I would like to be able to know what all people are thinking because what they say and what they do are two different things .
.

"ahem," he says, rolling back his sleeves, and sharpening his brain-muscles on the sharpening stone.

You see the past, and you can only see the past. But when you see your nose, it's a not-so-distant past. When you see a star, it's the distant past.

"You can only see the present" assumes, not only semantically, but it says that even, that what you see is happening in the present. In one distinct instance of time.

When you see the tip of your nose, and when you see the star, especially if you could do the two at the same time, and I hope you can, for my argument's sake, then what you see is the near past and the distant past.

The two realities that you see are of two different instances in time.

Therefore, while the difference is semantical, the difference is also in the meaning. The two things (seeing the present) and (seeing the past) are different in meaning and also in what they mean (what the hell is "semantics" anyway? Who let that word in here?) because seeing only the present allows you to see only one instant of time, whereas seeing the past lets you see different instants in the past, that is, instants that occurred at different times.

Pong. (It's your turn to ping again. )

I just today read the 35 page summary report by P.E.A.R on their research into RV.

http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/pdfs/jse_papers/IU.pdf

What surprised me most about it was some of the ideas they put forth to explain some of the unreliability of the phenomenon. (Down around page 25 or so) It was the most cogent explanation I had ever heard. It used comparisons of the protocols used in different tests sets to arrive at a very compelling explanation for the variance in reliability.

An excellent read if you're so inclined.

You can learn to do that now... just tune into their energy. It really isn't all that hard to do.

I know an excellent teacher. Send me a box full of hundred dollar bills and I'll forward it to the teacher. She'll teach you everything you always wanted to know about telepathy, but were afraid to ask -- without leaving the comfort of your home. She can do this telepathetically, you see.

She will teach you the proper and improper ways of going about the business of mind-reading, mind-broadcasting and whether one's reach should extend one's overbite, as well as the etiquette and good manners when doing it.

Ok, I’ll do my best, but I fear this is going to deteriorate into absurdity pretty quicly.

So here’s a little impetus in that direction…

Do the light waves enter the eye in the past? No, the light waves enter the eye in the present. And since light waves entering the eye is seeing, seeing can only happen in the present. What is seen (i.e. the composition of the light rays) is irrelevant. The seeing always happens in the present. Thus, one can only see the present.

Ping

Very good!!

No to the bolded part of the quote.

Seeing is not looking, and seeing is not perceiving. Seeing is what you look at, what you perceive with your senses, but seeing is a processed information. To see involves knowledge. False or true, does not matter.

Light wave entering an eye is not seeing. A dead or blind eye can be entered by light waves, but the person who owns the eye does not see.

So does not a person whose mind is so dysfuncitonal that he is unable to process information at all that comes through his eyes and stimulates the vision centre in the brain.

Seeing involves processing the information.

The information when you look at a star is old information. Any way you look at it.

A star may not even exist in the present when you look at it, yet you see it in the present.

Thus, you see the past, in the present.

To wit: the part of your post from which this discussion stemmed, read "We can only "see" the present." If you wrote "we can only "see" in the present" then I would not raise and iota of objection.

Pangggggg.

Equating “seeing” with “processing information” changes nothing – because “past” and “information” are not identities. Information cannot be the past because it exists in the present – the same time wherein the processing occurs. If information is identified with anything, it must be identified with the present. It exists in the present, not the past. It is processed here in the present, not in the past.

So to borrow one of your statements…

If you were arguing that “we can see what came from the past”, I would not raise an iota of objection.

But to see the past? No.

Ponggggg

Hm. Seeing is not processing information; it is receiving information and processing it. It is a complex activity.


Processing information in the present by no means means that it's information about the present. The information is about the past.

Seeing (accepting sensory stimulus and processing it), since processing is involved, means that the information processed is about the past. You get the stimulation now in your retina; but the information you process is about the past.

Therefore, with the aid of a computer inside your head, you do see the past by getting the stimulus now, but constructing meaning out of the stimulus gives you information about the past, therefore, you get information about the past now, therefor you do see the past now, in the present.

When you see the movie "The Great Dictator", you do see the past, despite accepting the visual sensory stimulus now. It is childish to say that Charlie Chaplin is playing with the stylised ball of the world now. I affirm that your saying "you can only see the present because you see NOW" (quotation is a summary, not an exact quote, and only in quotation marks to mark as an argument you said in so many other words, so please correct the quote as necessary but I think it's an accurate paraphrasing), you affirm that seeing movie footage of the past cannot be interpreted other ways but to accept that it's happening right now.

