In the beginning ...

[loCAtek]

SueU, et al: Do you believe that everyone's needs are exactly the same? Does the manner that they meet them have to be the same as everyone else's?

[loCAtek]

With flying we had to bend some physical laws, with time travel we'd have to break some ...and some big ones at that. Flight is not defying gravity. You can not defy time.

You missed my point. 200 years ago, we thought flying was impossible simply because we didn't have the understanding to make it happen. Possibly the same goes for time travel. I think it unlikely, as I say, but who knows?

We started off being able to navigate in 2 dimensions, then moved to 3. Why not, in the future, move to others? In fact, I would suggest that going forward in time is very much possible to do (eg my popping over to next year but staying almost the same age). It is going backward that causes the problems and paradoxes ...

I understood your point, my point was that the limits of our universe are not because of lack of knowledge, but the limits of what the human mind can comprehend.

Now, this entire universe has always existed in 3 dimensions; matter did not form until those nanoseconds after the Big Bang, than it expanded into three dimensions. Time, the fourth dimension, has always been with us as well.
Moving through time has been speculated, and the opposite of your view has been deduced.

The past is more stable, because getting to the point of 'now' is fairly progressive.
The future, however has endless possibilities. Every decision made no matter how small, can make a change in the course of the time stream. Countless forks diverge every second, and for every fork there is the emergence of a new and different future. There is no ONE future; there are infinite paths time can take.

Therefore, the greatest problem with traveling to the past (if it were even possible) is the inevitable damage caused to the time stream by tampering with it: it would create paradoxes. (the most well known being the Grandfather Paradox.) As little as killing an ant in the past could suddenly extinguish a civilization in the future.

Really bad juju.

[Sue U]

SueU, et al: Do you believe that everyone's needs are exactly the same? Does the manner that they meet them have to be the same as everyone else's?

I'm not sure what you mean by that. But by my questions, I am trying to find out what role, if any, a God or a faith or a religion etc. has in the lives of others, how they think about a deity, how it affects their choices and why they think it is or isn't important. A subset of these questions -- or maybe the over-arching question -- is, I suppose, the "free will" issue. If you have a God, what does free will really mean to you? If you have free will, does that negate the existence of a God? Does it even matter?

Many of these issues are simply foreign and odd to me, so I'm trying to understand why folks attach such significance to them.

[Andrew D]

Do you mean that a omnipotent and omniscient being cannot decide to limit himself? Or are you completely absorbed in a tautology?

Whether God can choose to limit Her-/Him-/Itself by choosing not to know what is in Her/His/Its power to know is irrelevant: In the Judeo-Christian tradition(s), God has not chosen to any such thing. As the Catholic Encylopedia -- there are more Roman Catholics in the world than there are all other Christians and all Jews combined -- puts it:

That God knows infallibly and from eternity what, for example, a certain man, in the exercise of free will, will do or actually does in any given circumstances, and what he might or would actually have done in different circumstances is beyond doubt — being a corollary from the eternal actuality of Divine knowledge.

The doctrine is not that God could know but has chosen not to know; the doctrine is that he does know.

(Similarly, the doctrine is not that God could be omnipotent but has chosen not to be. The Bible says -- indeed, it puts the words in Jesus's mouth -- that "with God all things are possible" (Matthew 19:26), not "with God all things would be possible if God wanted them to be possible".)

We could discuss God/gods as conceived in Buddhism or Hinduism or Zoroastrianism or whatever. But we are not.

[dales]

tch tch tch

Just joshing with you a little here.

I'm very broad-minded on the subject of household deities, personal phobias et al; after all, one man's devotion is another man's OCD. Maybe taking exactly three steps every time you cross the porch really is the key to happiness? Can't prove its not can you? You can worship all the burning shrubs you want to. I won't interfere.

Be Cool.


yrs,
rubato

I agree, rube.

btw: I think you bring a lot to this bbs, we might not agree on many issues but that's what makes Plan B such an interesting venue to share opinions.

Cheers!

[rubato]

Do you mean that a omnipotent and omniscient being cannot decide to limit himself? Or are you completely absorbed in a tautology?

