God
Is Time
The Analogous
Conspectus
4th
Draft
Daniel
Lewandowski
April
26, 2012
Outline
Introduction
- Chapter One - A Philosophical Definition of Time
- In reference to linear time
- In reference to cyclical time
- Macro-cyclical
- Micro-cyclical
- In reference to relative time
- In reference to homo-centric time (we are time)
Chapter Two -
A Physical Definition of Time
- In reference to the cosmos
- Heliocentric influences
- Relativity influences
- Affects of theoretical influences
In reference
to biology
- Our biological cellular clocks
- The time of biology at large
- Affects of theoretical time
In reference
to the particle
- The atomic clock
- Faster than light neutrinos and their implications
- Affects of theoretical time
Chapter Three
- A Working Definition of Time
- The common thread of the theoretical
- How our concepts are items (intangible is no less real)
- The intangible reality of time
The pitfalls
of metaphor
Time: a
definition
Chapter Four
– What is God?
- A broader definition of a god
- The intangible reality of God via effect
- A specific definition of God
Chapter Five
– Classifying the Traits Assigned to God and Time
- Recalling the use of metaphor from Chapter Three
- Structural Attributes
- The metaphor of supernatural traits
- Personality Traits
- The metaphor of anthropomorphic traits.
- Chapter Six - The Infinite Nature of Time and God - How timelessness effects all other attributes and conditions of Time and God
- The infinite nature of God
- The etymological roots for YHVH
- The mythological roots for YHVH
- The historical roots for YHVH
The infinite
nature of Time - how Time is timeless
- The logical path to infinite time within our universe
- Time as a function - adding “one” to each end ad infinitum
Chapter Seven
- The Omnipresence of Time and God
- An omnipresent God
- Advantages
- Dependance on infinity
The
necessity for the omnipresence of Time with in our universe
- The dependance of omnipresence on infinity
Chapter Eight
- The Omniscience of Time and God
- The omniscience of God
- Advantages
- Dependance on infinity
The
potential omniscience of Time
- Collective physical record of events (the earthquake)
- Collective physical record (space)
- The neuronetwork of space
- The “Electric Universe”
- The hypothesis of residual information carried by time itself into new time-lines.
- Chapter Nine - The Omnipotence of God and Time
- The omnipotence of God
- Advantages
- Dependance on infinity
- The apparent omnipotence of Time
- The universal cadence established by Time
- Neg-entropic forces of thermodynamics
- Examples of what time can accomplish in geology
Chapter Ten –
The Holy Righteousness, Loving Justice and Other Traits of God
and Time
- The mind set to have as we talk about highly metaphoric personality traits
- The way God and Time answer prayer
- Determining the governing personality trait of God and Time
- Viewing time as loving
- The Holy Trinity
- The alleged misinterpretation in regards to Christianity's take
- The identities of each figure and their roles in theology
- Applying this metaphor to Time
The limits
of metaphoric anthropomorphizing
- For God
- For Time
Chapter
Eleven - The Personalization of Time and God
Chapter
Twelve - How to Create a God and Give Him a Job
Chapter
Thirteen – The Worshipping of Time as God by Modernized Man
Introduction
- “[A]mong our instinctive beliefs some are much stronger than others, while many have, by habit and association, become entangled with other beliefs, not really instinctive, but falsely supposed to be part of what is believed instinctively.”
- -Bertrand Russel, The Problems With Philosophy
Is
God time? Perhaps a better question with an answer more attainable
is; Is time god?
Why
make the psychological and philosophical connections between God and
Time? What service will it do? Isn't time a fact of nature as
experienced by man? Isn't belief in God a personal choice? Perhaps it
is that simple. But if I just left it at that I'd have nothing to
write about, would I? Humanity affords to God certain
attributes that have a striking similitude to the attributes of time,
as the human perceives time to be anyway. Better said, we talk about
time as though it were God. Phrases such as, “Time heals all
wounds”; “It's all a matter of time”; “Time waits for no
man”; “Only time will tell” (a few among many) all give time an
ethereal personification in the human mind. That is a pretty simple
idea and if I may begin impugning my own thesis, it's a grade school
one at best. However, I believe there are some wonderful
ramifications for us to consider, no matter what position we take on
the subjects of the reality of God and the limited, or unlimited,
nature of time.
The failure of words is one reasons for me to at least try to express
this nominal idea. If we really want to be specific about any one
element of our existence eventually at some point words begin to
become quite cumbersome. In fact, that's just the suchness of nature.
It's kind of complex (to be trite) and since the language of the
universe is most aptly translated into tangible tidbits with the use
of math, it leaves us at bit of a loss when using words as our tool
of conveyance. Even in terms of mathematics the universe is
ineffable. But we have to boil it down or no one would really be able
to talk about anything at all. Since I don't believe in knowledge for
the elite, but instead follow the idea of enlightenment for all, I
will attempt to use layman's terms whenever possible to best
communicate my idea, since that is really all I am. All the while I
will do my best to avoid my predisposition for contracting logorrhea.
I guess, it is a human trait we picked up somewhere, that when one
someone tells us we can not do something it only adds to our fervour
of trying. The idea of over simplification for the edifying of the
common man is not all too rouge of an idea. I think it is safe to say
we have all heard of Einstein and his innumerable contributions to
modern physics, the most popular of which being E=mc².
As many of you know, and for those of you who don't, this is not the
true equation. It is merely the equation in its simplest terms, so
that people like myself and perhaps some of you, can at least follow
along the implication trail and see with some perspective what the
math really means to us. But don't disparage, just because we may not
be able to do the math doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't live our
lives in reflection to it's implication. The same goes for the little
tidbits I would like to share in this brief conspectus.
The
description of God has failed people for thousands and tens of
thousands of years. Too many to list are the passages in the Torah,
the Bible and Koran in which the writer explicitly states his words
fail him. Incidentally, God gave Moses (the supposed author of the
first five books of the Bible/Torah) a name to call him by and that
was YHWH (Exodus 3:14). Would you like to know what it means?
So would have Moses. It is unpronounceable and beyond definition but
again, with a need to boil things down for the sake of communication,
we get; “I AM THAT I AM” or Yahweh.
Time
too used to be a simple idea, until a fellow named Sir Isaac Newton
showed up to mess it all up. Then, add to that the compounding
affects of the advent of relativity and modern theoretical physics
and the waters really begin to get murky. And by murky I mean clear;
if you can do the math, that is. Do we understand that minutes and
seconds are arbitrary divisions of a twenty-four hour period on our
planet as it goes around our sun? Of course, we do. So, that makes
time just a term, does it not? It's nomenclature, colloquial,
perspective, relative and subjective to us as human beings. Yet if it
were only those things, why is trying to explain an extraneous
concepts such as time, like describing what something looks like by
using the descriptive terminology of taste? I mean, sure it can be
done but are you getting anywhere? In the process of writing this
paper I asked a number of people to define time, and most, if not
all, couldn't do so effectively. They did however, knew how it felt.
But we will try anyway, for the sake of understanding the big
picture, to do our best, just as the others did for me, to define
this thing we only know by experience. Time baffles all
understanding. The best we can do is throw a few words at it and a
few equations that link it to space in hopes that some of them stick.
But, at the end of the day, we haven't done it much justice at all.
However, if you're going to get anywhere you have to at least try.
A
fundamental question that often arises soon after embarking on such a
discussion is the question of what is real and what isn't? Depending
on how you choose to define it, time might not even exist at all.
Starting with science that predated even Newton and specifically in
light of some of the discoveries and theories that have come out of
places like CERN in the last few years, the reality of any one part
of nature (or the reality of all of it) has become quite a slipper
fish to catch. The theory of a holographic universe for one, has
thrown a wrench into the potential perception of reality for many of
us and by extension, the perception of both Time and God become
skewed in such an lopsided universal view. And depending on where you
weigh in on the issue of God you may pass a broad stroke over the
idea that God can be Time and promptly just dismiss it altogether,
which might be just as well. If you are the person who believes
neither in time nor God, what does this paper mean to you? Can it
mean anything to you? The answer is, yes. The reason being is that
there are many people you know that believe one or both of these
ideas to actually exist, and at the very least, I hope to shed some
light on why that is and help us to expose the deeply buried
connections our brains have made, by look at the stuff that makes us
who we are.
Regardless
of all of that, my first duty will be not to necessarily confirm the
potential or factual existence of both, but to assiduously
correlate the specific perceived nature of God to the perceived
nature of time. My second, to show the function a god serves to man
(and his psyche) and subsequently how modern man has replaced God
with Time in said function.
Chapter
One
A
Philosophical Definition of Time
I
will state again, for the record, the specific point of this paper is
to show the correlation between the perceived nature of Time
and the perceived nature of God. Then it will be to show the
function of a god and how man has replaced god with time in that
function. So then, though I will do my best to help us arrive at
reasonable understanding of God and time, one that we can
successfully use in the juxtaposition, it is not an imperative that I
get the actual definition of those two variables “correct”
(assuming there is a “correct”). I would not be so pompous as to
think that I would be able to define and validate these two integers,
in a lsdkj page paper. Even if I had all the pages in the world to do
the job, how would I triumph in consideration that all the great
minds who have ever made the attempt have failed to establish any
cohesive, universal definition? Whether it be from a philosophical or
theoretical stand point, assuming that I can accurately define time
is a bit, presumptuous.
Be
that as it may, I must admit that the simple task of defining time
pushes the very limits of my abilities. Sad, I know. But it is a
monumental task, to say the least and certainly not as easy as it
sounds. As I mentioned I have asked many people to define it for me
and it even took me several weeks, and several false-starts to figure
out how I wanted to approach the issue, seeing as how just this
simple exercise alone, once all things are considered, could be a
book unto itself. I have found that when coming down to a definition
of time, more so than any other aspect of our lives, many people are
prone, even in the interest of having an open discussion, to reassign
certain attributes of their God long before they are willing to let
you tell them what time is supposed to be. Even for arguments sake,
people are very protective of their idea of time. It is truly an odd
occurrence and one that I believe needs to be explored. Which we
will, later.
For
thousands, if not tens of thousands of years man has contemplated the
essence of time and God and not until recently have we really begun
to grasp their perspective nature and the role the former plays as it
interacts with the physical and mathematical restrictions of our
universe and just how both are intertwined into our human psyche. Or
have we even begun to unravel it at all? What ever vague
understanding we do have, it has become quite clear that it is indeed
only just that, a vague one at best.
Fascinating
exorcise; pinning the tail on the donkey. Why not start with a game
of dancing the fallacious fine line of a persuasive definition? Just
the idea that time is God puts me in the ballpark of about a dozen
acts of fallacious thinking. Without getting into all the ones which
I am most likely to commit, I will try to establish first, the terms
and definitions that I will use throughout this essay.
In
this chapter, I will break time down a number of ways in an effort to
arrive at a mutually pleasing definition of it and its properties.
There are several ways we can look at the definition of time and of
those ways, still several more ways in which each of them can be
broken down further yet. The two most common ways of looking at time
are first, that it is part of the rudimentary structure of the
intellect or what we will call philosophical time and second, that it
is is part of the cardinal structure of the universe and this we will
call physical time. Of the philosophy of time, it seems apparent to
me, that the major ways it is identified is first, in a linear sense;
second, a cyclical sense; third, a relative sense; and fourth, a
man-centered (homo-centric) sense. Of the physicality of time there
are three main ways I can see that it is most often referred to and
they would be, first, according to the cosmos; second, according to
biology; and lastly, according to the atom. I would like to
acknowledge now of course that I am taking some liberty when
referring to some of the philosophical outlooks on time, in that a
few could be considered not philosophical but physical. But I feel
once explained, my motive for doing so will be a bit more clear. Once
we have explored these various identifications of time, I hope that
for the sake of analogy, we will be able to arrive at an agreeable
working definition of what time is so that we may compare its'
perceived attributes to the perceived attributes of God.
Collins
and Gage International defines time as,“1 the past, present and
future: We measure time in years, months, days, etc.” Assuming
that time (which will be capitalized when referencing my theory that
it is analogously God) and God cannot be truly and satisfactorily
defined merely by etymological means, it is still interesting how
almost every definition of time is not a definition of time at all
but instead, an explanation of how we measure its' nature in relation
to it being experienced. That's because by-and-large we are often
referring to time philosophically rather than physically. Which is a
larger problem when we note the only chance we have for considering
time in anyway real, is to consider it's philosophical impact. Which
we is what we are here to establish first and foremost. Webster's
puts it a little better by combining the philosophical and physical
by defining time as such; “1.indefinite,
unlimited duration in which things are considered as happening in the
past, present, or future; every moment there has ever been or ever
will be...” This of course, being a much broader definition that
more directly accounts for all of time, rather than what we are
present to measure, and one that is perhaps closer to what I am
trying to estabelish as our working definition.
Many
will argue (and have) that time doesn't exist outside of man's mind,
that it is only concept and that any “physical” existence of time
is virtually just a physical measurement of a conceptualization and
that it is not an actual physicality, in the same sense that the desk
I am writing on is physical. I agree to that, in part, as being true.
The concept of time, as we
know it, is indeed a perspective unique to man, but the idea that
time can not be properly defined to be part of the physical reality
of the cosmos is still to this day, at least to me, a bit of a
bodacious assumption. From a philosophical standpoint, science has
attempted to radically change our view of time on regular basis, due
to physical discoveries that dramatically affect the way we see the
cosmos. These physical discoveries, having a physical affect on the
philosophy of time, is what produces the physical concept of time. It
really wasn't that long ago that we had a geocentric view of the
universe and in the course of a few hundred years we have come to the
realization that not only is there more than just our solar system
out there, but perhaps that it's at least remotely possible, that
this might not even be the only universe out there. All of the
progress we've made in our understanding of the cosmos and all the
progress we will make in the future is due to the exploration of not
just the physicality of it all but also the philosophy. Philosophy
after all, always has been the appropriate place in which we may
indulge the logical progressions that lead us to fanciful and
unfathomable conclusions. It is the job of the philosopher to take a
small and innocuous assumption and extrapolate it to a bold and
sometimes brazen theory. These seeds of strange and opposing ideals
are what produce the energy and drive that grow the fruits of science
and they are those seeds from which have grown every discipline that
has ever proven to give us anything of any real value. After all, the
only things that really exist, the only things we can know with any
real certainty, are our ideas.
The
first of these philosophical views of time that establish a certain
universe-view is the idea of linear time. Not withstanding the
theoretical beginning
and ending of this time-line, it holds that all events occur in a
“single-file line”, so to speak. No event that has happened or is
happening will ever happen again and all future events are unknown
and dependant upon what events that have or are happening. A linear
view of time is described by Harper Collins at collinslanguage.com
as,” 1. The
continuous passage of existence in which events pass from a state of
potentiality in the future, through the present, to a state of
finality in the past.” The potential nature of the future and the
final nature of the past is what really stands out as the defining
characteristic of a linear view of time. It is this view of time that
has influenced a great deal of science in the past, a miriade of
mystics of acient times and theologans even into the present. And may
I reinforce the fact that, though this idea of time seems so standard
and common place, it is still in all reality, just a theory! As
familiar as this approach to time is to our human minds, there is
really very little to prove it real.
The
second philosophical view of time that has lent itself heavily to
both modern theoretical astrophysics, as well as many religious
views, is the concept of cyclical time. I have, in the interest of
not wanting this to become a compendium on time, divided cyclical
time into just two catagories of influence. These catagories I will
call “macro-cyclical” and “micro-cyclical time”.
Macro-cyclical time has had a profound influence on theoretical
astrophysics in the theory developments that stand as stating that
this universe may one day return to its singularity (point of origin
i.e. the spot of the “big-bang”) only to again expand back out
eventually to reach the size it is today with or without a similar
apperence in the laws of physics that we enjoy today. This theory or
philosophy is a basis for a good number of physical mathmatical
constructs that go about attempting to explain the universe around
us. Somewhere, in the theories of special and general relativity,
string and superstring, and a host of others you will find, in one
form or another and to some degree or another, the idea of
macro-cyclical time lurking below the surface. Related, albiet almost
conversely so, is the idea micro-cyclical time. This idea of cyclical
time is one that has an astounding influence on the theology of many
a people reaching from more modern eastern mystic religions and
spiritualism all the way back to the ancient Egyptians. The
micro-cyclical concept is one that would be the foundation of ideas
like reincarnation, for instance. Many religions look to the world
around them and to nature to find some absolute truth, some constant
that is across the board. What many people of many lands and
nationalities first notice is of course, that there is nothing
absolute, but there are some patterns that can be relied upon. Some
of which are that as one thing dies another is born, as one season
leaves another is ushered in, as the rain falls so does it dry up
again. These are the cycles of nature and these are the foundations
of micro-cyclical time.
