"What time is"

[Jac3510]

So Audie has said a few times that she doesn't know what time is, and neither do we. I just want to suggest that, in fact, we do, and that we have for a really, really long time (pun intended). It's only the people who haven't been paying attention who have gotten off on rabbit trails and managed to confuse a lot of folks.

Let's skip the build up and start with a simple definition. What is time? Time is the numbering of motion/change according to before and after. That was Aquinas' definition (so thirteenth century) was is just a very minor modification of Aristotle's definition (fourth century BC). Now I want to unpack that, because I think it has some interesting implications verifiable by science today.

First, this makes time a part of physical space, such that we have a space-time continuum. The idea that space is distinct from time is absolutely denied by this definition. In fact, if you get into the history of the debate where this definition comes from, you'd find that was part of the motivating factor. The idea that there could be time in a non-physical world or a physical world that has absolutely no motion, no change, of any kind, is absurd. By itself, this is important, because it rids us of this silly notion and all attendant attempts to figure out the nature of time being this thing containing all the rest of physical (and maybe non-physical) space. As if there were some invisible "force" like a stream carrying all of the universe along with it. If that were our understanding of time--and, admittedly, it is probably the "common sense view" insofar as most people consciously or unconsciously hold to it, then Audie would be absolutely correct. And that confusion is exactly why the theories of relativity are so surprising to a lot of people.

But back to the point at hand. If time is the numbering of before and after of change, then we are presuming and in fact defining time by the relation of physical things. For all change necessarily presumes physical things. (That gets into a deeper issue, but the short statement on this is that forms cannot change, so any change necessarily requires matter.) Thus time only exists in a physical world that is changing. And in any physical and changing world, you have time.

Second, this also presumes that time is relative. This is because things change, not the whole universe or all of reality. It's a composition fallacy to imagine there is anything like a "universal time" that all things are subject to. Let's illustrate this by imagining two whatevers (widgets, people, stars, atoms . . . whatevers!). The two stand in a "present" relation to one another. "Present" here refers to their state of actual existence. If you were to plot them on a three dimensional space, one would have these coordinates and the other those coordinates, and they would be related to one another via those coordinates. There would be other relations, too, which are more complicated, and would relate to their own internal histories. But let that pass for a moment. I'm just saying that it is true that, for now, all we need to know is that the two objects stand in some relation, and that relation is their "now."

Now, let's say that the first object goes through a series of changes, say one hundred of them. So the thing went from X[1] to X[2] to X[3] all the way to X[100]. At X[100], it simply no longer exists as X[1] or X[56], although it did pass through [2 . . . 99] to get to its present state. Each change represents a step forward in time. Suppose it is a sentient being, or perhaps you, the sentient being, are watching the change. And you have developed a standard measure of what you commonly call "time." For pragmatic reasons, you've based that measure on the length of a day and subdivided that day into smaller units--you've called them hours--and you've subdivided those hours into smaller units--you've called them seconds--and so on. Strictly, you know that hours and seconds and even days don't exist per se. They are nothing more human constructs to help you keep track of and organize where you are in your own space-time. The point is you have this workable idea you call "time." Just keep that distinguished from what time really is (the numbering of before and after of change). Back to our illustration. You know it's taken about thirty minutes for X to pass from X[1] to X[100]. To be very clear and beat the horse, the thirty minutes is not time. The change from X[1] to X[100] is time. Strictly, you've gone through your own changes, and as you go through those changes, you stand in relation to the thing. It just so happens that your rate of change (we'll come back to that in a bit) is close enough to the X that you can say it took "thirty minutes" for the 100 changes to take place.

