Time does exist.

[thinking]

Everything ages, ages require time. If we didn't have time we wouldn't age and we wouldn't exist.

and what is this required time then based on ?

[austintorn@aol.com]

Many things change, plus things move from where they were to another place—and so we interpret these changes and movements as time going by.

It's mediated, too, by the rate at which events appear to us as they come over the horizon of consciousness.

Is time absolute? Well, the tiny Planck instants march on, too.

[sillysally]

and what is this required time then based on ?

Good question, I'll have to ask the boss and get back to you.

[melanie]

Everything ages, ages require time.

If we didn't have time we wouldn't age and we wouldn't exist.

That's why timeless existence has always existed.

Infinite existence for eternity.

There are changes, but nothing ever changes, and still there are changes.

[SteveA]

Something to consider is that in order to know that change has occurred, there must be knowledge of something unchanged. We could call those memories, but what are they really?

If we looked at a drive on a computer, we might consider that this represents memory, but does it know change?

If you alter the information on it, it doesn't know what's correct or not, the information overwrites itself in the same space and is always just whatever it is - we see it change though - life experiences change.

But where does sense of change arise from? It comes from a constant growth and constant addition - the last branch or bud on the tree is "Now", the rest is the unchanged - the memory or the knowledge of the past.

I've given this example a few times before, but if we had a perfect diamond and we spun it in space and counted rotations, we might see it rotate 20 times, but was the diamond itself able to see this? If we can't measure a change within the diamond, then at least from those measurements, the diamond had no ability to determine change (though there could be internal properties that were altered via. photons passing through it that we viewed, but I'm just referring to an idealized rigid array).

If someone else rotated around the diamond once during this period they might see 19 or 21 rotations (depending on the direction they rotated) - how many times did the diamond really rotate? The only reference that can be relied upon is your own and whatever you perceived/believed etc. to have occurred. If the diamond existed in a universe of its own and you could stand on it while it rotated, there would be no way to measure it rotating because it would just appear rigidly stationary below you and no external reference would be available to measure the rotation.

So the diamond itself did not experience time, its the growth of the mind (and similarly space) that layers new experiences upon the old and experiences time - time and life arises from growth.

[sillysally]

and what is this required time then based on ?

And the Lord Husband says, numbers. We wouldn't have numbers without time. The 2 go hand in hand.

[SteveA]

Numbers are just the linear representation - in many ways numbers are just an abstraction - they're only one letter of an infinite alphabet of perception that we only see the beginning of.

Let me see if I can explain this better:

How could we actually "see" everything within an infinite line?

Obviously we can't in any form of physical perception, but let's assume that there was some progression so that we were able to continually detect more of some growing quantity of experience.

In order to perceive each of these, they must appear unique and that means that each is detected in some manner different from the other positions we could see.

Take an example of some river with pebbles. We could walk along and try to look at all the pebbles, but there's a limit - some pebbles are so similar we can't easily see a difference between them and we can't remember every pebble etc. There's a limit to how many individual pebbles could be known to exist.

But now let's say instead that there does exist something infinite in time and every experience is unique in this.

In this case, we can't stop at some point where the remaining pebbles look identical. No, more detail needs to be added - so let's say all the pebbles were initially smooth, but now we extend how far we can see but noticing that not all the pebbles are smooth and some are rough.

We can go back and find that there appear to more unique pebbles and a greater diversity because we see more detail to them.

But it can't stop there either. So we look more and find some are actually crystals (yes, this could be considered similar to some numeric property, but we perceive as something that doesn't appear as a number - it's numbers in a different dimension).

Anyway, no matter what properties you add to these, an infinite quantity will always "break out" of this and pebbles must become trees and trees become mountains and clouds and instincts and emotions and thoughts and concepts and new galaxies and new rules of nature and physical laws and parallel worlds and senses and forms of life we've never known before, and combinations of all these etc. etc. etc. and yes, on one hand it's easy to say it's just a line, but it's a line that is so complex that we'd never understand it completely.

Numbers are just the way they're connected into relationships that keeps everything stable, but in a sense numbers just represent that number of them are equal or identical. When they're all considered equal then there's just "One" thing, but it's "One" thing that is infinitely diverse. So yes, we might call them pebbles or numbers, but in terms of what they mean in experience, it's like trying to call the taste of an apple pie a pebble - really not much of a correlation though we could still potentially describe the taste of apple pie in terms of a number on this line that can be considered to approximate those qualities (and, yes, it would take a very large number to approximate the properties - it would also be subjective).

[melanie]

Reality is built up of a series of appearances within the now.

The now is ever still timeless and unchanging.

Behind the ever changing appearances of now there is absolutely nothing but pure awareness - ( nothingness )

So even the now cannot exist as there are a constant flux of nows appearing and disappearing within this nothingness.

Each new now being superimposed upon the preceding now.

Each now being completely and uniquely different.

So our reality is being born completely brand new in every second right now -

So time is going round and round appearing as linear, yet knowingly cyclic.

There is no other time than right here right now..(one without a second)

A____________________B

A and B in this diagram appear to be two separate points in time.

Yet they are inseparably connected within the timelessness of now as you are perceiving - perception is only ever now.

Creation is the residue of thought also appearing now..(The manifest SEEN)--A projection of the unknowing known.


----change within the changeless---- full-ness out of the empty-ness.

[sillysally]

Numbers provide amounts, mass, expanse, orbit, twist, roll, spin.

[sillysally]

That's why timeless existence has always existed.

Infinite existence for eternity.

There are changes, but nothing ever changes, and still there are changes.

Why doesn't that illusionary world have more than repetitiveness to offer? Doesn't really give much room for imagination, which makes for some seriously benumbed reading.