The present is eternity..

Cav, you say that timetravel is within the realm of posibillity when it comes to science, and I am inclined to disagree with you though I am not educated in physics. But in philosophy? How so? And I assure you, I have not mixed philosophy with religion in my head Still I think timetravel is an idea born out of misunderstandings, and not within the realm of possibillity. For explanation I would like to refer to the post that started this thread. But I am interested in how you mean timetravel is theoretically possible..

Cyracuz, Einstein laid down the scientific theory that time travel might (and that is 'might', as it's never been accomplished yet) be possible with his theory of relativity. I am just going to post a link here to a neat primer on 'special relativity':

http://science.howstuffworks.com/relativity.htm

If you want, I'll address the time travel debate in philosophy a bit later.

I want to go back to the water metaphor. (And then disappear for a couple of weeks, since my schedule is going to interfere with computer time.)

You've got the river image versus the pond; I am drawn more strongly to the pond. Reading the early posts in this thread constituted an almost spiritual experience for me. Thanks, cyracuz and JL; I don't have many of those.

A vital part of the image is the person in the water; or, for purposes of comfort, the boat. He (or she) has two means of travel; to paddle, or drift. Paddling is done if you want to reach a specific shore, or travel down the river toward the future, if it is a river and not a pond. This requires more effort, and you must fight the current and the elements. Drifting is less strenuous, but you have no control over your destination. In time-centered philosophies, the destination is everything; in nontime-centered philosophies, the journey matters more, and the destinations are all the same.

Is paddling representative of western thought, and drifting eastern? Or did my boat just sink and leave me all wet?

Yes cav, I am interested in hearing your philosophical take on timetravel. I am somewhat familiar with the works of einstein. But I strongly believe that time stands still, and that it is evolution that moves through it. So it's kind of hard to go somewhere you never left...

Greyfan, the river and the pond model aren't in oposition to eachother as I see it. In my understanding the pond contains the river. There are currents in the pond, it is never still, yet it never goes anywhere. All change is within it. Yet we are not persons in the water, or boats on it. We are the drops that together make the total body of water...

I do not think it is as black and white as eastern and western thinking styles. But you have a good point. There is a saying that goes: "If you try to control everything you will fail. It is only when you surrender you can begin to have some control of your life..." But how does that fit the debate? Since we do not know the destination we cannot say wether it is right to drift or to paddle, as you put it. So maybe your boat did sink. And maybe you are better off for it...

Well Cyracruz, I'll start with this: Time does not stand still, and neither do humans. You seem to be proposing that we live through time, but time continues after we are gone. Perhaps it moves slower than our physical beings, at least according to how we measure it, but I do not agree that it is stagnant.

Cyracuz you have messed with my metaphor. No fair. The River vs Pond models were intended to convey a message about the reification of time. Your metaphorical depictions of humans as drops of water is very good; but it ignores the point of my metaphor. :wink:
It is my intuition (for better or for worse) that Einstein's model also misses my point. We can travel close to the speed of light and then return to earth much older than our stay-at-home fellows, but that does not mean that we have, in the strict sense, "time traveled." We just transferred ourselves (metaphorically speaking) to a different POND, as opposed to jumping ahead on the river. Our stay-at-home fellows lived at the pace of the changing surface of their pond, and so did we "time travelers," but in our new pond, one with a faster pace of surface changes. When we returned to earth, we returned to the same PRESENT time, but older.

Time is eternal. It doesn't matter whether we acknowledge it or not; it's been going on for millions of years before we were here, and will continue for millions of years after we are gone. That's eternal.

C.I., that's what I think about Reality. My knowing or not knowing what it is will not alter it in any way. So, I just like to relax and enjoy it.

Sorry about the metaphor JL. Wasn't my meaning to usurp your eloquence..

I like to think about it this way, cav: If we were moving forward, and time was also moving forward, wouldn't everything stand still? It is my impression that the present is eternal, inescapable and infinite. Whatever we do to alter our perception of time can only be done in the present, and so we cannot travel to the past, because it is non-existent. So is the future. Wherever we went we would only take the present with us, even if we managed to alter the speed of unfolding events. JL has a very good explanation on this in his post, and I agree with him in so far as I understand him... I do propose that we live through time, and further that time cannot exist if there is not continuation. I propose simply that what we call time is essentially an imaginary negative of continuation (evolution). Yet another illution to paint our reality...

Well, I am probably incapable of following this thread...Still, on this earth I have travelled ahead (to tomorrow) in real time on a short aeroplane flight going with the earth's rotation and against its rotation (to yesterday) taking several more hours....(leaping from pond to pond, like Nobody says) but I am only time travelling because I am positioning myself in its orbit.

shepaints, When we returned from Japan to California last month, we left Osaka on April 5 at 3:10 PM and arrived on the same day in San Francisco at 8:45 AM - after more than 9 hours in the air.

Interesting isn't it CI? Still, we can't travel to the
day before yesterday, or the day after tomorrow!

C.I., weaker souls would consider that a nihilistic observation.

Well, it may not have been the intention of this thread, but it has made me so much more aware and appreciative of "right here, right now".....

with thanks!

sp

That's great ShePaints, because there is no other place or time in which to be. Being WITH your reality is always better, I think, than being absent minded.

You ever thought back about something you did 5 years ago or so, and thought, "Jeez, what was I thinking? I was such an idiot then."

Following that thought: Looking 5 years into the future, how will you look back and see yourself now?

Are we currently idiots to our future selves?

-ex(tongue in cheek just a bit)tra

Infinity would mean there's no end. There is an end to time. There was a beginning (big bang) and there will be an end (of time itself) 'where/when every possibility has occured"

You can say past and future are hypothetical and non-existent. The present is only virtually existentent, at most. To say it's mere theory and nothing more, does not make it any less real. Give me one example where the linear formation of time fails to be chronologically correct and one could conclude that past never existed nor that the future will exist. It would be true (in a i.e. buddhist manner of speaking) to say that the present is all that matters and all that exists(NOW). But to say that past and future do not exist simply because they have existed or does not exist yet, does not exclude the concepts from being any less real. If one were to follow the idea that only present exists, and the following moment of 'presentness' occurs, one would have to say that the previous moment doesn't exist anymore(true) but in the train of thought that past does not exist you've excluded the previous moment from existence. This is just a little game rather than an answer. Like a supermarket:
Tomorrow, everything's free.
And the sign remains.

To say there is only present is just as (in)valid as to say there is only past, or that there is only future. Only one reason could be given to increase the validity of the present and it is merely one to give our lives purpose, to help us live it to the fullest and all that mambo jambo. You might aswell say there's a heaven. Empty, meaningless words to keep you alive. This madness drives me to Nietzsche.

Rex, I agree that strictly speaking there is no present without past and future. The concept of present makes no sense without the concepts of past and future, and, of course "past" makes no sense without present and future, and the same for the meaning of "future." What I meant is that I am sitting here writing this to you and not missing the quality of the experience because I am thinking about a past event or anticipating a future one. They are alright, of course. But I prefer just writing to you. It has more reality than do my historical and futuristic fantasies.

JL,

Sounds like this almost gets back to

"Life is what happens to you while you are making plans to do other things" ?

- J. Lennon

a priori


I agree, they do exist in the light that they have meaning to us. But in a larger sense, where did there existence come from? It is a priori knowledge and as such both the past, present, and future have always existed.