesis.

Those who WANT to 'believe' can turn all sorts of 'things' into proof sufficient for them; people who have no need/desire to 'believe' can look at that same 'evidence' and not draw the same conclusions.

Well, i want to actually find evidence for my belief. And as long as I don't, then I might as well be agnostic.

Why attampt to cross the border into intellectual/scientific 'validation? Is one's 'belief' that 'unsound'? That 'tenuous'? That 'insecure' that we need 'external validation' by science? By large 'numbers of similar believing people' (proselytizing/evangelizing)?

What is the problem with trying to find evidence for such ancient beliefs?

How about,
"I believe because I choose to believe (assuming that it is volitional, but that is another thread, actually, so is this!) and if you can show me sufficiently adequate 'evidence' to stop believing, then I'll give up that 'belief'." And let it go at that? 'Numbers of believers' is a fallacy if used as 'evidence' for 'belief'!

Yes, which is why it is not my approach.
But you cannot find evidence for the abscence of an entity or any form of object, for that matter.

and Hey, don't pooh-pooh poetry as a means of communicating that which is impossible to communicate intellectually and logically.

Maybe that's exactly why I used poetry

 

[TruthSeeker]

maybe a better way of decribing is to ask the question:
What exists beyond the infinite? Or what exists in excess of the infinite?
The answer I feel can only be zero or nothing.

Actually, the answer is "more infinite". Because if you say there's "nothing" beyond "infinite", then that annuls the concept of infinity as something that does not end.

 

[TruthSeeker]

Here truly does lie Madness, Divine Madness, of what value to you is 'Truth' if you are unwilling to sacrifice your (very comfortable) 'sanity'.

That reminds me of alchemy. Many alchemists went insane trying to find "Truth".......

 

[Quantum Quack]

Actually, the answer is "more infinite". Because if you say there's "nothing" beyond "infinite", then that annuls the concept of infinity as something that does not end.

ha....but what you fail to see is that is exactly why what I said was true.

There is nothing beyond infinity, simply because infinity is an absolute concept. thus if infinity is an absolute concept then there can be nothing beyond it.......
so nothing exists beyond infinity.

It might sound like a play on words but if you really think about it as:
If Infinity is everything then what can possibly exist outside of everything?

answer that question and you will see what I mean....

 

[Quantum Quack]

pure deductive reasoning....."nothing" is arrived at by default

 

[Quantum Quack]

if all hats are red, how many blue ones are there?

 

[TruthSeeker]

answer that question and you will see what I mean....

Fair enough.

If Infinity is everything then what can possibly exist outside of everything?

If infinity is defined by something that goes on forever, then that question has no valid answer, since "outside" would not be a property of an infinite substance.

You see.... you are thinking of "infinite" as something which is very big and has a "boundary" which defines an interior and an exterior. However, "infinite" has no properties of interior and exterior by definition. Therefore, anything that should be considered beyond infinite would need necessarily to be more infinite, that is, something which never ends.

If something has an outside it ends and must be defined as "finite".



Btw... just as you have "null" and "0" with different meanings when you study probability (you know... those probabilty circles...), the same applies here...

 

[TruthSeeker]

pure deductive reasoning....."nothing" is arrived at by default

Answer quickly: What is the tangent of π/2?

 

[Quantum Quack]

Fair enough.


If infinity is defined by something that goes on forever, then that question has no valid answer, since "outside" would not be a property of an infinite substance.

You see.... you are thinking of "infinite" as something which is very big and has a "boundary" which defines an interior and an exterior. However, "infinite" has no properties of interior and exterior by definition. Therefore, anything that should be considered beyond infinite would need necessarily to be more infinite, that is, something which never ends.

If something has an outside it ends and must be defined as "finite".



Btw... just as you have "null" and "0" with different meanings when you study probability (you know... those probabilty circles...), the same applies here...

hmmmm...... It is not I that is creating the boundary....I have already declared infinity as an absolute concept [ no boundaries ] and it is only because it has no boundaries that nothing can exist beyond a boundary that is non-existant.

The connundrum can be described by those who subscribe to the finite spherical universe theory.

Where by the universe has a boundary, NOw when considering a universe with a boundary one must ask the question what is beyond that boundary which immediately quantfies that beyondness as a result of that boundary.
A finite spherical universe thus becomes an impossible concept. Which is why I think that most physicists subscribe to unbounded spherical universe.

The issue is in the compromising of an absolute concept. Infinitey is absolutely absolute...it can not be quantified. Thus not a thing can exist that is not a part of that absoluteness...not a single entity or absolutely any thing is possible to exist outside that absolute unbounded concept that is infinity. [ non-existence is thus described ]
Now if not a thing can exist that is not a part of the absoluteness of infinity then we have just described absolute nothingness by deductive reasoning alone.

