@lancis
- What is time?
- Is universe finite?
1. Time is a perception artifact as far as I can tell. I have experienced altered states of mind with no time. What amazes me from a logical perspective is that I was able to understand the universe as being deterministic to a certain degree. Yet, it was not fixed in place. Then, I evolved to where I understood the universe is deterministic only as long as you understand all variables in a subsystem. Yet, if a single person did not made his choice within that subsystem or alters a choice, it is not deterministic anymore or will not have the final state that you predicted. To make an analogy, imagine I ask you hot many people are heading towards city X. You have no idea. However if you take a satellite and look around city X, you will see the group of people and count them. You can see there are 20 people. Now at this stage we can say that simply because you knew how and had the means you were able to determine the variables and determine the future state of the universe in this very small sub-system. However, the satellite while giving you a great birds eye view and providing an answer is not providing the complete picture. If one of the people breaks his leg, gets a call about his wife having had an accident in city Y or whatever other reason he might not go in city X or turn back. Does it mean you were wrong saying 20 people? No. It simply means you were incomplete because you only looked at a set of variables of a given size and quality.
What exactly is time in a scientific way I could not tell. Scientists prefer to look from a specific point of view at things, hence ignoring other perspectives and having limited answers that apply only for the sub-systems they work in. You talk to a monk, he will have a different perspective and vocabulary, yet he might explain the same thing. You talk to an uneducated (as in somebody who didn't read much) person who experienced extracorporalization for example and he will have a different perspective than the scientist or the monk, yet he might still look at the exact same thing. There is however one theory I very recently read in a book which at this stage of my personal evolution made a lot of sense and I liked. Instead of looking at us as physical beings with spiritual/energetic experiences, where the brain produces an altered state of mind, why not look at us as spirits that created the body and brain as an interface into the video game called life (brain=display, keyboard and mouse). If you look at it this way, you can realize that time may be a feature of the video game which exists in the video game only in order for certain things to be possible and others to be impossible. In a video game you could walk through walls and other characters, fly and teleport, change yourself from a soldier into a pink bunny and so on if these features would be coded (or rather allowed) into the game. We all know about cheats. Are they really cheats? What are the cheats really? Just a way to change the game to allow you to do things not normally doable.
Is this a good answer? Maybe not. It is the answer I currently have for myself and i'm just sharing it with you. Is it wrong? Maybe. Is it right? Maybe. How so? It is incomplete at least and maybe part or the whole of it is incorrect too.
2. Is universe finite? What is the universe? Are we referring strictly at the physical universe made of matter? That is an incomplete view of the universe. So, in order to answer that question we have to first decide upon the meaning of the word universe.
Thing is, words are like those small wheels you had on your first bike to learn to ride it. They helped you not to fall but if you want to ride at Tour du France, they will hinder your performance greatly. Words are linked to concepts. Concepts are linked to thoughts. Thoughts are linked to feelings and so on. Having a limitation anywhere will hinder your understanding of a lot of things. I am personally having a very hard time simply experiencing the "other things" exactly because of the fact I was educated by the world to categorize, think "logically", etc. I am now doing my best not to do that so I do not sabotage myself. It is very hard.
@Black.Star I also believe in science and evidence. And people who believe in science and eidence (most of them) rather believe in aliens (because there's a huge mathematical chance for them to exist) rather than God which is just a concept for them. Do I believe in God? I don't know, have no idea what God is, everybody has a different definition for him. Do I believe in aliens? I don't know, depends how you believe them too.
Then, there is one very important aspect about science and evidence. Science chooses to believe in something. The fact they have evidence is not what makes them state something is true. The evidence is not absolute. The evidence is always a function of their individual perception. because of that it is very deceiving to say or rely on evidence in order to answer all questions. To exemplify, think of a puppet show where the puppeteer is dressed in black, the theater is in darkness and only the puppet is white and visible. In other words the puppeteer is hidden/invisible. You look and you see the clear evidence of a floating puppet. You only know there's a puppeteer somewhere ONLY because you were thought so by somebody or thinking inference. If you bring a child he has absolutely no reason to assume there must be a puppeteer or that the doll can't float. As a matter of fact if you tell the child that you take him to see a magic puppet that can flat in the air he will honestly 100% believe you. He sees the puppet and he will be 100% certain it is a floating puppet. The evidence shows it. He sees it floating with his own eyes. From that and what you told him he will produce a lot of thought inference and from then on he will create new beliefs based on that. If he once saw a floating puppet then others might exist. He was told it is a magic puppet so if you tell him a story about the magic frog he might ask you if the frog could float (because the puppet floated and was also magic). And so on. Then the child grows and learns certain things like there's no Santa Claus, he learns the trick behind that puppet show and that there was some dude dressed in black that moved the puppet. He is now enlightened. About magic floating puppets at least... if you get my drift.
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