Third, in
terms of philosophical views on time I would like to mention the view
of time according to the theory of relativity. I will delve into the
specific drives and appropriate functions of relativity as it applies
to my own theory, a bit more in the following chapter. According to
relativity, time is different according to what reference frame you
are experiencing it from. Several factors come into play in
determining your time experience. Such as, how close you are to a
massive body, and which one you are close to and how fast you are
going. But that is assuming you buy into relativity as being an ample
explination of the universe. Exceedingly, more and more people are
rejecting the working theories that have a long and tried history of
being successful and fruitful, in favour of an array of alternate
theories that range from the fringes of the absurd, to some that are
so technically convoluted that it isn't even remotely safe to say
that they would be even slightly effective to use in any sort of a
professional or academic environment. Before the men that brought us
relativity came on the scene, Newton had devised a working (but
clumsy) theory that incorporated all the same goodies as relativity,
like the speed of light (Newton's was variable, relativity's is
constant), mass, gravity, time, etc. Then when relativity came around
at the turn of the century, Newton's theories and mechanics became
subsets of the new and more favoured theory of relativity. Newtonian
thought, not done entirely away with even up to present day, takes a
back seat to the theory championed by men like Einstein, and
rightfully so. Some day, it is hoped we will produce a more sound,
better funcitoning, and more simple theory for the universe, better
even than relativity. At such a point the theory of relativity and
it's Newtonian subsets would become further subsets of this new
theory. They would not be abondoned. That rarely happens in science.
Besides the gears being assemble slightly different from the old
theories to the new, the philosophies that men like Newton based his
mechanics on are still, to this day, debated with great heat. Newton
(based on Galilean mathematics) saw time as being more of entity onto
its self in which events “flowed” through. It was seen by Newton
as a “container”, meaning it existed as an absolute constant
regardless of what (or who) was in put in to it. This idea has, at
it's base, that it time is a fundamental, a “demension”, and a
building block of the universe. Many people still fight to consider
it as such to this day. But as mentioned, we will discuss that a
little later, when we consider time in a more physical sense.
That
said, perhaps even more tied to my thesis, is the fact that the
passage of time is directly linked to entropy, i.e. the second law of
thermodynamics. This has been described as the, “arrow-of-time”
(ironically, by none other than Sir Eddington; a huge proponent and
experimentalist for the theory of relativity which does not account
for, and in many ways opposes, the an idea of the arrow-of-time)
meaning that, as time is passes-crap brakes down. I'll talk about how
this relates a bit more in the chapter called, “The Omnipotence of
Time and God”. There are several theories that attempt to rectify
this seeming duality, including one that states that, at some point
the universe must have had some force come into play to encourage
entropy to begin. A big assumption of relativity is that time is
symmetric, that it is in fact, not an
arrow and that thermodynamics ought not necessarily have
to break down. But as we all know, they indeed do. Regardless, every
attempt to rectify the issue of entropy, none seem to do so
satisfactorily.
Due to the
problems of relativity, modern physicists have devised the
splendorous string theory and even super-string theory to help iron
out the wrinkles left by Einstein. Personally, I am quite fond of the
theory and find it an extraordinarily elegant idea. However, there
are still some issues with which I have to take contention.
Especially with the development of the Dirac equation and of course
not forgetting the convenient absence of the graviton.
At this
point, I feel we are getting bogged down by the details of what can
otherwise be summed up by saying, despite the sometimes credulous
acceptance of theory by the scientific world as being more than
hypothesis, it is safe to say that when it comes to a true physical
understanding of space, gravity, the constant speed of light, time,
etc., we are merely postulating and I think it important not to
forget that, no matter how compelling the speculative math may sound,
it is still just that; speculative. Regardless of whether time is
symmetric and all times are now or whether it is an arrow and
directional and regardless of whether there is entropy in the
universe or not, that fact remains that time is still very, very real
for us. Even in the face of theory after theory that “proves”
it's nothing more than an illusion, the reality of time, though it
may surpass all tangible definition, is none the less a brutal and
honest fact of our existance.
When
it is all stripped down, even if we could get everyone to agree that
time is just a persistent figment of our human imagination, time
still moves forward. The idea of time floats somewhere in the
no-man's-land of real and realization. The strongest arguement that I
can make for its existance is to ask you, with your imagination, to
define it by what it is not. Often, when something is so vast and so
inconsevable it is generally of aide to identify those things which
this particular something is not. More applicably, in terms of
physical experiences, we as humans often find it useful to be able to
compare or experience with the absence of things in order to better
discribe and detail their presense. For instance, I could go on about
gravity in a text book way to help you understand the mechanics of
it. I could give you all the dominate theories on how it works and I
could even set up some trit little experiments for you to do, so that
you may understand basic Newtonian mechanics like falling apples and
terminal velocity and such. Or I could shoot you up into space and
let you experience the lack of gravity found in orbit. It would be
through this
exercise that I would feel most assured of your understanding of what
gravity really
is to you and your biology. It would be through the abscence of this
element of your existence that I would feel you could then best
describe to others and align in your own mind what gravity means. I
could do the same with light. But even ideas, even emotions are often
delinated in this manner. “Better to have loved and lost, than to
have never have loved at all”. “Absence makes the heart grow
fonder”. These are all ways we understand things through a change
in perspective. However, to give us a proper perspcetive of time,
what experience could I issue that would take us outside of time that
we may better understand life within it? You see where I'm going? It
is in this aspect that time might be the most real of all pieces of
the puzzzle.
That
not withstanding, and more so in only slight contridiction to the
above, the fourth and final philosophy of time I would like to appeal
to is a homocentric phiolosophical approach. This is an approach that
by the shear nature of it, all of us are most likely to commit,
invoulntarily. That is, that time is, as previously mentioned, of our
design. Stated more bodly, that we are
time. This statement is putting forth that
not only does time exist as as scaffold for the intellectual
pursuits, but also that we are simultaneously the designers and
builders, the keepers and tenants, the masters and slaves of time. It
is an abstract idea that is difficult to explain, but one that is
prevalent in many theoretical constructs. It is not only an
assumption, but it is found at the end of an equation as well, in
that, it is postulated that we are both the creators of time in our
minds and also that we are the “flow” of time as well.
I decieded
after much consideration and several previous attempts of explination
of the definitions of time to first address the philosophical
elements, because if modern philosophy and logical excersises have
taught us anything it is that nothing physical can be varified to be
real. Even the solar system, about which I will refer to next in
refernce to time, can not be assumed to be real, in the way we
perceive it anyway. Is there a solar system? Of course. Now,
is it in all reality exactly how it is perceived? Quite certainly,
no. What we have learned about the nature of light and what our eye
(and subsequently, our brain) does with that information, should be
ample reason to call into question whether we are perceiving anyting
around us as it actually is. In fact, there may not be an “actually”
that actually exists that anyone could ever know with real certainty.
Thus, our
philosophy or our intelectual approach and preface to what we
perceive dramatically affects the way our mind interperets the world
around us. Therefore, it seemed logical to place ahead of concepts
like heliocentric time and atomic time, those foundational
philosophies that can, in one way or another be found as a
commonality in this physicality or the next.
Chapter
Two
A
Physical Definition of Time
In the
previous chapter we attempted, as best we could given the confines of
this paper, to outline the philosophical nature of our perception of
time. I stated, that the philosophy is tightly bound to how we
describe and relate to the physicality of time and the universe as
well; that it is, in a way, part and parcel. In this chapter we will
discuss three specific ways in which physical scientific discoveries
have framed the philosophical time-related views we hold on the
cosmos, biology and the particle (atomic and subatomic).
It was tough
to choose whether, in the interest of progression, to address our
biological time before our cosmic time or visa versa. It goes without
saying that because of this hospitable, extremely rare environment in
which we find ourselves, we are issued the ability to gain access to
the kind of knowledge that lets us view the systems around us and
learn how they function. But it is our learning that gives meaning to
these functions in ways they would not have without our existence. To
be more direct, the product of a mechanism is what gives the
mechanism it's meaning and it's purpose. I'm not trying to say that
the universe revolves around us and that we are the crowning
achievement of all of nature, just that to know a mechanism, you must
know what it is capable of producing and you learn the most about the
mechanism with it's potential product as a reference. I also
acknowledge my duty to critique by what standard I label which
product of nature is “the best”. For instance, if I were to
measure the meaning or value of lifeform based solely on the ability
to survive, I might pick instead, the lowly cockroach. And who am I
to say that their aren't more advanced cultures on distant planets
most likely orbiting brown dwarf stars (the most likely candidate for
being both host to life and limiter of communication with said life)
that could be considered to be the “crowning achievement” of
nature.
It wasn't
that long ago really that we thought everything in the universe was
rotating around our flat earth in an eternal daily dance across the
sky. This earth was the centre of the universe, the whole of which
was placed in the heavens for us and us alone. In the perspective of
today's science it is a rather conceded view to think that God made
such a vast and unfathomable universe just for one little planet with
a few organics dashing about. The derivatives of this “scientific”
view of the flat earth and the philosophy/theology that propagated
it, took a major blow when Copernicus and Galileo came on the scene
and completely restructured the way we looked at the cosmos. Now,
with the earth as just one of several bodies orbiting our sun, and
eventually with the understanding of our system being one of billions
which make up our galaxy, and that, being one of hundreds of billions
that inhabit the universe we don't seem so important anymore. This
had a dramatic affect on the way we establish our philosophical
stances in regards to our galactic and spiritual importance.
Heliocentric
time (in my opinion, one of the two most important ways in which we
measure and judge time) has, as previously mentioned, an affect on
how our brains developed the hardware they have. In addition, a
heliocentric solar system though once just theory, contributes
massively to the way we govern our time expenditure, allowing us to
determine the usefulness or wastefulness of certain activities we may
find ourselves engaged in from a “big picture” point of view. It
is this greater view of nature that has brought about a shift in
ideology as a whole and a shift in how we relate to time.
That is of
course, the view from our terrestrial vantage point, which has
changed actually very little from ancient times. Although we know
that it is the earth that spins and not the sun that moves through
the sky, that has ultimately done very little in the way of changing
our sense of time in a day to day and individual way. It is that
sense of time, rooted in our biology that we will address in a
moment, that has only somewhat changed now that our vantage point has
changed from somewhere on earth to somewhere zipping around it. It is
this change in the view of time that is accounted for in the theory
of relativity. I am of course, aware that relativity is hardly a
physical definition of time and that this chapter is titled as such.
However, what relativity does, is quantify the degree in which the
physical and non-physical aspect of the universe are, or are not,
affected by one another. So, in that sense, I feel this a proper
place to point a few things out. For instance, it is relativistic
accounting that says a clock should run faster and faster the higher
off the ground that it is (also known as gravitational redshift) or
that time runs slower next to the sun then on earth, or when standing
next to a pyramid, or the closer to light speed that you go the
faster time goes for everyone else around you. It's this astounding
mathematical conversion that goes a long way in showing that time is
a figment. That our experience of it is dependant completely on the
set of circumstances (inertial frame) we find ourselves in. And if
any one thing were to change, so would time. In fact, it is
postulated that anything travelling as fast as light doesn't
experience time (as we know it) at all and anything going faster than
light (like subatomic particles) might be able to arrive before it
has left. It is an interesting theoretical view that makes us scratch
our heads in dismay to its' apparent paradoxical assertions, but
logically we have to ask ourselves, if time doesn't exist at the
speed of light why then, if a distant star stops shinning, isn't it's
evidence of it being extinguished immediately apparent? If there is
not time for light, why doesn't light act instantaneously? Of course,
the answer is that the evidences of these things is all dependant on
the inertial reference frame we are in as the observer and the light
perceives no passage of time as it makes the 250,000,000 light-year
journey to us to inform us that the star has taken a break. But to
me, this has always begged the same relativistic rationale but in
ways against relativity. Can anyone who is travelling at the speed of
light have the authority to say that time doesn't exist, being
that they are only saying so from the evidence they have been given
from within their own reference frame, any more than someone moving
slower than light can say that time does exist? I am not being
equitable of course, because I am asking a mathematical system to
answer a metaphysical question. But an astronaut is wearing a wrist
watch when shot into space. The wrist watch speeds up the higher he
gets. He can look at the watch, check it regularly and see with his
own eyes that time has sped up, that he is in essence moving faster
through time then his kin back on the rock of earth. But that doesn't
mean he “feels” time moving any differently then he has always
felt it move, does it? Homo-centric time.
One of the
most intriguing pieces of info I have come across in this regard is
the fact that not a single NASA craft (including Hubble) is reported
to use any relativistic calculations to correct the timing issues
between space and earth for the purpose of communications and
operations. That's not to say that they don't use relative
corrections, but there is no report of them using the theory of
relativity to determine what those relative corrections might be
before launch. Most GPS satellites for instance, are not corrected
for the difference until after they're up. Once they are, the
corrections are made practically, rather the theoretically. Newtonian
physics has been and continue to be adequate for all spacecraft prior
to launch.
But is the
theory of relativity complete? No. There many things it can't quite
explain, and that's fine because eventually we will come up with an
other theory that works better and relativity will go the way of
Newtonian and Galilean theorems and it too, will become a subset of a
greater theory. I feel as though we've gotten off track a bit, so to
bring us back, suffice it to say that this is not intended to be a
physics paper, but instead a philosophically analogous comparison to
the psychological similitude of human perceptions and
personifications and nothing more. So to get back on track, our view
of time has changed dramatically in just a few hundred years. When
you stop to think about it, we went 250,000 years with the same basic
idea of time until we arrived at where we are today and now all of a
sudden we have been asked to believe that time is a nothing. It's
hard to do from our practical perspective here on earth (or any other
theoretical perspective from any place else in the universe) no
matter how good a grasp we have on the cosmos. What makes it so hard
for us is that from every single cell in our bodies, all the way to
complex areas of our brains (known as locus or loci), we “feel”
time passing.
In looking at
the world around us we can measure time in an number of ways.
Rotations of the earth, spins around the sun, seasons, migrations,
matings, births, deaths, or any one of the numerous natural
occurrences that happen like “clock-work” every day. The
categorizations of time are omnifarious, classifying the same element
of our existence in different terms. If we were to ask a biologist
what time is, their answer may well be something like, “It is the
measurement of growth or expansion of a entity”. Much of the
metaphoric language that we use in reference to time is how it
relates to our biology. All of us have heard the phrase, one's
“biological clock is ticking”. We are a mass of cells and as
such, millions of cells die and are born on a daily basis. Upon
conception, we are creating many more than are perishing and that
trend continues for some years. Until roughly the time that we reach
physical maturity, we are a cellular manufacturing powerhouse, but
then things slow down and level off. Eventually, everything switches
up and many more are dying then are being effectively replaced and so
begins the process of ageing, this, leading to our inevitable death.
And that is our “time” on this planet, in a nutshell,
baring any unforeseen tragedies or illness, of course. An animal,
although I'm sure it has some instinctual motivation driven from it
“knowing” its' biological time is limited, has a different
perception of time from a human. The human having a much greater and
much more imperative sense of his time on this planet. Our
understanding of our biological time is driven by our
biopsychological time, which is measured by (among other large and
important parts of our brains), the suprachiasmatic nuclei for the
day to day circadian rhythm and the ultradian for the shorter periods
of timekeeping within the brain. These structures in our brain
developed in accordance to and in demand to the solar patterns we
experience here on this planet and thus, it is this very real and
very physical measurement that our “awareness” uses as the
springboard for concocting all the other more philosophical and
esoteric ways in which we measure the passage of time. That really
being naturally my main argument when it comes to the existence of
time in any sort of reality. We sense time, we feel it in our brains,
on a very rudimentary, psychological level. So, in a very real and
chemical reaction sort of way, time exists.
