Time and Causality

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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Robert
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Time and Causality

Post by Robert »

Given the timeless nature of Totality, it never began nor will ever end, is time itself synonymous with causality? For something to happen, it happens in time, and this something is caused by something else happening in a previous time, ad infinitum. Since we can logically say that there will be no end of time as there was no beginning, yet time is a divisible tool that we use to measure passing or future events, does it make any sense to ask the question What is Time? Is it the same as asking What is Causality? Both are concepts that we use as a way of describing how and when things happen, yet both these concepts don't exist as anything more than mental concepts, ways of attempting to empirically measure the immeasurable, the Infinite.

I recently watched BBC documentaries about Time with the likes of Michio Kaku and Brian Cox, but I don't recall them ever touching on this simple point. They go on about how they measure it, space time's relative nature, the Big Bang and parallel universes, but they never evoke the idea how ultimately time doesn't exist, only timelessness does.
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Ryan Rudolph
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Re: Time and Causality

Post by Ryan Rudolph »

The concept of time is important for pragmatic reasons. For instance: In science, it is a very important factor used in order to calculate other factors, in order to come up with a useful way to manipulate reality. Many physics formulas use time as an variable. And then time is important in the daily planning of our lives. The time it takes to get to the appointment I need to attend, and so on.

However, time is a much trickier concept as it relates to the mind. For instance: the ego often uses time to delay any growth by saying things like, "I will be enlightened in 3 years, after I attend many lectures and read many books" These types of personalities are often times addicted to the early emotions of seeking enlightenment, but there is no real courage by the ego to go all the way, so it uses time to delay growth.
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Carl G
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Re: Time and Causality

Post by Carl G »

Ryan Rudolph wrote:However, time is a much trickier concept as it relates to the mind. For instance: the ego often uses time to delay any growth by saying things like, "I will be enlightened in 3 years, after I attend many lectures and read many books" These types of personalities are often times addicted to the early emotions of seeking enlightenment, but there is no real courage by the ego to go all the way, so it uses time to delay growth.
Procrastination has nothing to do with time. The idea of becoming enlightened via lectures and books has nothing to do with time. Personality types, emotions, and courage have nothing to do with time. And ego is not the mind. And the ego does not use time.
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bashing time

Post by Foreigner »

You seem to be having too much fun punishing the dude, dude.
Did he make off with your babe or something!
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Robert
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Re: Time and Causality

Post by Robert »

Carl G wrote:Procrastination has nothing to do with time. The idea of becoming enlightened via lectures and books has nothing to do with time. Personality types, emotions, and courage have nothing to do with time. And ego is not the mind. And the ego does not use time.
I'm not sure I follow, Carl. Surely anything we do, any action we undertake, happens in time, irrespective of whether we recognise or not that it's really the ego acting, and irrespective of how much time it takes... ?

I understand in an ultimate sense, the ego and time don't exist, but in the everyday practical sense, the here and now, how doesn't the ego use time?
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Nick
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Re: Time and Causality

Post by Nick »

Time is simply a measurement of change, just like meters are a measurement of distance. Because time is an abstract concept, people tend ascribe all kinds of mystical and other worldly properties to it. Basically people make the mistake of believing it has an inherent meaning in the universe, much like love, or consciousness. Ultimately everything that ever was and will be exists in the now, time is just an illusion.
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Ryan Rudolph
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Re: Time and Causality

Post by Ryan Rudolph »

Carl,
Procrastination has nothing to do with time. The idea of becoming enlightened via lectures and books has nothing to do with time. Personality types, emotions, and courage have nothing to do with time. And ego is not the mind. And the ego does not use time.
But I think the ego does use time. The ego thrives in time. For instance; The time spent fantasizing about how long it must wait before it gets to gamble, go on vacation, have sex, consume drugs, or get to buy that next big possession. The ego attempts to fulfill itself through the concept of time, but as Nick suggests, time is just an illusion. But to the ego, its cognition thrives in time, and time is a very important illusion. An illusion that they will defend.
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Carl G
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Re: Time and Causality

Post by Carl G »

All you have said is that the ego uses fantasy, and I agree.
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Re: Time and Causality

Post by Elizabeth Isabelle »

Robert wrote:Given the timeless nature of Totality, it never began nor will ever end, is time itself synonymous with causality?
That the Totality never began and will never end means that it is infinite - not timeless. There is a timelessness to the Totality, but that isn't it.

I would say that causality is unbreakably linked to time.
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Robert
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Re: Time and Causality

Post by Robert »

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:That the Totality never began and will never end means that it is infinite - not timeless. There is a timelessness to the Totality, but that isn't it.
Right, a subtle but important point.
Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:I would say that causality is unbreakably linked to time.
I suppose my gripe really is the way the question of What is Time? is handled in popular science, like the way these BBC type shows portray, as if it's something, some kind of elusive object that they're chasing after but just can't find. They're really just highly paid, highly educated Bigfoot hunters, going on about how maybe one day they'll discover the true nature of time and/or what it really is, whilst rarely looking beyond the bubble of our universe and taking a wider view that goes beyond pure science, math or empirical information.

