Posted on 10/10/2012 10:41:01 AM PDT by ShadowAce
WONDERFUL observation, dearest sister in Christ! The paths not taken — relegated to the "hyperplane" — probably fall into the realm of imaginary or complex numbers. (Just to keep the mathematical analogies going here!)
Don't sweat any analogy to Everett. We're dealing with problems of the One Cosmos. Everett is dealing with problems of generating and justifying other cosmic systems altogether.
I've been trying to grasp the meaning of MHGinTN's extraordinary meditations on time, captured in his marvelous article at Post #37.
[Since we three have been chatting up this issue in private FReepMail in recent times, I hope it's okay to bring some of our issues into public view here.]
An excerpt:
... Time may embrace greater than linear reality ... moment by moment construction of the past is a linear nature, whereas present is a planar nature composed of all the 'arriving' moments on an near infinite number of timelines.Dear brother in Christ, please help me here. I seem to lack any understanding of what "1/2" of an infinity may be. But then, when I heard that it was mathematically demonstrable that infinities come in different sizes, I was perplexed then, too. (Topology is not my strong suit.)
From the backside of this planar present eternity would appear as a plane, but from the otherside of the planar present eternity would appear as a near infinite number of points (moments) each able to extend 'linearly' into a 'nother' planar present of '1/2 infinite directions'.
I applaud your descriptions of the linear and planar aspects of time. I feel sure you are right about the volumetric extension as well.
It seems both of us are bumping up hard against the crux of the problem: We are, in effect, trying to have a "dialogue" with God. But soon we find we cannot do that, without first ascribing to Him such characteristics as "position" or "movement in time." The ever-transcendent God has neither: He is wholly "outside" spacetime however understood.
Yet as you truthfully wrote, dear brother:
On the one hand, Eternity must be real within the context of the creation, thus God remains greater than eternity because God created the 'bubble' within which eternity may be an temporal expression. On the other hand, perhaps eternity is not even a temporal expression, but we humans have conceived of it that way. In such a context, perhaps God divided eternity in order to create the expression of dimension time for our existence.God created both Heaven and Earth. I take this to mean that both Eternity and the temporality of His Creation are in His Gift. Or as you suggest, "God divided eternity in order to create the expression of dimension time for our existence."
I really liked your "bubble!" Indeed to me it seems that Eternity is the context, or crucible, in which all spatiotemporal events actually come to pass.
Dearest Alamo-Girl, my sister in Christ, thank you ever so much for your outstanding observations, for "hosting" this exchange, and for the wonderfully engaging links!!!
God diminishes none of His transcendence by functioning as The Holy Spirit holding the unbelievably delicate balance of the Universe together, and in being the earnest of our inheritance present in our human spirit through Christ's work. And God compromises none of His transcendence by indwelling Jesus through Jesus's human spirit made Divine forever more. As Creator, perhaps God is 'outside' the Creation, but as The Holy Spiirt and as Christ, He is with us, as the name Emmanuel was given to mean.
In reference to your reply at 142, dear MHGinTN, I understand that some believe God created "all that there is" within Himself - and some believe God created "all that there is" apart from Himself.
But either way, or indeed any way, there is nothing of which anything can be made ex nihilo but God's will. And He did incarnate as our Lord Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit indwells us even now.
But He does not indwell all people or all things. For that reason, I suspect that whereas "all that there is" originates and sustains "in" His creative will that He stays apart from much of it to accomplish His permissive will.
But that may again raise the never-ending debate of predestination (prophecy) versus free will (commandments.)
God's Name is I AM.
BB, my Dear Sister in Christ, I fear I must side with MHGinTN on this one.
God is not only omniscient and omnipotent, but omnipresent at all loci in His creation.
Per our discussion of the "Universal NOW", I believe that He can not only "see" the spin status of every subatomic particle in His creation at any instant, if required for the accomplishment of His Will, His omnipotence enables Him to modify that state to effect His desired conclusion.
Humans call such changes "evolution" or "development" or "progress" -- or, if the result appears to contravene one of His "laws", (E=MC², R=ρL/A, PV=nrT, etc....) we call it "miraculous". '-)
He is, indeed, "here". I am ever-conscious of His presence...
