Hi Roel:
That means, in this case, the 3d timefield is relative to a person. I have a slightly different approach. The only "place" where Past, Present and Future come together in one point is when you're born (or actually at conception). At that point you have "zero history", "zero future" (assuming the future does not yet exist) and the present equals future minus history.
Ah, OK, at least I "see" how you are approaching it. What it seems like you have done is to affix the (0,0,0) point of time to some "special" moment, as if it was more pertinent than any other moment. I can see why you would do this, and why you would affix it to the point of one's conception. But this is where I would invoke Einstein, who told us that there is no "preferred" frame of reference...that they all are relative. All that matters is that you choose a reference and make all your measurements consistent with that reference.
I would apply this same rule to the 3D timefield. So, while you have chosen a specific point in the confluence of Mass/Space (conception) to affix the (0,0,0) origin of the timefield, I would say that ALL such (arbitrary) selections are equivalent. This is why I generalize the issue, and simply say the relative origin of my 3-d timefield is my point of consciousness, no matter what state of Mass/Space it may involve. Of course, this is still a true statement, since my point of consciousness is still the only point (for me) that Past/Present/Future all come together in one "point". But...now what does this "mean" to how I would interpret the negative quadrants of Past, Present, Future? This is quite simple:
1) Negative Past - This corresponds to a specific "mixing" of Mass/Space that I did not, personally, perceive. Therefore, they are not part of my "memory".
2) Positive Past - Obviously, this corresponds to "mixings" of Mass/Space that I *did* personally perceive.
3) Negative Present - A mixture of Mass/Space that I am not, currently, perceiving.
4) Positive Present - What I am now perceiving in the Mass/Space around me (rememeber: both Mass and Space are, for all intents and purposes, infinite around me...thus, the positive present is a VERY big "place"). /ttiforum/images/graemlins/smile.gif
5) Negative Future - A mixture of Mass/Space that I will not come to perceive in this form of consciousness.
6) Positive Future - A mixture of Mass/Space that I will come to perceive in this form of consciousness.
If you study, and think about, this "version" of the timefield, you will see that is has a lot of possibilities for explaining some capabilities of human consciousness. First of all, have we ever wondered where "imagination" comes from? By that, I mean, what is the foundation for being able to "dream-up" something, such as an entire fictional sci-fi story? The "negative" quandrants of the timefield permit this to happen...even though I may not have experienced a specific configuration of Mass/Space, that does not mean I cannot posit its existence and "place" it in my 3-D timefield. Something else this timefield permits is "memory modification", which we all have been susceptible to. Perhaps you are talking with a friend about a time you two went skiing together, and you seem POSITIVE that your friend was wearing their blue skisuit...it is as if you can almost "see" that event in your mind.... and yet, your friend produces a photo that shows he was wearing the green skisuit. One way of explaining this would be that my mind is recalling the vast majority of the "positive past" (it recalls us going skiing), but a "recall error" occurs with respect to one element of the past, and it retrieves the blue skisuit from your "negative past" as if it were part of your "positive past". Anyway....FWIW, this is the way I envision the 3-D timefield.
In my opinion, your conciousness "travels" along with the present. You can only "experience" conciousness at the moment you "experience" it (sounds strange, but it made sense while I was typing this).
It does sound a bit strange, but I do understand what you are getting at! :D Only problem is, I don't buy this limitation...the reason is because it does not address other states of mind where we are clearly not experiencing consciousness at the moment we are experiencing it. I am primarily referring to dreaming. We know from sleep studies, that the same areas of the brain used for vision are being stimulated during dreaming....so this would explain why we "see" dreams as if they are movies. But where do they come from? Obviously, our consciousness is "working" because the dream seems real...and yet, also obviously, it does not represent realtime (present) sensory inputs from our eyes!
Furthermore, I see conciousness as an unanswered question: "Why am I aware of the fact that I am me?". The answer is in the question, yet you cannot put a finger on it.
I'm not so sure it is an "unanswered" question...although the answer may not be understood. I think the answer to this question is "because I have senses that give me information (feedback) about my environment." When these senses (inputs) are coupled to my bodily functions (outputs), they allow me to "close a loop". This permits me to interact with, and perceive, some form of reality. Here is where we get into Chaos Theory, which says that ALL systems are "closed loop", it just depends upon how large of a timeframe you are observing cause/effect. This discussion (of senses) is also what gets to what I believe is the main element that causes us to "fix" our arrow of time: LIGHT. As far as we know, we have NO sense that is faster in its response than our vision. Thus, we are "slaves" to the ordering of events that are described by light's propagation. It is highly probable that, if we had higher frequency response senses, we might "order" our events in a completely different way. (This is why I believe undifferentiated Energy is the only form of "truth", because it is not slaved to our senses.) To think about what I am getting at here, recall the familiar "time sequence" of how you perceive lightning and thunder when you see a storm in the distance: You see the light first, then you hear the sound...even though they both occurred at the same time. Now apply this scenario to a sightless being that you are with: When you see the lightning (knowing their ears are sensitive), you yell at them "cover your ears". Your words reach them a few seconds before the "boom" of the thunder. In their limited world, you would have "predicted the future" and they would have placed your words ahead of the time that the thunder occurred. Yet, if they had eyes, they would have seen what you saw, and they would have placed the thunder's occurrence (not its perception) at the same time as the lightning flash.
We are more than energy. We are time and mass and we occupy space.
I beg to differ...simply because these 3 "pieces" of reality (Mass, Time, Space) are actually what comprise the basic units of Energy! E=mc^2, when boiled down to its fundamental units is: E = [mass]*[space]^2/[time]^2. Hence, we ARE energy...no more...no less. And what of the "squared"? I have talked about this before as well: The "Squared" of this equation is a reminder that light propagates as spherical "bubbles". So the "squared" actually represents the surface of the "light bubble". We live (experience the "present") ONLY on the surface of that light bubble. In fact, this is what provides us the "illusion" of time! We think because the light bubble that describes an event to us has passed us by, that the event is "in the past".... however, in reality, we know that those light waves are still propagating into the universe. Hence, while old TV programs broadcast during the 60s are in our "past", those same radio waves are in the "present" for some species somewhere that is just now receiving those waves.
I think that we can only perceive time in a linear manner. For us, time IS linear.
I would agree only inasmuch as this is what our senses tell us. But just like I can imagine a sci-fi story without ever experiencing it, I also believe it is possible to stretch our minds to conceive of Time in its "natural" 3-D state. I'm not saying it is easy, just that it can be done! /ttiforum/images/graemlins/smile.gif
I understand what you mean with the "the great sea of Energy", but this is just another way of describing something we can't really describe.
No offense, but I think this is a bit of a cop-out. Actually, trying to stretch the mind to think in terms of a "great sea of Energy" is the real challenge! It is similar to looking at a tesseract (hypercube) and telling yourself "I know that is not what it looks like in 4-D, it is just a 3-d shadow of what it looks like in 4-D". But from this shadow, you can infer the most important aspect of 4-D...curvature. Instead of focusing on the "cube within a cube", which is the shadow, you begin to focus on the parabolic surfaces that serve as the boundaries.
It's not wrong to think time is linear, because time IS linear.
I agree, it is not "wrong"....but it is incomplete. As always, I have some great discussions with you, Roel. My only point here is that I think "advancing beyond" our current state of human existence is going to require making the leap from thinking about time as linear (incomplete) to a more integrated concept of Energy wherein Time can be expressed in all 3 of its "natural" dimensions.
Kind Regards,
RainmanTime