Whether God can choose to limit Her-/Him-/Itself by choosing not to know what is in Her/His/Its power to know is irrelevant: In the Judeo-Christian tradition(s), God has not chosen to any such thing. As the Catholic Encylopedia -- there are more Roman Catholics in the world than there are all other Christians and all Jews combined -- puts it:

That God knows infallibly and from eternity what, for example, a certain man, in the exercise of free will, will do or actually does in any given circumstances, and what he might or would actually have done in different circumstances is beyond doubt — being a corollary from the eternal actuality of Divine knowledge.

The doctrine is not that God could know but has chosen not to know; the doctrine is that he does know.

(Similarly, the doctrine is not that God could be omnipotent but has chosen not to be. The Bible says -- indeed, it puts the words in Jesus's mouth -- that "with God all things are possible" (Matthew 19:26), not "with God all things would be possible if God wanted them to be possible".)

We could discuss God/gods as conceived in Buddhism or Hinduism or Zoroastrianism or whatever. But we are not.

You are, in my opinion, inadvertently using a tautological definition of omnipotence.

The only way for god to prove, to himself, that he has given man free will is for man to choose what god has told him not to and that which god wills him not to do.

How is it that Satan made war in heaven? (per the myth) Unless god gave him that ability knowing that he would abuse it?

Think about it this way; The most boring and pointless story in the world is to posit a being with superpowers who can never be denied anything. Why does Superman have to have Kryptonite? Why does Spiderman have to be a nerd who can barely keep his job and just barely keeps the attention of his girlfriend?

The bible is a good story because at the core, at the kernel, there is this great little beginning which is where all of the tension of the story comes from. Adam and Eve became aware of good and evil. Until they ate the fruit they could not know what good and evil were, they only knew that it was god's will that they should not do so. At that instant of separation their act was purely an act of ego, of the 'I want', but contained in that act was its own fruit. When they take the fruit in their hands, when they bite into it, the irrevocable act, it is merely their own will. But in that next instance the fruit reveals to them what they have done. They discover shame. Its a one-way trip and you can't go back.

Even to an unbeliever I think it is a superb story.

yrs,
rubato

[Rick]

Again I submit: Is knowledge causal?

[Andrew D]

I suppose that a conversation about Judeo-Christian doctrine which centered on its entertainment value could have its interesting moments. In a conversation about the logical implications of Judeo-Christian doctrine, however, I fail to see the relevance of how "good [a] story" some scriptural passage may or may not be.

[Andrew D]

Again I submit: Is knowledge causal?

God is not alleged only to be omniscient. God is alleged also to be omnipotent and to be the creator of everything. The act of creation is certainly causal: By creating a thing, one causes that thing to exist.

If God created someone knowing that that someone will end up in eternal torment, then God has created that someone to be subject to eternal torment. Whether God's knowledge that that someone will be subject to eternal torment makes it inevitably the case that that someone will be subject to eternal torment or merely demonstrates it to be inevitably the case that that someone will be subject to eternal torment is neither here nor there. That someone would not be subject to eternal torment if God had not created that person in the first place, and once God did create that person, there was absolutely no possibility that that someone would not be subject to eternal torment.

So when that person is subject to eternal torment, who is to blame? The poor, hapless soul who never had any choice in the matter -- whose name was not "written in the book of life from the foundation of the world" (Revelation 17:8)? Or the person who caused it all in the first place?

[rubato]

"...

btw: I think you bring a lot to this bbs, we might not agree on many issues but that's what makes Plan B such an interesting venue to share opinions.

Cheers!

My goodness. What a nice thing for you to say.

Thanks Dales.

yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

Again I submit: Is knowledge causal?

God is not alleged only to be omniscient. God is alleged also to be omnipotent and to be the creator of everything. The act of creation is certainly causal: By creating a thing, one causes that thing to exist.

If God created someone knowing that that someone will end up in eternal torment, then God has created that someone to be subject to eternal torment. Whether God's knowledge that that someone will be subject to eternal torment makes it inevitably the case that that someone will be subject to eternal torment or merely demonstrates it to be inevitably the case that that someone will be subject to eternal torment is neither here nor there. That someone would not be subject to eternal torment if God had not created that person in the first place, and once God did create that person, there was absolutely no possibility that that someone would not be subject to eternal torment.