The seeing of the movie is happening right now. What you see happened in the past. You know you see the past, by employing the super-computer inside the head. To mix the two up is an error in subjective awareness of reality. It is an error, because it places the past into the present, which is obviously a dichotomy and leads to lessened survival chances or lessened chances of producing offspring and raising him or her to sexual maturity.

What's happening right now, is receiving the visual sensory stimulus; but after the information has been processed, which in human terms is an almost instantaneous event, you see the past.

Another analogy may be used. In 1974, in my grade 13 class a classmate of mine said to me on graduation day that space has got to be four dimensional. He proved it by saying that in one-dimensional space (a line) the information that can be seen has zero dimensions. (You can see a point.) In a two-dimensional space, a plane, you can only see a line, or other one- or zero dimensional things. It's always one less dimensions that one sees than the actual dimensionality of space in any space. Therefore the space we live in is four-dimensional, since we see three dimensions.

I said, the proof is false; our eyes see two dimensions. Close one eye, and you'll be able to see only two-dimensional (surface-like, planes, plane areas) space. Close that eye and open the other, and it's the same. You don't receive three-dimensional vision; you develop it by honing the computer inside your vision centre to process the visual stimuli into building a reliable three-dimensional spacial model of the reality. You are aided in doing this by touch, by smell. If you had no way of measuring distance by extending your arm and pulling it in, or via walking to an object and observing your progression, you would not see space as three dimensional.

I could not say this to him, because I spoke almost no English at the time. I could not say it becauses when I started to tell him, he dismissed me with one hand gesture and drowned me out with saying that he knew he was wrong, and generally, he dismissed me and my opinion because I was the shortest kid in class. I am sure I would not be so arrogant now and would be much more relaxed if I were taller than the 5'4" I grew up to. My hight has constantly put me in position of such huge disadvantage of prejudicial lack of reputability by the public. I always had to be twice as good as others to be considered half as good. I think this phenomenon is why I so aggressively go after winning arguments on forums, too.

I never noticed this disadvantage other then being acutely and painfully aware of how women viewed short stature in a guy. The other social aspects never bothered me, since the women-issue was so huge for me.

Anyhow. I managed to lose my virginity, and I managed to keep doing that, but at 45 the well of ... er. Well, the well or willing and available supply of six-inch long wells dried up, so to speak, and I've been celibate ever since. Pisses me off, but thank goodness at least I can still piss, albeit with a lot of difficulty. (55 years old.)

That's why I can see the past and you can't see that you can see the past.

Punnnnnng.

Sorry 'bout that. Didn't realize that I had screwed up my quote tags until it was too late. Here's the correctly quoted version.

As with “past” and “information”, as I pointed out in my previous post, “about the past” and “the past” are not identities.

Saying that seeing “information about the past” is equivalent to seeing “the past” is like saying that seeing “a picture of the chair” is equivalent to seeing “the chair”.

Yes, looking at a picture of the chair may impart all sorts of information about the chair, which can then be evaluated and use to construct a mental equivalent of the chair. But neither the picture, nor the mental construct, is “the chair”.

Likewise, receiving information “about the past” allows you to construct, from that information, a mental equivalent of the past. But neither the information received, nor the mental construct is “the past”.

Unless, of course, you want to try and define “past” as that mental construct. But then you have a situation where “the past” exists in “the present”, which is a self-contradiction.

Bottom line: Equating “the past” with “mental reconstruction of the past” is simply erroneous.

Poinnnngg

From my book on Time Travel for beginners:

You can only see things in the present because everything exists in the present.

I have learned that time does not really exist. What does exist are events. Events are processes. Processes are simply processes and they rank above any notion of time and space.

In fact, the notion of time and space depend upon events and processes to exist.

The three dimensions of space and the dimension of time are simply coordinates for the location of a particular event or process.

Consider that the universe is a holographic movie of unknown dimensions (frequencies and time lines) within which all events or processes happen or exist in the present moment. You, as a spirit entity (a time traveler) existing outside of this particular universe want to enter it and play the game of life.

You must have the coordinates in order to get to the place you want to be in the holographic movie. Those coordinates are not found by dates or addresses as you might think. (For example: 1941, Germany.)

The coordinates are found relative to other events and processes and those are located by points of perception or observers. If you want to enter the universe in 1941 Germany you must focus on the known events and processes happening at that time and place.

Is this a book you're writing, or a book you're reading?



I like the concept to a degree.

