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To: RightWhale; Alamo-Girl; marron; Right Wing Professor; b_sharp; xzins; cornelis; PatrickHenry; ...
Can there be change outside of time? If not, then according to Goedel there wouldn't be change either. Nor would there be cause and effect.

If this is some kind of a test, and the question is: "Is there change [from?] outside of time?", my recorded answer would be: Yes. And No. It all depends on how you look at the problem. :^)

On the one hand, change needs time to "happen in." Outside of time, there is no change. But on the other hand, change qua change has no meaning. It suggests an endless progression of states with no point in view.

While this might pass as state-of-the-art scientific reasoning these days, personally I know very few human beings who would be willing to live by a rule like that. And in fact, don't. (What is the predictive value of a science that produces results that depart from the way humans actually live and think?) :^)

202 posted on 03/17/2005 8:30:43 PM PST by betty boop (If everyone is thinking alike, then no one is thinking. -- Gen. George S. Patton)
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To: betty boop
What is the predictive value of a science that produces results that depart from the way humans actually live and think?

Prabably about as valuable as a religion that departs from the way humans actually lie and think

204 posted on 03/17/2005 9:06:45 PM PST by Right Wing Professor
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To: betty boop; RightWhale; cornelis; marron
Thank y'all for the engaging discussion!

RightWhale: Can there be change outside of time? If not, then according to Goedel there wouldn't be change either. Nor would there be cause and effect.

betty boop: If this is some kind of a test, and the question is: "Is there change [from?] outside of time?", my recorded answer would be: Yes. And No. It all depends on how you look at the problem. :^)

Exactly, betty boop!

If true reality is timelessness - as Godel suggests (and to which I agree) - then what we sense as a timeline (and arrow of time) is an illusion, it is actually (to whatever extent it exists) a plane or membrane and thus physical causality can be violated.

String theory, in particular f-theory, gives us further insight from within our niche of space/time - the seemingly arbitrary four dimensions of human perception.

However, presuming true reality is timelessness (which is to say, from a Christian perspective, "in" God) - then physical causality and free will (participation in creation) are the permission of His will. IOW, predestination (strong determinism) is not mutually exclusive to free will in timelessness.

Conversely, if the metaphysical naturalists and Monists were correct - and reality is only that which exists "in" space/time then I would assert that predestination (strong determinism) is the only possible conclusion - because randomness is always the effect of a prior cause in that scenario, even Brownian motion. IOW, free will is the illusion to a metaphysical naturalist.

257 posted on 03/18/2005 8:20:12 AM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: betty boop
Yes. And No. It all depends on how you look at the problem.

Look at the problem. Goedel demonstrated that there is no time, that it is an illusion, an idea. For all the praise we give to Kantianism, we don't follow Kant very well.

378 posted on 03/18/2005 10:59:19 AM PST by RightWhale (Please correct if cosmic balance requires.)
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