Now, let's say another observer with exactly the same counting system elsewhere in the universe looks at thing Y. And, like X, Y changed. Only Y changed from Y[1] to Y[50]. Let's further stipulate that X[1] = Y[1], which is to say, at X[1], X stood in a present relation to Y[1]. And let's say that Y[50] stands in a present relation to Y[1]. That means that Y has experienced half as much time as X! And yet, it could very well be that the sentient being could have counted the same thirty minutes. How? Because, in this case, that would mean that the sentient observer, also changing, itself experienced "thirty minutes worth of change" relative to Y.

What all of this tells us is that time is relative to change, and since individuals change, we know that every individual thing has its own clock (it's own time). Which brings us to,

Third, this means that what is constant is not time (nor is it space, for reasons I shouldn't have to explain), but rather only change itself. The "rate" of change is always and obviously exactly the same, and it is this: +1. That some things may experience more change or less change than other things standing in the same relation is unrelated. But what, then, is this rate? What is this +1? In modern, scientific language, it would have to be the movement of something with no mass. For if something has mass, then it must be acted upon to accelerate or decelerate it, and that acting upon it would itself be a change, which is to say, would "take time." (This, by the way, is based on the necessary fact that wholes are moved by parts, and things with more parts require more to move them.) Any such rate of change for any such thing, then, would be the true constant rate of change. And, of course, that's exactly what modern science finds with photons and gluons. The reason the "speed of light" is the constant (and so the faster you go, the less time you experience than things going slower) is because you are closer to experiencing the true "rate of change." Put simply, something changing at the constant would experience a LOT less change than things moving a lot slower than the constant. As such, some things would experience more changes than others relative to how "fast" they are going.

In other words, Thomas Aquinas invented relativity.

It takes experiment, of course, to put numbers to the above, such that we know that "the speed of light" is 186,000 mi/s. It would take other experiments to determine other times relative to light and some good math to figure out the relation of times (that is, how many changes could occur) between two things moving at different speeds (experiencing more or less changes relative to one another).

The last implication for all of this is that B-Theory if Time is false. There isn't a static universe. Things really are changing. Time is just measured by those changes and time is "relative" becomes things change at different rates. I also would hesitate to make time a "fourth dimension." All that really matters is the actual state of how something exists and how that state relates to the actual states of other things as they exist. It's just getting good at math to determine how much change one thing goes through based on its velocity relative to another. Things, then, don't really have a "where" they exist on a timeline they way they do a "where" in physical coordinates. Rather, they have a "where" in time relative to their existence to other things. (You could press that "where" relativity, too, with respect to location, but that's another discussion.)

The theological implication is that if something is not physical, it is timeless. That's not some woo-woo concept. It's strictly necessary. For something non-physical can't change, and without change, there is no time. And yet there is no reason to say that we cannot be really related to non-physical things, and so it isn't anything like silly or absurd to propose the existence of an eternal God (say) being "outside of time" whom we are really related to.

Anyway, I'm out of time and now need to do birthday stuff for by seven year old. But bottom line is that while there are a lot of questions still to be answered, I don't think it is true that we don't know what time is. We know exactly what it is, and we have for over two-thousand years. It's fools who didn't pay attention to what smarter people before them said and came up with stupid notions of time as some independent reality who didn't know what time was. Granted, it took 2,000 years to prove Aristotle right, but he was. And we'd do well to recognize it to continue to deal with tougher questions in the philosophy of time and related issues in physics (and quantum mechanics!).

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n/m - struck the edit

[Philip]

I'd say Jac has WAY too much time on his hands! But other than that, I enjoyed it!

[Kurieuo]

Jac, you deny B-Theory (i.e., future events exist as much as past and present, we're "traveling" via a static world). In the past you said in relation to God that you also deny A-Theory (tensed facts do in fact exist such that future events haven't yet happened) -- for those who don't understand different time theories.

As you know, I've mulled over the idea of the Necessary Foundation (i.e., God) possessing 'timefulness' rather than 'timelessness'. While perhaps suspicious to God's immovability, I do not believe such necessarily destroys God as immovable if such such is an eternal attribute of God. Indeed, "eternal" is perhaps descriptive, or at least hints at "timefulness". Perhaps there is also some correlation here to how you have describe God as "Pure Act".