Most of us
can't help but think or our own mortality from time to time. In fact,
I use it often, as I am sure many others do, to help put into focus
both the painful and pleasurable things encountered in my life. It is
our biological mortality that gives us that sense of urgency about
the affairs of life and getting certain achievements or arriving at
certain personal goals by a certain “time”. Many of us are not at
all unfamiliar with thinking of time in terms of lifetimes or
generations. These are biological allocations of time and they are
just as real, if not more so, then hours and minutes and seconds.
Albeit perhaps, just as arbitrary.
It is our
conceptualization of our biological time that first fuelled our
perceived need to measure time and develop the theoretical constructs
and mathematics in an effort to grasp it on both a minuet and
detailed level as well as, a larger, grandiose and universal scale.
It was this biological ticking that caused us to look to the stars
and planets for some sort of ratifying unity. It is this biological
ticking that causes us to look at the atom for the answers to
time-related questions and then drives us to look even further to
what lies beyond the atom and further still to what lie beyond even
that.
Currently, we
have a few very precise clocks on this planet and the accuracy is due
to the atom. More precisely, atomic clocks work by measuring the spin
property of the caesium atom. A second would be 9,192,631,770
cycles of radiation coming off that atoms. That information is then
used to calibrate other clocks and timekeeping devices around the
world.
But as we
have refined our ablility to look at ever smaller particles we have
looked past the electron, proton, and nuron to subatomic particles
like the gluon, muon, and neutrino. We have done so at labratories
like the LHC and CERN. It is in the experiments that they are running
that we are begining to get a more acurate view of the working of the
world and subsequently, the universe around us. But unfortunately, as
is the case with all answers man is ever given, it only causes us to
ask two fold the questions we started with.
CERN for
instance, is still in the middle of recalibrating between a few test
were they tracked the speed of a neutrino in one test going faster
than light and in a successive test they tracked it as going slower.
If it can be validated that a neutrino can indeed go faster than
light then there are some interesting scientific and philosophical
implications. One of which is the idea I hit on earlier, where a
particle could arrive at B before it leaves A. Effectively meaning
traveling faster than light is taking a shortcut through time. If
traveling slower than light is foward in time and at lightspeed is no
movement in time, then faster than light is backwards in time. (As an
aside, all three speeds are still “in” time.)
The
theoretical implications of what we learn as we attempt to measure
the immeasurable are vast and fanciful, and a treasure trove of
imagination inspiring thought experiments are presented to us so that
we may tie our up brains into knots. In this chapter, we discussed
several ways in which theory is applied to our physical existence and
how those theories attempt to account for time. Conversely, we looked
at how the physical restrictions of our existence has influenced the
theorizing and philosophizing on intangible things that lie outside
of the realm of the empirical. So, although most of what we have
discussed, though relevant, is not imperative because we are not
attempting to know time in way other than the way in which we
instinctively know it to be to begin with. That instinctive knowledge
of time is what we are really here to compare to our perceived notion
of God. But as I have learned, you can't bring up anything that is
conceptually based like God and time unless you cover as many bases
as humanly possible when establishing your initial assumptions.
That's just a fact of life when you're dealing with philosophically
motivated discussions. So, hopefully we find ourselves adequately
prepared to venture forward into the next chapter where we will
attempt to establish our working definition of time for the
aforementioned analogical usage.
Chapter
Three
The
Working Definition of Time
In the
previous chapters, we have briefly hit on a few of the many ways that
we as humans measure and relate to the passage of time. We have done
so to help us understand what constitutes the reality of what time
actually is or is not. We have done this, all in an attempt to nail
down what we will be refering to whenever we henceforth speak of
time. As we have seen in the first two unfairly lengthy chapters of
this paper, the common thread that runs through our concept of time
is the theoretical. We even find this commonality in how we think of
time in terms of our own biology, one of the most basic of ways that
we measure it. But the further that we relagate time to concept and
ideal the more real and concrete it becomes. Time is an ideological
universal. And in the spirit of Plato, Kant and Russell, time is
therefore one of the realest intangible realities we as human beings
can experience.
In his book,
“Problems With Philosophy”, Bertrand Russell goes to great
lengths in both recalling the groundwork laid by the ancient
philosopher Plato and in building upon and bolstering the ideas of
his contemporary Immanuel Kant concerning our ideals as humans and
what concrete form they take. In the first few chapters it is
established that everything around us is unknowable. Only our, what
he calls, “sense-data” of these things can be known to us. For
instance, due to things like the variations in the wavelengths of
light, the construction of your particular eyes, the fact that no two
people can ever share the exact same vantage point at the exact
sametime, all the physical things around you are, if being assessed
honestly, not entirely knowable to you. You can only know about your
computer, for instance, what your senses tell you about it and since
your sense are limited, you can not know what this object “your
computer” really is. However, there are things that we know that
are defined in our minds outside of this “sense-data”. These
things are ideas, and Plato and consequenly Russell, disect this very
old problem like this:
- “The way the problem arose for Plato was more or less as follows. Let us consider, say, such a notion as justice. If we ask ourselves what justice is, it is natural to proceed by considering this, that, and the other just act, with a view to discovering what they have in common. They must all, in some sense, partake of a common nature, which will be found in whatever is just and in nothing else. This common nature, in virtue of which they are all just, will be justice itself, the pure essence (the admixture) of which, with facts of ordinary life, produces the multiplicity of just acts. Similarly with any other word which may be applicable to common facts, such as 'whiteness' for example.. [t]he word will be applicable to a number of particular things because they all participate in a common nature or essence. This pure essence is what Plato calls an 'idea' or 'form'. (It must not be supposed that 'ideas', in his sense, do not exist in minds, though they may be apprehended by minds.) The 'idea' justice is not identical with anything that is just: it is something other than particular things, which particular things partake of. Not being particular, it cannot itself exist in the world of sense. Moreover it is not fleeting or changeable like the things of sense: it is eternally itself, immutable and indestructible.”
- Russell goes on to rename Plato's “ideas” for a word less misconstrued in the past by calling them “universals”. He then establishes that univeral entities must exist and goes on to propose and prove that these universals do not rely on thought for their existence but instead are derived from the independant world from which “thought apprehends but does not create” he does so by using an example the relation of two cities one being north of the next and how regardless of whether there are minds that know the realtion of these two cities or not, the one will always be 'north of' (the universal) the other. In the next chapter he goes on to say this:
- “In like manner I become aware of the relation of before and after in time. Suppose I hear a chime of bells: when the last bell of the chime sounds, I can retain the whole chime before my mind, and I can perceive that the earlier bells came before the later ones. Also in memory I perceive that what I am remembering came before the present time. From either of these sources I can abstract the universal relation of before and after, just as I abstracted the universal relation 'being to the left of'. Thus time-relations, like space-relations, are amoung those with which we are aquainted.
- It is in this sense that time is a universal and in this sense that time is an indesputable reality of our existence as humans. It is in this intuitive, a priori and homocentric birth of the idea of time that time is eternaly a part of the cosmos now, with or without our stop-watches keeping track. Time, like justice in our first example, can not be pointed to and said to be this or that. But many things can partake in time and can make up time. I can not hope to explain it any better than the greatest philosophers that have ever graced the breast of this planet, but I will still say that regardless of this science or that, I know based on solid philosophy that time is.
- As a general rule, man measures time in a heliocentric way. Although a big part of time is merely our measurement of it and what standard of measurement we choose, I propose we attempt to set up an agreement that allows us to contentedly say that it exists with or without our stop-watches keeping track. Still, we have expressions like, “the time before time”, which speaks volumes in terms of our anachronistic sense of time as opposed to time's actual constitution. There isn't really such a thing as a “time before time” but we use the colloquialism to describe a era before mankind anyway. The concept that if we weren't around to count it then it is in a different category, is symptomatic of our collectively skewed psychology.
- But before we go any further, I think we should for the sake of my particular point of view explore the explanation of space and time proposed by George Cantor.
- The last thing I would like to briefly touch on before we define time is the above kind of metaphorical linguistic tools that stir a debate in the worlds of science and philosophy due to the fact that they belie perhaps a more fundamental issues in the theoretical reasoning. Fundamental issues which may arguably outweigh the extent of the metaphor's heuristic ambit1. Dispensing with metaphor all-together may be a bit ambitious, to say the least. For instance, in the forthcoming chapters, I will be broaching again the topic of the brain which, in the field of neuroscience, metaphoric language such as “pathways, circuits, memory space, gateway, shortcut and detour” are all part of the vernacular and almost common place in the lexicon of anyone who made it through ninth grade biology. But the truly determining factor in all of this is of course, whether or not these linguistic tools are helping or otherwise clouding our judgement and vision in the pursuit of truth. Although it is true that this debate has gone on since the days of Aristotle, we can make some headway, I believe, if we stay keenly aware of our natural tendency to rely on these conceptualizing techniques and even that to some degree, we need them. I will attempt to be mindful of my usage of metaphor and do my best whenever possible to elaborate in the areas where I am riding solely on such language in hopes that you, the reader, will actively be aware of the metaphoric language used and that it is a necessary evil.
- Relevant to the conceptualizations of God and Time is the heavy reliance on the use of metaphoric language. In fact, some might even argue that the lack of time's physicality, but it's existence instead in man's mind, is due largely to just this sort of metaphoric conceptualization. But are the metaphors used to comprehend and communicate such ideas so intrinsically nefarious that we won't be able to conclude anything substantial? I do not think so. Largely because we have already established our idea of a universal. Time is a universal, but in establishing it as such and using the logical pathway I did to do so, did I also build the argument for the existence of God, since we could identify God as a universal as well? Maybe, but we'll talk more about that later.
But again,
what is Time? Everything we have discussed thus far in reference time
being defined is still but a measurement of something, from cellular
growth, to the distance our planet moves in its' orbit around the
sun, to only a certain moment in a continuum. Can we give a
description to it that lies outside of what is tantamount to it being
an intangible yardstick? Let us begin to lay down our initial
assumption on time by saying that; First, time is the chronological
progression which, whether forward, backward or simultaneously,
allows for the present condition of the universe. Second,it is the
property of the 4th dimension that allows us to relate to
the first three dimensions and that which stands in the way of our
experiencing any dimensions that may exist beyond the 4th.
Third, it is the universal expressed by chronological relation that,
as a universal, transcends the world of the senses and has being in
that area of existence of eternal immutability where minds “may
apprehend but not create”.
I know that
there are far more complicated ways to describe this phenomena we
call time, the best of which isn't words at all but it is math. For
the sake of being concise and avoiding the quagmire, this definition
should serve our end.
Note to
self: I think time could more technically (and more obtusely) be
defined as: The total summation of infinite events and causation of
this and/or any other possible universe going from infinity past to
infinity future, taking into consideration the relative framing of
each universe, the theoretically simultaneous existence of all tenses
of time and the infinite integers of said summation or in a strictly
ideological sense it is the conceptualization of all of the above
which places it in the territory of a universal truth where it may
exists and have entity regardless of the mental apprehension of it by
man.
But
for the sake of clarity, I will work with the one previously
established.
Chapter
Four
What
is God?
In the
previous chapters we discussed in what ways we as humans have learned
to measure time and in what way time can be considered to be 'real'.
Then we established our working definition of time. I hinted earlier
in the book that people have an easier time playing devil's advocate
with their ideas of God, then they seem to have with their ideas of
time. That is a very interesting phenomena that I really want to
delve into later, but in this chapter, it is my hope to condense what
took me three chapters for time, into just one in this instance and
arrive at our working definition of God before we leave this chapter
and go to the next. It is overall, much easier for me to describe
what 'god' I would like to use in my comparison and it is fairly easy
for people to go along with that idea. They and you, may have your
own idea on what or who God is or isn't, but that doesn't, and
shouldn't, stop you from seeing the analogy. Time, for very peculiar
reasons, doesn't respond so well to such generalizations. I think
that has to do with the kind of metaphor people are most familiar
with using when referencing time. If I were to tell a physicist that
“time is money”, although he might not outwardly protest the
metaphor, he would have a gut reaction because he has a set way of
looking at time in reference to his work. If I were to tell a 911
dispatcher that time is a “no-such-thing” he would I'm sure, at
least internally, protest the concept. We cannot generalize time for
interesting psychological and sociological reasons. But God, though
acceptance of a particular one over the other is usually attached
with eternal consequences like heaven and hell, lends itself to
generalization for the sake of argument much easier. And even though
I identify this characteristic about the idea of God, I would still
prefer we come to a concise idea of God anyway. For the sake of this
analogy...of course.
Fortunately
for us, many folks far more educated and disciplined than myself,
have contemplated the nature and idea of god/God from a philosophical
and theological perspective for thousands of years prior to our merge
existence on this planet. The unfortunate part is of course being,
that almost none of them could agree.
Let's be fair
and consult (the 'god of references') the dictionary once again, and
see if it can shed any empirical light on the matter. Collins and
Gage on the subject:
“1
God in the Christian,
Jewish, Muslim and certain other religions, the creator and ruler of
the universe. 2 a being considered worthy of worship. 3 a person or
thing intensely admired and respected.”
I should
think it would be best to start with the latter definitions of God
and work our way to the former one. In this case I think it
advantageous to work from the general to the specific before we jump
back out to the general in the last few chapters of the paper. So,
let us first note that 'god' could be anything from something as
esoteric as Shiva of the Hindu religion all the way to something as
mundane as my television set or a chocolate bar. And it is in this
sense we begin to see the second half of my purpose for this paper
starting to come into focus and that is, time may be god. In a very
general sense, god can be a veritable pantheon of things both
physical and intangible. Even science and knowledge can be treated as
gods. But this multiplicity isn't what we are after, yet. We'll get
there.
There will be
things about time that we discuss later, that I will not be able to
prove, as no one can. We will have to take these traits at face
value, as that they are what may be said about time, rather
than what can be said about time in actuality. This is only
being fair because all things said of God are only things that
may be said, as opposed to things that can said. In the
previous chapters it was not my main motivation to prove that time
truly exists, although I feel I did so adequately (in a philosophical
sense), but to merely identify the way in which we 'know' it to
exist. So therefore, in this chapter it is not my intent to truly try
to prove or disprove the existence of God, but rather to define what
conceptualization of god I will be comparing with time. We should
limit ourselves, for the sake of this not becoming an atheist
manifesto (of which I am indeed not intending this to be), to only
speaking in terms of the idea of God rather than in terms of
God's actual existence. These are two vastly different things.
I do not wish
to try and prove that God does or does not exist. And I do not even
wish to prove that belief in the idea of God is a legitimate one or
that it is not. I do however want to say before we go much further,
that classically speaking, the notion of God is not a universal and
neither is it (though often claimed to be) a self-evident truth. In
just the slightest defence to believers of God, I must point out that
many people, many very empirically driven logicians, often assume
that all things believed ought to be believed in because of proof
presented and understood. But a great many things are believed by all
of us on a daily basis, the truthfulness of which we have no direct
proof for believing. Or at the very least, we don't take the time to
break down the bread crumb trail of conclusions that led us to
believe, say for instance, the fuel we are about to put in our
vehicle isn't really water. All of us could, if asked, bring to mind
a legitimate reason for believing that it is fuel and not water, but
most of us do not walk around with all this sort of reasoning present
in our mind. But we have no way, before we begin pumping, of knowing
the nature of the liquid. We must go largely on faith, or shall I say
“trust” for the first few steps of our reasoning, until some of
our sense-data confirms our belief. There are many truths (that when
we take logical steps backwards in our reasoning to prove the one we
were just at was valid), we eventually hit a wall with and arrive at
a belief that we can not trace back any further.
I do feel it
is my duty, before we leave behind the discussion of the actual
existence of God behind for good, to ask those who believe if it is
God they believe in or the idea of Him. Is the belief in God one
that, those who believe can believe without having the reasoning at
present mind? Is it one that, when asked the reasoning for the
belief, can be traced back, until arriving at a point to which they
can not give satisfactory answer to their final reasoning? And if
so, can they still maintain that the notion is a valid one? Is the
truth of a living God truly self-evident? Now the truth or lack there
of, in the matter of determining the existence of God, is best left
for another argument, and even better left for a fitter debater. That
being said, it is enough to know that the idea of 'God' exists and it
is that idea that we will be comparing in our analogy.