 

[TruthSeeker]

hmmmm...... It is not I that is creating the boundary....

You created the boundary when you asked me what would be outside. The word "outside" implies a distinct boundary separating two different entities.

I have already declared infinity as an absolute concept [ no boundaries ] and it is only because it has no boundaries that nothing can exist beyond a boundary that is non-existant.

Something which has no boundaries cannot have an "outside" since an "outside" is a property of something which has a boundary. If you declare something as infinite, then such an object has to go on forever and have no boundaries whatsoever. You see... what distinguish an object from the other is the boundaries which separates both objects. Thanks to those boundaries, such objects have the property of size, which can be used to compare them. If an object is infinite, then such an object has no definite finite size, which means that it has no boundaries to distinguish it from something bigger. It has no "outside" by definition.

Where by the universe has a boundary, NOw when considering a universe with a boundary one must ask the question what is beyond that boundary which immediately quantfies that beyondness as a result of that boundary.

Yes. But that is only valid for finite entities.

A finite spherical universe thus becomes an impossible concept.

Only if you define the universe as "all that exist".

Which is why I think that most physicists subscribe to unbounded spherical universe.

If it has no boundaries, how it has a shape? What is the shape of a sphere? What defines the shape of a sphere, compared to the shape of a cone? Isn't the obvious answer "the boundaries which outline the given object"?

The issue is in the compromising of an absolute concept. Infinitey is absolutely absolute...it can not be quantified. Thus not a thing can exist that is not a part of that absoluteness...not a single entity or absolutely any thing is possible to exist outside that absolute unbounded concept that is infinity. [ non-existence is thus described ]

What you seem to be forgetting is that if something is unbounded, then it cannot have an outside- that is, it includes all that exist. So there cannot be "nothing" outside, because there is no outside in the first place, since an "outside" is the property of something which is finite.

Now if not a thing can exist that is not a part of the absoluteness of infinity then we have just described absolute nothingness by deductive reasoning alone.

Not necessarily. Remember my latter question? What is the tangent of π/2? Pick up a calculator and try it out. See what you get.
...
Do you get an "error" message? Yes.... what does that mean...
What if you try to divide one by 0? Error message?

Do you get it at all?

 

[Prince_James]

Quantum Quack:

Actually, Quantum Quack, I am going to recant my previous position on the "nothing is beyond infinity" thing. It fits my definition of nothing quite fine. To speak of nothing is to speak of an absence only. Just as if one says "nothing happened today" one is speaking of an "absence of something" (usually a relative something, mind you) we can speak of an absolute nothing beyond infinity.

I do not know why I disagreed with you. I had come to this conclusion myself before! Hmm. Forgetting my own metaphysics. The first step towards senility for philosophers!

Truthseeker:

I think you're both misunderstanding Quantum Quack and now I. Can there be anything beyond infinity? No, only nothing. The "nothing" is that which is "beyond" infinity.

Let me ask you this: Is nothing something?

 

[Quantum Quack]

Quantum Quack:

Actually, Quantum Quack, I am going to recant my previous position on the "nothing is beyond infinity" thing. It fits my definition of nothing quite fine. To speak of nothing is to speak of an absence only. Just as if one says "nothing happened today" one is speaking of an "absence of something" (usually a relative something, mind you) we can speak of an absolute nothing beyond infinity.

I do not know why I disagreed with you. I had come to this conclusion myself before! Hmm. Forgetting my own metaphysics. The first step towards senility for philosophers!

Truthseeker:

I think you're both misunderstanding Quantum Quack and now I. Can there be anything beyond infinity? No, only nothing. The "nothing" is that which is "beyond" infinity.

Let me ask you this: Is nothing something?

as usual the devil is in the detail......I must admit my definition of "beyond" does suggest it's usual connotation.

What I mean by beyond is not spatially. I use the word to refer to the idea that no - thing is beyond the absolute concept of infinity.

Beyond the concept not the physicality.
Sorry for inadvertantly misleading you truth seeker.

Infinity is a absolute concept and beyond this concept is no-thing.

 

[Prince_James]

Quantum Quack:

Yes, the usage of "beyond", if nothing is misunderstood, does imply a non-infinity. But if nothing is understood for what it is, an utter negative, no-thing, then it becomes clear that infinity permits no-thing "beyond" it, though in actuality, nothing does not exist in space.

 

[Quantum Quack]

Quantum Quack:

Yes, the usage of "beyond", if nothing is misunderstood, does imply a non-infinity. But if nothing is understood for what it is, an utter negative, no-thing, then it becomes clear that infinity permits no-thing "beyond" it, though in actuality, nothing does not exist in space.

all these confusions suggest to me that we have to come up with a better language logic model for describing the "_______________"