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

by dhw, Saturday, September 11, 2010, 11:23 (4968 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

BALANCE_MAINTAINED: Humans have a nasty tendency towards arrogance, and we arrogantly assume that the ancient civilizations were ignorant and barbaric compared to us.-First of all, welcome to the forum, and thank you for reopening this thread with such an interesting post. The comment above strikes a chord of recognition, as it seems to me that regardless of whether God exists or not, our own civilization has lost touch with many of the ideas that our ancestors took for granted ... a healthy respect for Nature perhaps being at the forefront. -However, as I read what you wrote about timelessness, the thought occurred to me that without time existence would be both inconceivable and unbearable. I don't mean relative time, as in your quote from 2 Peter 3, but the total absence. Without time there could be no before and after, and therefore no change. We ourselves may moan about the effects of age, and the passing of our moments of happiness, but imagine being stuck at the same point in your life for ever. If there is a God, the same would surely apply, and I can only suppose that he would be bored out of his mind. Creating life would at least be a distraction from the endless sameness of his existence. There is a similar problem with the concept of an afterlife: what are we supposed to do throughout eternity or in a timeless void? It's only the onward movement that allows life to take on its variety. Without such movement ... which is totally dependent on the flow of time ... we, the rest of existence, and God himself might as well be dead.-A possible rejoinder to this is that we are ignorant, and the universe (or God) holds secrets to which we finite beings have no access. No-one can argue with that (although scientists like Hawking and Mlodinow have their own quasi-religious faith that we CAN unravel the secrets) ... but it's hard to build beliefs on ignorance, and time-based existence is the only one we actually know. There may be "something very intuitive about timelessness", but I think there's also something very exciting and even reassuring about time.-Once again, thank you for joining us. I'd be interested to know your own views on the importance of time and timelessness.