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

by dhw, Wednesday, September 15, 2010, 14:01 (4943 days ago) @ xeno6696

MATT: You seem to be reasoning, "If time doesn't exist, then nothing that happened in the past happened."-I wrote that "our memories ... even though they can't capture the reality of what was once fleetingly real ... nevertheless relate to something that WAS real." -MATT: I read your issue here as that the absence of time negates cause and effect? You seem to be reasoning, "If time doesn't exist, then nothing that happened in the past happened."-In both cases you have inverted my argument. I am saying that past realities, and cause and effect, provide the evidence that time exists, i.e. that since we have cause and effect, there has to be an onward movement, and that is what we call time. The fact that time is relative, and that we have created our own system of measurements is not the issue, nor is the fact that present perceptions of reality immediately turn into memories of perceptions of reality. -You write: "What creates time? For you to state that there is an actual flow, you have to be able to tell me what it is. I say that time is the difference between what I measured [at the present moment] yesterday, and [at the present moment] today. There is no "flow". There just is."-I can't answer the first question, any more than I can answer what creates life, but that doesn't mean life/time don't exist. However, your definition does, I think, almost settle the dispute, because we are clearly talking about different concepts of time. Yours is one of measurement, mine is one of movement. I think this is best illustrated by a metaphor offered to us by someone whose opinions we both greatly respect:-"Teachings such as the Prajna paramita Sutra (diamond sutra) focus the concept that existence is a raging river, upon which man attempts to stake his claim. The past: doesn't exist. The future? Doesn't exist. Only NOW exists." (xeno6696, 15 June at 03.59)-In this image I would equate "time" with "existence". Time is not the past, present or future, but the river. You can try to grasp it, but the moment you do, it's gone. Interestingly this is the combination of nouns used in the Collins definition of time: "the continuous passage of existence in which events pass from a state of potentiality in the future, through the present, to a state of finality in the past." The only problem I see here is that you say time is separate from events. As I've said at the start of this post, my argument is that just as the blown-down tree is proof that the invisible wind exists, events (cause and effect, if you like) are proof that time exists.


Complete thread:

 RSS Feed of thread

powered by my little forum