For added support, consider if "time" is found in our universe, like many intuitively believe "goodness" is found in our world, then we wouldn't affirm the imperfection that God is all-bad, rather we affirm the perfection that God is all-good. So then, consistency demands we do not affirm an imperfection that God is without time, rather than God is all-time. It's just a matter of defining what we mean by such. It seems to me that God being eternal, infinite, pure act would all be captured under "all-time".

Now evidently, by assigning attributes to God, it would be wrong to say goodness, time and the like are found in God. Rather, it is more correct to say that God is the source of such attributes we identify in the world which point to something true of God's nature. As a side thought, I haven't entertained much, but perhaps God Himself is like the A-Theory of time (eternal and unchanging), and contingent beings and all of creation must necessarily experience B-Theory since they all begin.

Further we understand that just because something exists in the created world, say a good act is done, such is good because Goodness exists and the act represents something of such. Similarly, our temporal world, yes bound by past, present and future, such we call time because of an more complete "Timeness" (i.e., Eternality, the Infinite) even "Pure Act" that God is.

The above is written in a theological context, that is in view of God being the foundational existence. If however, one wishes to embrace a world without God, then you must still come up with your own theory, some necessary foundation of all existence (since something clearly exists).

[Jac3510]

K, thanks for the remarks. Will respond in some detail later, but for now, let me point all to this helpful paper on getting a deeper understanding of how Aquinas viewed time and, specifically, on some modern objects to his claims (WLC and others accuse Aquinas of being incoherent because, as always, they simply don't understand Aquinas or take him on his own terms). I'd also point to a thread I started several years ago that never really took off in which I listed my objections to both A and B theories and gave a quick primer on the Aristotelian perspective.

Other than that, I'd just quickly say that to flesh your ideas out, I think we need to take seriously the notion that time simply does not exist as a distinct dimension or part of reality the way mass, color, forms do. Time really is nothing other than a way to think about change. Where there is change, there is time. Where there is no change, there is no time. Where there is no change, there isn't even a "now." And that, again, is why time is relative, because different things change at different rates. Even if you were to conceive of some mechanism by which all things universally changed at a constant rate, that wouldn't make "time" universal. It would mean that time was relative but really relative to this one unchanging locking mechanism that would itself need identification and explanation. So Occam and all that.

But now I'm too far afield of your comments. I just raise it because I see some of this as at least consistent with what you've said above and will say more later.

[Jac3510]

Ok, so a little more on your thoughts, K.

First, an uncharitable interpretation (uncharitable insofar as I couldn't find a way to agree with it) of your words would be to have you arguing that because time really exists in our universe, then there is something in God's nature that time accurately reflects, such that rather than call it a negation of time we would call it the full realization of it--i.e., there is good in the world, so we refer to God's absolute goodness; power, so God's omnipotence; love, so God's omnibenevolence; and so time, then timefulness.

I say that's the uncharitable interpretation for two reasons. First, I point out that time simply does not exist in the same sense that goodness, power, and love do. Time is, again, just the measure of motion with respect to before and after. It is, then, just a relation between two physical things. Love, power, and other such things are not so fully contingent. And that gets and the second reason, which is that so construed, time is not a perfection at all, and we only find the source of perfections in God. By analogy, height is not a perfection, though it exists in this world. And yet we would never say God therefore has all-height. Rather, we recognize that, perhaps counter-intuitively, height is actually a necessary result of limitation (which is not, by the way, identical with privation). I have a height precisely because I have a body and because no body can be infinite. Since my body is not infinite, it is necessarily finite. And since it is finite, it can be measured from one extremity to the other, and that measurement is what we call height. If you want to look for the perfection under all this, you would really being looking at existence itself, or perhaps the notion of telos (final causality): I have a body because I have a form, etc. Just so, far from being a perfection, time is the direct and necessarily result of a limitation. That, by the way, is a side reason I think Craig and other such philosophers are off their rockers in claiming God is temporal, but I'll not press that point any further (for now).

