Anderz

@remember Okay, make it GMT. At for example 10:00 AM GMT tomorrow there will be a definite number of Planck time intervals from the Big Bang. That's an absolute number.

The experience of time is relative. However, the fundamental time and even the time measured in seconds is absolute! Some simple things about the future can be predicted. For example I predict that tomorrow will be Wednesday. And that's an absolute (and inevitable) result when seen from the totality (the context of the Absolute).

@remember Okay, yes the experience of time is a flow. That means change of some kind. So the experience of time is relative. I haven't figured out yet what makes duration of time being experienced. The fundamental time I consider to have the time span of zero seconds! Because there is only now, and nothing outside of the now, so the experience of duration is some kind of second order phenomenon. The fundamental time is a result of the infinite Absolute and changeless unfolding in the now. That part I believe is correct. There is no need for consciousness being some active agent able to cause change.

@remember Change is relative. Consider Absolute reality. If the Absolute could change it would turn into something it was not. That's a contradiction.

@remember I don't see how reality as a whole can change. Time on the other hand is actually not change. Time is a finite perspective of the infinite. It's like the example of Pi I mentioned earlier, which is both an endless sequence in the now (think time) and at the same time a changeless constant. Pi doesn't change.

@remember But change doesn't explain the arrow of time, unless you mean that there is only change in one direction.

@remember I believe that time is real and can be explained. To deny time altogether seems like a cop out to me, although I'm not entirely sure yet about my understanding of the existence or nonexistence of time.

@Leo Gura I assume you are talking about direct experience. I try to figure out time intellectually. I will take a look at your interview with Peter Ralston.

Sometimes people say that time is thought. That may be true for past and future. There is also the flow of time in the now. And the flow of time can be experienced without thought. And the past is experienced through memories, or recordings like the home videos mentioned. That's a representation, a re-presentation, of the actual past. I still believe though that the actual past always exists and is indestructible. A memory loss is a second order phenomenon. Memory can be gained again sometimes. The true past is the information Leonard Susskind talked about. Wait, I will do a YouTube search to see if I can find where he said it.... Yay, I found it! From around 11 minutes into this video Susskind says: "At the moment, this is the deepest law of physics I know: and it's that bits of information are indestructible."

@Leo Gura But instead of imagining the past, what if the past is actually real? I even propose that the past is changeless and indestructible. Imagine (well, that's maybe not the best word to choose here but anyway) all of the past infinitely compressed into the present moment. And the past has a definite timeline of the entire history of the universe, even though it only exists now.

Quantum mechanics is definitely an accurate theory. But it's not necessarily random. The pilot wave interpretation of quantum mechanics is deterministic, and it has gained popularity recently. For example experiments with ordinary droplets have produced quantum effects such as shown in this video: And physicist Stephen Hawking wrote:

@Member Your view sounds similar to Leo's view of time. I have a problem grasping that view. Time being a result of a changeless foundation makes more sense to me. And with consciousness being the infinite changeless reality experiencing itself in finite form makes all parts one: 1) the unmanifested, 2) the manifested and 3) consciousness. The problem I have with multiple timelines is that I don't see how any choice-making function can exist that can alter reality by whim, choice or randomness.

@Member I think of reality as just one single timeline. That might seem very limiting but imagine what is possible in a computer game. I agree with Leo that our reality is NOT a computer simulation but it's useful to think of reality as an infinite computer. For example when the first lifeforms appeared on Earth some 4 billion years ago, that was a radical leap in the level of complexity. Similarly, in the future major leaps of complexity increase can lead to all kinds of possible future scenarios. Siddhis are then only a small precursor of what will become possible. And for example astral travel today I see that as still being done within the same one single timeline! So reality can shift suddenly and be experienced in all kinds of ways depending on the level of the person's consciousness, all within a single universal timeline. My reasoning is that if there is a split into another timeline, who makes that split? If reality as a whole is changeless, which I argue, then reality as a whole cannot change itself. And the manifested and the unmanifested are one, so nothing manifested can make any change either.

Money and calendar time are huge ego constructs. But to only focus on that may just cause other ego constructs to strengthen. Therefore a more holistic approach is to be mindful of all personal control. That control habit is the foundation for the whole ego, so letting go of all control means dissolving the whole ego, something the ego itself cannot do. What the ego can do is mindfulness practice and be aware of all personal control. It's like the thorn used to remove another thorn analogy again, and in the end both thorns are thrown away. And this can be mindfulness of feelings and physical sensations which bypasses the entire thinking mind. I will experiment with this practice for a while.

I didn't know that, but yeah, superstring theories and quantum loop gravity are maybe still unconfirmed. Good point.