As I try to
set up our framework for what God is, it would be an appropriate time
to mention perhaps the most important connection between the
perceptions of God and time and that would be, the personalized
nature of both. What is God really, other than “all things to all
men”? Rather, is it not that the idea of God is so varied in its'
definition that it can hardly be said to be one thing over the other?
Even those who share the exact same theology will have a
sensationally different God experience. God and time are personal.
Within one sect of a pop-religion there can be innumerable spins off
the one notion of the “God of the Jews”.
The idea of
god/God is a individualized notion of a personal choice. Its' main
difference from time perhaps being that the notion of God is a belief
and inveterate, where as the notion of time, no matter how relative,
is indeed a perceivable, confirmable, and measurable affect. The idea
of God is taught to us, passed down in its various forms from
generation to generation. Along the way, the God (or gods) involved
has changed and no amount of staunch dogma and catechism will in any
way keep that from happening. There isn't one god that exists today
in the precise way, with the precise traits and with the exact
compass as that god was attributed to have just a few hundred years
ago, let alone a few thousand. Culture shapes the idea of god. Even
if you are among those who believe that your God is never changing
you must admit, based on your own scripture, that his predilection
for how his people ought to conduct themselves is ever-changing based
on the dynamic tides of culture. It is on this basis that I say that
the concept of God is inveterate. It is confirmed by habit, culture
and experience. It is not confirmed by any absolute regulation or
anything outside of ourselves or outside of the interpretations of
our fellow man.
Conversely,
the concept of time, though flexible enough to be individually
confirmed and uniquely experienced, is universal and absolute. There
is no amount of scientific study, no theories specific or general on
the relativity of time, that can change how we experience it. In many
ways it is completely untouched and unaffected by the sea of cultural
change. Although culture may respond to it differently. Time has
always been a constant, and barring of course our solar system
slipping to near a black-hole changing it's rate of passage, it's
perception by man always will be the same, meaning our concept (day
to day) has and will remain relatively the same. And even then, with
our physical bodies entering this cosmic anomaly along with the solar
system, I highly doubt we would notice a change in time at all. Much
the same way our astronaut from earlier still experiences time the
same as he always has even though it is moving slower for his
comrades on earth. No matter how deeply your belief that time is a
figment and a illusion of your mind, you do not stop ageing. No
matter how passionately you want to convince yourself that time
doesn't have any reality behind it, you cannot run from it.
Ultimately
though, both of our integers are defined by the person having the
experience. We all experience the perception of God differently then
the next. It is in this way that time stands up to being considered a
universal where God does not. I have no relation to God and can have
no relation to him. In time I can say this or that happened before or
after that and this. But in respect to God, I can make no regulatory
connection. But there are thousands of people who would violently
disagree with me and feel they experience God at every moment. But I
again ask, what are they experiencing; God or the concept of God?
I can think
of one view of God that lines up so well with the analogy of time,
that it's almost like I planned it, that would be the view of a
Deist. The Deist's view of God is that, he has all the traditional
attributes of the “Judeo-Christian” (term used for the sake of
familiarity) God with out all that pesky meddling. The Deist's God is
also known as the “Grandfather Clock God”. The idea is that He
wound up the universe like a giant clock and is now standing back to
see how it all works out. What? A God and a clock in the same
theistic view? What a coincidence...
Time is
universal and depending on how you want to measure it, reaches from
past the edges of visible space, all the way to the depths of our
human hearts and down to every cell in our bodies. So then must our
concept of God be ever-reaching. Although comparisons could be drawn
to 'lesser' archetypes of god(s) (i.e. Ones that have power over one
or just a few realms in nature), which concept of God best suits our
analogy? In this instance I follow the mantra, “go big or go home”.
Although, I will from time to time make references outside of what we
are establishing here, the analogy best lines up with an eternal,
infinite, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, holy, loving God. For
the sake of this thesis, we are going to compare time with the 'one
true God' of The Bible (or the dictionary).
I would like
to give a nod to the fact that there are versions of the 'Bible God'
that are much older. The God of the Bible most likely has its roots
in older Sumerian mythology1.
The reason I chose to stay with a “younger” God is mostly because
his pervasive influence throughout the past few thousand years has
made him the staple ideal of God with which most of us can best
associate.
For
the purpose of effective communication of my ideas we will assume,
unless otherwise noted, that from this point on when I use the word
“God”, I am referring to the God used as the basis of the modern
Christian and the ancient Judaic religions (i.e. YHVH). Let us lay
down this definition of God; 1 an infinite, omnipotent, omnipresent,
omniscient, holy, loving, God most closely found in the Judaic/Muslim
religions who transcends all cardinal, ordinal, and dualistic
limitations of reality.
The
current version of God (and by current I mean of course, the Judaic
version established some four thousand years ago, give or take)
describes 'Him' as having always been and that He always will be; He
is the “alpha and omega”, as it were; that He is infinite.
Christianity and many other religions, hold the tenant of the eternal
nature of the human soul; that it is created at birth and lives on
forever and which is of course, different from infinite which goes
in both directions. This was the first notable trait attributed to
YHVH by the author of the Pentateuch (The first five books of the
Bible. The accredited writer being Moses), done so by incorporating
God's timelessness right into his name. The description of God has
conveniently failed people for thousands and tens of thousands of
years. Too many to list are the passages in the Torah, the Bible and
Koran in which the writer explicitly states his words fail him. I
don't think that that is an accident. Interesting to me, is that
another way to look at the name of YHVH is, “I am what I will be”.
In the interest of the topic of this essay, we could say, “ I am
(now in time)
what I will be (later in time)”1.
Our very comprehension of the name of the one true God rests on the
concept of infinite time, not timelessness as many would argue. It is
also interesting that the bed rock of understanding when it comes to
the essence of this god, we rely on something as difficult to
articulate as time. Not exactly putting things in simplest terms,
really.
Whether
there was an actual man named Moses (or whether it was a group of
scribes tucked away in some cave or hovel), is of little consequence.
What matters is that there was significant knowledge of the Egyptian
pantheon and thus the name of the Jewish God was chosen; with
reasonable cause. It was no accident that the author started off with
a God that was, by the very definition of that God's name, infinite.
The allegory of the captivity of the Jews put them in a land that had
gods that were entirely 'un-god-like' (in the sense that western
culture has come to know God). Within the context of the Jewish
mythology of Moses, he was a Jew of the house of Levi, raised by
Egyptian royalty and would have most certainly been trained and
instructed in the religion and mythology of the Egyptians.
Subsequently, when the hero of our epic decide that it was his job to
free his people from the grip of Pharaoh, he [the writer(s)] invented
a God and a theology that was the exact antithesis of the Egyptian
train of thought. Where the Egyptians were content in having
multiplicity and flexibility as an underlying characteristic of their
deity belief system (being based in oral tradition that could change
and bend with little worry to the dynastic leaders), Moses was not.
Instead, the writers of the Pentateuch wrote one cohesive story based
on one all-powerful God. They would have noticed the Egyptian
pitfalls of not writing a cannon1.
As Moses was being schooled he would have asked questions regarding
the beliefs of those that went before him and he would have got
different answers depending on who he asked. Even if he could get
straight answers, they would have told him of just how mailable the
gods of the Egyptians were and how little the gods involved
themselves in the events that transpired on the earth at the
present2.
It was common knowledge that only the unsophisticated people and the
lower tiers of society believed the myths to be literal. It is in my
opinion that the Jewish writers wanted to tear down that barrier and
to make a religion that was not only for the common Jew, but also one
that could not be tailored to the whims of whom ever maybe found
leading his people. 'Moses' wrote a collection of books that
coalesced all the ancient myths into one dogmatic text that gave
credit to his YHVH.
Most
importantly and perhaps most applicably, Moses would have been
instructed in the ideas that Egyptians held on time. They believed
that deep in the past lied a very linear set of events that brought
about the existence of all that is. The cosmos, the earth and man at
some point, began to run on the cycles that are seen in nature, then
and now and by reenacting the linear events of the primordial past,
they would restore the order of the cycles in heaven and earth1.
Such was the fate of each cycling generation until this physical
world's eventual return to a primordial sea2.
The God of Moses would have not only broken this cycle and shown
supremacy, but He would even reach past the linear time of origins
that the Egyptians set up and into infinity past, as well as beyond
the extent of the existence of the physical future. Infinity past,
the present cycles and infinity future, in Egyptian mythology, were
all separate domains of distinctly different gods (or sets of gods).
The God of Moses would transcend time and be the one and only creator
and governor.
Although
the exact origin of the name YHVH is from an era, that for now,
reaches beyond any reliable record, the true origins of the Israeli
people has become quite clear in recent times. Contrary to the story
of an Egyptian exodus and wars with the inhabitants of Canaan, the
archeological evidence points to the Jewish community peacefully
collecting their numbers in the hills of Palestine most likely in
quiet revolt to the opulent and superfluous concerns of the
city-states3.
It wasn't until Saul, the first king of Israel, did the entire nation
adopt one god. Since Saul was from Edom and the likeliest origin for
YHVH is in the far southeast of Canaan (Edom) it makes sense that he
would unify his nation under his local supreme being. Thus, a
cohesive religion, cannon, tradition, a supernatural mandate and
consequently, the authority of Moses and subsequently the divine
right of the lineage of Saul was born. There are of course, a few
archeologist with sharply contrasting opinions on this theory. One of
which, is jadfkldff, a well respected Egyptologist with a strong
inclination towards the Biblical account. And although many of his
arguments and evidence are compelling, I must still side with the
majority of researchers, for I am certainly no archeologist.
This
brief synopsis of the history of Israel and their God, though it seem
a bit off the trail, is indeed very necessary for us to understand
the God we have come to know and take for granted in Christendom. It
is essential that we understand where our perceptions come from and
with what motivations and upon what ideals the fathers of this Judaic
theology operated. The culminating result is our concept of an
infinite God. It is important for the reason found in the quote I
began this paper with. Some of the things that we think we know to be
instinctive and natural, are only believed from habit and association
and are inveterate.
It
is at this point that I feel comfortable in saying that we have
effectively defined the two terms of our equation, “God” and
“Time” and it is at this moment that we can go forward and begin
to talk at length about the exact way in which these to integers are
so tightly wound together in our minds because of our limited ability
to comprehend the so-called supernatural, our modern and ancient
metaphoric linguistics and our almost willing confusion between
theory and fact.
Chapter
Five
Classifying
the Traits Assigned to God and Time
Now
that we have our terms well defined and satisfactorily articulated it
should be safe to begin drawing our analogy that God is Time. These
past four chapters have brought us to this point, but before we dive
in there is one more thing to cover and that is understanding the
type of traits to which we will be drawing comparisons. Some of the
traits of God, like his infinity, omnipresence, and omnipotence and
the like, are different then traits like his love, grace, patience,
etc. So, it seems it should, at least, mildly concern us to identify
which we are talking about and when. The
category of traits which we will deal with first are what I would
call, the 'structural attributes'. Whereas, the second kind, we will
call the 'personality traits'. The importance in the delineation is
in determining from which of the two categories we choose God's one
main governing
attribute. What one trait governs all the others? Does one trait
necessarily have to govern all the others? Many religiously minded
people tend to think so, often without second thought. For instance
many liberal Baptist and other denominations will state, as I'm sure
all of us have heard ad nousium that, “God is love”. In other
words, God is not actually love, but that it is his love that governs
all of his actions. A simple check with the scripture would convince
even the novice theologian that that is simply not the case. If God
were love, he certainly would not condemn so many people to such
awful eternal fates. So, what is God's (and Time's, for that matter)
one governing attribute? Before we answer that, let us discuss the
two categories of traits first and see what we can agree upon in
reference to “God is Time”.
The
'structural attributes', as I have called them, are better known, by
and large, as the 'omni' attributes (i.e. Omnipotence, omnipresence,
omniscience and the like). There are many ways of looking at these
traits assigned to God and they are often each thought of
independently from the next. However, there is one structural
attribute that should stand out to us as a so-called 'governing
attribute' within the subset of the 'structural attributes' and it
is actually not an 'omni' trait at all but it is God's infinity. The
infinity of God must be that core structural trait upon which all the
others are hung like coats on a coat-rack. We will discuss in further
detail in the subsequent chapter exactly why I feel that is and what
implications are held with this position. But is this the trait which
governs God's actions and motives? Let us consider the next subset of
traits.
The
second subset of attributes is what I have deemed God's 'personality
traits'. These, intuitively, would be his grace, patience, love,
holiness, righteousness and so on. So among these traits we must
carefully choose which trait it is that governs the manifestation of
all the others. We have all ready mentioned God's love, and although
a major theme in the scripture, it can not possibly be his defining
personality trait because then a great many of his deeds seem largely
unjust, if put mildly, and certainly not done out of love. What about
his patience or grace? I think those too fail to meet the bar for a
'governing' attribute. From much of the learning that I have been
subject to through out my years, it has remained a common theme that,
at least in my opinion, the most likely candidate for a trait that
can be identified as being a true “looking glass” for the
totality of God's actions and reactions would be definitively, his
holiness. It is the dominance of this trait that may justify the
condemnation of sinners and the exultation of saints and it is
precisely this trait that brings into focus his love and sacrifice,
his grace and mercy, his righteousness and patience.
So,
of the two trait subsets I think it easy now to identify which of the
two 'governing traits' is indeed preeminent in my point of view.
God's structure (power) is defined in terms of his infinity (or
'timelessness') and his deeds and actions (the application of his
structural attributes) are sanctioned and governed by his holiness.
The former claim I feel is a logical conclusion and the later is one
based on the intricate subjective experiences I went through in my
own theological academics. Before I rest may case for the
foundational work of dissecting the attributes and traits of God and
Time, I think it only fair to mention again that in all the cases
(and with each trait), the way in which we communicate our ideas is
through extensive use of metaphor. If I were to say, “Time heals
all wounds”, you would inevitably contract the idea in your mind of
a benevolent force slowly and carefully caring for and nurturing the
wounds laid upon your soul from say, the loss of a loved one. But we
know it is a metaphoric linguistic tool that better and more aptly
says that, with the passage of time and the removal from a painful
event by separation of days, months and years, we tend to focus less
and less on the discomfort of said painful event and begin to move
forward with our emotional lives by building and strengthening our
existing relationships and by forging new ones. Such metaphors,
although pervasively used are obvious, in most cases, to our
cognition and rarely go undetected when we are referring to things
that are obviously not considered to be sentient entities. This is
just like when I say my car doesn't like a certain kind of gas. I
know and I would hope so would everyone with whom I share that
information, that it is understood that my car doesn't really
have a preference as to what petrol I put in it and from what station
it was purchased. Through anthropomorphizing I can attribute a
certain human quality to my vehicle and then say it likes this or
dislikes that, and as long as we are speaking in terms of things that
we 'know' to not have consciousness, like a storm or the sea, we are
generally not confused upon the issue of the metaphor.
However,
I have noticed, as I am sure many have, a disconnect when it comes to
the metaphor that we use to describe living things like plants and
trees, the family pet and most importantly and most seriously things
we believe to be living, like god. There are many people who
genuinely believe and will passionately argue that upon returning
home from work, their dog is indeed “happy” to see them. Some
people even feel that upon transplanting or pruning a plant or shrub,
it becomes unhappy or dejected. More directly, in the case of god,
for some reason we forget that all the traits and most specifically
his personality traits, are nothing more than complete metaphorical
linguistics. There is no way that god loves (like we do), or that he
hates sin. It is simply a non sequiter to think that an immortal,
perfect, timeless, all-powerful god has anything remotely resembling
what we deem as emotions. The Bible often refers (in the Old
Testament) to god being 'jealous'. But that just simply isn't true.