If I were to offer a more charitable interpretation of your words that make use of my own terminology and concepts, I might suggest that the whole notion of change is nothing but potentiality being reduced to actuality, and therefore that time is simply the numbering of what was once potential now being actual. Time, therefore, is closely related to the notion of becoming or actualization. Strictly, it would only be experienced in the way we experience it in a world of limitation or imperfection, since we are constantly having this or that potency actualized. But if we place the emphasis on actuality itself, you could perhaps suggest that something fully actualized--having no potency of anykind whatsoever--would have a sort of time beyond what we can experientially imagine but to which all actualization is both owing its existence and moving towards (and this in recognition of God as both efficient and final cause). A nice side effect of this nuancing is that you side step common misunderstanding of God as Pure Act to mean (due to the necessary immutability that follows) that He is absolutely inert. Put differently, many people, in being confronted with the God of classical theism, recoil by conceiving of Him as inactive and completely and perfectly static. Again, not surprising, since we think of dynamic and active as moving, changing, doing, all of which necessarily presuppose time (side note: not that anyone means this, but even the English word dynamic is taken directly from the Greek word meaning potentiality (dunamis). So your nuancing might help people avoid, to some extent, that misunderstanding.

I really only have two concerns with this second reading. The first of these is really little more than a slippery slope arguments than actual logical or philosophical objection. Still, I think it's legitimate, and it is this: if you gain the victory of not having people think of God as static and inert, what are you implying? It would seem that calling God "timeful" in this sense might suggest to people a temporal God and all those attendant problems (or, for those a little more educated, a dipolar god along the lines of process theism).

The second has more to do with the nature of time itself: in relying on the distinction between actualization and actuality (where the former is obviously contingent on the latter), don't we run the risk of actually (pun intended) suggesting a B theory of time?!? For it seems to me that time, as we understand it, is very much related to the former term (actualization). After all, we would never say God is being actualized. We would simply say that God is actual. Temporality, then, is necessarily progressively tensed. But now if we want to root time itself not in actualization but ultimately in actuality (as goodness in this world is rooted in God's Absolute Goodness), then how do we avoid saying that, since Timefulness is absolutely immovable then the time pointing to it isn't also immovable in some sense? The "in some sense" really only makes sense to me if we start talking in B-Theory terms. And, by the way, if you ask, I would say that things like love, power, and goodness really are immovable, for they are forms, and forms are immutable. But if time is immutable, then seems like we are back at a four-dimensional block universe again.

So perhaps you can overcome that problem. Perhaps I'm overthinking it. But, for now, it seems better to me to simply reduce time to a merely emergent property of the universe' physicality, much as the distance between two objects or the sharpness of a blade are emergent properties. In and of itself, time isn't a thing at all. What really is a thing are things themselves and their actual states. And since those states change, we can number those changes before and after. And we call those numberings "time." And since different things can change at different rates relative to one another, time is necessarily relative to the observer.

Thoughts?

[Kurieuo]

I'll have to re-read a second or third time, but, a few questions that came towards the end of your post.

1) You write that divine attributes like "love, power, and goodness are forms, and forms are immutable." I'd like to ask what you mean by this, that is, how are they forms and how are they immutable?

2) As a spin-off to my first question, would you such attributes (love, power, goodness) are immutable because of some quality inherent to themselves, or because ultimately you see them as grounded in God?

3) If God is without form (since there is no matter that needs form) what does this say about such attributes?

Also, a different line of questions to the above...

1) How would you define the God's Eternality?
2) How would you define God's Infiniteness?
3) For my own benefit, succinctly define in positive terms what God as Pure Act means? (i.e., in negative terms we would say God is Pure Act because He there is no potentiality found within Him).