I have a similar notion associated with an imagined concept of a "spiritual library". In my imagined library you can do something very similar. However, in addition to entering into preexisting and predefined movies you can also enter into brand new movies that are very similar in style yet different in detail.

For example, you can imagine entering into a 1941 Germany were the landscape, styles, and physical objects are identical to 1941 Germany, but the governmental leaders and world affairs in general are quite different.

I'm taking a "reductionist" approach here...

I would define an event as an "ordered sequence of changes of the positions of objects in space".

But notice there is no specification of the quality (size) or quantity (number) of the changes.

Thus, the entire life of this physical universe, could be called "an event" just as well as could a single revolution of an electron around the nucleus of an atom.

And the same could be said for "process".

So to me, using "event" and/or "process" to define "time", is just too vague to be practical.

Now let me propose what I think "time" is.

The way we perceive time is by comparing the relative changes in the positions of objects in space.

But what are we really comparing?

Since the same object cannot occupy two positions in space at the same time (otherwise they would be "different objects”, by definition), then what we are actually comparing is one “now” against another “now”.

But since there is only one “now”, where did the other “now” come from?

I submit that the other “now” is nothing more than a “mental image”. (Which would imply that all “nows” including the “current” one, are mental images as well – but I’ll leave that for another thread.)

So what we are actually comparing, is two different mental images.

Therefore, our “measurement of” time, is based on the differences between mental images.

In other words, “the thing that is being measured” is the differences.

Which means that time is, quite simply, “the differences between mental images”.

Now interestingly enough, this aligns perfectly with relativity. That is, as the speed of the “mental image recorder” increases, the differences between the mental images decreases. (This is easily demonstrated though high-speed motion photography) Until, at the speed of light, there is no longer any difference between the images at all. In other words, time stops.

Also note that, “‘the thing that is being measured’” is the differences [between the relative positions of the objects in the image]” aligns perfectly with “relativity” in the idea that time and space are really one and the same. In other words, time is the "space" between the two positions being compared.

It works for me.

That's a very interesting presentation Sky,

There does seem to be a slight problem though, and that lies with the following statement:



This implies that there is still an 'absolute' concept of 'time' for the "mental image recorder" itself.

However, this isn't truly a problem really. This would be "God's time" which is different from the time in spacetime.

God's time doesn't have an arrow. It's not flowing from 'past to future'. And the key is entropy. God's entropy never changes, thus there is no arrow of time.

It can be explained as simply an eternal 'now' that is simply changable in form. Yet the 'now' itself never changes (i.e. it has no entropy)

To think of this in terms for God we must think in terms of 'perfection' as always. After all, if God has no entropy then God must indeed be perfect.

So imagine if you will a perfect sphere. This is all that exists. This perfect sphere is "God".

Looking at this imaginary sphere which is all that exists in our mind's eye what can we say about it in terms of time without relating it to anything else?

Well, assuming that it's perfect static and not changing in any way then we can't say anything about time. Time does not exist for this static sphere because there is nothing to compare it with.

So now imagine that while you're watching this sphere it sudden become 'dimpled' (like a golf ball). Now you have recognized a CHANGE!

You can begin to speak about 'time'. Of course, the only real time that exists at this point stems from your abilty to remember that previously it was smooth. So memory is a requirement to even recognize that a change has occured. Without memory you would have no way of knowing that it wasn't always 'dimpled'

Now suppose it suddenly becomes smooth again. How should you take this? Did it go 'backward in time'?

After all, it RETURNED to a PREVIOUS state did it not?

Surely then it must have gone BACKWARD in time.

However, you could fetch into your memory and say, "No, it was smooth, then it became dimpled, and then became smooth again!" So now you have a LIST of events in sequential order that you might suspect that you could call 'time'.

But what does this say? Once again, it says that time is dependent up on memory. Time is a function of memory. But how far can your memory go?

What if this sphere started oscillating back and forth between being smooth and dimples continuously. Now you'd have to keep track of all the changes and COUNT them to keep track of time.

STILL not knowing with any certainty at all whether this actual sphere is moving "forward" in time or just going back and forth between a past state and a current state, then back to the past then to the future state and so on.

Only your memory of keeping track of all these oscillations is truly the only 'record' of time. And what does your memory ticker tape actually represent? ENTROPY!

The entropy of your memory is changing.

Entropy is the key to time.

If the perfect sphere is truly just oscillating back and forth between two perfect states and there is nothing about the sphere itself that is 'changing' in terms of entropy, then this sphere is indeed just oscillating back and forth from its own past and future. It's not creating a change in entropy and so, for the sphere, not "time" as we think of it has passed.