In eastern traditions they also have something called karma, and kind of reap what you sow spiritual law. How can karma function if the past is only now? My answer is that karma is a result of actions done by an individual. And notice, since everything is an interconnected wholeness, an individual is a fiction. So karma is the result of past fiction, real actions but done in a delusional state. Why the need for karma if it's a fiction? The answer is that karma is needed as a developmental tool. Reality tricks itself to experience separation in order to produce individuality, uniqueness, development, growth and creativity. This is the fall of humanity in Christianity. The whole individual is sin. The word sin means to miss the mark, meaning the belief that separation actually is real and possible. Without the trick of sin, humanity would have remained living in nature. But also, sin is only necessary during a stage of development, and now it's time for us to return to oneness, not undifferentiated oneness as in the animal state, but an integration of individuality and oneness.

Psychedelics are interesting in relation to time and what reality is. Leo mentioned the experience of time speeding up. And let's say that a person on psychedelics experiences a car turning into a horse. Is that just a hallucination in the brain? Not necessarily. Because the experience is a result of all the underlying and interconnected information of reality. Even astral travel is possible in theory, and an astral trip experienced as one hour could potentially only take one minute in the time scale of our universe. And that's minor stuff. What in the Hindu traditions are called siddhis are supernatural abilities in the real world. Sadhguru recommends to not be concerned about siddhis, and that's probably because humanity is generally not developed enough yet to handle such things. He also said that he could predict the future. Could that be possible in theory? In general I think no, but there can be certain correlations through time (like the quantum entangled particles demonstrated in a laboratory) allowing prediction of the future in certain particular situations, depending on the timeless and causal nature of the Omega number.

What do I mean by change being no change? It depends on perspective, infinite or finite. Take for example the constant Pi = 3.14159265... and list all the decimals of Pi. Listing all the decimals of Pi produces change since the list never ends (there is no last decimal of Pi). And at the same time Pi is a constant so there is no change. Similarly, time is a result of listing an Omega number, not one decimal at a time, but in larger and larger chunks of decimals, because the graph of reality expands hyper-exponentially or what to call it. Time is not relative. Time is a finite perspective.

@Member For me time is an absolute timeline. And an OBE to me means that consciousness actually manifests in space. If someone cremated the body during an OBE, the OBE would still go on. That's a bit scary, because it makes ghosts a possibility, haha.

@Member My view is more like what Leo has talked about. Sure there is the human body, other humans, animals, plants and immaterial objects. But all of that is mind! There isn't as I see it mind plus matter. Instead matter is mind, or more precisely, physical matter is information in consciousness. And even without consciousness, physical matter is information. That's my view. And evolution is a result of increasing complexity. At the beginning of time there was zero manifested complexity, and then complexity expanded more and more until today where we have humans, technology and in the future even more complex states. Mind needs consciousness, but consciousness doesn't need a brain. In an out-of-body experience (OBE) consciousness manifests in the vacuum energy of space. Leo even goes one step further than me and says that brains don't even exist:

@Member But Mind evolves! At least when Mind means all of manifested reality. Mind = consciousness + content = all of manifested reality, including animate and inanimate objects, evolution and so on. I guess nonlocal teleportation is possible. And all kinds of miracles, including those mentioned in the Bible. Because the content in consciousness is just information. What is possible in video games and in Hollywood movies is in theory possible in reality. Except time travel! At least not real time travel away from the now, although very accurately simulated time travel is possible in theory into the past. Time travel into the future isn't even possible to simulate because of computational irreducibility. It's impossible to fully predict what will happen in the future. The past on the other hand exists as timeless and indestructible information in the now and is in theory available.

I suspect that the top mainstream scientists know that Einstein's relativity is false, but they are stuck with it because to admit that would harm the credibility of established science and academia. So if a top physicist would claim publicly and officially that Einstein's relativity is completely wrong, he or she would be burned at the stake, metaphorically speaking. Not even an Omega number can produce Einstein's relativity because that would be like trying to make 2+2 = 5. Which basically is what the superstring theories attempt to accomplish.

Particles can be entangled through time! With the universe being a result of an Omega number, such entanglement through time is possible, because cause and effect can be a result of the Omega number itself as a whole. I wonder how the Wolfram project will deal with time entanglement since they only have a simple algorithm with cause and effect only going from past to future.

Practical things like money and calendar time are high-order structures and are high up on the evolutionary scale. That's valuable. What sucks is that since humanity is still predominantly in ego consciousness those practical things are very burdensome to deal with. Spiritual practice tends to be separated from the practical dealings with everyday life. That's really inefficient. Because it's the practical matters that matter a lot when it comes to our lives, not only physically, emotionally and mentally, but also spiritually. One strategy I have for how to transcend the practical burden is to think of all of reality as an interconnected whole, including my money, my personal relationships, memories, material possessions, belief systems and other forms of social and environmental conditioning. Christ is the wholeness of life, so instead of dealing with personal and practical matters as a separate entity, through the Holy Spirit they are handled as a whole and become easy.

@Member I predict that time travel is impossible. We will see. I was glad to see that in the Wolfram model they have separated time and space.