I need more material to chew my thoughts on, I believe answers to those questions may help to elucidate certain boundaries I'd not want to cross in with a "timeful" understanding. Right now, I see that simply using a new term "timefulness" really carries little meaning as to what is meant, and since few people use it, well I have some liberty to shape it in my own way. (or perhaps I'm just poorly read here)

The one thing "timefulness" cannot mean, unlike at the polar opposite term that is "timelessness", is that God is static and inert. The expense of a strictly timeless view of God, is that it leaves God impotent, something we both reject, like we both evidently reject God being static and inert. So then, the only option is to believe in a dynamic view of God who is all-potent and can enact all potential possibilities. Such it seems to me is closely tied with an ability to act which cannot fit in with a static or inert conception of God.

[Jac3510]

1) You write that divine attributes like "love, power, and goodness are forms, and forms are immutable." I'd like to ask what you mean by this, that is, how are they forms and how are they immutable?

All forms of any kind are immutable. Take human nature. Human nature can't change what it is, lest it no longer be human nature. Individual humans change not because their nature changes, but because they change in this or that way, and those changes are very much related to their matter. So the same goes with all forms--humanness, whiteness, treeness, whatever.

2) As a spin-off to my first question, would you such attributes (love, power, goodness) are immutable because of some quality inherent to themselves, or because ultimately you see them as grounded in God?

Neither. Again, forms are immutable simply because that's the nature of forms (and that's one of the few things Platonists and Aristotelians actually agree on). These ideas are found in God insofar as they are all perfections and all perfections preexist in God. But they don't exist in Him in the same way they exist in us for the simple reason that God is simple. In God, love just is power which just is goodness and so on, and all of this simply is God's nature.

3) If God is without form (since there is no matter that needs form) what does this say about such attributes?

Actually, God is not without form. God is pure form. Form is nature, and we wouldn't say there is no such thing as the divine nature. Of course, God doesn't have a form/nature like we do. God just is His form/nature. But that's not totally unique to God, for the same is true with any immaterial being, angels especially. They don't have their natures. They are identical with them. What makes God truly unique here is that the Divine Nature simply is the principle of existence itself.

Let's revisit angels here to clarify. Angels don't have their natures. They just are their natures. So they are not form/matter compounds. They are pure forms. They are more like God than we are in that respect. But they are still composite entities, for they do not exist in themselves. That is, they had to be brought into existence. We could well say that their forms stand in potency to existence, such that the existence of their form is actualized. But we know that no potency can be actualized except by something else that is already in act. And we also know that such actualization only occurs not by any given thin in act but something in which the perfection being actualized preexists either really or virtually. To cut the jargon, we say "like produces like." That's why water doesn't start a fire and why when you eat something poisonous you don't get well. Certain things, by their natures (which are actualized forms, and forms by their own nature have certain capacities, such that actualized forms are actualized potencies) are related to other things by nature. That's what we mean by final causality. When I strike a match, it doesn't turn to ice because, by nature, its end is fire; and the potency of the fire was actualized by the match.

Take that whole idea back to angels. If something is to actualize them, then that "thing" must be something that grants existence by nature. And when you press that far enough, you end up with something that just is existence. Because ultimately, you have to come to a form that doesn't receive it's existence but just is the principle of existence (otherwise, eventually, you'd have to ask given the "like produces like" chain what gives rise to existence in the first place). Such a form would not need to receive actualization because that is just what it is: actualization it self. It is, in Aquinas' words, the Act of Acts.

In other words, God's form just is actuality.

Also, a different line of questions to the above...

1) How would you define the God's Eternality?

The best definition I am aware of is this: "The simultaneously-whole and perfect possession of interminable life."

2) How would you define God's Infiniteness?