The way in which he acts based on his specific traits maybe
interpreted by man as love, hate, jealousy and the like, but that
doesn't mean he possess those traits in any real human way. And to
assume that he does is to lower him from his god status and make him
quite human. So does that stop the devout from thinking their god
loves them? In most cases no, because they pick and chose what
emotions god feels and doesn't feel, based on what they themselves
want their god to be. But that is besides the point here.
I
would like to put forth that in the forthcoming chapters, as we talk
about the traits of god and time and your mind begins to fight with
my ideas (on specifically what traits I assign to time), remember
this, that even in terms of god it is nothing but metaphor. All of
the ideas we use to 'understand' and talk about god are metaphoric.
Even such traits as righteousness and justice. Even his holiness is
not immune. god is not holy. He just is. It is our minds that have
assigned him his holiness based on our perceptions and construction
of this entity.
The
first few chapter have been an excessive but necessary dissection and
definition of exactly what terms we are using when we say “God and
Time”. Establishing the constituents of the phrase was the hard
part and for the next several chapters we will be comparing the two
concepts, in hope that we see more similarities then we do
differences. It is my expectation, that by the end of this book, I
have done what all good philosophy does and nothing more, and that
is, to make the reader question the world both around him and the
world in his head. Causing him to see things as possibilities rather
than facts set in stone and to make him step outside of the walls of
his mind, if but for a moment, even if just to disagree with me,
before once again returning to his fortress. This is really my only
goal. So, it is upon this foundation that I feel confident in
observing the first similarity between god and Time, being the first
of the structural traits and perhaps as previously stated, the most
important of them and that is, the infinite nature of god and Time.
Chapter
Six
The
Infinite Nature of God and Time
In
this chapter, we will explore the first of several 'structural
attributes' often attributed to god and less often to time,
especially today, in this post relativistic world. I think however,
that the consideration of infinite time is still one worth at least
quickly pausing in regard. It is, I confess, an impossibility to
prove, but that is not reason enough for a philosopher to consider it
moot. Leave such staunch judgements for the sciences.
To
be completely fair to modern theology, there
are many theistic explanations on exactly how god is or is not
connected with time, each of which, as I have mentioned, have
distinct ramifications on the way we view the rest of god's
attributes. For instance, there is the camp that says that god is
infinite yet temporal, meaning that his life did not begin and it
will not have an end and he experiences events in a sequential way,
like we do. Also, there is the view that god is completely timeless
in that, he dealt with the issues of creation and early man at the
same time he answered the prayers of those who implored his help in
church just last Sunday. Some hold the view that god is neither
timeless nor temporal but completely and utterly outside of our time
by being in his own time. This ideology stands on the concept that
god's time-line is sequential but his relation to our time-line is
'all-at-once'. There is also the view held by Stump and Kretzmann
known as 'eternal-temporal-simultaneity' and though revised since
they first published in 1981, it still has met with strong criticism
for very fundamental reasons including it being based it on
analogical presuppositions, that being a damning fact regardless of
the heuristic intent1.
But who am I to judge analogous content?
So far, the
best and most cohesive concept on the timelessness of god is perhaps
that of Brian Leftow, and his view of the QTE of god (Quasi-Temporal
Eternality of god1).
This claim is, as far as I can see, the one most in-line with the
theology of a metaphysically simple god, meaning god's “lifespan”
is made up of an infinite amount of points (rather than innumerable
amount of discreet parts), but also that god's life is made up of
non-temporal events that are somehow in successive relation to one
another. Not only does god experience all universal events
“all-at-once”, he lives his entire life all-at-once, as well.
There is no point in which a moment of god's existence ceases to be
and there is no point in which a moment of god's existence begins.
All experiences, moments and reactions occur simultaneously,
successively and infinitely.
Now,
in regards to time, can we gather the same “timelessness” of
time? A bit of an oxymoron I know, but is there an element of time
that transcends the same limitations that the concept of god's
timelessness does? Can time transcend time?One night,
after looking up some source material for man's anthropological
roots, I ran across an entire web page dedicated to the theory that
“God is Time”2.
Much to my surprise, it was not run by a raving lunatic wearing a
foil helmet, but instead the curator was Dr. Andrew Gustin a very
intelligent lad who, after a brief correspondence agreed to allow me
to use some of his musings on the topic and to whom I was more than
happy to lend whatever assistance I could toward the developing of
his angle on the philosophy. More than finding him, I was shocked to
see that there were more than the two of us. In fact, there are many.
There are many people who are collectively yet independently,
arriving at the same conclusion and we are doing so relatively at the
same time. This is an important
phenomena that has wonderful implications and we will revisit this
later as well and it is this phenomena that Dr. Gustin mainly
concerns himself with these days.
The reason I
share my meeting Dr. Gustin is to give credit for the following
logical progression that is essential in the acceptance of the
principle of infinite Time, and just like the establishing of god's
timelessness, is rudimentary for the building of the rest of Time's
'god-like' attributes. Although Dr. Gustin's motives for his site and
theory of God is Time are slightly different than mine, good amount
of what he is expressing is in synchronicity with my analogy. The
following is an excerpt from the chapter of his web site. The
chapter, aptly named, “God or Infinity”:
If one is to
contemplate the beginning of the universe, one soon realizes the
options that are present. One of two possibilities exist - Either the
universe was created, or the universe has always existed(...)
However, if we assume that there is no creator, or
'God', we must assume that the universe has always been here. The
universe cannot just come into existence without being created, so we
are forced to rely on the concept of infinite time. We know that time
will most likely continue to infinity in the future (although the
universe eventually won't even remotely resemble what it is
today)...so it makes sense that time could go to infinity in the
past. Instead of the universe being created the some 14 billion years
ago when the "big bang" happened, what if this event was
just another chapter in the infinite history of the universe? We
cannot tell what happened before this expansion, so assuming
that the "big bang" was the beginning is just as viable as
assuming that it wasn't.
Thus, one has
to subscribe to either believe in a God (as in a creator), or
believe in infinite time. This isn't to say that one cannot believe
in both a God and infinite time, but it is to say that one cannot
believe in neither. To do so is to ignore the most fundamental
question of how the universe that we live in got here. Someone who
describes themselves as an atheist that doesn't believe in infinity
has built themselves into a paradox. Personally, I view myself as an
atheist, and therefore am forced to accept the concept of infinity.
There is simply no other way. This concept itself should not be hard
to allow, however. It shows up innumerable times in mathematics,
programming, cosmology, and various other fields. And while
mathematics was discovered, it is one of the most perfect and useful
discoveries ever. The laws of mathematics can never be broken. One
plus one is always two. And there is no limit to how many times you
can add one more - because numbers are infinite.
If you are
one of the aforementioned atheists that does not believe in infinite
time, I regretfully have to inform you that this book has not much
else to offer you. Sorry to have taken you this far for nothing, but
this is your stop. Joking aside, this is the foundational assumption
as we progress with the next part of the thought and instead of
stepping on the good Doctor's toes, I will resist the urge to
rephrase his words, because I feel they need no such assistance.
Those who are
in agreement with men like Stephen Hawking, might want to look away
for this next bit. Hawking often says, that what happened before the
Big-Bang (in reference often to time's beginning) is both unknowable
and irrelevant. Sure, from an empirical and scientific stance, of
course I agree. But from a philosophical one, I could not disagree
anymore than I do. I think in the area of postulation and
philosophizing on the nature of time that it is of the utmost
importance to not only consider time in terms of how it acts and
reacts within the confines of this current universe at this
time, but also how it acts and reacts outside of this universe and
before this time-line. If it did or could exist beyond this,
would it change any fundamental mathematics that we use to account
and predict the universe? Of course not. Or maybe it would change
everything. To say so with any real degree of certainty is mildly
put, foolhardy. I think it the rather large underestimation of both
our need to know what lies just beyond reach and our ability
comprehend those things, if we begin to consider what we know as even
slightly certain. Sometimes, I think that regrettably, scientifically
minded men have a tendency to lose sight of the fact that
philosophy has always been the infant form of all science. Even
astronomy was philosophy at one point. Newton named his ground
breaking work, 'The
Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy'.
Although
the math of theories like special relativity and string theory are
persuasive and moving, we must always keep in mind they are only
theories and each based on their own suppositions some potentially
right, some potentially wrong. So, I ask you to suspend for a moment
this concept that time is a one-trick-pony and instead postulate that
perhaps there is more then one facet to this thing we measure and
call time. With the definition set out previously, consider that
maybe time might not be limited in scope at all. I have often been
told that the limitations imposed on the universe are perhaps not the
physical ones but instead the those perpetrated by mathematics. But
what is time, physicality or math? It is only my opinion, but I
believe it to be both. When the universe is in motion, time is a
physically measurable effect on every single particle and force in
the universe. When the universe is in singularity, I think time is
then relegated only to its' mathematical 'potential'. In singularity
it is a kinetic equation allowing for the singularity to expand.
Whereas, in stasis or chill it is a 'finished' equation in that, it
has the 'answer' completed and exists as a 'satisfied equation'.
Continuing
forward, I ask you to make an initial assumption with me that time is
“timeless” in the way that we are unable to measure its' true
extent and that it is infinitely present in the “past” and
infinitely present in the “future” and that, as previously
stated, it is the chronological
progression which, whether forward, backward or simultaneously,
allows for the present condition of the universe and that it is the
property of the 4th
dimension that allows us to relate to the first three dimensions and
is that which stands in the way of our experiencing any dimensions
that may exist beyond the 4th.
Just as this is an important trait of god, essentially being the
foundation for the rest of his traits both 'structural' and
'personal', it is also a prerequisite for the rest of the traits of
Time and just as Dr. Gustin says, “assuming that the "big
bang" was the beginning is just as viable as assuming that it
wasn't”.
Chapter
Seven
The
Omnipresence of God and Time
With the
infinite nature of both God and Time understood to be our fundamental
structural trait, I feel we can, with better focus, move on to the
other structural traits perceived to be aspects of what we consider
to be 'God'. It also gives us a better frame of reference for
identifying that perhaps, these following traits exist just under the
surface in our perception of Time. Maybe they fly just low enough
that we've failed to identify them and passed them on to our
imagination to create for us a being that has the traits as a part of
his essence instead. Just like the line of reasoning used to assure
ourselves the fuel being put in our vehicle is truly fuel and not
water, perhaps our line of reasoning with the time/god conundrum is
also not present in our minds, but this time instead of
serendipitously arriving at the proper conclusion and “fuelling our
vehicle with gas”, maybe we have falsely identified one or both of
these things and we are none the wiser to our mistake. In this
chapter, we will discuss the potential for Time being omnipresent.
I have to
ponder god existing everywhere, that he is omnipresent, and how, if
at all, that trait can be applied to time. First, let's discuss how
we apply it to our idea of god. There are many an overtly
advantageous reason for having a god that is everywhere
simultaneously. Beyond that fact that it credits him the unfathomable
power of ultimate espionage over enemies and evil, it also makes him
able to commune individually with everyone of his people
simultaneously. This one trait helps solidify the personal nature of
this god, allowing him to interact with all people both “good”
and “bad” and control the events of the entire cosmos all at the
same time. As previously stated, the position one holds on the
timelessness of god has dramatic impact on the way in which one views
the rest of god's attributes. It must be first, that god is outside
of time, so that he maybe able to operate in an omnipresent way. It
is only because of his all-at-once perspective that he is able to
have, what appears to us, as a presence at all moments and all
locations of all moments.
Turning our
attention back to time, with the idea of its' infinite nature firmly
in our minds, let us ponder its' omnipresence, as well. I think we
have all seen artistic renderings of what reality look like according
to string theorists from several dimensions out, yes? The multiverse
appearing as blobs and loops and drops of water. Each universe
slightly different. Each organized in a strange and fantastical way
leaving this one as a unique rarity and able to support the
conditions for life and our silly little discussion here. There is
also the consideration of Divergent Universes, that only serves to
amplify by extension, the vastness of time. But consider, the
existence of time in each hypothetical universe. Although, elements
of this universe might not exist in others (elements like gravity and
light) I am hard pressed to believe that time doesn't exist, in one
form or another, in all of them. Many a universe expands and
contracts, in and out from it's singularity in a cyclical function of
“Big Band” and “Big Crunch” or some “Chill”. Based on
what we laid down about time in the last chapter, is it much of a
stretch to say that time may/must exist in all of them in at least
one form or another? Could it be that time is the one constant
component of every universe that exists (growing, collapsing or
standing still)? If it the universe in question does time exist as a
potential equation, an existing one, or one that is solved?
If I can
ponder time in the terms of a relativist, I might be permitted to put
forth that time is distance if you are outside of the fourth
dimension. If I could, I would like to take it a step further. Here,
where we are, space and time are interwoven, hence the nomenclature,
“the fabric of space-time”. Subsequently, we experience time in a
linear fashion on this “wave” as Einstein calls it, and we really
only see it... or more aptly feel
it, this one way. But if you were standing on shore you would
experience the 'wave' in a whole new light. Our universe and it's
course through time, become more of a sausage shape.
Another way
of thinking about this is to imagine how the picture of a light
source (say the screen of your cell phone) turns out if it is being
jiggled and spun about in front of a camera that is taking a picture
at a slow shutter speed. The single point of light now appearing
snake-like, wiggling it's way around the frame in a very “3D”
shape (albeit in a 2D format, the photo itself). It is literally a
picture of that light's journey through space
and time. Now
imagine a camera set out in space following your life span as you
move about your day to day. Its' shutter stays open for the first few
years of your life as you barely leave the side of your parents. It
follows you as you travel across the continent or over seas. The
shutter stays open for seventy years as you move around this planet,
a planet that is whizzing around the sun and as that sun drifts
through space. Soon a very “4D” shape begins to form and you
don't look at all like you think you do. You look more and more like
a weird worm that has tentacles and protuberances jutting out here
and there. By the time the shutter closes and you cease to be,
instead of arms, legs and a head you have hoops, loops and tubes and
by and large look very much not human. Welcome to life out side of
linear time.
Our time to a
being outside of it is a mile. In fact, remnants of the idea that
time is distance date back to ancient Phoenicia and can still be
found in Arab culture today. Ask them a simple question of distance
from one city to the next and they will invariably give it to you in
hours and minutes. In all actuality we all do it from time to time
don't we? When you're trying to talk someone in to dropping you off
somewhere and you say, “C'mon! It's only 5 minutes down the road!”
Not mention the way we measure coordinates on our planet in degrees,
minutes and seconds harkens to this very concept. Time is not only a
chronological bench- mark here in the 4th
but also a benchmark of distance in subsequent hypothetical
dimensions, allowing for it to be not only the way in which we
experience our tellurian existence, but also the means by which other
hypothetical beings relegate measurements of location in their
existence in dimensions outside of ours. I am reminded of a Hindu
poem about time:
All things
happen according to the dictates of Time;
Both good and
bad depend on Time;
Prosperity and
poverty likewise depend on Time;
Time is the
determinant of all things;
There is none
who is not subject to Time
In this entire
world...
I digress.
Ultimately, all we can really know is the universe we are currently
occupying and only to the degree which our frames allow. And in this
universe, not a thing happens without chronology. We can see that
time is indeed a natural
“deity”, in that no matter which way we are going in linear time,
it is time that “controls” our course, and the inevitability of
our demise.
Just the idea alone that we cannot experience our universe without
time would perpend to be adequate cause to consider Time as God, no?
Which would of course, be the mental birth place of god's such
Chronos. Although it is a word or concept coined by man, it is that
force that without which we would very much find it extraordinarily
difficult to experience the rest of our surroundings. Quite frankly,
we wouldn't exist at all. So time almost takes the role of the
“creator” as well. We are the sediment of Time.
Time
must exist ubiquitously in our universe or it wouldn't (and we
wouldn't) exist at all. Unlike gravity, and light and other forces
that are tied to a specific body, time is, and by virtue of its'
role, time must exist
in all places at all times. If it were not to exist in a certain
point or at a certain place there would be (what I can only postulate
upon) major unravelling consequences. If space-time is a fabric then
Time's absence would potentially be like pulling that silly thread at
the end of your sleeve that you thought would just snap off but
instead, ended with the shirt's entire hem being let out. Even in the
hypothetical theory of black-holes time is not destroyed. In fact, of
all the universal dimensional elements that enter the hole it is
only time that remains intact in its flow from the depths of the
singularity to the rest of surrounding space. I'll grant the
distortion of time from the depths to the outer fringes of the cone
but it is still an ability that not even our current scientific
benchmark (light) can boast, in that, although light can not make it
out of a black hole, time can not be taken completely in.