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After all, His Name is, "I AM"...
Praise God!!!
And you, dear brother in Christ, wrote: "BB, my Dear Sister in Christ, I fear I must side with MHGinTN on this one. "
My dear brother in Christ, you acknowledge agreement with what MHGinTN wrote:
God is in Christ, reconciling we flawed beings to Himself, thus He is intimately in contact with spacetime in the person of Jesus Christ. That is how He can reconcile us to Himself, through The Christ, The Son of the Everliving God.TX, you provided the following amplification of MHGinTN's remarks:
God diminishes none of His transcendence by functioning as The Holy Spirit holding the unbelievably delicate balance of the Universe together, and in being the earnest of our inheritance present in our human spirit through Christ's work. And God compromises none of His transcendence by indwelling Jesus through Jesus's human spirit made Divine forever more. As Creator, perhaps God is 'outside' the Creation, but as The Holy Spirit and as Christ, He is with us, as the name Emmanuel was given to mean.
God is not only omniscient and omnipotent, but omnipresent at all loci in His creation.But it seems to me the two of you aren't exactly talking about the same thing in the same way. MHGinTN's argument seems to go mainly to theology; yours, to a more "scientific" understanding.
Per our discussion of the "Universal NOW", I believe that He can not only "see" the spin status of every subatomic particle in His creation at any instant, if required for the accomplishment of His Will, His omnipotence enables Him to modify that state to effect His desired conclusion.
Humans call such changes "evolution" or "development" or "progress" — or, if the result appears to contravene one of His "laws", (E=MC2, R=ρL/A, PV=nrT, etc....) we call it "miraculous".
I'm with both of you "in spirit"; but have some thoughts and questions on points.
For one thing, I really do stick with my observation that God is entirely beyond spacetime. The Eternal Now is not in the same temporal order that human beings experience as Time (spacetime). I think there is a correspondence between the Eternal Now and its relation to Time that is directly analogous to the Ayn Sof — God is "No-THING" (that is, uncreated) in relation to "THINGS" — i.e., phenomena of the created world: The Eternal Now is (categorically) "No-TIME."
So for openers, it seems to me if we try to model the Universe in such as way as to include the Eternal Now as a temporal dimension, we speak nonsense.
There has been in all of human history one exception to this "rule": The 32 years during which the Son of God was incarnate as Jesus Christ, Son of Man, around 2,100 years ago [according to our spacetime coordinates :^)]. I suspect that was the only "time" when the Eternal Now and our ordinary sense of Time ever "blended." Then Christ resurrected, back to His Father in Heaven. He has not been "in" the world of creation ever since. He sent the Holy Spirit to be with us after His departure from this world. But it seems to me that the Holy Spirit is not "in" the world either, only in those human souls who respond to His divine call.
I believe that when Christ came, He came not only to redeem us from the sin of Adam, thus to restore the possibility of being reunited with our Father in Heaven; He came also to show us what we humans are, as God-created imago Dei.
To me, the imago Dei is the soul, which incarnates in the human body. The soul is not subject to causes that arise in space and time. Only the physical body is so subject. So we might say the soul already ever lives in the Eternal Now; only the body is subject to Time. To me, this irreducible dualism is the ultimate human condition.
I haven't got the slightest doubt that God — being Omniscient — always and already knows the spin status of every subatomic particle in His Creation, just as He can number the hairs on our heads, or have knowledge of any and every sparrow that ever falls here on Earth....
But to me, this does not suggest that God need be the "micromanager" of everything that happens on Earth. To create man in His image — as possessing reason and free will — and to give him dominion over all the orders of Creation as His steward, charged with making the Creation "fruitful," to me suggests that God created an "under-determined" world. That is, He has left a role for man in the unfolding of His Creation, starting with the privilege He accorded Adam, directing him to NAME all the creatures of the Earth He had made. To me this suggests that God desires divine–human cooperation WRT the unfoldment ("evolution") of His Creation — which from the human side could only proceed as an act of (timeless) soul, not of (in-time) body.
