Theories on Time by Anagrammaticus

Dezza · 07-05-04, 04:30 PM

It seems intuitively obvious that what I am doing right now is more real than what I did just one second ago, and it seems intuitively obvious that what I did just one second ago is more real than what I did forty years ago. And yet, remarkably, every philosopher of time today, except for myself and a few like minded scholars and faiths, deny this obvious fact about reality.

The concept of a degree of existence (of being more or less real), together with the theory of degrees of existence, where existence is distinguished as comprising a higher degree of being than subsistence, went out of fashion some time ago. Work by philosophers, scholars and in particular the followers of Aragen and Lucinda have rejected the notion of degreed existence and implied that existence is an all or nothing affair; either something exists or it does not exist, and therefore it makes no sense to talk about it existing to some degree.

A large number of philosophers, scholars and faiths have held doctrines of degrees of existence. Unfortunately, in so doing, they have also denied the obvious temporal fact about reality. They have explained degrees of reality in other ways than the way we know it today; as being more or less distant from the present. Indeed, they typically suggest that a being that does not exist in time at all is what is most real. Time, they often say, is unreal.

The theory I and a number of my colleagues ascribe to is about how being temporally present is the highest degree of existence. A perfect example of this is the case of the entity known as the Shifter. By way of explaining; being past and being future by a merely infinitesimal amount is the second highest degree of existence. Being in the past by one hour or being in the future by one hour are lower degrees of existence, being in the past by five hundred years or being in the future by five hundred years are even lower degrees of existence.

The degree to which an item exists is proportional to its temporal distance from the present. The present, which has zero-temporal distance from the present, has the highest possible degree of existence. Therefore in the case of our subject, the Shifter must be in the present or as close to the present as he possibly can to form into a higher level of existence. The Faith of Aragen have done a number of studies into the background of the Shifter and recently certain followers of Lucinda have also begun to delve into its unknown nature.

The degrees in question are quantifiable in terms of their opposites, degrees of non-existence. The present has a zero degree of non-existence. What is one second past has a one second degree of non-existence, and what is two seconds past has a greater degree of non-existence, namely, a two second degree of non-existence.

There is a difference of degree and not of kind between the present, what is no longer present, or not yet present. This is shown by the fact that our present mental state includes temporal parts that are already past by 1/millionth of a second and this small degree of pastness is such a high degree of existence that we cannot experientially distinguish it from present existence, perfect existence.

This theory is logically coherent unless one misinterprets it by assigning a different meaning to "degree of existence" or "degree of non-existence" than has been suggested here. To clarify this view of thought let us look once again at the Shifter as our example. If he is present in time now then he has a high degree of existence but when we refer to him being present in the future and the past we are assigning a higher degree of non-existance to him. Consider that if the Shifter affects things now in our present then it is more real to us than things he effected in the past, they have become history to us, their potency has faded. From this you can see that it is in this creatures best interests to be as close as possible to the current place in time in which we too currently exist so the level of existance is at its highest and most real.

Leanthar · 07-05-04, 04:39 PM

Nicely done.
Now, if you go back and reformat that, make it fit better and flowing (with correct punctuation and wordings (no 5 for instance--that sort of thing) I think we have something it could very well fit nicely in to.

Ed, please watch this thread...

EdTheKet · 07-05-04, 09:34 PM

Very nice

But I'll need to read it again after work

�

Vekunde · 07-07-04, 04:01 PM

It is also possible that what you are doing right now will not become a reality until that time in which your brain has processed its surroundings and relayed back that it recognizes the said reality. Therefore, wouldn't what happened a second ago, then be more of a reality than right now?

Dezza · 07-09-04, 03:40 AM

But remember that if that is the case then can you ever truly reach the perfect moment in time when you are in the highest degree of existance? Is this what we are trying to achieve?
The elusiveness of perfection is that miniscule fraction of time where we think and register that we exist compared to actually existing.

Vekunde · 07-09-04, 08:54 AM

If one could tap into the various frequencies of each individual's signature wave pattern and if one could vary that frequency, one would travel to another plane of 'time' or spatial existence. Not a high probability of safety there. Granted, I''m not familiar with the Shifter, but it sounds, so far, like it is changing its frequency signature like rolling up and down the radio dial. Or is it simultaneously existing in various planes?

Dezza · 07-12-04, 07:47 PM

That is quite an interesting theory you are proposing. Especially in how dangerous or how extensively amazing it would be if it was actually possible. Dangerous, if someone had the ability to alter others signature wave patterns and amazing in that if we could alter our own wave pattern all that would remain of who we are, in actual fact would be our own DNA. If you consider the analogy of a radio frequancy then we could certainly cross into other ranges that we could not before and certainly be able to communicate with things we were unable to before. I think however that our signature wave pattern would be better related to that of a light frequency as light frequencies cross more dimensions and in fact light has been believed by civilisations for thousands of years to be the beginning and the end of everything. In fact it is only recently that Physicists in the USA discovered a light source that appeared under extreme radiation and controlled circumstances to have a sentient life of its own. If that is to be believed then that very well may prove this idea of a signatue wave pattern unique to every living thing.
Food for thought..