Is it a
possibility that what exists everywhere simultaneously must by
inherent nature have always existed everywhere simultaneously,
further reinforcing the infinity of time? Time, being infinitely
present in the “past” and infinitely present in the “future”
and that, as previously stated, is the chronological progression
which, whether forward, backward or simultaneously, allows for the
present condition of the universe and that it is the property of the
4th dimension that allows us to relate to the first three
dimensions and that which stands in the way of our experiencing any
dimensions that may exist beyond the 4th, must do so in an
omnipresent way by existing in every corner and in every anomaly of
this and any other potential universe whether it be kinetic, in
motion or in a satisfied capacity.
Chapter
Eight
The
Omniscience of God and Time
In the past
chapter we discussed in a round about way, the possibility of time
being the “gold standard”, of sorts for any possible Multiverse
by it potentially being omnipresent. Since the days of Einstein, we
have had the criterion of speed-of-light limitations placed on things
with mass as being the unbreakable rule of physics. But some
astounding research at the CERN laboratories is starting to unravel a
few inconsistencies with this illusion of c (the speed of light).
MORE.
Personally, I
think that it is treading on dangerous ground if ever we assume we
have found anything to be a certain in this universe. We should know
better by now. It is by mistaking principle for absolute that many
decent ideas are turned into religious credo and the dogma of
megalomaniacs. Recently, a NASA scientist had his tenure ended for
espousing his belief in Intelligent Design. I mention this only
because the scientific world often sees itself less biased and
dogmatic then it often is in practice. We need to be ever vigilant
that we do not do, in the name of science, what has been done in the
name of god for so many centuries. Which is why I rather like
establishing time as a constant. It is precisely due to its'
discrepant and variable nature that I favour it for being that
element of all that exists; that it is the agglomerate and
conjunctive force, the “stitch in time”, if you will. It is a
variable invariable. Oxymora are our friends and most of that is
pontification spiked with humour. In this chapter, we will hang our
legs over the proverbial edge as we consider that time may also be in
many ways considered omnipotent.
Often,
but not always (i.e. Greek mythology), god knows all. he is
omniscient. Again, this attribute of god is directly linked to his
infinite nature, in such a way as it is only possible for him to know
everything because he has seen everything in an all-at-once reference
frame and that is only possible because he is infinite. Thus, giving
him the ultimate clarity to make decisions based on the final
(potential and actual) outcomes of any particular equation. What good
is living god if he can't exercise his infinite attributes within
infinite knowledge? For a god to be all powerful he's gotta know what
he's doing.
Time
too, could be considered all-knowing within the context of it being
infinite and omnipresent. Consider the journey of the radio wave
(actually being a form of light wave). There exists in the deepest
reaches of outer space to this very day, the first ever broadcast
sounds of mankind bouncing and pinging of the planets and stars.
However diminished and lessened they become on their journey, they
still exist. Have they become immeasurable and just part of the
ambient “noise” of the universe? Yes. But they still exist. These
parts of the past still exist somewhere and always will for as long
as this universe remains, perhaps longer.
One
of my personal favourite bands, the “Foo-Fighters” (a reference
of course to the brave and mildly insane pilots of the world
war who fought against the ), were playing a show in New Zeland
at the concert grounds on 2012. It was during
and only during there performance that seismic detectors in the
surrouning area picked up mild earthquake activity registering point
on the Richter scale. Upon hearing the news, I distinctly
remember remarking to my wife that they just sealed the deal of their
music living on forever. Algorithmic patterns trapped in the
vibrating crust of the earth and subsequently being broadcast into
space via the largest transmitter ever used (the planet earth) was
but a joke, but one still has to wonder just what sort of feather to
the pottery they may have unwittingly utilized.
There
are many theories on cyclical time that would mean that time past is
still happening and that time future already has and that time
present is both in the past and the future simultaneously. Einstein
said once that, “the only reason for time is so that everything
doesn't happen at once”. But he also said that our view of time is
merely a, “very persistent” illusion. So, if I may hypothesize
again from a Relativistic point of view, something I have often
thought about is whether or not the simultaneous existence of all
three tenses of time would allow for different energies, frequencies,
or wavelengths to “bleed” into another time frame. Perhaps, this
being the origin of premonition and prediction. Perhaps an
explanation for the siting of “ghosts”. Perhaps the message our
boys in the Foo-Fighters sent last
has always existed in the earth and always will. Did the
earth “know” about them before they even set foot on it?
If
a camera is pointed deep enough into space we can take a picture of
the universe how it existed millions if years ago. We are literally
taking a picture of the past.
Research. Although, at best, only a gross outline giving us
merely an outline of the edge of the universe, it still makes us
wonder, “Am I able to look at the past because in a sense, it still
exists?”
Hence,
I arrive at my postulation that Time “knows” all. I am speaking
collectively and comprehensively of its' accumulated “knowledge”
across the eons from it's infinite existence in this universe and
beyond, of course. Think of time as a cosmic library. The library
doesn't really “know” it “knows” all of the information
contained in the books it houses. Understanding our conceptualization
of Time in its' totality, relies heavily, just as the case is with
God, upon our fundamental supposition. If we can consider Time, in
the terms we have defined it thus far, to be infinite we can also
consider it be a great deal of other things as well.
Perhaps
there stands a possibility of the cosmos becoming cognitive. If so,
what would the infinite, omnipresent expanse of the web of time serve
for such a sentient universe? Has Time already served a purpose for
this, or some other hypothetical, universe? Is our universe the
creation of another universe or the greater cosmos as a whole? We
only know our past and the things we've learned because we learned
them in time. Yes, the retention of those thing is in the
cellular matter of our brains but time, and its' chronology, was the
conduit of our learning. Is it possible that the Macroverse is a
giant skull and Time, in it's various functions and manifestations
works as a similar conduit for the cognitive abilities of a sentient
universe?. Then stands the possibility that not only would time
figuratively know all, but literally as well. There really is no way
of us knowing with any real certainty the nascent state of the
universe, but there is a great deal on postulation done on the
subject regardless.
As
we all know, the brain works on electrical impulses. With new
research showing that perhaps the cosmos does too, we have to
reevaluate just how quickly we dismiss the possibility of a
“Brain-iverse” (this of course being the comic name I have given
a sentient universe). Research the
“electric universe”
Let's
conclude this chapter's set of speculations by adding them to the
established definition of time as done in the previous chapter, by
saying that Time, being infinitely
present in the “past”, infinitely present in the “future”,
the chronological progression which, whether forward, backward or
simultaneously, allows for the present condition of the universe and
that it is the property of the 4th
dimension that allows us to relate to the first three dimensions,
that which stands in the way of our experiencing any dimensions that
may exist beyond the 4th
and that it must do so in an omnipresent way by existing in every
corner and in every anomaly of this and any other potential universe
whether it be kinetic, in motion or in a satisfied capacity, as a
result there stands the possibility that it is a universal conduit
for the comprehension, accumulation, and realization of infinite
knowledge.
Time
is infinite, omnipresent, and omniscient and these are all
traits that are what we are calling the 'structural attributes'. But
what's all that with out the muscle to back it up? In the next
chapter we will be considering the final structural trait by talking
about the all-powerful nature of God and Time.
Chapter
Nine
The
Omnipotence of God and Time
Only
a God who knows all, lasts for infinity past to infinity future and
is in all places at all times can expect to be an all-powerful one.
Here again we see the heavy dependance the other attributes ascribed
to God have on His timelessness. Omnipotence implies timelessness.
What good is being all-powerful if you're going to die tomorrow and
you're not able to stop that from happening? Not very all-powerful.
To be considered all powerful you, would think that you must be able
exercise at least a moderate control over time. And in terms of what
we as humans can do with time, timelessness might as well imply
omnipotence as well. If you've been around forever and you always
will, I can almost guarantee that freakish longevity is not the only
trick you've got up your sleeve. The final trait in the 'structural
attributes that I want to cover before we move on is this idea of
omnipotence.
Ask
any engineer which of the elements poses predominant hazard for the
greatest number of structures and machines and I think you'll find
the answer pretty much consistent; water. But water needs time to do
its' work. Unless of course, you ascribes to the Diluvian Mythology
in which a flood can carve the Grand Canyon in a day or two. Not to
mention, not causing all the slat water fish to go extinct. Or
maybe they did go extinct and recouped their numbers through
adaptation (but certainly not
micro-evolution) until they regained their ascendance of the seas
inside two thousand years or so.
Sarcasm
aside, for many years I carried with me a river stone given to me as
a gift, that could fit in the palm of my hand, with room to spare.
It's edges were round and it was sort of an odd oval shape and quite
flat, perhaps only three-quarters of an inch thick. Drilled, almost
exactly in the centre of the stone, was a neat little hole that
passed straight through the entirety of the stone's thickness on a
slight bias. When it was first given to me as a boy, I recall
wondering aloud to the gift giver, how this fate could have befallen
this stone seeing that there were no tool marks, no scrapes from sand
paper or file, absolutely no sign of a man's manipulation on the
pebble. She answered my enquiry as I simultaneously solved my
puzzlement again, out-loud. “Water”, we answered in unison. At
some point this small rock got trapped in the bed of a river or creek
perhaps conveniently positioned at the edge or bottom of a spill-way
where for years a focused jet of water passed over and pummelled the
stone until it bore a tidy little hole, no more than the width of a
pencil, straight through.
As
intimidating and destructive as water can be it would be nothing if
it weren't for time. It and any other force wouldn't have much of a
bite if time didn't allow. In much the same way, that nature always
wins (the force of water on this planet, specifically) against
constructs of stone and earth (natural or man made), time wins
against the universe itself. It erodes everything in its' way with
it's almost ineluctably acidic quality. But that's a
“glass-is-half-full” approach to this subject, though. In the
same sense time allows for wondrous and spectacular acts of
conception, construction and organization to take place as well.
Dr.
Andrew Gustin has his P.h.D. in geology and it is his observations of
his field of study and how he applies what he learns to help us
understand the rest of the universe that is perhaps one of the best
formed ideas that would aid in understanding time's omnipotence. Ask
andrew for a qoute.
It's
hard for man to stand at the base of a mountain, having not been
witness to the time and forces which built it and conclude that it
arrived at it's current state with out a maker. Likewise, we stand at
the foot of the unfathomable mountain of the human's structure, both
physical and intellectual, and point to it as though it proves there
is a maker. But what we do in the process is ignore that in nature,
structure and pattern are easily produced by seemingly chaotic means.
There are several beaches on this planet that have their pebbles
arranged when starting nearest the water line, from smallest to
largest and it almost looks as though they have been purposely placed
in such a manner. The truly magnificent abilities of nature to
operate is not in it's ability to organize and structure using
pattern and system. The truly awe inspiring acts of nature are those
that are created and structured upon asymmetry. When nature can hold
it's self together with nothing more than chaos we stand in true
amazement and awe.
Current
estimates on the age of our universe put it at roughly fourteen
billion years old. Our planet alone is four billion. No wonder there
are people who worship the planet as a god. For the first couple
billion years of our universe's existence there was little else but
swirling gas and dust. For all intents and purposes reality was made
up of not much more than time and debris. Although matter and
antimatter, energy and dark energy, light and gravity were all making
the physical connections during this early embryonic state, it was
time that had arguably established it's cadence, whatever that pace
may have been, allowing the development of the cosmos to commence.
Irrespective of the neg-entropic effect and the entropy our current
thermodynamic systems are undergoing, we see that Time is indeed that
force which “giveth and taketh away”.
After
our universe grows cold at the “end of time”, Time will continue
forward whilst everything else stands still, even if it is for a mere
fraction of a second. Even then, I have to wonder, can we really say
time has ended just because it is in retreat? Does a yo-yo cease to
be a yo-yo on its' return to the palm from which it was thrown?
Whether our universe returns to singularity, chills, or if in fact
some other radical unanticipated transformation betides, it goes with
out saying that none of these occurrences could happen upon our
unsuspecting cosmos if were not for the very real effect of time.
Time's
final 'srtuctural' attribute is close tied to its' omnipresence, as I
presented in chapter
Chapter
Ten
The Holy
Righteousness, Loving Justice
and Other
Traits of God and Time
I would like
to, in the intrest of actually ending this book someday, help us save
some time in the department of explaining and corrolating the
'personality traits' of time by covering as many of them in the
following chapter as we can. In the previous chapters we discussed
the structural traits of God and Time upon which all rested on the
first trait identified, and that was infinity. Next, to properly
understand the more anthropormorphic traits of God and Time we can
use the previous 'structral attributes' as our lattice or trellice,
allowing us to 'hang' this following traits up in a way that is
understandable and identifiable to us as individuals.
We have to
consider the way that God 'works' in the lives of His people. Often
mentioned by religious types is that He doesn't work in our time line
but in His. So, if something we feel an immediate need for goes unmet
for longer than we'd hoped or goes unmet forever, than this is just
Him working in 'mysterious ways. I have always found this to be a
fascinating idea. The mysterious ways are often described like this,
if you prayer is answered immediately, that's of course God saying,
'yes', right away. If your prayer takes sometime to be answered He is
saying, 'wait'. And if your prayer is never answered He is saying,
'no'.
There are two
distinct things here that interest me in regards to this idea. First,
it is interesting and most obvious to point out that God needs time
to work in the lives of man. In an way God relies on time and has to,
be cause we as man are stuck in it.
Secondly, and
most intriguing for me is that “answered prayer” really just
relies on laws of probability and averages. If what you are asking
for is likely to have a more immediate resolution, 'God's answer'
will come sooner for you as opposed to asking for an answer to more
unlikely and improbable intervention by divinity then you will most
likely have to 'wait'. The more unlikely improbable the answer you
are looking for is, the greater the chance that it will never arrive.
For instance,
If I ask to find a good parking space at the department store later
when running errands, I may get exactly what I'm asking for because
it is a realistic and more immediately answered request. One that
take only moderate patience on my part to see come to fruition. The
circumstances around my parking lot request, though the request is
rather trifling, are still important to consider when making the
'prayer'. For instance, if today was the last shopping day before
Christmas, I might not get that 'yes' answer I would get on an
average Wednesday at eleven in the morning. In a short while I will
know whether or not He has said yes or no.
If my request
to God was for Him to show me how to provide for my family and myself
after retirement, considering for me it is still a minimum of thirty
years away, I might not get that 'answer' for years to come. There
are many social, political, personal, and economical factors at play
here and the 'answer' might change dramatically from year to year. It
might not be until a few years before my expected retirement that I
would know with any real certainty whether or not my efforts have
been sufficient towards reaching my personal goals. Therefore, I can
say God told me to wait, and if things don't work out, I can say He
eventually told me 'no'.
The more
likely a certain out come is when we are asking, the more likely we
are to get a 'yes'. Let's, for arguments sake, make one more example.
Let's say you are really wanting to go on a church organized mission
trip to Chile but you simply do not have all the necessary funds to
pay the bill. Every night and even all day it becomes a consuming
passion of your mind to think and dwell on the desire to go on the
trip. In you day to day and at Sunday meeting you begin to mention to
people your desire to go on this trip and that you feel it is “God's
will” that you go. The day before you are supposed to get your
monies in to set you place on the trip you are remarkable short of
the financial goal need to make that place a surety. Then, just as
you are about to turn in for the night the phone rings. It's your
minister calling to inform you that God has answered your prayers and
an unknown member of the congregation has written you a check for the
amount you need, and you are no going on that trip to Chile. But a
few weeks later you are on your way to the airport when you vehicle
gets a flat and due to some communication issues and a terrible cab
driver you miss your flight and are unable to join the trip and are
ultimately unable to go. Furthermore, the money that was not yours
that was put towards the trip in nonrefundable so not only have you
lost the opportunity that you had your heart set on, the anonymous
donor just threw out a large sum of money, and new privately feels as
though some compensation is owed him.
