Infinite Linear Time Vs Circular Time

Forums: Philosophy, Philosophy Of Science
Email this Topic • Print this Page

Hello,

Now since the universe apparently had a beginning(The Big Bang), than perhaps it will have an end? If so, then you could refer to the timeframe as finite linear time. Now the bulk on the other hand(everything outside of the known universe)is a little bit more abstract, it appears to have always existed. So what timeframe would it exist in?

If you could go backward in time forever, than it seems to me that time could never move forward, and all you would have is an infinite past. No present or future. I guess i would call this infinite linear time? Or what about the bulk existing in circular time? Does that make sense? it does remind me of the saying about god: "I am Alpha and Omega. The beginning and the end." Like if you took a line and curve it in the shape of a circle so as to add the beginning to the end creating an infinite loop of time.

Can anyone straighten this out for me?

Neil

Topic Stats
Top Replies
Link to this Topic

Type: Discussion • Score: 2 • Views: 10,569 • Replies: 40

No top replies

@Neil D,

Neil;69424 wrote:

Hello,

Now since the universe apparently had a beginning(The Big Bang), than perhaps it will have an end? If so, then you could refer to the timeframe as finite linear time. Now the bulk on the other hand(everything outside of the known universe)is a little bit more abstract, it appears to have always existed. So what timeframe would it exist in?

Neil

Hi Neil,

Time is a very funny thing. Consider, that when you are asleep - the notion of time ceases. How did this happen? What does it represent? How does one normalize the sense of time when the mind is in a state of sleep with the sense of time when the mind is awake. What happens at that moment when the line between sleep and awake is crossed?

Time appears to be linked to the process of physical change. I contemplate the way I observe time, and I think the state of sleep provides some idea of what it might feel like outside of the physical universe as we observe it.

Just a thought.

Rich

0 Replies

@Neil D,

well i disagree with most of what was said...

there is only right NOW
time is a concept for convenience. so you can be somewhere at the right time... so you can imagine what happened a few years ago, and what happened many many years ago... it doesnt physically exist. time travel is not possible. we all exist in the same moment. but the moment changes... making it seem like time passes... but the moment just morphs and flows.

however the concept of the loop of time is only good if your thinking along the lines of patterns that happen... things happen mostly in stages and phases and these things happen regularly... like the earth revolving around the sun (which is the basis we chose for tracking the time concept) like birth and death... like construction and destruction.... cycles and rehappenings... the sort of history repeats itself mentality... but the now youll experience right now is never going to be the same now again...

am i explaining well?

plus consider that the passing of time feels different depending on mood... happy and busy it goes fast... when youre waiting or sad it goes slow... its not a steady thing like it accidentally gets imagined

1 Reply

@sarathustrah,

sarathustrah;69473 wrote:

well i disagree with most of what was said...

there is only right NOW

Hi sara,

Whereas, I also feel there is only now, as we are experiencing it, we are also experiencing something that we call "time" - e.g. aging or change, e.g. the flow of waves from here to there. Whatever time is, it is an experience, that I believe, presents lots of clues as to the nature of life.

Rich

0 Replies

@Neil D,

aging and changing is length of use. things wear out... dogs breath faster and have shorter lives because the body wears out faster cause of it, right?
but anyways, what i mean is the dog at a puppy age does not exist while the same dog at old age exists because there is only a now and only a sense of time and not a physical time.

when we imagine time we usually spread it out in a linear way in our mind... to know before and after... the experience of a length of time... or would be more appropriately called a different word that we just dont have that takes it away from imagining time... because experience of change, to me, since it is linear should not be associated with the concept of time, your watch your clock your 12 numbers twice over, 365 times... should not be the same as what you imagine when you talk about the experience of time... you can sleep 5 minutes and experience 5 hours.

ok i think i totally failed at explaining what my imagination is workin on right now...

but anyways to get more back on topic... i was gettin at imagining a film reel... life is not one picture after another like we tend to accidentally imagine... its not a new now, its the same now in which things morph, age, change, flow...

so the experience of length of time is imagined linear
but the charting of the time passing is circular... the clock, the months, the year/orbit...

2 Replies

@sarathustrah,

Thanks sara,

These time concepts i have, in part, i think i derived from M Theory somehow, and the concept of a multiverse, as opposed to a single universe. I think of finite linear time as anything that has a beginning, and will undoubtedly have an end. If you draw a line from the starting point to the end. You have a complete timeline...such as the Big Bang to the Big Crunch.