I'd just like to see them framing this question in a wider, more philosophical context encompassing causality and the All, but it seems the current fashion in popularizing science doesn't want to be seen taking too seriously purely logical reasoning. No money in it, I guess.
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Jamesh
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Re: Time and Causality

Post by Jamesh »

For a few years now I've been saying that "there is no such thing as emptiness or nothingness", "Nothingness is an impossibility because it is not possible for nothingness to be caused, nor could nothingness be affected by any cause".

I've never quite been happy with this as it breaks my absolute belief in duality. If there is only fullness, then duality must be false.

What however if Time was the result of there being another absolute side of the fundamental dualistic equation, that there is perfect emptiness? In being perfect emptiness it is that which can never be filled, completed, ended and is therefore infinite. In existing as non-existence, it thus frees what does exist to be existent.

Without some form of non-existence there could not be movement. A cause cannot be a cause unless it has something to affect. The sum of all causes cannot be casual unless there is something else which in itself is not causal and thus can be affected.

Taking this line of thought, then Time becomes the dimension that is the interrelationship between 3 dimensions (thingness/space) and -3 dimensions (no thingness/no scape).

In absolute fullness flowing into absolute emptiness, there is no change to the totality, it remains constant. At the same time though, everything is flowing inwards to the underlying emptiness ("flowing inwards" in a relativity sense only, not physically, the physical world is an illusion of our senses and brain). Effect-wise an inwardly flowing universe would appear the same as an expanding universe.

Time then becomes everything that is between two absolute poles, namely the (relative) untity of Fullness and Emptiness, Form or thingness, Movement and the Time as a flowing entity.
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Re: Time and Causality

Post by Leyla Shen »

Interesting line of enquiry.
Jamesh wrote:What however if Time was the result of there being another absolute side of the fundamental dualistic equation, that there is perfect emptiness? In being perfect emptiness it is that which can never be filled, completed, ended and is therefore infinite. In existing as non-existence, it thus frees what does exist to be existent.

Without some form of non-existence there could not be movement. A cause cannot be a cause unless it has something to affect.
But you haven’t explained how nothingness is a something and thus why time necessarily requires (the cause) “perfect emptiness” in order to exist.*
The sum of all causes cannot be casual unless there is something else which in itself is not causal and thus can be affected.
Wouldn’t that be the totality? All the “things” contained within it being the something else’s which in themselves (emptiness) are not causal and can thus be affected?

*By way of analogy: i.e., since pink elephants exist as non-existent, elephants are free to exist...?
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Re: Time and Causality

Post by Steven Coyle »

Yeah, time is simply division. Even the mention of it brings about a feeling of division.
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Nick
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Re: Time and Causality

Post by Nick »

I was thinking about the possibility of time travel recently, and as time goes by I'm becoming less open to the idea. Knowing time is our own subjective measurement of change, and that The All is right here and now, there is actually no past or future to travel to. Thus, the idea that time travel is plausible due to the inner workings of the general theory of relativity is nothing more than the result of an incomplete equation, (as all equations necessarily are) and when these equations are over-extended beyond their usefulness they begin to produce irrational scenarios that are absolutely impossible.
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Pincho Paxton
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Re: Time and Causality

Post by Pincho Paxton »

Humans create words as markers. Time is a marker. It doesn't really exists as an entity. The way to understand past events is to take a moment, and analyse it.

A moment consists of a pulse.
The pulse expands for a while.
Then it deflates for awhile.
And then it is over.

There is no way to know what the pulse before it did unless you watch it, and remember it. Now who is watching all of those pulses? Who is watching the pulse behind the tree in your back garden? Who is remembering every pulse in history?

Nobody.
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Blair
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Re: Time and Causality

Post by Blair »

Oh it's being recorded alright, every last bit.

You better believe it.
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BMcGilly07
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Re: Time and Causality

Post by BMcGilly07 »

Nick Treklis wrote:I was thinking about the possibility of time travel recently, and as time goes by I'm becoming less open to the idea. Knowing time is our own subjective measurement of change, and that The All is right here and now, there is actually no past or future to travel to. Thus, the idea that time travel is plausible due to the inner workings of the general theory of relativity is nothing more than the result of an incomplete equation, (as all equations necessarily are) and when these equations are over-extended beyond their usefulness they begin to produce irrational scenarios that are absolutely impossible.
Good point. I agree with what's been written here.
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Pincho Paxton
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Re: Time and Causality

Post by Pincho Paxton »

Yes the theory of relativity is actually something completely different to what is being described. You can only really know what it is by breaking the whole universe down to its tiniest components. And its tiniest components are pulses, and gates, and messages. Movement is a message sent in one direction, and relativity is the message sent in the opposite direction... but the message is passed by a sort of pass the parcel effect. So really, nothing is actually moving at all. Without any actual speed involved it breaks apart the theory of relativity. The reason that photons move at a fixed speed is that the message is being passed between two points, and the two points are a fixed distance apart (in our galaxy, they are further apart in other galaxies). When you have a fixed distance between the messages, you have a fixed speed for photons to travel at.
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Re: Time and Causality

Post by Animus »

Even the Now is an illusory concept.
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yana
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Re: Time and Causality

Post by yana »

Causality came before time. So there is your relation. And time is simply radioactive decline.
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