"To be without delimiting potency of any kind whatsoever." More positively, we know that when something exists, it exists in this way or that, and that due to its nature. A triangle has three sides because that is the nature of the triangle. It can't have four, because that's its nature. If it had four, it wouldn't be a triangle, so the number of sides it can have is limited. "Limitation" here doesn't refer necessarily to an inability to do something, as if it were opposed to omnipotence. Think, rather, of a delimiter. To be infinite would be to lack all finitute--to lack any delimiting principle. Whenever something is actualized, it is this potency that is actualized, but this potency is this potency precisely because of these delimiting principles. Something that is infinite is not an actualized potency (for such potencies would necessarily be delimited realities) but rather the principle of actualization itself--that which, by nature, actualizes any potency whatsoever.

3) For my own benefit, succinctly define in positive terms what God as Pure Act means? (i.e., in negative terms we would say God is Pure Act because He there is no potentiality found within Him).

The principle of causality itself and in itself. Pure Act is that which, by nature, actualizes potency and makes the actualization of potency even a potentiality.

I need more material to chew my thoughts on, I believe answers to those questions may help to elucidate certain boundaries I'd not want to cross in with a "timeful" understanding. Right now, I see that simply using a new term "timefulness" really carries little meaning as to what is meant, and since few people use it, well I have some liberty to shape it in my own way. (or perhaps I'm just poorly read here)

Hopefully that helps a little. Trying to stay away from jargon, but the less jargon, the more words, and I don't think either of us are interested in a dissertation here.

The one thing "timefulness" cannot mean, unlike at the polar opposite term that is "timelessness", is that God is static and inert. The expense of a strictly timeless view of God, is that it leaves God impotent, something we both reject, like we both evidently reject God being static and inert. So then, the only option is to believe in a dynamic view of God who is all-potent and can enact all potential possibilities. Such it seems to me is closely tied with an ability to act which cannot fit in with a static or inert conception of God.

Yes, and we are in 100% agreement here. That's the motivation I feel like I'm hearing behind your words, and I'm trying to get at that rather than quibble over semantics. I figure truth is more important, and it feels like you're trying to get at a real truth. It would be to my loss not to let that come out because of me insisting you use language that I'm comfortable with or that I've already adopted.

[Audie]

So Audie has said a few times that she doesn't know what time is, and neither do we. I just want to suggest that, in fact, we do, and that we have for a really, really long time (pun intended). It's only the people who haven't been paying attention who have gotten off on rabbit trails and managed to confuse a lot of folks.

K calaled attention to this so..

"We" do?

Let's skip the build up and start with a simple definition. What is time? Time is the numbering of motion/change according to before and after. That was Aquinas' definition (so thirteenth century) was is just a very minor modification of Aristotle's definition (fourth century BC). Now I want to unpack that, because I think it has some interesting implications verifiable by science today.

Yes, so 4th. Aristotle also taught that a crocodiles upper jaw is hinged.

What all of this tells us is that time is relative to change, and since individuals change, we know that every individual thing has its own clock (it's own time).

Note that I am deleting a lot of news of the well known.

In other words, Thomas Aquinas invented relativity.

Bit of a stretch there.

The last implication for all of this is that B-Theory if Time is false.

"B-Theory if time is false"? Um.. what?

The theological implication is that if something is not physical, it is timeless.

I dont much do "theological implications" as a part of physics.

That's not some woo-woo concept.

Are emotions physical?

It's strictly necessary. For something non-physical can't change, and without change, there is no time. And yet there is no reason to say that we cannot be really related to non-physical things, and so it isn't anything like silly or absurd to propose the existence of an eternal God (say) being "outside of time" whom we are really related to.

It is fine to propose that. Propose away, claims of proof are another matter.

I don't think it is true that we don't know what time is.
We know exactly what it is, and we have for over two-thousand years.

I find that to be an extraordinary statement that would not win favour with any physicist.

It's fools who didn't pay attention to what smarter people before them said and came up with stupid notions of time as some independent reality who didn't know what time was.