Isaac Newton's concept of sensorium Dei seems like an attempt to relate God to His creation in scientific terms, similarly as you seem to do here, dear TX. Instantly, Leibniz had a field-day with this notion, accusing Newton of engaging in "pantheism." It seemed to Leibniz that Newton was trying to make God somehow coterminous with the world. But I think this may have been a misunderstanding of what Newton was aiming at. His sensorium Dei looks a whole lot like a "field" to me, and thus a created entity in spacetime. The point is this field (although universal) and God are NOT one and the same. One might say this field is an effect of the Presence of God, but is definitely not God Himself.
Heaven stands in relation to the Creation as the human soul stands in relation to the physical body: They are two entirely different categorical orders that affect each other, both of which are necessary to grasp the "all that there is." [In this sense, they are like "complementarities," seemingly mutually-exclusive entities, both of which turn out to be necessary to the complete description of the "all that there is."]
Thus two time orders impinge on man — he lives at the intersection of Time and Timelessness, or the Eternal Now, because he is a creature constituted of soul and body.
Anyhoot, to wrap up, If Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit have effects in this world of Creation, it is because of the openness of human souls to receive them. Nothing in science can tell you anything at all about such matters; for science deals only with the physical aspects of creation, the "time-bound" parts of it. Neither can science tell you a single thing about the human soul.
But ultimately, the Creation swims in Timelessness, in the Eternal Now — of God's Being, Word, Truth, and Will.
I have no idea whether anything I've written here makes sense to you. I'm not here to "correct" you, nor even to "persuade" you to my point of view. I'm just saying (FWIW): This is my point of view from where I sit right now, as best as I can put it into words....
Thank you so very much, dear brothers in Christ, for exploring these matters with me, and for sharing your wonderfully thought-provoking insights!
God's Name is I AM: Our very physical existence depends on His Being. He is Perfect undivided Substance, the "No-THING" Who created space and time as the manifold to receive His Creation, Who articulates as three Persons (depending on context). Our physical bodies are deaf to such notions. But our souls know — or can know — that God IS Emmanuel, Present, with us who seek Him. (If we seek Him, He will find us....)
And may He ever bless you both, my very dear brothers in Christ!
Thank you!
bb, Dear Sister, I believe our Lord has given you those words to zero us in on expressing and unifying critical elements of the nature of "all things" that we have been converging upon throughout our long-term 'sharings' re creation and our Creator!!
For a while now, I have been "building" (in outline form) what I view as a "grand unified theory" that delineates -- and ties together -- many elements of Divine "truth" that are revealed to us in His Word -- and that may be expressed in terms that have been discussed in this thread.
For months, now, bb, you and I have been sort of "talking past" each other -- because, IMHO, our Lord has blessed each of us with viewpoints and understandings that are revealing vital "truths". But HE has blessed us by having us approach these issues from nearly diametrically opposed viewpoints -- both of which are correct!. And both are necessary to full understanding...
And now, you have brought us together in a manner as dramatic as the driving of the golden spike on the transcontinental railroad -- or the historic meeting beneath Jerusalem of the diggers of Hezekiah's tunnel! Praise the LORD!!!!
I am so excited that I can hardly sit still in my recliner beneath my lap desk!! Yet, I am thoroughly frustrated, because my brain and fingers can't handle the "thought / communication throughput load" imposed on them -- by this cumbersome medium... ;-}
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A few months ago, I must admit, I became somewhat disgruntled by your "twisting" of my discussion of "Universal NOW" by expounding on your term, "Eternal Now". [ Right, A-G? :-) ]
But, at the same time, I began, like Hezekiah's tunnelers, to "hear" you approaching ever-more clearly and loudly.
As a scientist, I have been approaching this "junction" from the temporal, mortal, physical side. And you, IMHO, have been approaching from the eternal, immortal, spiritual side. And, now, finally, we meet...
In our discussions of multiple spatial and temporal dimensions, I see a clear "place" for 'your' "Eternal Now" domain, and also for 'my' "Universal NOW" domain. As you so clearly pointed out, they intersected during the incarnated lifetime of our Lord, Jesus -- here on Earth. And, as A-G and I have agreed, they also touched at that (spatially, temporally and physically) infinitesimal "point" we call "Ex nihilo creation".