In a Multiverse, everything outside of the known universe is considered the Bulk, in which other universes exist, hence Multiverse. This bulk seems to have always existed, and i am trying to wrap my mind around that. I dont know if the timeline for the bulk extends backward into infinity, and also forward, or if there may be another explanation.

I understand that time appears to be a passing of moments, and all that really exists is now, perhaps. But time is also one of the four dimensions, and was created along with space at the time of the big bang(spacetime).

In M Theory there are 11 dimensions...think about that. Thanks for the reply, and now i must mow the lawn.

0 Replies

@sarathustrah,

sarathustrah;69621 wrote:

but anyways to get more back on topic... i was gettin at imagining a film reel... life is not one picture after another like we tend to accidentally imagine... its not a new now, its the same now in which things morph, age, change, flow...

so the experience of length of time is imagined linear
but the charting of the time passing is circular... the clock, the months, the year/orbit...

Hi Sara,

Indeed it may be circular, within the birth/death cycle, and sleep/awake cycle.

Interestingly, within sleep, the imagination of time ceases and then it comes back again. Back and forth between time and no time.

This thought experiment, is similar to the way Bentov images all of life - as an oscillating event like a pendulum. We exist, and then at the top of the swing of the pendulum everything stops - for an instance.

Rich

---------- Post added at 11:36 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:33 AM ----------

Neil;69625 wrote:

Thanks sara,

I understand that time appears to be a passing of moments, and all that really exists is now, perhaps. But time is also one of the four dimensions, and was created along with space at the time of the big bang(spacetime).
.

Hi Neil,

While we are awake I feel something called time. This is the phenomenon that
interests me. When I am asleep, I do not have the same feeling. It is this cycle that astonishes me every day. Smile

Rich

1 Reply

@richrf,

Hi Rich,

Indeed time is a very interesting concept, Einstein was one person who actually proved just how interesting. It is affected by velocity, gravity, and seems completely alien when compared to the other 3 dimensions of width, height, and depth.

With respect to sleep, we could make a whole topic out of just that. 1/3 of our life is spent doing it...thats alot of time, but actually i think we have a little bit of a sense of time in the REM stage of sleep, where most(all?) dreams occur, but in the deeper stages of sleep it seems like time is lost completely.

When we are awake, we have a very keen sense of time. It seems at times of heightened perception, or awareness, time moves slow, although an exception to this is that some say time goes by faster when they are busy, or having fun. Time seems to be affected by lots of things.

I used to think all time was, is a passing of moments and nothing else, and it was impossible to imagine time not existing, but the physicists would say otherwise. They would say that before the big bang, during the singularity time did not exist, nor did space...which also seems impossible to imagine. How can a passing of moments not exist? The concept seems proposterous.

It does seem like there are different forms of time to me, but for now it all goes by the same name...just time. Maybe that makes it more confusing also.

1 Reply

@Neil D,

Neil;69682 wrote:

Hi Rich,

Indeed time is a very interesting concept, Einstein was one person who actually proved just how interesting. It is affected by velocity, gravity, and seems completely alien when compared to the other 3 dimensions of width, height, and depth.

With respect to sleep, we could make a whole topic out of just that. 1/3 of our life is spent doing it...thats alot of time, but actually i think we have a little bit of a sense of time in the REM stage of sleep, where most(all?) dreams occur, but in the deeper stages of sleep it seems like time is lost completely.

It does seem like there are different forms of time to me, but for now it all goes by the same name...just time. Maybe that makes it more confusing also.

Hi Neil,

Yes, Einstein posited that time and space were warped to create gravity - i.e., "attraction". Quite a thought. Reminds me of the concept of Love, i.e. the attraction between individuals and objects.

Consider the exact moment when you move from awake to sleep. For me, there is no sense of that moment. There is also no sense of the moment that I pass through when I awake. What's more, the whole event, between awake and awake, seems instantaneous.

When I deaam, I have no sense of time or space. No sense of looking at a watch or watching the sun rise or set. No sense of time passing. Yes, there are images, but images without "change" or aging. It is a very distinct feeling. And yes, I agree that it is amazing that so little has been talked about in this regard. For me, it is the most amazing part of existence - other than existence itself. Smile

On another thread, I posit that the ability for the Mind to awake itself, is evidence of Free Will.