IF you are referring to me, you are being a bit rude, tho it misses the mark as is always the case when one plays strawman. If it is not about me, then why bother?

A sign of intelligence is the ability to express ideas in a compact and efficient manner. I wish you'd work on that.

"Fool" and "facile" both start with an "f". Another thing to keep in mind.

Smarter and far better informed people than you or I wont claim to understand what time is.

[Jac3510]

So Audie has said a few times that she doesn't know what time is, and neither do we. I just want to suggest that, in fact, we do, and that we have for a really, really long time (pun intended). It's only the people who haven't been paying attention who have gotten off on rabbit trails and managed to confuse a lot of folks.

K calaled attention to this so..

"We" do?

Yes

Yes, so 4th. Aristotle also taught that a crocodiles upper jaw is hinged.

Your point? As you said elsewhere, not all of Einstein's ideas stood the test of time. Surely you wouldn't dismiss a well established idea someone has because they were wrong on another issue.

In other words, Thomas Aquinas invented relativity.

Bit of a stretch there.

Nope

The theological implication is that if something is not physical, it is timeless.

I dont much do "theological implications" as a part of physics.

Neither do I. Not sure your point.

Are emotions physical?

Of course. Who thinks they aren't?

It's strictly necessary. For something non-physical can't change, and without change, there is no time. And yet there is no reason to say that we cannot be really related to non-physical things, and so it isn't anything like silly or absurd to propose the existence of an eternal God (say) being "outside of time" whom we are really related to.

It is fine to propose that. Propose away, claims of proof are another matter.

I am under the strong impression you don't know what a proof is.

I don't think it is true that we don't know what time is. We know exactly what it is, and we have for over two-thousand years.

I find that to be an extraordinary statement that would not win favour with any physicist.

So what? Physicists tend to be terrible at philosophy, and the question "what is time" is most definitely a philosophical question. The question "how is time measured" or the question "what is the proper equation to define time dilation" -- those are questions for physicists. But "what is time?" That's philosophy all the way. Physicists don't see that because they're bad at philosophy.

It's fools who didn't pay attention to what smarter people before them said and came up with stupid notions of time as some independent reality who didn't know what time was.

IF you are referring to me, you are being a bit rude, tho it misses the mark as is always the case when one plays strawman. If it is not about me, then why bother?

It wasn't about you. And why bother? Because of my several thousand posts, the vast majority are not about you. I lifted the topic because I've seen you say something several times that is false and decided to comment on it in case others were interested in the subject. Now, unless you are one who came up with the stupid notion of time as an independent reality--and I'm quite sure you weren't one of the ones who came up with that idiocy--then it should be pretty clear I wasn't addressing you.

A sign of intelligence is the ability to express ideas in a compact and efficient manner. I wish you'd work on that.

"Fool" and "facile" both start with an "f". Another thing to keep in mind.

Personal attacks.

Smarter and far better informed people than you or I wont claim to understand what time is.

Smarter? Yes. Better informed. Nope. Those at least as informed as me say what I do: that they know what time is. Those less informed are the ones who say they don't know what time is.

[Audie]

So Audie has said a few times that she doesn't know what time is, and neither do we. I just want to suggest that, in fact, we do, and that we have for a really, really long time (pun intended). It's only the people who haven't been paying attention who have gotten off on rabbit trails and managed to confuse a lot of folks.

K calaled attention to this so..

"We" do?

Yes

Yes, so 4th. Aristotle also taught that a crocodiles upper jaw is hinged.

Your point? As you said elsewhere, not all of Einstein's ideas stood the test of time. Surely you wouldn't dismiss a well established idea someone has because they were wrong on another issue.

In other words, Thomas Aquinas invented relativity.

Bit of a stretch there.

Nope

The theological implication is that if something is not physical, it is timeless.

I dont much do "theological implications" as a part of physics.

Neither do I. Not sure your point.