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Not only have we "converged", your last essay-post was LOADED with inspired truths!! I'll not comment on them here, but, (if I have the energy) will do a "between the lines" commentary / celebration of your post and its many "goodies"...
Again, Thank You, Dear Sister in Christ, for your patience with me -- and for sharing your wonderful insights!
IMHO, we have a new beginning for great enlightenment! :-)
To HIM be the glory!!
FReepMail for you...
I sympathize with TXnMA's reaction, I'm gobsmacked with all the insights you've brought to the table.
Thank God for both of you!
I have adopted the use of the term 'where/when' to identify continua in which things exist and events occur. I use a framework of at least four expressions each for dimension space and dimension time. A thing existing (that is not God, that is, a created thing) will be linked to a where/when framework. For the photon, for instance, the where is 'point space' and the when 'moment time'.
[Imagine a plane from which a linear track stretches to another plane, the track being means for arrival of a moment event from the arrival plane perspective--receiving the inforation packet (the track is past linear) but pointing toward a future present from the emission plane; while in the linear/past to present continuum, no time passes for the packet. The notion is to conceive ONLY of information transmission, The actual Universe bubble is a volume in which planar and linear and moment/point continua expressions exist and occur.]
A packet of energy has existence in a where/when; the packet has a little pinch of space and a little bit of time, and for the photon the existence continuum is linear/planar. (Quarks may not exist in the same continuum, thus they effect our spacetime as if an 'impact' where their continuum intersects the continuum of the elementary particle and/or our spacetime coordinates.
A photon crosses the universe always in the present (planar temporal) of when it was 'emitted' from its source. The wave nature of the photon is derived from its planar temporal status, but upon impacting any thing/being detected by the surroubding universe, the linear/planar collapses to the point out of the linear and moment out of the planar.
The photon carries a 'message' from the present of its emission source but we have been constructed to sense only these planar temporal effects as past events (linear temporal events, or said another way, past events). In that sense, photons are 'carriers' of a temporal aspect and are thus aligned in our sensing along linear temporal reasoning by our brain (and of course our spacetime universe, for the message being transmitted is a present of the emission). AG, this may be a clue as to what gravity is, as a non-electromagnetic event, due to the temporal/spatial orientation/continuum of gravity information transmission. The nature of gravity may be due to the ealiest expressings of dimensions space and time, there the photon is a more advanced packet and the field effect of gravity a less advanced expression of space and time ... the gravity effect may be the warping of the spatial by the collective 'lump' of temporal that would be 'in' any collection of 'things'.
Our limitation of sensing only past events may be essentially a characteristic of the physical body our soul inhabits while alive on earth. I imagine the nature of our existence as a sort of 'condensing from/of' a soul, in yjr semse of becoming more limited in our spatio-temporal existence, sort of like water vapor condenses into droplets.
Here's the part that may cause stumbling: any thing which exists (that is not God), exists in a where/when framework of some type. Even the soul exists in a spatio-temporal continuum, but we are not made to be able to sense that where/when ... yet. The Bible tells us that when Christ returns, the souls/spirits of those who have died in Christ shall God bring with Him. In my reasoning, this means the soul/spirit exist in some spatio-temporal framework thus the person/soul can be brought (a thing experiencing an event).
Your thoughts about the photon being in the present and the spatial/temporal distance as planes hits a key point that is often lost in these discussions. Namely, that the photon travels a "null path" - for the photon, no time elapses. That is because the photon is massless and travels at the speed limit of the universe, the speed of light.
Thus the photon is always in the present. Conversely, our physical sensory perception never sees the present (or future) but only the past since time elapses between perception of a photon and cognition of it.
Another very astute point you raise is that the photon may be a fundamental information (message) carrier. The easiest visualization of this would be to consider the photon a bit of information, which is to say binary - e.g. 0 or 1, left/right spin. That would be a vector quantity, but the photon may also have a scalar quantity, e.g. photon scalar irradiance.
