Language and Logic (General)

by David Turell , Wednesday, April 09, 2014, 21:11 (3660 days ago) @ dhw


> Dhw: Is time "caused" by events, or are events simply the means by which we humans recognize and measure time, through the sequence of past/before, present/now, future/after? Even if we were all to agree that the big bang marked the first event we think we know of, that is hardly in itself a guarantee that there were no events before it.-Yes the big bang was preceded by the universe's origin, but we cannot see taht part of our past currently. The hot bang part occurred after inflation, accrding to current theory and supported by gravity wave results.
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> dhw: However, I'm puzzled by your picture of an entity that does not change in any way and is not associated with any event. Such an entity might just as well not be there! Since I know you are referring to your god, which you call a universal intelligence, are you then telling us that the eternal something may be a mind that never had a single thought for ever and ever until suddenly it created our universe? -Again, in your reasoning, you are anthromorphizing whomever God is. I have no idea how a universal mind has thoughts, if it does in our sense of thinking.-> dhw: I can think of at least three alternatives that seem to me just as logical, if not more so, and that all entail a passage from past to present to future (which is how I would define time): 1) eternally non-conscious active energy, for ever producing matter; 2) eternally conscious energy, for ever producing matter (= a god); 3) eternal unconscious energy producing matter through which consciousness evolves. -Most philosophers accept the idea that time and space start together. Spacetime as envisioned by Einstein works, which to me means they must always be combined.I generally accept possibility #2. A timeless energy/mind which produces spacetime as a universe, perhaps one after another through eternity. There is no time between those universes, just energy/mind. I think #1 is an impossibility as matter is organized in too complex a way to just be spewed out in an non-planned and designed way. And #3 is equally unreasonable, for the reason that consciousness relies on a very complex structure in the brain. -I must say I have difficulty distinguishing your do-nothing-think-nothing-change-nothing-eventless-timeless something from George's alternative, which is nothing at all until matter somehow (we'd all love to know how) "quietly began" to produce itself.