Are emotions physical?

Of course. Who thinks they aren't?

It's strictly necessary. For something non-physical can't change, and without change, there is no time. And yet there is no reason to say that we cannot be really related to non-physical things, and so it isn't anything like silly or absurd to propose the existence of an eternal God (say) being "outside of time" whom we are really related to.

It is fine to propose that. Propose away, claims of proof are another matter.

I am under the strong impression you don't know what a proof is.

I don't think it is true that we don't know what time is. We know exactly what it is, and we have for over two-thousand years.

I find that to be an extraordinary statement that would not win favour with any physicist.

So what? Physicists tend to be terrible at philosophy, and the question "what is time" is most definitely a philosophical question. The question "how is time measured" or the question "what is the proper equation to define time dilation" -- those are questions for physicists. But "what is time?" That's philosophy all the way. Physicists don't see that because they're bad at philosophy.

It's fools who didn't pay attention to what smarter people before them said and came up with stupid notions of time as some independent reality who didn't know what time was.

IF you are referring to me, you are being a bit rude, tho it misses the mark as is always the case when one plays strawman. If it is not about me, then why bother?

It wasn't about you. And why bother? Because of my several thousand posts, the vast majority are not about you. I lifted the topic because I've seen you say something several times that is false and decided to comment on it in case others were interested in the subject. Now, unless you are one who came up with the stupid notion of time as an independent reality--and I'm quite sure you weren't one of the ones who came up with that idiocy--then it should be pretty clear I wasn't addressing you.

A sign of intelligence is the ability to express ideas in a compact and efficient manner. I wish you'd work on that.

"Fool" and "facile" both start with an "f". Another thing to keep in mind.

Personal attacks.

Smarter and far better informed people than you or I wont claim to understand what time is.

Smarter? Yes. Better informed. Nope. Those at least as informed as me say what I do: that they know what time is. Those less informed are the ones who say they don't know what time is.

You made reference to fools, do did I. That is attack, from me but..
never mind.

Facile isnt your thing, it looks more like overthinking if anything

I am slow at learning to appreciate you, tho I may be making progress.


Time is a matter for philosophy?
We seem to be on different planets, but that's ok.

I am leaving for a tropical island with my boyfriend on Saturday.
My brain is not on this setting. So I wont try to respond. You thought this thru better than I anyway.

Have a good Christmas! Check the video I put in the Christmas music
thread.

M

[Kurieuo]

I am leaving for a tropical island with my boyfriend on Saturday.
My brain is not on this setting. So I wont try to respond. You thought this thru better than I anyway.

Have a good Christmas! Check the video I put in the Christmas music thread.

Seems to me, I don't know, you are becoming more warm.

Hope you have a great "time" with you boyfriend on a tropical island. I just came back from holidaying, wish I could do the same, though I love them, without kids.

[bbyrd009]

it is hardly ever mentioned, but we are reckoned as "beings of light" in Scripture and this could be a literal analogy, perhaps.

To a photon, a supersonic jet is standing stock still.

[RickD]

it is hardly ever mentioned, but we are reckoned as "beings of light" in Scripture and this could be a literal analogy, perhaps.

To a photon, a supersonic jet is standing stock still.

We are not reckoned as "beings of light" in scripture.

That sounds like new age mumbo jumbo.

[bbyrd009]

it is hardly ever mentioned, but we are reckoned as "beings of light" in Scripture and this could be a literal analogy, perhaps.

To a photon, a supersonic jet is standing stock still.

We are not reckoned as "beings of light" in scripture.

That sounds like new age mumbo jumbo.

be a light
don't hide your light
let your light shine before men

1 John1:5 This then is the message which we have heard of him,
and declare unto you, that God is light

If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! ... But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. .... Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light ... Proverbs 26:12 See you a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him.

[PaulSacramento]

Ah, the headaches of understanding where science ends and philosophy starts...