Wave length is a factor here (e.g. 60 watt versus 100 watt bulb) and would effect photons per second for light as a communications medium. To put that in perspective, we consider digital communication in gigabits (Gbps) or billions of bits per second. Physically, by comparison, the distance traveled in a nanosecond (one billionth of a second) at the speed of light or 186,282 miles per second - would only be about a foot.
At this point, I hasten to add that one of the Names of God is Light. But the meaning of Light in the relevant Scriptures is not physical light (photons) but rather His glory, i.e. Shekinah. The physical light is a metaphor for Shekinah and has indeed been used by God to make a point:
Who being the brightness of [his] glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; - Hebrews 1:3
In him was life; and the life was the light of men. - John 1:3
There was a man sent from God, whose name [was] John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all [men] through him might believe. He was not that Light, but [was sent] to bear witness of that Light. [That] was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, [even] to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. - John 1:7-13
The planes are actually more like membranes because gravity warps space/time. Indeed, positive gravity regions are like indentations or wells in three dimensional space. The higher the gravity the deeper the indentation. Conversely, negative gravity regions - if they exist - are like outdents or bubbles (think, swiss cheese) in three dimensional space. Some speculate the dark energy areas between galaxies may be comprised of negative gravity regions thus accelerating the expansion of space/time.
The photon for which no time elapses, either bends around the positive gravity region or falls into it (black holes) or changes trajectory as space/time itself expands or the geometry or "texture" of space/time changes (gravity regions form.)
But the kicker is the dimension or dimensions of time.
In effect, the spatial whole is not static, it is dynamic. Very dynamic.
The universe is expanding and accelerating. Stars within spiral galaxies are spinning around the high gravity center. Likewise, planets are spinning around stars. And the planets themselves are spinning.
Indeed, each of us are rocketing through space right now at more than 500,000 mph. And that rate would be exponentially higher for the subatomic particles within our physical bodies.
Thus I prefer to think of gravity at the root of temporal issues.
Put another way, under the big bang/inflationary model, space/time itself initially expanded faster than the speed of light. And, the observer based on the texture (gravity) of his location "in" space/time, will experience time passing differently. For instance, while a week elapses on earth, forty equivalent years may elapse in the vicinity of a black hole.
Likewise, because space/time itself is expanding, that photon for whom no time elapses will take longer to arrive. For instance, a photon sent from a star when it was a billion light years away may not arrive for ten billion years, long after the star "died."
So, in my view, gravity whether positive (which can be seen as you say, a clumping of particles which have mass) or negative (perhaps a higher dimensional affect if gravity is interdimensional) is the most important physical factor when contemplating the geometry of space/time.
Thank you so very much for all you insightful essay-posts!
God's Name is I AM
Indeed, this is probably the single most exciting idea I've come across in recent times!!! I've seen a model that presupposes virtual photons, constantly popping up out of, and disappearing into, a universal vacuum field as the carriers of specifically biological information....
But then the very first utterance of the Word of the Beginning was: "Let there be Light!" So that would stand to reason.
What a magnificent essay/post, dearest sister in Christ! So BEAUTIFUL! Thank you so very much!!!
I think you may have just described my "Universal NOW".
As seen in the photo in my #127, our information re objects in our (created) universe is delivered by photons traveling at C. Thus. we "see" an object 2012 light years away, where and as it looked at about the time of Christ's birth. IOW, we don't see reality; we see the past.
God, OTOH, from His "Heavenly Domain" vantage point, is not constrained by lightspeed. He sees that same object as and where it actually is NOW -- not 2012 years ago. God sees the universe as it IS; (the "Universal NOW") we see its past...
I'm beginning to think that seeing the Universal Now may be a property of viewing from "the Heavenly viewpoint"...
So, your "anytime" concept may -- or may not -- be exactly the same as "Universal NOW".
Is that confusing enough?
P.S. Awhile back, I tried to "coin" a contraction for your "where-when". I called it "whern" -- but it didn't catch on at that time... '-)
Thank you so very much for your insights and encouragements, dearest sister in Christ!
Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dear brother in Christ!
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