What is 'time'?

[Damocles]

thank you for pointing that out.. there's another way of completing it which is nothing to do with the waxing you're referring to, aha haha

FYI - to follow on from stuff above, I'd done a high kick in Tai Chi and thought I'd pulled a muscle, but it was barely more than a twinge & I'd forgotten about it when I went to visit this new master I'd been recommended to see (this was twelve years ago) .. so he is holding my wrist and says I've got a trauma in my left leg, and I go "no I haven't, I'm very fit" and he goes "yes you have" and then one of his assistants grabs me in the crotch to the left-hand side and I go "Ouch!" because I really felt it, and the master starts in with me "ah hah! ... your body is trying to tell you something, this is where your liver meridian runs, and your liver is enlarged by 2.5 cm..." and he proceeds to give me chapter & verse on my entire physical condition, the whole works, including wanting to see what kung-fu I've been doing because he thinks I've been abusing it and it can be very strong, etc etc (you cannot believe what this guy was able to tell me unless you experience & see it for yourself) .. it's a whole other reality out there if you're schooled in 'harder' science which cannot account for any of this or other such situations; you simply have to be there to see it for yourself.

Oh come on, this is taking the piss.

 

[MCFCinUSA]

this is what I'd expect, and I'm not out there discussing my personal experiences with people Shadz - especially because in my professional life people must have confidence and trust in me, but certain things help me move forward when I get threatened (which can be a pretty regular occurrence in my line of work) but I am fascinated in general by lost knowledge and the unanswered questions many of us will ask in our little lifetimes.

Dude, he wanted you to say.........wax off............it's from the Karate kid movie, just a bit of fun mate :)

Yep.No offence intended.Post what you like.I posted about a house I lived in being haunted and got slated for it.I accept stuff happens that we have'nt got a scooby's about.

one of the research scientists I used to work with (a very senior one) lived in a listed building, an old farm house... he would come down in the mornings to find his lights on.. he'd post stickers on the wall saying 'I've turned the lights off' and go to bed, only to come down again to see them turned on.. this would go on along with other strange phenomenon that had him convinced something was happening that he couldn't explain.

a shaman I spent time with (a long time ago) would tell you that some people come back, and others don't.. he couldn't tell you why, but that was simply the way...

who knows what it is that is our physical fleshy self and our conscious awareness?

could it be that our physical bodies are only temporary vessels and of a finite lifetime, whereas there's something in addition that moves between them?

who can say...

there are always more questions than answers..

a few people I've had the good fortune of spending time with have more than adequately demonstrated (to me) there is an awful lot more going on than we understand or can account for; and they are all very humble and unassuming people, despite having unique and acute awarenesses that can be staggering to behold.

 

[MCFCinUSA]

thank you for pointing that out.. there's another way of completing it which is nothing to do with the waxing you're referring to, aha haha

FYI - to follow on from stuff above, I'd done a high kick in Tai Chi and thought I'd pulled a muscle, but it was barely more than a twinge & I'd forgotten about it when I went to visit this new master I'd been recommended to see (this was twelve years ago) .. so he is holding my wrist and says I've got a trauma in my left leg, and I go "no I haven't, I'm very fit" and he goes "yes you have" and then one of his assistants grabs me in the crotch to the left-hand side and I go "Ouch!" because I really felt it, and the master starts in with me "ah hah! ... your body is trying to tell you something, this is where your liver meridian runs, and your liver is enlarged by 2.5 cm..." and he proceeds to give me chapter & verse on my entire physical condition, the whole works, including wanting to see what kung-fu I've been doing because he thinks I've been abusing it and it can be very strong, etc etc (you cannot believe what this guy was able to tell me unless you experience & see it for yourself) .. it's a whole other reality out there if you're schooled in 'harder' science which cannot account for any of this or other such situations; you simply have to be there to see it for yourself.

Oh come on, this is taking the piss.

it happened and there were three other people with me Damo

(and this guy does this stuff all the time; it's his job - he makes his living at it, and I've sent people to see him too.. I told you that unless you experience it yourself you'll not believe me, and I don't expect you to.. neither would you find it easy to come to terms with other stuff I've experienced, and neither do I ask you to)

 

[SkyBlueFlux]

all I'll contribute from personal experience & my hard scientific background is that we don't know anything like as much as we think we do.. we're all pretty arrogant (if we think otherwise) and 'science' is as much a 'religion' if you ask me, and Richard Dawkins is one of its high priests.

we're very puny when it comes to scientifically explaining things & having everything fit within our conceptual frameworks, and I've seen & experienced things that make a mockery of those offering up rigid hard scientific explanations or 'truths'.

with regards to time, it's a hypothetical construct that exists in each of us (which is one way of looking at things) and in another it isn't what we collectively perceive & understand it to be; much of which is illusory & far too complex for us to comprehend.

in conclusion, I know enough to know that I don't know, and the more I know the more I realise how much I don't know

(and I've seen numerous events over the past three decades that make a mockery of our modern thinking and defy all manner of existing scientific explanation, as have others I've shared such with)

Science is an evolving body of ever-improving and revolutionising evidentially supported theories which are our best explanation for what we see around us. There is no such thing as a scientific truth. That's an inherently dogmatic concept which is contrary to the very definition of science. There is no science that cannot be undone with bodies of opposing evidence.