Cya,
Rich

0 Replies

@Neil D,

Neil;69424 wrote:

Hello,

Now since the universe apparently had a beginning(The Big Bang), than perhaps it will have an end? If so, then you could refer to the timeframe as finite linear time. Now the bulk on the other hand(everything outside of the known universe)is a little bit more abstract, it appears to have always existed. So what timeframe would it exist in?

If you could go backward in time forever, than it seems to me that time could never move forward, and all you would have is an infinite past. No present or future. I guess i would call this infinite linear time? Or what about the bulk existing in circular time? Does that make sense? it does remind me of the saying about god: "I am Alpha and Omega. The beginning and the end." Like if you took a line and curve it in the shape of a circle so as to add the beginning to the end creating an infinite loop of time.

Can anyone straighten this out for me?

Neil

Your very question leads me to believe you are a profound thinker!! Smile

To me linear eternity or linear infinity is impossible even for God. Everything is eternally and infinitely cycled, but how the heck the cycle started beats my limited intersect

You are right without a start how the heck do we ever get to the present? Even God said I am Alpha and Omega, so he is telling us he is the beginning and end of it all, lets leave it to him to unravel.

Have you ever thought asking God your question , why not he never said we could not ask him question he only said we should not question his will

Peace and light to you Neil!!

0 Replies

@Neil D,

Well, finally I have found someone noticing the importance of time in our cognition...
You may take a look of my discovery of "the theorem of observation".
In the theorem, I have mentioned a new timeline--- the Tam's timeline. It refers to our subjective observation to time actually. Time should begins from 0 to ∞. So, the normal timeline should be like this:

0----------------------------------------------------------------------->
When x=0, it is the original beginning of time.
When 0<x<∞, it is the process of time. Now we are in a spot on the timeline.
When x=∞, it is the end of time (the end of the world, maybe).
(Notice: in my opinion, the period that God exists is in x>∞. Of course God can come to the world if he wish... but foundamentally he is in the period of eternity. Only when x>∞, there is no time at all. In Eternity it should not be any "time" at all, according to the definition. You may think it is strange, but I will discuss this complicated topic in future)

However, in fact since we only can exprience immediately in the time of Present, the period of Past and the period of Future exist relatively. So, the timeline should be:

----------------------------------------0--------------------------------------->
When x=0, it is the present (now we exist in this small spot)
When x>0, it is the future.
When x<0, it is the past.
When x=∞, it is the general eternity (semi-eternity, since time still exist).
When x>∞, it is the specific eternity (when God exist foundamentally).

Such a timeline move in every per cent of second. The "Zero point" move forward to the right hand side for ever.

2 Replies

@patriarch,

patriarch;72992 wrote:

When x=∞

What meaning have you given to the symbol ∞?

1 Reply

@patriarch,

patriarch;72992 wrote:

Well, finally I have found someone noticing the importance of time in our cognition...
You may take a look of my discovery of "the theorem of observation".
In the theorem, I have mentioned a new timeline--- the Tam's timeline. It refers to our subjective observation to time actually. Time should begins from 0 to ∞. So, the normal timeline should be like this:

0----------------------------------------------------------------------->
When x=0, it is the original beginning of time.
When 0<x<∞, it is the process of time. Now we are in a spot on the timeline.
When x=∞, it is the end of time (the end of the world, maybe).
(Notice: in my opinion, the period that God exists is in x>∞. Of course God can come to the world if he wish... but foundamentally he is in the period of eternity. Only when x>∞, there is no time at all. In Eternity it should not be any "time" at all, according to the definition. You may think it is strange, but I will discuss this complicated topic in future)

However, in fact since we only can exprience immediately in the time of Present, the period of Past and the period of Future exist relatively. So, the timeline should be:

----------------------------------------0--------------------------------------->
When x=0, it is the present (now we exist in this small spot)
When x>0, it is the future.
When x<0, it is the past.
When x=∞, it is the general eternity (semi-eternity, since time still exist).
When x>∞, it is the specific eternity (when God exist foundamentally).

Such a timeline move in every per cent of second. The "Zero point" move forward to the right hand side for ever.

You state that god had a beginning, if this were true then god would be part of existence not the cause thereof. Making him a being a super being maybe but just a much higher evolved entity than we puny humans are

OR maybe I am not grasping your logic?

Have a look at this great link it is a little off topic sobeit
Neave Fractal ...zoom in on the Mandelbrot set

2 Replies

@validity,

validity;73937 wrote:

What meaning have you given to the symbol ∞?