In this
instance, all three 'answers' to prayers have been given. First a
'wait', then a 'yes' and then finally a 'no'. This is too me, silly.
What I see when I look at this is...life. But that's me and I am just
looking at probabilities and averages.
(metaphoric)At
this point we have covered all of the “omni” attributes of God
and seen their correlation with Time and how an appropriate view of
God's (or Time's) infinite nature effectively acts as a lens with
which we view the other characteristics we've discussed. These
elements that we've discussed thus far are, more-or-less the
“make-up” of God and aren't really indicative of what kind
of God we're dealing with here. He could be all-powerful,
all-knowing, ever-present, infinite and all together quite
maleficent. So, it with this that we are moving out of the realm God
and Time's “powers” and into their personality. I know that it's
more than a stretch assigning a personality to Time, but that's not
going to stop me from trying. Soon, we will be contemplating the
cause behind the psychology of anthropomorphizing, as well as
creating and keeping gods and how that it relates to our perception
of Time, but for now I will start with some of the effect.
But just as
God's power has it's governing element in timelessness, so also
should the personality elements of God have a an attribute that
governs His actions and reactions. So, what is God's governing
attribute? Is it His love? Perhaps. Many argue it to be such with,
“God is love”. But then we juxtapose that idea next to all the
pain that this life is full of and things don't add up. In fact, it
plants the seed of doubt in minds about whether God is truly
omnipotent or not. I mean, if His governing attribute is love then
wouldn't use His unmatched and unfathomable power to end the
suffering of his children in this life and in eternity?
Many
theological trains of thought centre around the justice or
righteousness of God. Now, I will not argue that a just and righteous
God are not important, but I can not say (as far as the God of the
Bible goes) that justice is His governing attribute. What governs His
righteousness? On what authority does He decide, this I
will reward and that I
will punish. What makes Him (or us) so certain that he is acting in
the best interest of true righteousness and that it isn't some how
skewed?
So, in
agreement with the description of many a scripture, I have to assign
God's holiness as His governance. The doctrine of Sanctification is
based on the theology that no sin can stand in the presence of a holy
and sinless God. All those who are not sanctified while they have the
chance are sent to Sheol, a place devoid of the presence of God,
where they stay “forever”. It wasn't until the Babylonian
captivity and a heavy Hellenisitc influence that the idea of the Lake
of Fire was born, but that is outside of my point here. I think, that
if we do not have first and foremost a holy God in our minds, then
many of the things that He says and does look a little off and
largely unjust.
Now how is it
that we relate this to Time? Well, I would really like to say that I
have found some way to relate holiness to something that not only
isn't alive but also incorporeal, but I can't not draw such an
analogy effectively outside of saying that, since Time is not
actually a being, it is therefore incapable of fault and thus making
it sinless. However, if we step back and look at the unbiased nature
of time, I feel we can see a connection. “Time waits for no man”.
It passes its' judgement on us all. Eventually, it weighs its' even
and deliberate conviction on every one and every thing in its' path.
It is “not a respecter of persons”. There seems to be a certain
level of “justice” behind time and in that, it is fair and
metaphorically righteous. We have this way that we refer to a lot of
the personality traits of Time, which again I will delve into deeper
in the next chapter. An interesting one to me has always been how we
say that Time has or hasn't been “kind” to someone or something.
It's a funny idea when you really stop to think about it, isn't it?
Time's
trinity. past=son present=father future=holy spirit
One
way I wish I could make Time line up with theology is to show how it
is possible to view time as being forgiving and loving. Although, I
suppose I could point to the idea that we often get second chances at
things and opportunities to make things better after we have done
someone or something wrong. “Time willing”, we get the chance to
supplicate our transgressions and make something out of ourselves
after many of us waste so much of our youthful energy on frivolous
and adolescent carnality. Those of us who choose not to wake up soon
enough and continue to waste the good graces of Time, often find
ourselves having not been dealt so kind with by time. But if we take
our second chances and make the most of them, in time
we are reward with satisfying things like happy homes, closer and
more meaningful relationships, peace and security in our endeavours.
Ultimately,
the real analogy brakes down here and the argument tends favour
becoming inauspicious, but all is not lost. The biggest reason for
the disposal difference is due to the last line I will be drawing
between the two and that is what I touched on at the on-set of this
article; the personal nature of God and Time. I briefly noted how the
writer(s) of the Pentateuch incorporated this ideal into the theology
of YHVH ever so wisely.
Chapter
Eleven
The
Personalization of God and Time
The previous
chapters were a discussion on both the 'structural' and 'personality'
traits of God and Time and an identification of their heavy
dependance on metaphoric language. In this chapter, we will connect a
loose string from very early in the paper and that would be the
personalizing tendency that man has in regards to how he perceives or
constructs his interpretation and relationship with both God and
Time. This idea has been placed last and revisited, because I feel
that it is not a trait of God and Time as much as it is a trait of
the men beneath God and Time and we need to frame our discussion with
the understanding that it is all ultimately, our experience that
gives either one of these two constituents any real meaning. As we
spoke about the 'structural' traits, we identified infinity as being
the fundamental when referring to such traits and when referring to
the 'personality' traits, we pointed out holiness (lack of bias) as
the fundamental trait in that category. But if we could step back
from all of the metaphoric traits that we give to God and Time and
look at it as clearly as possible, we might begin to notice what has
been hitherto stated as being the truly unmistakeable quality shared
between God and Time (personalization), might even be the quality
shared with many more levels of our existence. All of the
aforementioned traits are all, in their entirety a subjective
response to concept and formed individually based on experience in
both reality and in one's own mind.
It is
paramount to an effective religion to have a God which is personal
and identifiable. After all, who would really give reverence (or
cash) to God who goes largely without contact with His creation.
Deism was the religion of choice for many of the founding fathers of
the U.S. constitution. Being that they had come from a country being
crushed by kings too closely tied to the dogmatic teachings of
churches that were in and out of vogue, they favoured this theology
for its' affinity toward promoting the separation of church and
state. If God did not involve Himself in the affairs of man then
there would be no place for Him to get too involved in the affairs of
Congress. Personally, I think it should have stayed that way. But
Christianity is persistent. The God of theocracy is a stubbornly
revisited construct. For very personal motivations people tend to see
God through a looking-glass of their own design.
Interestingly,
in a current study by a team led by Nicholas Epley at the University
of Chicago, while a volunteer (asked to contemplate their own
personal beliefs, then their view on the intentions and attributes of
their God and then finally the beliefs of an “average American”)
was thinking about their own beliefs and their God, the same area of
the brain lit up. But when they were asked to think about the beliefs
of someone else, an entirely different area of the brain became
active. We infer from this of course, that man tends not to seek the
truly object definition of God but instead traces his concept of Him
over top of preconceived belief. Mr. Epley writes, "Intuiting
God's beliefs on important issues may not produce an independent
guide, but may instead serve as an echo chamber to validate and
justify one's own beliefs".
In
addition the researchers also constructed careful question based
experiments that proved to provide very compelling evidence to
suggest that people often use their personal beliefs on controversial
topics and ideological identifications as a way to assume what God
thinks and wants. In one experiment the team asked participants to
express their views on thing like abortion and capitol punishment.
Then they asked them what God thought of those same topics; then the
“average American” and finally well-known public figures. Not
surprisingly, in the category of assumptive morality, they most close
held the values and “opinions” that they had attributed to God.
Then
the team asked the volunteers to prepare speeches and debates where
they were asked to take an opposing position from there own on some
of the same “heavy” topics. What is strikingly outstanding is
that they were more apt to change the way that they felt God weighed
in on those topics then they were to change the way they assumed
other people felt. This show a clear predilection to subjectively
form our opinion of God based on what we personally think about the
tougher choices and concepts we encounter in this life. These
findings can be found in the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences.
Similarly,
all of us relate to Time in a very individual way. We all consider
the time we have on this earth as our very own possession, like it is
a form of property. This is our biological time and because of this
sense of ownership over it we us verbalisms like, “save/waste” or
“spend time”, “employ, use, fill, occupy” or “take time”.
In this respect alone, time stands out as different from the other
divisions of our lives. We don't really refer to gravity, or
magnetism, in such a personal and sovereign way. Gravity and the
other elements of existence do not seem to sit so personally. We
might say that someone is the “light of your life” but that is a
bit of a different metaphor. And what can be said about the
linguistic metaphor, “killing time”?
In
the next chapter I will present that there maybe strong ties in the
brain, due most likely, to our anthropological development, that are
perhaps responsible for not only giving us the notion that a God
exists, but also providing us with “insights” as to what it is
that God wants and thinks. Why is it man feels he needs gods in the
first place? What is it about our consciousness that feels it is and
always has been an almost ecumenical imperative to hold a belief in a
god or many gods? As with any other point in the development of any
particular trait in any particular species, it is (to say the least)
difficult to determine exactly when it was that a certain
predisposition began to be seen and strongly recognizable. I do not
think it a stretch to assume the same of the intangible traits as
well, such as our daydreams of imaginary creatures like fairies and
unicorns...and gods.
On 5 Mar 2009 Deepak Ranade, a consulting neurosurgeon wrote in the
Times of India that,
“A researcher revealed that when a person was subjected to pain
stimulus before and after being shown the picture of a deity he had
faith in, his tolerance to pain was significantly better than it was
before seeing the picture. So was the increase in tolerance the
result of conditioning?” He goes on to say that it is reasonable to
infer that even if one believed a part of nature to be a deity one
should theoretically feel the same relief. He goes further to
speculate that no matter what the deity of choice is, that perhaps
the final locus for God is the same physical location in the brain.
Implying that, “theoretically, if this God centre were to be
stimulated, one could experience calm, bliss, even ecstasy. Would
this imply that all spiritually advanced souls have, over a period of
time, been able to devise an intrinsic mechanism to stimulate the God
centre?”
This
of course is the founding supposition behind the attempt localize and
verify the epicentre of “realization”. Scary to most religious
types because it relegates there personal relationship and
realization of their God to mere neurochemical reaction. He goes on
to say, “Meditation could be just a process that converts all
eccentric thought processes into a concentric pattern with the God
centre as the epicentre. All thoughts pertaining to mundane
activities may be eccentric in nature. These eccentric patterns would
be a deterrent to stimulating the God centre”. In conclusion he
writes the following:
“Happiness
is most often cause-based, a consequence of perceptive modalities
giving a positive feedback via established neuronal circuits.
Familiarity, sensory gratification, and above all a very tangible
cause-effect relationship permeates this sense of joy. But, if
happiness could be devoid of a cause, it may explain the detachment
that most masters talk about. Happiness would then be independent of
a cause and also stimulation of specific neural paths. It could
become the background electrochemical activity, where any external
object is not recognized as a separate entity and analyzed and
assigned relative values of joy or pain. This Advaita or Oneness
could be identified as the baseline firing of zeta neurons in a
specified locus in the non-dominant hemisphere. It would create a
perception shift. It could also deconstruct the "i" entity
as having a discrete identity; the equivalent of dissolution of ego.
There would be no subjective element to any sensory stimulus. Which
is why many masters seem to revert to a child-like innocence. (note
to self: “die to the old.” “the self must die for Christ to
live in you.” “suffer the little children for they know God.”)
Maybe, then godhood would be a neurochemical alteration in the milieu
of the neuronal networks , resulting in a perceptive variance. And
spiritual progress could be monitored by an imaging modality.”
Of
course, this is but one approach on developing a working theory for
the causalities of the “God perception” in man. In actuality,
there have been very thorough studies done that prove the opposite of
Deepak's claim. As I proposed in the previous chapter, I have
absolutely no reason to doubt that man evolved his incorporeal traits
in a vacuum whilst he developed his physical and practical traits. I
believe the same to be true of man's social cognition and abstract
reasoning. In fact, as I stated prior, I feel that the ideas and
notions of God and Time co-developed in unison with each other and
with the physical “hardware” (the brain) making any particular
behaviour, expression or cognitive process completely reliant on
other functions and sub-functions of the brain making it completely
impractical and improbable to associate any said expression with any
one part of the brain. More clearly, we developed the use of complex
groupings of different areas of our brains in conjunction with each
other to determine reception, perception, reaction, and response to
the abstract notion of God at the same time that our brains developed
those functions in relation to our fellow man.
One
study carried out by five specialists (from establishments like the
Clinical Research Branch of the National Institute on Ageing (NIA),
the Institutes of Health (NIH) in Baltimore, Maryland, the Cognitive
Neuroscience Section from the National Institute of Neurological
Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and National Institutes of Health (NIH)
in Bethesda, Maryland) measured voxel-based morphometry in response
to principal components of religiosity by factor analysis of the
survey items and associated them with regional cortical volumes.
Without getting too bogged down in the technical lexicon, the study
(in conjunction with a previous, and just as substantiated, study)
showed that the four areas that the brain uses to compute a God
realization and relationship (R middle temporal cortex, L precuneus,
L orbitofrontal cortex and the R precuneus) are associated with
cortical volume differences and are the same areas, used in a similar
fashion, that are key in cognitive social processing. The conclusion
that the group came to, works in concert with a previous study where
they looked at functional neuroimaging (fMRI) to find the immediate
causes of religious drive in the brain. The authors write this about
the experiment, “By differentially engaging these networks,
individuals construct religious belief representations, which are
subsequently adopted or rejected based upon cognitive-emotional
interactions within the anterior insulae.” They went on to propose
this, “In this study, we hypothesized that religiosity is tied to
neuroanatomical variability and tested this idea by determining
whether components of religiosity were predicted by variability in
regional cortical volume measured by magnetic resonance imaging
(MRI).” And the findings substantially supported this hypothesis.
Interesting to note that there was no response to childhood religious
upbringing, potentially suggesting that although religious rearing
might have a role in how other parts of our thought processes work in
adulthood, at some point we choose (based on regional cortical volume
predispositions, of course) in what capacity we want to believe when
it comes to issues of a personal relationship with or fear of God, as
well as in determining to what degree and in what combination, we
choose to quantify His “intentions and emotional disposition”.
For
many years, a vast majority of professionals across a varied array of
fields considered religiosity and God-centred thinking to be a
learned behaviour and based on the upbringing of one's childhood. I
mean, it is rational. But does it hold water? Do you believe what you
do when you are forty is due to what you were taught when you were
four? Dawkins ascribes the eagerness which children attach themselves
to the religious teachings of their parents to an evolutionary
fail-safe. Obedience equals survival. But surely, when you are old
enough you can make your own informed choices. I was raised to
believe and not believe in a whole host of things based on a set of
doctrines that are for the most part, antiquated in regards to what I
believe today. For instance, while a resident under my father's roof,
I wasn't permitted to listen to rock n' roll. I mean altogether
nothing remotely close to sounding like a rock song. The way that pop
musicians were demonized was, to say the least, befuddling. Great
lengths were gone to in an effort to make them, their lifestyles,
their craft appear as cheap and tawdry, as base and talentless, as
foolish and vial and vain as possible. Today, I am a writer of
pop-rock music and I enjoy it as a fulfilling exorcise and part of a
balanced lifestyle. Now, for many years I struggled due to my strict
upbringing with acceptance of my innate gift for writing catchy rock
ballads and for years it held back both my art and the healing that
my heart so desperately need. After battling for years with
conflicting emotions regarding just this one part of what makes me
who I am, I've come to peace with it, in synchronized congruity, and
with the other co-existing emotional and psychologically conditioned
cognitive habits. I am not who I was.
One
thing the researchers made a point of mentioning in this article is
that these findings highlight the unifying theme of “love thy
neighbour” (that many religious teachings found their principles
on) and that it has a clear neurological causality behind it. Even
Jesus taught that the second most important commandment after loving
God is loving your fellow man [Matthew 22:38-39]. What I find
interesting is that a secular group of scientific minds can see
deeper, at times, into the ball of yarn that is religion, than some
professed devout Christians ever will.
