Is time physical?

[Sparko]

What periods? What coordinates? What is the coordinate for the early universe or baby Sparko? Yes in A theory there is only one time, now. But time flows, there is past present and future. Time is not static

You can use any coordinate system you want. Nanoseconds, Planck time, Dates. Just like you can use any coordinate system you want to measure locations in space, feet, inches, centimeters, etc.

Using our dating system the time coordinate for baby sparko is 1961. The spacial coordinate is an unspecified location in Germany, Earth, Solar System, Milky Way Galaxy.

[seer]

You can use any coordinate system you want. Nanoseconds, Planck time, Dates. Just like you can use any coordinate system you want to measure locations in space, feet, inches, centimeters, etc.

Using our dating system the time coordinate for baby sparko is 1961. The spacial coordinate is an unspecified location in Germany, Earth, Solar System, Milky Way Galaxy.

How can 1961 have any meaning if time is static and flow is an illusion? And this brings up an interesting thought. In this universe you are both an unsaved sinner and a saved child of God.

[Sparko]

How can 1961 have any meaning if time is static and flow is an illusion? And this brings up an interesting thought. In this universe you are both an unsaved sinner and a saved child of God.

Or you could look at it as I was always saved in God's eyes even when I didn't know it. Which goes along with the verse.


Ephesians 1:4
According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world,

[seer]

Or you could look at it as I was always saved in God's eyes even when I didn't know it. Which goes along with the verse.


Ephesians 1:4
According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world,

No doubt, but if B Theory is correct somewhere in the universe you are still an unsaved sinner. And still pooping your diapers.

[Sparko]

No doubt, but if B Theory is correct somewhere in the universe you are still an unsaved sinner. And still pooping your diapers.

No. If I am correct then I was saved even before I asked God to save me. He always knew he was going to save me because I always did ask him to.

The B-theory explains a lot more of such verses than A theory does. Like how Jesus says nobody can snatch us from God's hand and that we can KNOW we are saved. And that we HAVE eternal life now. And how God knows what is going to happen. And before you ask something like "yeah well what if you died before you asked God to save you?" - It couldn't happen because God already knew I would be saved. Before he even created the universe.

[seer]

No. If I am correct then I was saved even before I asked God to save me. He always knew he was going to save me because I always did ask him to.

OK, middle knowledge...

The B-theory explains a lot more of such verses than A theory does. Like how Jesus says nobody can snatch us from God's hand and that we can KNOW we are saved. And that we HAVE eternal life now. And how God knows what is going to happen. And before you ask something like "yeah well what if you died before you asked God to save you?" - It couldn't happen because God already knew I would be saved. Before he even created the universe.

No B theory brings up many more problems, as I have mentioned. Mostly, it is irrational. The universe is golf sized, the universe is not golf sized...

[Sparko]

OK, middle knowledge...



No B theory brings up many more problems, as I have mentioned. Mostly, it is irrational. The universe is golf sized, the universe is not golf sized...

The universe was golf sized at a specific time, but not at this specific time. Think of time as a location. Like space. I was in Germany and now I am not. Just as my space location changed so did my time location change.

[seer]

The universe was golf sized at a specific time, but not at this specific time. Think of time as a location. Like space. I was in Germany and now I am not. Just as my space location changed so did my time location change.

Good grief brother! There is no specific time in B theory, time is static!

[Machinist]

If time is static how can there be any change?

It's still difficult to tell who's arguing what here. I know you are A and Sparko is B, but it seems to me that the implications of these views are getting mixed up, like someone here is cherry picking what features of their theory of time they want to be included in their own personal conception of time.

OK, Block Universe is B theory. B for Block. Got it. I know we've covered this before, I just didn't retain much of it.

If you believe in a Block Universe, as Sparko does, then according to this article at least, there is no flow of time.

Also, I don't see any reason that Sparko is frustrated that you are arguing A theory as there are many highly educated physicists out there that subscribe to that view. Apparently, there is some credibility to such a view:

“I’m sick and tired of this block universe,” said Avshalom Elitzur, a physicist and philosopher formerly of Bar-Ilan University. “I don’t think that next Thursday has the same footing as this Thursday. The future does not exist. It does not! Ontologically, it’s not there.”

