the past?

Car you might have to restate the q for benefit of the Average Clod (me)

Carbon, we're not looking at time in relation to our time.

The stars we see in the sky are not based on the star's past - it's still the present. When a light takes so long to reach us, that's just us seeing the light of the star - it's not "the star", so when we see the light, we're not seeing the star, therefore the light is "present".

dale, what carbon is referring to is the fact that in an expanding universe, everything is receding from us. Therefore, what is it we are seeing when we see something that is millions of light-years from us? Is it what was real a million lbillion years ago or, in view of the changes in distance, . . . ?

What makes it even more confusing is that the universe both expands and contracts.

Like a spiral?

There is no "correct" version of "time". Time is a concept useful to humanity in what we call "our conscious attempts to predict and control". It has no physical status in its own right and is inextricable from what call "space". Big bang theory conceives of space-time emanating from "a singularity", but theories are just temporary explanatory paradigms for current human purposes.

Finally, note that your phrase "...were nearer to us" becomes vacuous if you also concede there was no "us" at "the time".
Research "naive realism" for an overview of where your problems lie.

At the same time?

hi dale, most cosmology books seem to use the line "run the video backwards" so that the older positions of galaxies (matter) converge, maybe even to a singularity. All well and good, but when we observe these galaxies now, because of the speed of light, we say we are looking back x billions of years. Its like two versions of what the past is.

Many thanks for your replies. I'm just an interested amateur. So much of cosmology is mental wrestling to me.

Thanks Andy but I'm still totally in the dark. Maybe it's my incipient Alz's

Thanks but sorry Car, still in the dark (pun intended). I had understood that the further out you go the further apart they are

Ghat is, discounting the notion of Big Crunch of course

But that's the way I had always understood it

They are both correct.

1. We see the galaxies as they were (and at the location they were) at the point when the light left them.
2. They have continued to travel away from us since the light left them.

There is no contradiction here.

Yea Car I don't see one either. What are they trying to say

Or what is it they've said that I don't comprehend

No, we see the light, not what is now long dead.

Thanks Mind, but since this seems so very obvious I still can't understand the thrust of Car's OP

Sensation and perception rules what it can be the best answer.

Years ago I discovered a law of perception that is based solely in factual observation. I called it "The Perceptional Law" which states that we can perceive solely the present of the universe.

This perception applies to everything that exists regardless the distance.
We humans, cannot perceive the past neither the future with our senses, so any theory encouraging the idea that we see the universe as it was in its past is just a crap theory.

In order to understand the process of perception of far away bodies, you must learn that we humans can't see the traveling light. This is to say, for our eyes light is transparent. What we can see in the universe is the images of bodies and illumination.

With this fact in your hand, you will learn that the only way to see the image of a body is when light actually is reflecting in its surface. For example, we see the Sun not because its light arrives to us (light from the Sun never travels as "images"), but because when nuclear activity is in progress in this body, light comes out of it, but also light travels against its own source, in this case, the Sun and illuminates the surface.

So, with this another universal rule that we perceive objects solely when light reflects in the surface of objects, you will learn that if you see a star, that this star exists like it is in your sighting at the moment of observation. (this is to say, simultaneously)

Just think about it, if the image you see of the star is not the star itself but the image of the star "as it was 1 million years ago", the question is, where is the star at this moment?

As no scientists can answer this simple question, as no one of them have a single clue of how to answer it, there you have it, just don't pay attention to those in ignorance.

Before listening crap theories about light and the images of objects, remember this fact, that our senses cannot perceive the past and that we cannot see the light coming from stars, and that light from stars do not travel as images.

The Perceptional Law is the greatest discovery ever made, because it rules over every branch of knowledge.

Car's OP is calling it a star, when it's not the star we're seeing - it's the light of the star. The star is dead behind that light we see, which it created, that is coming towards our planet still. There's no relation point confusion between us and space - it's a mistake on the OP's assessment.

Are you late for a lot of appointments? Get your watch fixed.

I would be a lot more prone to consider your "perceptional law" (it's actually a theory, rather than a "law") quite seriously if your tone in propounding it wasn't quite so arrogantly self-aggrandizing. You dictate rather than explain.