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Ponder This!

rhinefire

rhinefire

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There is no past and future, only an ever changing now and we cannot escape it. It is like a never ending horn blasting in our ears. Does that bother you?
 
rhinefire said:
There is no past and future, only an ever changing now and we cannot escape it. It is like a never ending horn blasting in our ears. Does that bother you?
Click to expand...

Yes it bothers me that anyone would post such nonsense.
 
rhinefire said:
There is no past and future, only an ever changing now and we cannot escape it. It is like a never ending horn blasting in our ears. Does that bother you?
Click to expand...

Well, let me put it this way...it doesn't bother me if that's the way you want to perceive your life.
 
What if C-A-T actually spelled dog?
 
me thinks perhaps you should step away from the bong dude....step away from the bong.....step away.....
 
Dreams never die just the dreamer.

- Cooper brothers
 
azgreg said:
What if C-A-T actually spelled dog?
Click to expand...
Is that like the agnostic dyslexic insomniac, who lays awake and ponders if there truly is a DOG.:mrgreen:
 
rhinefire said:
There is no past and future, only an ever changing now and we cannot escape it. It is like a never ending horn blasting in our ears. Does that bother you?
Click to expand...

Dude, where do you get your weed from? :mrgreen:
 
rhinefire said:
There is no past and future, only an ever changing now and we cannot escape it. It is like a never ending horn blasting in our ears. Does that bother you?
Click to expand...

Now is infinitesimally small. It has no beginning, it has no end, it has no duration. If it did have duration then there would always be a middle that was "now", a beginning that would be the past and an end that would be the future.. no matter how detailed your considerations of smaller duration's of "now" this paradox would continue.

If something has no duration, no beginning and no end can it actually be said to exist? existence implies that it occupies more than one infinitesimally small moment of time - yet now does not do this. The past and future both have duration, they occupy much more than one infinitesimally small moment of time.

So which actually exists? I would say it is "now" that does not exist, it is only a concept, an illusion that we take for granted to rectify the innate paradox that is itself.
 
rhinefire said:
There is no past and future, only an ever changing now and we cannot escape it. It is like a never ending horn blasting in our ears. Does that bother you?
Click to expand...

If there was no past or future, and we were already conditioned to hearing the horn blasting, I doubt anyone would notice. :lol:
 
The metaphysics underlying the OP is a position called presentism. It's usually thought to be untenable. Marduc posted the criticism I like best, though there are others. If there's no past, for example, it seems awfully strange that we have memories. Let's say I happen to admire Gandhi. If the present is all that exists, then Gandhi doesn't exist. What sense could we make of my admiration?
 
rhinefire said:
There is no past and future, only an ever changing now and we cannot escape it. It is like a never ending horn blasting in our ears. Does that bother you?
Click to expand...

You posted this "Yesterday, 08:52 AM" I suspect that wasnt "now". Or now. Or Now . Or now. Or now. Or now. ... wait now!. Damn the first "now" is now history. And if you ever respond it will be in the future from now. One gun shot to head and you can escape now forever.


The problem is that time isnt consistent in all points on the universe. Gravitational time dilation blows a huge hole in Presentism. Depending on the location where we both are in the universe my now may not be synced up with your now. Perhaps I am in your future....


So ponder this: This is Earths gravity map below. It shows that gravity is varied greatly over the surface of the planet meaning that time is moving at different speeds in different locations. Hafele-Keating Experiment

Around-the-World Atomic Clocks

In October 1971, Hafele and Keating flew cesium beam atomic clocks around the world twice on regularly scheduled commercial airline flights, once to the East and once to the West. In this experiment, both gravitational time dilation and kinematic time dilation are significant - and are in fact of comparable magnitude. Their predicted and measured time dilation effects were as follows:
Predicted: Time difference in ns
Eastward Westward
Gravitational 144 +/- 14 179 +/- 18
Kinematic -184 +/- 18 96 +/- 10
Net effect -40 +/- 23 275 +/- 21
Observed: -59 +/- 10 273 +/- 21



gallerygravity.jpg


Now what were you saying?
 
Dragonfly said:
me thinks perhaps you should step away from the bong dude....step away from the bong.....step away.....
Click to expand...

I can't find "dude" anywhere on history.com, or wikipedia, can you enlighten the world on who this person called "dude" is?
 
rhinefire said:
There is no past and future, only an ever changing now and we cannot escape it. It is like a never ending horn blasting in our ears. Does that bother you?
Click to expand...

Now doesn't change. Change is future.

Now is all that exists.
 
rhinefire said:
There is no past and future, only an ever changing now and we cannot escape it. It is like a never ending horn blasting in our ears. Does that bother you?
Click to expand...

This reminds me of an interesting discussion I had about time travel. If time travel was possible, one would only be able to go back in time, not into the future. The reason is the past exists, existed, the future doesn’t exist, it hasn’t been written yet. There is only the present and the past, that is until the future becomes the present and the present becomes the past.

The example was to write the letters A, B, C, D, and E on a piece of paper. E represents the present. Since A, B, C and D now exist on the paper, one could go back, travel back to them or to the point in time when A, B, C, and D were written. One can circle those letters and also the present, the letter E. But one can go no further into the future, one can’t travel to F, G, or H, they haven’t been written yet and hence do not exist. One can’t circle a letter one hasn’t written or lived, experienced. Write the letter F, it becomes the present and E the past, but G and H still do not exist until someone writes them on the paper. Hence time travel into the future is impossible. One can not go to something that doesn't exist or had existed.
 
Perotista said:
This reminds me of an interesting discussion I had about time travel. If time travel was possible, one would only be able to go back in time, not into the future. The reason is the past exists, existed, the future doesn’t exist, it hasn’t been written yet. There is only the present and the past, that is until the future becomes the present and the present becomes the past.

The example was to write the letters A, B, C, D, and E on a piece of paper. E represents the present. Since A, B, C and D now exist on the paper, one could go back, travel back to them or to the point in time when A, B, C, and D were written. One can circle those letters and also the present, the letter E. But one can go no further into the future, one can’t travel to F, G, or H, they haven’t been written yet and hence do not exist. One can’t circle a letter one hasn’t written or lived, experienced. Write the letter F, it becomes the present and E the past, but G and H still do not exist until someone writes them on the paper. Hence time travel into the future is impossible. One can not go to something that doesn't exist or had existed.
Click to expand...

Interesting. So the future could be nothingness. Nothingness is defined as a state in which all field values are timelessly equal to zero. That being said what is the rate or speed of change (from one instant to the next for example?)? That rate of change cannot be precisely zero.
 
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