Einsteins view is also quite curious. And he's always the goto example for brains:

“Now he has departed this strange world a little ahead of me,” Einstein wrote of his friend’s passing. “That signifies nothing. For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

Apparently he was a Block Theory Purist. It seems that Sparko is embracing Block theory, but trying to add in some A theory with it. Which could lead to something credible, perhaps a C theory. You never know. Theories come and go.

However, from an aesthetic point of view, I do like Sparko's idea that every second, a new universe is being created.

Seer, you asked how could there be any change in a static universe. Apparently, from this question, I gather that in B theory, everything is happening simultaneously, which also seems to be confirmed by the article that I linked. At this point, Sparko seems to want to incorporate distinct moments of time, slices of time in his B theory, which doesn't work according to the prevailing views of B theory. Now he may be on to some other new model perhaps, some reconciliation of static and dynamic. If a block universe exists, then yes, everything is all at once and it's all fixed. I'm sure you could fit free will in their somehow too. Sparko said that God foreknew even before He created him, that He would save Sparko, yet Sparko had the autonomy to choose. Right there, you are reconciling opposites. It's a union of opposites of sorts, but not necessarily illogical. In fact, it's not illogical at all if God knows beforehand what a person will choose by using their own free will to choose. I struggled with that for a long time, until Sparko one day explained it in such a way that reasonated with me (I just made up that word by typo) It resonated in my reasoning faculties.

I think I may have an affinity for both A and B, because I do like the idea that everything is happening all at once, that the big bang is still here. I can't conceptualize what that could possibly mean, but it sounds exciting. And I do like the idea that a new universe is being created every second, or nanosecond. I think ultimately, that's what a model is: a mental picture; and either you like the aesthetics of that picture or you don't.

[seer]

I think I may have an affinity for both A and B, because I do like the idea that everything is happening all at once, that the big bang is still here. I can't conceptualize what that could possibly mean, but it sounds exciting. And I do like the idea that a new universe is being created every second, or nanosecond. I think ultimately, that's what a model is: a mental picture; and either you like the aesthetics of that picture or you don't.

How about this, we don't have a clue what time is. Perhaps it is extra natural,,,

[Machinist]

How about this, we don't have a clue what time is. Perhaps it is extra natural,,,

I would bet that ultimate reality is extra natural, yes. God is extra natural. He is, after all, the something rather than nothing.

Of course, I wouldn't be able to follow up on that bet until the hereafter. Hopefully, we'll talk then.

[Machinist]

I just noticed I said "then". Funny. In one view, we're already talking in the hereafter as we speak.

[GKC_fan]

How can 1961 have any meaning if time is static and flow is an illusion?

This is like saying that marking a location on the floor of your house two feet from the door is meaningless because the floor is static. They are completely different characteristics.

Static merely means unmoving or unchanging; it doesn't mean that the floor is only one point in size, that it's all packed together on top of itself. No; the floor is large and spread out, and it's also static.

The floor isn't flowing, but we can flow on it. It's the same with time (apparently); in which case our speaking of time as flowing is literally/objectively incorrect but experientially/subjectively correct, like when we say "the sun rose today."

If time is static and we are flowing along time like we flow/move along a static floor, then every point on the static timeline is still just as real and just as separate as the different locations on the static floor of a house. So we aren't and cannot be at every point on the timeline simultaneously, anymore than we can be at every point on the floor simultaneously.

[GKC_fan]

As Stoic pointed out, God can be at every time point simultaneously, since (it would seem) that he's outside or above the filmstrip of our timeline. But we can't be, because we are on the filmstrip and we can only move forward and at a regular pace. [I tried to add this sentence to my previous comment, but the Tweb matrix wouldn't allow me. ??]

[rogue06]

As Stoic pointed out, God can be at every time point simultaneously, since (it would seem) that he's outside or above the filmstrip of our timeline. But we can't be, because we are on the filmstrip and we can only move forward and at a regular pace. [I tried to add this sentence to my previous comment, but the Tweb matrix wouldn't allow me. ??]

Welcome to Tweb.

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