The Illusion of Time (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Friday, June 18, 2010, 15:38 (5271 days ago) @ xeno6696

MATT: The past: doesn't exist. The future? Doesn't exist. Only NOW exists.-Yet again you've come up with a rich thread, and I'm picking on this particular observation because of a fact which I've mentioned in the "brief guide" and which continues to run through my mind. Forgive me if I quote myself:
 
"When we look at a star that is 186,281 miles away, we see it as it was one second ago. If I had a telescope that could focus on an object 660 million miles away, I would see it as it was an hour ago. The greater the distance, the further back into the past we can see. [...] Theoretically, it means that nothing is lost so long as light is able to travel. A telescope on a planet X billion miles away would enable the observer to watch the crucifixion."-Theoretically, then, the past DOES exist. To this I'd like to add some comments made by Lord Rees, President of the Royal Society and Professor of Cosmology at Cambridge University ... presumably not the sort of scientist given to rash statements. An article in The Sunday Times quotes him as saying: "Some aspects of reality ... a unified theory of physics or a full understanding of consciousness ... might elude us simply because they're beyond human comprehension." Modern scientists have so far failed to reconcile the two "deeply contradictory theories" relating to the forces that govern the behaviour of the cosmos, and those that rule the microworld of atoms and particles. He believes that string theory is the most promising idea, and that particles "woven from space itself" could exist in 10 or 11 dimensions, whereas of course we can only experience three spatial dimensions plus time.-If you consider these comments, plus the time-light equation, you come to a point at which almost any scenario is feasible: multiple dimensions and universes, forms of existence different from our own, extensions of ourselves not merely as past images that never fade but even as constantly present images independent of three-dimensional flesh and blood and of time as we experience it. Of course that is all fantasy, but if Lord Rees is right and the greatest mysteries of the universe are and will remain beyond our comprehension, fantasy may be the only way in which we can transcend our limitations. Even if our scientists must, of course, continue their quest (he says thousands have been working on the problems for several decades and are still nowhere near an answer), it would be just as presumptuous to discount the experiences of the mystics as it would be to claim that eventually science will come up with satisfactory answers confined to our three dimensions plus time. In our present state at least, we remain profoundly ignorant ... which for some of us provides all the more reason to sit on the agnostic fence.-Your conclusion, Matt, that God can only know the past and present, and be entertained by the unpredictability of the future, had me smiling and nodding. That's if he's there, of course.