The present is eternity..

That's interesting. Way too deep for me, but interesting.

I'm stuck in my own personal eternity.It's called marrage

truth
Cryacuz, that's very good. It's on the mark as far as I'm concerned. People sometimes say that one should stay in the present (the here and now); how could they not? I guess they could imagine they are somewhere else and in the past, but that's no escape from the present. I like to put the difference between linear and eternal models of the present as follows (this is the third time I've stated this here or on Abuzz). The linear model can be pictured as a river with a boat traveling from the past (downstream) to the future (upstream). We are in the present (the boat). This model assumes the existence of a past and a future. It's the model we in the West use most often. That's why time machine fantasies made such good sense to us. It's like disembarking from the boat and running upstream to the future or downstream to the past. We can do this in this model because the past and future are assumed to exist apart from the present. Upstream and downstream exist for the people in the boat (the present).
The eternal model is not like a river; it's more like a pond. The pond i not going anywhere (viz. upstream) and it has not come from anywhere (viz. downstream). Yet the pond is always changing, with waves and movements of the water. It is not static, there is change in the present but there is not movement from past to future, just a dynamic eternal Now. Is that metaphorically consistent with your idea?

I'm not a philosopher JL...but doesn't the pond
have limits...i.e. banks on all sides...Is that
consistent with the eternal which I view as
limitless?

truth
True, Shepaints, but I am only concerned with the pond's not going anywhere, unlike the river. It's the difference between the two metaphors that matters--for my purpose.

Water is a curious thing, and it can teach us very much. The pond and the river are excellent metaphors. But is it either or? Can it not be that both are equally true? I believe it is a matter of perspective.



That is how I envision it also. But is it not so for the rivermodel also? The river exists equally at its spring and by the ocean at all times. It is by the bridge and by your feet when you're watching it. And every part of it is equal. There is movement, but, as you so beautifully put it, it is just a dynamic eternal Now.

There is a book I read every now and again in wich the metaphor of water is used to explain time. The book is called "Siddhartha", and the author is Herman Hesse. It is a small book, less than 150 pages, but it contains more wisdom than many bricks that I've read. It is a story of a young brahman, who sets out to find peace of mind. I would advise everyone to read it, because it is so briliantly written, and so easy to understand. The spirit of the book is almost sacred, and reading it leaves you in profound wonder about the things around us, and with a deeper understanding of the nature of the self and the world.

truth
Cyracuz, I listened to a casset of Siddhartha years ago while driving from Calif. to Texas. I was entranced.
By the way, the river and pond metaphors were only used (or useful) for their upstream-downstream and going-nowhere features. Everything else about real rivers and ponds should be bracketed off as irrelevant to my point.

Thanks JL, I think I get the metaphor....the
boat is simply there...everything else is moving....or not.....

I was once stuck on a windless lake on a windsurfer......maybe that is more like the eternal?

The concept of linear existence is so much a part of our material existence that it's virtually impossible for us to think without referring to it in one way or another. I suppose one could argue that time is illusory, that there is only the now, but wouldn't that automatically imply that space is illusory as well?

truth
Of course, "now" would make no sense without "then." The same with "here" and "there." There is just (a nameless) this. Oh, oh, "that." We can't get away from it, unless, of course, we just quietly point.

Second Law
Cyracuz

Siddhartha is a wonderful book. As I was reading JLN's analogy, the image of Siddhartha as the boatman came to mind. Perhaps I saw the name, further down the page, perhaps it's synchronicity.

In the context of this discussion, I won't dare explore the concept of synchronicity further!

Time, in the sense of calendars and clocks, is usefully thought of in a linear manner. The only certainty in our universe is that entropy (disorder) always increases. This is the true measure of linear time. The more energy we expend in trying to impose order, the more we generate disorder in the dissipation of that energy.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics

However, I also see that we can never experience the progression of time. No matter how far or fast you run, you are always where (and when) you are.

truth
Exactly. We do not experience time, only change. I guess that's one reason we need clocks.

I cannot understand how the past or future can
be any less eternal than the present...then again the only philosophy course I ever took was
Philosophy of Art 101! Well, that's my excuse,
anyway!

Good point, Shepaints. We (or at least I) tend to think that all that exists is the present, that the future does not exist (yet) and the past does not exist (any more). Yet the present is the future becoming the past. The present is in a sense "empty"; it is merely the juncture between non-existent future and non-existent past. Yet if there is anything anywhere, at any time it is in this empty present. I am paraphrasing what an old zen master once said about time in an educational film. Yet it is conceivable to me that in the longest possible perspective, say that of an omnecient god, all time (past, present, and future) happens at once. This would be the only way the god could be omnicient, and know the past and the future.

You might say that both past and future exist, but only because they are terms that have meaning to us. But they have this meaning because we put it there. In this sense time is not linear. There is no given direction, and past is invoked next to future in no apparent order.. It is our reality, defined by us. I am continously baffled by this. Ask any person if he believes in god, and he might say no. Ask the same person if he believes in time, and he will probably say yes... Most strange...

Another writer involved with time is Krishnamurti, who emphasizes the difference between "being" and "becoming". The latter is considered a negative aspect of our competitive conditioning and we are urged to observe and perhaps suspend "thought".

<<Is there a perception not of remembrance, which is time, which is thought? Is there a perception which is not of time or thought, which can see the whole nature of conflict, and with that very perception bring about the ending of conflict? Thought is time. >> (Krishnamurti 1982)

and on the 'physical' level; as i have stated numerous times here
[sorry folks - for cyracuz' benefit]

I see time as simply the relationship of elements in the universe; similarly we perceive time merely as change, as planets, stars, galaxies move, and the relationships change creating the 'effect' of time.

Time is the 'yardstick' by which we measure 'life'.

Well, it seems pretty simple to me....there is
yesterday, today and tomorrow....in a row,
a particular order and calendars track time
in this ordered sequence......

What is extraordinary is our experience of time....
Travelling across 7 time zones in an aeroplane
with all the deprivations of sleep, space and ordinary movement make time move at an excruciatingly pace. However, one can also get lost in a painting, book or piece of writing and time ceases to exist......

I like what you said about the omniescent god
JL.........