I
must point out again that these findings all point to why God is such
a personal experience person to person, even within the same
doctrinal denomination. The functions of our brain in social
cognition and it's functions in relating personally to God along with
the logically fallacious thinking I touched on at the outset of the
book, are all carried out in the areas of the brain that are quite
asymmetrical. With examples like
“Yakovlevian
torque” the brain seems, on a macroscopic level, to be a
hemispherical mirror. But when you study it closely you see that
nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, not only are the
archictecture and types of neurotransmitters differecnt but also the
receptor subtypes as well. Further still, although some of these
differences in distribution are commonalities across humans and some
even the species, they can also be markedly different from person to
person resulting in individualized thought processes and
consequently, an individualized God. A saying comes to mind; “You're
only as good as the tools you're given” but then again so does
another, “A bad craftsmen always blames his tools”.
Because
the nature of both God and Time are ultimately personally experienced
the two ideas are ultimately relative. Yes, even though each has
certain “absolute” governing attributes, they are both
experienced personally and relatively once you pass a certain point
in logic. There
are numerous examples in scripture of the writers staking claim on
God, stating that God was “our God” and the “God of our
fathers”. They are efficaciously filling the innate need mankind
has come to know for a divine supplier of perceived physical and
spiritual needs in a very personal and intimate way. But because the
experiences are measured specifically person to person is that enough
to say that neither God or Time exist in any real way? Or does the
commonality in experience and agreement in conceptualizations point
to something more or less “real” that lies beneath these surface
perceptions which can be considered the cause of the person to person
experiential data? And in my zeal to at least, purpose, time to be
factual am I somehow doing the same for God? If so, what does that
tell us about the uncertainty, when down to brass tacks, of both?
If
they are both instinctual beliefs of the human mind, as a general
rule, then we must ask ourselves is either of them at odds with any
other of our instinctual beliefs? Reread the quote from Bertrand
Russell that started this paper. Then, let's move forward to the next
chapter where we will trace this trait of mankind to the ancient past
and into our genetic animal history, where we will hope to make sense
of a few more 'what's', 'when's' and 'why's'.
Chapter
Twelve
How to Create
a God and Give Him a Job
At this
point, we have not only looked at just how similar God and Time are
to each other in both realistic (structural) and metaphorical
(personality) terms, but now we have, in the last chapter, addressed
the biggest corollary between the two and that is the personal nature
of them both, or at least, the nature of man to hyper-personalize
them. Before we move on to discuss to what degree Time has become a
god to modern man in the next chapter, let us pause, at least
briefly, to consider the root of the previously mention
personalization and then keep that root in mind when we get up to
speed on man's current slavery to Time.
As the
pre-Homo sapien sapien (pre-anatomically modern man) began conquering
the elements around him it became quickly apparent that one element
to his existence was very much out of his control. He could swim
under water. He could channel it and divert it and move it around. He
could smash stone and carve it and make of it tools and weapons. He
could control fire and put it on the end of torches and burn down
anything he wished with it. He could track and sort the heavens, he
could breed and control the beasts but the one thing that he could
not contemplate even a remote chance of dominating was time.
As
you all know, we are all part of the genus 'Homo' which is Latin for
'human', potentially sharing Nakalipithecus and
Ouranopithecus found in Keny and Greece respectively with the
great apes and chimps, of the modern globe. Until 2010 the earliest
species found that could be classified as Homo was Homo habilis which
lived from about 2.4 to 1.4 million years ago. By then our genetic
lineage had already figured out the making and using tools of stone
and animal bone. It had the morphology to suggest that it most likely
lived in trees for the most part, as opposed to walking about on two
legs. Thus, it has been proposed that it be moved to an even earlier
genus, Australopithecus[37]. Two million years ago, before we were
even human, we had figured out how to make tools!
If
we move down to Africa, Asia, and Europe our precocious little 'handy
man' as he is known, Homo habilis, had developed a larger brain and
started making even more complicated tools by about 1.5 million years
ago. We can see here a nice transition in the time-line from habilis
to what anthropologist would classify as Homo erectus. He is also
able to now stand up right completely, due of the change of location
of the entrance of the spine into the brain and the locking knee. It
is important to note many scientists agree that this guy probably
conquered using fire to cook it's food. After about 300,000 years
ago there are at least five or six really nice transitional species
and sub-species that bring us satisfactorily up to speed with or most
recent cousins[42,43].
Fast
forward only 50,000 thousand years (or 250,000 years ago) and
anatomically modern man is living simultaneously along with one of
it's cousins Neanderthal man or Homo sapiens neanderthalis, a
consanguineous cousin of modern man, who most likely shared the
common ancestor from half a million years prior[50]. But recent DNA
sequencing has show that nearly all non-African Homo sapiens sapiens
share at least 1% to 4% of it's genes with Homo sapiens
neanderthalis, which coincides with the theory of the modern man's
migration out of Africa[54]. Neanderthal was very much like man with
the exception of a prominent brow and language. He could clearly
breed with man, but the genes/bones were just not developed enough
for him to communicate in a way that would be considered true
language[3]. However, that is no reason to think that he could not
communicate ideas, emotions, and pass down complex learned social and
survival behaviours, like using stone and fire as tools. It certainly
has to stand that much, much earlier the measurement of heliocentric
time had begun. At some point in the past of our shared ancestors
surely one of our relatives looked beyond its' instinctual sense of
the seasons and began to track the days in a more meaningful way than
warm and cold, wet and dry, hungry and full.
My
point in saying all this is to verify that fact that the development
of man to his present state has been gradual and calibrated. There is
no reason to assume that man developed all of his skills, techniques,
ideals, and convictions only once he had made the transition to Homo
sapien. In actuality it is absurd based on findings like the “Oldawon
stone tools” from Ethiopia which date to about 2.5 million years
ago, a time long before the first “Homo” species even arrived.
Which would credit the making of the tools to Paranthropus[83].
Because they lived alongside of the first Homo species the waters
here are still muddy, yet it brings into focus the gradual
progression of not only the physical traits of modern man but the
mental ones as well. Which begs one to wonder when did man really
start to ponder time outside of his own biology and how soon after or
before that time did he begin to ponder the existence of god? Sure
there is a very mysterious “Great Leap Forward” in the mental and
cultural development of modern man starting at a bout 50,000 years
ago or so, but I see no reason to relegate all “higher thoughts”
to man at this stage of development. Personally, I generally feel as
though a broader realization of the scope of time came first and
subsequently the need for a being not bound by time to be created.
These deeper ideas percolated for at least 200,000 years before they
spawned cultural developments including burying their dead and
painting on cave walls (An attempt to increase the odds of killing
the depicted beast in the hunts of the following days. i.e. A prayer
in picture form). Although, I often find myself under the influence
of the idea that these concepts of God and Time, much like many other
parts of mans evolution, developed symbiotically; cross pollinating
one another and influencing each other until such a point that they
became so entwined that the perceived attributes of both began to
mirror one another, I still think that in the formative years of
pre-human evolution the mushy little brain could not conceive the
scope of time and so, hardwired into the very genetic make up, was
laid the ground work for the ability to conceive the concept of
“god”. Natural selection gave us our ability to think up a being
and a personal relationship with this being and put him in control of
the things which we are not. Whether you subscribe to the
“Out-of-Africa” model or the “Complete Replacement”
(Multiregional Evolution hypothesis) model, I see it as biology's way
of framing a concept that was far to large for the early organic to
comprehend a little bit at a time through mundane micro-evolutionary
adaptations brought about, most likely, by the need for changes in
cognitive sociology. Just how much of the concept of time did our
little ancestors understand and when did they understand it? What
other parts of their anatomy, psychology and sociology were being
developed at that same time? All important questions that will remain
unanswerable for a long time. I think it is safe to say however, that
by the time of migrations the “God/Time” ground work had already
been mapped out long before in the brain.
At
some point in man's development we awoke from our slumber to a thump
in the night and instead of asking, “what
was that” we asked, “who
was that”. When dogs and other animals get frightened or even
curious about a noise or shadow, they aren't asking themselves who is
behind them, only what. But we, we are the exception to the rest of
the animal kingdom. Mysticism comes natural to us for what ever the
mental chemistry and grey matter hardware causation.
This
is for far too many people, a strange and almost sci-fi explanation
that reduces mankind to being the slave of a bunch of chemicals. It
is a scary thought for many, for what ever their reasons may be, that
we could just run through the streets as libertines blaming our
primitive debauchery on bad brain juice or conditioning, effectively
absolving us of any condemnation. It isn't enough for some to merely
assume that because we can conceive of a higher morality that it
makes us obliged to follow a higher morality. No, we must have an
imaginary “Father” forcing us to do so under penalty of eternal
hell-fire. No matter, the rest of us can still move forward with our
meliorism or the more theosophic teachings to aid our ontological
pursuits and I will attempt to regain a shred more neutrality as I
attempt to wrap this paper up.
An
interesting rabbit trail to follow is determining why it is we call
God and Time “father”. For that matter why is it that we call the
earth, “mother”? Psychology and recent imagining studies have
show that when we are thinking about tangible things we are often
using the lskdjfls part of our brain which is responsible for lskdj
and sldkjf. Thus making it an instinctual thought process to
associate God and Time with male personae. Where as the slsdkjf part
of the brain responsible and best associated with sldjf is where
research has found that we think about tangible physical things like
the earth making it a logical progression to identify our trucks as
being a “Betsy”.
When
did we wake up to our impermanence? When did it dawn on us and stir
our fear into the creation of deities? Which of our biological
ancestors first felt the stinging realization of his temporal
existence? We may never know the answers and the answers may not even
give us any real advantage if we do know them one day. All we need
focus on is what state we are in now. As Dr. Newberg from the
University of Pennsylvania said, "If, some day, a study came up
that showed that religion is false - or true - if the science is done
right and the data is clear, then I'm comfortable with going in that
direction. I believe it may be possible some day. But until then, we
can't forbid ourselves from thinking about things just because we
can't design an experiment to prove them."
Again,
I am in no way trying to prove that God is a delusion and should be
relegated as such, necessarily. I do not think any one has the kind
of authority to emphatically state that merely because God exists in
the mind that He can not exist anywhere else. Nor should I argue that
if He exists in “heaven” that He can not therefore “exists”
substantiated in neuroanatomical constructional functionality. I'm
not Bishop Berkeley, here! As I have already stated, the empirical
affirmation of an immortal being by a mortal one is a fallacy in the
logical process and can not be done under the physical/psychological
limitations of said mortal being. As far as logical, 'knowable'
thinking goes, there is no way of knowing that what has been
identified by spiritual gurus as 'God' isn't in fact just a longer
lived and one more powerful than us. We really can't tell the
difference, with reason. But science is able to show us those who
would be more or less likely to make such an assumption.
Like
Dr. Newberg and many others, the fight between religion and science
doesn't interest me in the slightest. I think that if religious
scientists stop trying to use findings to ironclad their faith and
secular ones stop using the same findings to solidify their
agnosticism, we might actually get somewhere in the true name of
discovery, understanding and enlightenment. I'm not here to duke it
out over the exact non-meaning of time or how my analogy may fail if
we use a different version of God. The reason I don't concern myself
with that bickering over scientific and religious semantics is
because it is a fruitless endeavour that usually has an affect
opposite from the intended mission of each field respectively. I can
make these limited comparisons because I am allowed to do such in the
world of philosophy as long as I do so as honestly as I am able.
Chapter
Thirteen
Worshipping
Time as God
If
science is not equipped to prove or disprove the existence of God,
can we say with any real certainty that it should be able to
catalogue and identify something so incorporeal and intangible as
Time? Even if it can be proven not to exist in the physical realm of
the universe, is that still enough to say it does not exist? In other
words, is a figment less real to the mind of man? The effects of a
placebo are evident and in many cases powerful. So can ideas like
this whether “real” or not be just as real as anything knowable
through our senses? There are scientific professionals who refuse to
rule out the likelihood of a creator of the universe. But there is,
as we know, no real criteria for someone to hold on to that inkling.
So I have to ask, on what criteria do we dismiss time, all together?
Time seems to be just as intangible, incorporeal, immeasurable, and
non-temporal as common conceptions held on God. So what makes any of
us so sure it's not there? If you think that there maybe a creator
or God somewhere out there, then you are in good company. You along
with many top professionals in the arts and sciences all feel that
there has to be a designer to all of this. If you feel that way you,
ought not be ashamed either or made to look foolish by those who
don't believe. Nor should you pass any moral judgement on those
sceptics to your position. As long as we keep things in perspective,
having a leaning one way or another on topics that are, so far,
beyond the realm of science, isn't necessarily wrong. But let's
assume for conclusion's sake, that time does not exist in the
universe in any real
sense. For the purpose of this argument let's say it is all
in our heads. I have to ask; have we personified Time into existence?
Have we breathed enough of the breath of life into it that is alive
regardless? Are we the creators and authors of time? Just as God
spoke this world into existence in the stories of creation, have we
too spoken into life an entity? Have we created a metaphor too
powerful to keep from blinding us from truth, knowledge, reality?
“ 2 a
being considered worthy of worship. 3 a person or thing intensely
admired and respected.”
If
I may indulge myself and redefine god as this: A
supernatural entity that is perceived to be the answer to or cause of
a perceived natural deficiency, whether physical or spiritual. If the
supernatural entity is perceived to be the answer to the need then
submission is rendered. If the entity is perceived to be the cause
then defiance is likely.
Is God time?
Perhaps a better question is; is time god? Insert the word “Time”
into the above definition in place of 'supernatural entity' and we
begin to see how this fast paced, multi-tasking society modern man
lives in today is taking the last step towards making a God out of
Time. The human race runs around everyday, a slave of time.
Preoccupying every moment with an attention to the clock. The human
can not help himself but to plan the next moment and micromanage
every second. It seems every other year or so this university or the
next comes out with a study outlining the detrimental effects that
the current multitasking, time-obsessive society is having on both
the physical and mental health of the species as a whole but yet, the
behaviour continues regardless. The race continues to worship the
clock, keeping it ever in the forefront of their collective minds.
In
my opinion, due to adaptive entwining with how we create our
perception of God/gods, we have been tricked by our brains and so,
present day society has come to worship Time as the God of
gods. The billions of dollars pumped into the cosmetic industry and
the countless life forms “sacrificed” at its' alter as “test
subjects” or from whom is hoped to glean some useful chemical
compound, all point towards the worship or defiance of Time. The
millions and millions of dollars spent on cosmetic surgery; the never
ending quest for longevity; the struggle to produce construction
materials that can “stand the test of time”; the wars raged
nation against nation for the sake of a certain value placed in “the
long run”; the fascination with the past and the future (any point
in time but the “now”); the billions spent probing the depths of
our universe to find “the beginning”; the relentless way the
human scours the planet looking for clues to its' biological,
ideological and physiological roots; the consumer based society
constructed to help put a band-aide on the painful realization that
none of this can ease the burning of the all-consuming preoccupation
with Time and its' march forward; all of these things direct evidence
of humanity's submission and/or defiance to the god of Time.
God
may be time. That's still a web of a mystery. But I think I can
safely say that Time is God. Now the question is; what are we going
to do about it? How do we free ourselves from the clutches of an
imaginary beast? Maybe we start with just watching time go by. Before
you catch you must observe. And we've only been at that for 100,000
years or so. We still have more watching to do. Patience, in spite of
our limited lifespans, is indeed key.
It's
all
a matter of time.
What
is science really, but a orderly collection of likely opinion?
1Schneider,
Hans Julius (1997): “Metaphorically created objects: ‘real’ or
‘only
linguistic’?”,
in: Debatin, Bernhard/Jackson, Timothy R./Steuer, Daniel
(eds.):
Metaphor and Rational
Discourse
1"Names
Of God". JewishEncyclopedia.com.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=52&letter=N#164.
1Baines,
John (1991). "Egyptian Myth and Discourse:
Myth, Gods, and the Early Written and Iconographic Record".
Journal Near Eastern Studies
1Pinch,
Geraldine (2004). Egyptian
Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient
Egypt. Oxford University Press
2Hornung,
Erik (1982) [1971]. Conceptions
of God in Egypt: The One and the Many.
Translated by John Baines. Cornell University Press
1Stump,
Eleonore and Norman Kretzmann. (1981). “Eternity,” Journal
of Philosophy Reprinted in The Concept of God, edited
by Thomas V. Morris. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987
1
Leftow, Brian. (1991). Time and Eternity. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press.