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Physics Guy wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 03, 2022 2:13 am

Someone complained above that it was too hard to imagine a personal being existing outside of time. I pointed out that this shouldn't be hard at all. God's time could be to our time as our time is to fictional time.

I still don't get what Rivendale is saying about my post.

Thanks. It’s obvious that I shouldn’t butt into a thread I haven’t read. I’ll go back and give that a try.

Physics Guy wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 02, 2022 11:54 pm

It may be hard to imagine a being who exists outside of any kind of time, or in some form of time-ish something that is very different from time as we know it. It shouldn't be at all hard, though, to imagine a being who exists outside our time.

Isn't time the interval over which change occurs? Or something that happens? And wouldn't you need time to create time? Or time to decide to create time before creating time?

Physics Guy wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 03, 2022 1:35 am

Rivendale wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 03, 2022 1:25 am

That is nothing more than being under anesthesia. Or being misdirected so your brain chemistry can't reconfigure. Time was still clicking before you were born and while you were sleeping.

How does that relate to my post that you quoted? Some books and movies are boring, but they usually don't actually anaesthetise me.

Sometimes topics are difficult to express. The experience or sensation of time does not seem like the same thing as being outside of time. Being bored is just a lack of experience of time. An emotional state that has diverted attention from the actual passage of time. Your still inside of time . You just experience it differently. Being completely outside of time would cease causality.

I still don't see what that has to do with my post. It wasn't about any sensations.

Physics Guy wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 03, 2022 7:28 pm

I still don't see what that has to do with my post. It wasn't about any sensations.

I was trying to point out that "fictional time" like reading a book is a sensation. It is an experience generated by the text and has nothing to do with "real" time in the universe.

In one way fictional time indeed has nothing to do with real time. That's what I was saying.

Our universe could be someone's video. If they press pause, we won't know.

Physics Guy wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 03, 2022 8:45 pm

In one way fictional time indeed has nothing to do with real time. That's what I was saying.

Our universe could be someone's video. If they press pause, we won't know.

Yes. And if you see someone buffering in front of you, the gig is up. Or you're having a stroke.

doubtingthomas wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 03, 2022 5:24 am

Physics Guy wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 02, 2022 11:54 pm

It may be hard to imagine a being who exists outside of any kind of time, or in some form of time-ish something that is very different from time as we know it. It shouldn't be at all hard, though, to imagine a being who exists outside our time.

Isn't time the interval over which change occurs? Or something that happens? And wouldn't you need time to create time? Or time to decide to create time before creating time?

Yes. The increase of entropy. Outside of time is special pleading by theists who think that answers all difficult questions.

It is not special pleading simply to adopt a premise that someone else doesn't share. Just because someone disagrees with me doesn't automatically mean that they must have committed a fallacy.

Mainstream theists are talking about a being who has defined our laws of nature and chosen the initial conditions of the universe. That seems naturally to entail existing outside of our time, since it would be hard to define our causality while being subject to it.

That's the premise. You don't have to agree with it, but merely disagreeing with it isn't showing that there is anything logically wrong with it.

What would it mean to be outside of time? People imagine possibilities and try to be logical. I do not think anyone knows. I incline toward a very generic Kabbalistic image of God inhimself being eternal unchanging and not touched by influence. In creation God goes in a degree outside of that and comes into contact with time which God as created. Perhaps all that means is that my mind compulsively keeps a distance from the Aquinas version where in all existence flows as idea from God and is returning to him so that he sees all time all of the time(like an outside observer looking at travelers in a row along a road, or a train) Aquinas view has hard core deterministic implications.