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filthy
SFN Die Hard

USA
14408 Posts

Posted - 07/05/2007 :  20:00:09   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send filthy a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Zebra

Originally posted by JEROME DA GNOME

Filthy asked:
Jerome, can you imagine a time when time dosen't exist?


Yes, I believe that there is much we can not perceive and much we perceive incorrectly based on the structure of our bodies. Time very well could be a false human perception. In the same way Dave talked about the universe rolling back onto itself time could also do the same thing.



Sorry, Jerome, but did your "Yes" mean that you can imagine a time when time doesn't exist? (You seemed to answer that you can imagine that what we experience as time might be a misperception - that seems like a different question/answer to me.)

Intellectually, I can accept the concept but the Devonian reptile part of my brain refuses to deal with such preposterousness. In short, no, I cannot fathom a time without time.

What is 'time' anyway? Is it a state of existence arbitrarly divided into segments by solar cycles? And is it the same throughout the universe?

Questions, questions, eh?




"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)

"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres


"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude

Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,

and Crypto-Communist!

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JEROME DA GNOME
BANNED

2418 Posts

Posted - 07/05/2007 :  20:08:54   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send JEROME DA GNOME a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Zebra

Originally posted by JEROME DA GNOME

Filthy asked:
Jerome, can you imagine a time when time dosen't exist?


Yes, I believe that there is much we can not perceive and much we perceive incorrectly based on the structure of our bodies. Time very well could be a false human perception. In the same way Dave talked about the universe rolling back onto itself time could also do the same thing.



Sorry, Jerome, but did your "Yes" mean that you can imagine a time when time doesn't exist? (You seemed to answer that you can imagine that what we experience as time might be a misperception - that seems like a different question/answer to me.)




I can imagine a time(in the context of our current understanding) in which time(in the context of our current understanding) does not exist.

The problem is we are attempting to use words that are valid in the context of our perception to describe what we can not perceive. Think of it in this manner: how would someone born 500 years ago explain a DNA strand?



What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way. - Bertrand Russell
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26021 Posts

Posted - 07/05/2007 :  22:43:33   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by JEROME DA GNOME

The problem is we are attempting to use words that are valid in the context of our perception to describe what we can not perceive.
And yet, knowing that, you speculate on there being a "border" to the universe. How puzzling.

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too.
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Ghost_Skeptic
SFN Regular

Canada
510 Posts

Posted - 07/05/2007 :  22:44:18   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Ghost_Skeptic a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by filthy

I don't pretend to understand any of this cosmic stuff, and the more I read about it the stranger it all becomes. Kinda like what was in place before the Big bang -- what's up with that?


One possiblity is another (previous) universe - the Bad Astronomer has something on a new hypothesis on What Happened Before the Big Bang

Bojowald and other physicists at Penn State are exploring territory unknown even to Einstein -- the time before the Big Bang -- using a mathematical time machine called Loop Quantum Gravity. This theory, which combines Einstein's Theory of General Relativity with equations of quantum physics that did not exist in Einstein's day, is the first mathematical description to systematically establish the existence of the Big Bounce and to deduce properties of the earlier universe from which our own may have sprung. For scientists, the Big Bounce opens a crack in the barrier that was the Big Bang.

"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. / You can send a kid to college but you can't make him think." - B.B. King

History is made by stupid people - The Arrogant Worms

"The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism." - William Osler

"Religion is the natural home of the psychopath" - Pat Condell

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter" - Thomas Jefferson
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JEROME DA GNOME
BANNED

2418 Posts

Posted - 07/05/2007 :  22:55:31   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send JEROME DA GNOME a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Dave W.

Originally posted by JEROME DA GNOME

The problem is we are attempting to use words that are valid in the context of our perception to describe what we can not perceive.
And yet, knowing that, you speculate on there being a "border" to the universe. How puzzling.



I speculated to cause others to think and give me their thoughts to think about. Not puzzling at all.




What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way. - Bertrand Russell
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JEROME DA GNOME
BANNED

2418 Posts

Posted - 07/05/2007 :  22:56:37   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send JEROME DA GNOME a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Ghost_Skeptic

Originally posted by filthy

I don't pretend to understand any of this cosmic stuff, and the more I read about it the stranger it all becomes. Kinda like what was in place before the Big bang -- what's up with that?


One possiblity is another (previous) universe - the Bad Astronomer has something on a new hypothesis on What Happened Before the Big Bang

Bojowald and other physicists at Penn State are exploring territory unknown even to Einstein -- the time before the Big Bang -- using a mathematical time machine called Loop Quantum Gravity. This theory, which combines Einstein's Theory of General Relativity with equations of quantum physics that did not exist in Einstein's day, is the first mathematical description to systematically establish the existence of the Big Bounce and to deduce properties of the earlier universe from which our own may have sprung. For scientists, the Big Bounce opens a crack in the barrier that was the Big Bang.




Eternal?


What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way. - Bertrand Russell
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard

3192 Posts

Posted - 07/06/2007 :  05:14:26   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send BigPapaSmurf a Private Message  Reply with Quote
The answer Jerome is, "we dont know"

If the universe is a the size of a basketball the part we can see is only about the size of a golfball, somewhere in the middle. The basketball is enlerging at a much faster rate than the golfball and we will never be able to do more than speculate what is beyond the edge of our golfball let alone what lies past the edge of the basketball. I for one think our ever enlarging basketball is probably inside another medium/verse, but who's to say really. You probably couldnt find an edge to the universe if you had the ability to look there anyway.

"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History

"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini
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filthy
SFN Die Hard

USA
14408 Posts

Posted - 07/06/2007 :  06:12:59   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send filthy a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by JEROME DA GNOME

Originally posted by Ghost_Skeptic

Originally posted by filthy

I don't pretend to understand any of this cosmic stuff, and the more I read about it the stranger it all becomes. Kinda like what was in place before the Big bang -- what's up with that?


One possiblity is another (previous) universe - the Bad Astronomer has something on a new hypothesis on What Happened Before the Big Bang

Bojowald and other physicists at Penn State are exploring territory unknown even to Einstein -- the time before the Big Bang -- using a mathematical time machine called Loop Quantum Gravity. This theory, which combines Einstein's Theory of General Relativity with equations of quantum physics that did not exist in Einstein's day, is the first mathematical description to systematically establish the existence of the Big Bounce and to deduce properties of the earlier universe from which our own may have sprung. For scientists, the Big Bounce opens a crack in the barrier that was the Big Bang.




Eternal?


Who knows? Define and describe 'eternity.'

Very interesting, Ghost. I am always amazed, but seldom suprised, at what science comes up with. And the beauty of it is that as soon as a premis is shoiwn to be false, it is no longer defended, but abandoned.

Thanks for the read!




"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)

"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres


"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude

Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,

and Crypto-Communist!

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