So when that person is subject to eternal torment, who is to blame? The poor, hapless soul who never had any choice in the matter -- whose name was not "written in the book of life from the foundation of the world" (Revelation 17:8)? Or the person who caused it all in the first place?

So you're a little worried there, are you? I would be too.

yrs,
rubato

[Rick]

You just changed your parameters.

The crux of your tautology was knowledge (fore if you prefer but still knowledge) precluded free will.

If that is the case anyone that admits "I knew that was going to happen" has created an irrevocable outcome.

If 3 people simultaneously "knew it" which one was responsible?

Do they share responsibility? 33.3333...

Or would it be relegated by strength of will?

2 men and a woman ok.

What if it was 2 women and 1 man?

What if it was 5 "knew it's simultaneously, feel free to add as many as you like?

Is knowledge causal?

I submit knowledge in and of itself is not causal.

Then knowledge fore or otherwise does not preclude free will.

One has the ability to change ones mind up to the final moment.

We are then free moral agents...

[thestoat]

With flying we had to bend some physical laws, with time travel we'd have to break some ...and some big ones at that. Flight is not defying gravity. You can not defy time.

You missed my point. 200 years ago, we thought flying was impossible simply because we didn't have the understanding to make it happen. Possibly the same goes for time travel. I think it unlikely, as I say, but who knows?

We started off being able to navigate in 2 dimensions, then moved to 3. Why not, in the future, move to others? In fact, I would suggest that going forward in time is very much possible to do (eg my popping over to next year but staying almost the same age). It is going backward that causes the problems and paradoxes ...

I understood your point,

If you ignore the point then it is difficult to know if you are agreeing with it or missing it.

Now, this entire universe has always existed in 3 dimensions

Not so.

Moving through time has been speculated, and the opposite of your view has been deduced.

Eh? Wrong again. It has been observed!

Therefore, the greatest problem with traveling to the past (if it were even possible) is the inevitable damage caused to the time stream by tampering with it

The paradoxes are well known and documented. I alluded to them in my post that you quoted above ...

[loCAtek]

God has not chosen to any such thing

...the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us...John 1:14

I and my Father are one. John 10:30

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...All things were made by him...He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not...And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us John 1:1, 3, 10, 14

Jesus saith...he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? John 14:9

For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. 1 John 5:7

[loCAtek]

I'm sorry Stoat, could you be more specific?

I'm going by this:

In physics, spacetime (or space–time; or space/time) is any mathematical model that combines space and time into a single continuum. Spacetime is usually interpreted with space being three-dimensional and time playing the role of a fourth dimension that is of a different sort from the spatial dimensions. According to certain Euclidean space perceptions, the universe has three dimensions of space and one dimension of time.

The Big Bang theory depends on two major assumptions: the universality of physical laws, and the Cosmological Principle. The cosmological principle states that on large scales the Universe is homogeneous and isotropic.

[thestoat]

Lo, Euclid lived around 2300 years ago. Things have moved on. My physics on inter-dimensional space are rusty (and were never that good) but I think that string theory suggests 10 or 26 dimensions currently. That may have changed, of course, but certainly many more than 3.

I am not sure where your second quote fits in? But to recap ...

1. Because we currently don't know how to travel in time, that does not make time travel impossible
2. If our beings were not able to travel in time, that does not make time travel impossible
3. Time travel has been observed

I understood your point, my point was that the limits of our universe are not because of lack of knowledge, but the limits of what the human mind can comprehend.

Ignoring a point but then throwing a different one in of your own doesn't invalidate the previous point. To address your point, I would have to disagree entirely. The limits of our universe have nothing *whatsoever* to do with our lack of knowledge or comprehension. They have nothing to do with us. We have near as makes no odds no influence over the universe at all.

Would I be right in thinking that if you ignore a point then it is because you agree?