I wondered that at first also. It looks like a mobius strip. My guess would be "infinity".

0 Replies

@Alan McDougall,

Alan McDougall;73942 wrote:

You state that god had a beginning, if this were true then god would be part of existence not the cause thereof. Making him a being a super being maybe but just a much higher evolved entity than we puny humans are

OR maybe I am not grasping your logic?

Have a look at this great link it is a little off topic sobeit
Neave Fractal ...zoom in on the Mandelbrot set

Maybe I am not clear enough...
In Tam's Timeline, when x=oo, it's only means somethings exists nearly eternally (for example, an atom will not change). But actually it exists on the timeline. But when x">oo", it is a real eternity that absolutely cannot found on the timeline... that's should be the period of "God's existence"...

It will open to a new metaphysical theme....

1 Reply

@Alan McDougall,

Alan McDougall;73942 wrote:

You state that god had a beginning, if this were true then god would be part of existence not the cause thereof. Making him a being a super being maybe but just a much higher evolved entity than we puny humans are

OR maybe I am not grasping your logic?

Have a look at this great link it is a little off topic sobeit
Neave Fractal ...zoom in on the Mandelbrot set

The way I look at god is that, god is the most fundamental thing that has always existed eternally from which life is possible. Traveling backward through eternity, if there ever was a time when this fundamental being, or force, or energy(whatever god is)did not exist, than no life would, since god is the most fundamental thing from which life comes, and since something cannot come from nothing.

Even if you dont believe in god...there must be a basic substance, a most fundamental thing that has always been. I say most fundamental, because if it consisted of, or arouse from another thing, than that thing would be god.

God does not need be a being for me, just the most fundamental thing from which life is possible that has existed through eternity.

God(life) seems to be the default state, without it, the default state would be nothingness, and im not even sure what that means.

Just as circular time has no beginning, and no end, so does god.

It is difficult to grasp the nature and existence of such a thing, if not impossible.

0 Replies

@patriarch,

Neil;73990 wrote:

I wondered that at first also. It looks like a mobius strip. My guess would be "infinity".

Oh wait there has been a development, ∞ has now become oo

patriarch;73995 wrote:

Maybe I am not clear enough...
In Tam's Timeline, when x=oo, it's only means somethings exists nearly eternally (for example, an atom will not change). But actually it exists on the timeline. But when x">oo", it is a real eternity that absolutely cannot found on the timeline... that's should be the period of "God's existence"...

It will open to a new metaphysical theme....

Thank you for clearing that up. Now I can see your idea is that the only period in which god exists is during the period of real eternity which conceptually and on your time line, never occurs during our existence. God never exists in our existence, rather god exists in a period outside outside our existence. We and god are mutually exclusive.

1 Reply

@Neil D,

Well, this is philosophy of science, not of religion.

I will now do something completely hypocritical and comment on the workings of the unconcious mind.
It's very simple to explain why dreams seem to happen suddenly. During most of your sleeping time, you experience no space. Since space and time are one, you therefore feel no time pass.
During your waking hours, time passes more quickly when you are less alert of your surroundings.
The fact also stands that your memory does not work nearly as well when you are asleep, so of course you wouldn't notice the long periods of nothingness.

0 Replies

@Neil D,

I believe our notions of time are cyclical, while time itself is linear.

This is because the act of seeing time as cyclical serves a pragmatic purpose. Firstly, let me say that the property of being cyclical involves a continuous sequence of repetitions. This is possible by using clocks, because once a revolution is complete, time starts again. This cycle is also represented in spherical geometry, which time is measured in longitudinal points and repeats again once the greenwich meridian spins one full revolution.

"Today" is a block of time resting between "yesterday" and "tomorrow", and this repeats itself continuously.

Time in itself, however, is just the measure of space. The notion of "now" lies between the imaginary points of "past" and "future". "Now" refers to matter and space as it exists in that very moment. "Past" (memories) and "future" (possibilities) are intangible and must only be abstract, while "now" is necessarily contingent on physical properties.

0 Replies

@Neil D,

Surely we simply see patterns in occurences, not time itself.
Time is as linear as a geometrically perfect line to us, moving at our unrelativistic speeds. We have circular clocks because it is convenient to take time by recurring events, but noone is fooled into thinking any Thursday ever happens again.

1 Reply

Infinite Linear Time Vs Circular Time

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know