This is God's time. It doesn't flow from past to future because God's entropy never changes.

The physical universe however does change appear to change in entropy and that's the key to the 'time' that we experience. But overall when taken as a WHOLE (which is far beyond even our sciences to consider), the entropy of all that exists never truly changes at all.

Entropic changes are what create spacetime TIME.

But the "Time" that the 'image recorder' runs by has no entropy. And so it's a different kind of "Time".

It's an eternal dynamic that never gets old. An ever changing 'now' that has no 'past' or 'future' because those aren't even meaningful concepts outside of a system that can record 'entropy'.

Hmmmm… I don’t quote follow that.

Since “what the recorder is recording” is images of the physical universe, the recordings are necessarily dependent upon the physical universe for something to record.

In other words, the recorder must operate within (i.e. follow the laws of) the physical universe in order to make recordings of the physical universe.

But according to the laws of the physical universe, there is no “absolute” time.

So the recorder could not have any ‘absolute’ concept of time.

Or from the opposite perspective, if there were a recorder that recorded in ‘absolute’ time, it would not be recording the physical universe.

So I’m not saying there is no possibility of some recorder recording ‘absolute’ time (i.e. “God’s time”). I’m only saying that any such recordings would not be applicable to the physical universe. Or at least, they would only be applicable insofar as they followed the laws of the physical universe.

(Remainder of post excluded from the sake of space)

My problem with that analogy is that first, you postulate this
And then you go on to talk about an observer, using the observer’s viewpoint to illustrate entropy.

But if the sphere constitutes a closed system all by itself, then each and every single “change in state” of the sphere is the totality of time. That is, at the end of each and every change, the sphere is in a state of maximum entropy. In other words, the sphere is always in a state of maximum entropy and thus, there is no time.

The only way to resolve that apparent paradox is to introduce an observer. But then the “closed system” is composed of more than just the sphere all by itself, so the analogy falls apart.

Of course.

But if I tried to "explain" it to you without providing you with a human 'mind experiment' there would be no way to do it.

Anytime we attempt to speak about the 'unspeakable' we necessarily must contaminate the analog lest it become completely invisible and unspeakable.

The only ulternative would have been to post:

"I understand the answer to that riddle, but I can't share it with you, sorry".



This is the problem that the Taoists have with the Tao. The "Tao" is that which is un-namable. Yet it's called the "Tao".

The "Tao" that that which is unknowable. Yet there exists entire schools that teach of it.

The "Tao" is that which cannot be touched, heard, felt, tasted, or smelled. Yet we can 'Flow with the Tao".

Paradox? Or just a concept that is impossible to communicate without tainting it?

If "god" is beyond human comprehension, then we must go 'beyond' human comprehension to discuss "god".

Yes, you were kind of supposed to ignore the 'observer' in a mind experiment.

But I confess, that whilst I had the observer handy I thought I'd also address the concept of entropy which is the ultimate thing that the 'observer' brings to the table.

If all that exists is 'god', then there is no observer. Yet, the idea is that 'god' can become manifest to obeserve itself. And when it does this, then an observer is manifest and thus spacetime is born.

In fact the whole 'sphere' thing was a cheat too actually.

But what can I say. Something had to be used as an example.

The idea is that spirit can actually be utterly formless and still exist. Spirit does not require form to exist. At least that's the best-selling gossip anyway.

Well I totally understand that "the sphere as a closed system" is a difficult concept to work with.

My original post was an attempt to explain "physical universe time". That explanation seems to me to cover all the bases.

And obviously "God's time" is a whole different animal that doesn't "follow the laws of physics".

So I guess the whole point of my reply was to point out that I didn't seen any connection or dependency between "God's time" and "physical universe time".

Did I erroneously assume that there is one?

Or is there some base that I didn't cover?

I believe
I don't believe

I can
I can't

I am
I am not

I see
I can't see

I know
I don't know


In the end does it matter?

Is it important?

Why?

Why not?

What is right?
What is wrong?

Does it apply to everyone?
or only a few or just yourself?

Does what apply?
Anything and everything?

and nothing.

What is the end?
Where is the end?

Where is the beginning?
Where does one start?

Where does one stop?

How far can you know?
Why can't we know everything?
Why should we know everything?
Why shouldn't we know everything?

Who are we beyond our human form?
Is there beyond our human form?

Does it just end?

Is it just a cause and effect
or a mistake and defect?

What is the cause?

What are the effects?

What does it matter?


In the end where are we?
Are you sure we are there?

Maybe we don't exist?
Maybe we do?

What do you believe to be true?