You say these events you've seen have 'made a mockery' of our existing scientific explanations. You do realise that if you can evidentially support those claims then they would become science? That is how science works and so as a result your entire post makes very little sense to me. If you think science is wrong on these things then... prove it... and your explanation (or disproof) will become science. There's no 'agenda' in science, it's just a method of filtering out what works as an explanation from what doesn't work.

You say we know next to nothing about the universe. Every single scientist you speak to (and I'd include myself in that bracket) would agree with you, yet you seem to paint them as being arrogant and under the belief they know everything. Dark matter and dark energy being a case in point... 95%+ of the universe is made of stuff we currently have next to zero understanding of.

you make an excellent argument and I'm in agreement with you (coming from a handful of years spent in a research toxicology laboratory and a family of PhD researchers) but it's people like Dawkins who seek to elevate things beyond what they are who verge on arrogance of things they seemingly have very little experience of.

my statements only arise from phenomenon I've experienced that cannot be explained by modern scientific paradigms, that simply do not make sense, and would have you castigate and ridicule someone else if they came to you and told you things that you can only experience for yourself (shit that is simply too far out of our everyday experiences) before you can accept they are real..

- and before anyone attempts to comment, I'm from a hard scientific background and am naturally a huge cynic; my experiences have been varied and covered numerous unusual people I've been lucky to have my mind & horizons broadened by over several decades.. there is so much that we don't know, and a lot more to most things than first meets the eye, which is all beyond our individual comprehension.

those that know don't talk, those that talk don't know (which is a bit like the transfer forum in here, ehehe)

I don't think Dawkins and people like him are really representative of the science community at whole. He has a habit of talking about fields of science he has limited understanding of (which of course he's entitled to do, but it doesn't make him an expert) and I actually don't think he's the best debater of reason out there. I can even see why he would entrench people in the opposite camp as he occasionally comes off as sneeringly dismissive.

Nor am I in the business of attacking people's beliefs and if you think that what you claim is true then that is your prerogative and your right.

The sticking point for me is that you can't expect people to take what you say at face value. I've seen a fair few faith healers, Buddhist monks, spiritualists thoroughly debunked time and time again. I can't say I've ever found one of them compelling and if they really were as good as they claim I don't understand why they wouldn't try and challenge the scientific consensus (and in doing so help humanities understanding) by providing evidence of their ability. It would be such a simple thing to do, it really would.

James Randi even offers a $1m prize that's been on offer nearly 20 years to anybody who can do just that.

 

[MCFCinUSA]

You present some very good points and think the way I do.

Randi I know about, but just because he offers up this prize it doesn't mean (that it's not been awarded) that someone couldn't take it - which is perfectly logical.

There are plenty of fraudsters around, who make false claims and prey on the gullible; and I'm as cynical and upset about such as you are.

Nevertheless, there are those amongst us who have uncanny perceptions that 'science' isn't yet able to account for - speaking from my own personal experiences and I've said far too much already, although I'm still anonymous on here, thank goodness.

Damo might expect me to say "yeah, I'm just spinning yarns & was taking the piss for the hell of it", but if the younger me met the older me I can you he'd run in the opposite direction, ehehe

There is much we don't understand, we are extremely arrogant and unknowing.

 

[Ifwecouldjust.......]

The Time Travelling thread got me thinking.

Time is a really mysterious thing for me and I've always been fascinated by it.


Does the 'future' already exist or is life just one 'present' after another?

If it does exist, does it ever 'stop' or does it just go on 'forever'?

Our whole lives are dictated by 'time' - why have we settled on this as a whole race?

What happens when all the numbers are used up?

 

[Ducado]

A little of track, but MCFCinUSA makes some very good points and they tend to chime with my life experience, but these experiences can be deeply personal and quite hard to explain especially to a sceptical audience who may tend to mock, and that's why many people tend to keep them to themselves

 

[Irwell]

Again a really interesting concept but I'm not sure I follow the idea that the more complex something is, the higher the likelihood it is it 'just exits'. Also if we go down the 'infinite complexity' route we are making assumptions that there isn't something out there even more complex, making our 'infinitely complex' thing, actually not infinitely complex.

If something is of infinite complexity there cannot, by definition, be something that is more complex. For something to be of higher complexity the system must be of finite complexity. If there are infinite universes with infinite values of infinite different combinations of physical constants then that universe must be of infinite complexity. It is merely coincidence that we happen to be in a universe within which the physical constants that determine the nature of our universe are such that the universe is capable of sustaining intelligent life capable of measuring those constants.

I like to think of the universe in terms of a cat map. What may appear to be random is, in reality, part of an extremely complicated and ordered system, much like how in the cat map the apparently random changes are in fact a simple and structured set of iterations based on a mathematical model.

 

[Damocles]

A little of track, but MCFCinUSA makes some very good points and they tend to chime with my life experience, but these experiences can be deeply personal and quite hard to explain especially to a sceptical audience who may tend to mock, and that's why many people tend to keep them to themselves

Because we know the limits on human senses and don't believe that this is science?

 

[BlueNirvana]

Time is irrelevant. you live by the second ,when its gone its gone.