[dgs49]

There nothing causal about prior knowledge. More important, it is pointless - and even counterproductive - debate the question. As humans, we demonstrably have complete free will. It is continuously manifest when people do things that are stupid, contradictory to all their previous inclinations, and so forth. Even we are unpredictable to ourselves. I recently had to choose between two job offers, and I didn't know until I spoke the words into the phone which one I was going to choose. Six months later, with considerable history to go on, that decision would still be a coin toss, and I don't know which I would choose.

The myth of God and an afterlife where we receive our "just desserts" is a matter that is because it must be. Life is entirely too unfair to contemplate the possibility that Hugh Hefner might get through it without being punished for what he has been and done. Or that Father Damian, or Mother Teresa, or a million true "heroes" of human history might have died for nothing at all.

Like it or not, we must all choose either to live in a universe where good and evil are balanced by ramifications in the afterlife, or where nothing counts but what occurs between conception and clinical death. A universe that came into existence and evolved to what it is today as a result of the conscious thought of a benevolent Creator, or a universe that came into existence for no known or knowable reason, and evolved to what we see today by virtue of a series of random accidents. Riiiiiight.

To me, the choice is compelling in one direction.

I do not find it distressing that "God" creates a universe in which peoples' lives are "shit," because the totality of our existence is not confined to the time when we are here on this earth. It all balances out.

It must.

[loCAtek]

Would I be right in thinking that if you ignore a point then it is because you agree?

Not necessarily, I didn't mean to ignore it, but clarify it with the current data, with just being a layman about physics myself. Again the human perception of dimensions has changed, not the physical laws and states found in those dimensions.

I am not sure where your second quote fits in? But to recap ...

1. Because we currently don't know how to travel in time, that does not make time travel impossible
2. If our beings were not able to travel in time, that does not make time travel impossible
3. Time travel has been observed

I haven't based my conclusion on our current abilities, we know from the "General relativity or the general theory of relativity is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915. It is the current description of gravitation in modern physics. General relativity generalises special relativity and Newton's law of universal gravitation, providing a unified description of gravity as a geometric property of space and time, or spacetime." -From Wiki

However, I would appreciate a link to the incident in which time travel was observed. Maybe then I can understand your point better.

[thestoat]

Not necessarily, I didn't mean to ignore it, but clarify it with the current data

Your "current data" was "my point was that the limits of our universe are not because of lack of knowledge, but the limits of what the human mind can comprehend. " - which is wrong, as I pointed out when I addressed it by saying "The limits of our universe have nothing *whatsoever* to do with our lack of knowledge or comprehension. They have nothing to do with us. We have near as makes no odds no influence over the universe at all." ... which you ignored



Back to time travel ...
Off the top of my head, the observations were around particles with a small half life - fractions of a second. Researchers found that if these were accelerated close to the speed of light, their lifespan increased dramatically - they were travelling forward in time. My physics study is over 20 years old not though - they didn't have a web thing back then.

This is a decent layman's description http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/phon ... _may.shtml where they say

Special Relativity also says that a surprising thing happens when you move through space-time, especially when your speed relative to other objects is close to the speed of light. Time goes slower for you than for the people you left behind. You won't notice this effect until you return to those stationary people.

Say you were 15 years old when you left Earth in a spacecraft traveling at about 99.5% of the speed of light (which is much faster than we can achieve now), and celebrated only five birthdays during your space voyage. When you get home at the age of 20, you would find that all your classmates were 65 years old, retired, and enjoying their grandchildren! Because time passed more slowly for you, you will have experienced only five years of life, while your classmates will have experienced a full 50 years.

The author goes on to say

I am confident time travel into the future is possible, but we would need to develop some very advanced technology to do it. We could travel 10,000 years into the future and age only 1 year during that journey. However, such a trip would consume an extraordinary amount of energy. Time travel to the past is more difficult. We do not understand the science as well.

General relativity is, from what I recall, simply special relativity but allowing for acceleartion of objects (the maths becomes exponentially harder).


Edited to add:
Here is some more info on observed time travel ... http://aquapour.com/time-travel-possibl ... es/555352/

[thestoat]

Oooh - it is starting to look like the speed of light is not the ultimate universal speed limit! Now there's a thought ...