Theos-Talk Archives (October 1999 Message tl00082)

In a message dated 10/6/99 12:07:11 PM Central Daylight Time,
gschueler@iximd.com writes:

> I agree, because I am not so sure that such a
>  thing exists.

First issue is to dig deeper into what it is that
is referred to by the term "time."  I give following
diagram as first approximation of structure of
time.  I leave out issues of duration and infinitesimal
instants and nature of continuum.  Traditionally,
time is said to have the following properties.
There is a before-after or earlier-later sequence.
Now, there is debate whether this sequence
might be a spatial arrangement in a higher space
like a line.  Some have stated this means time
does not exist without taking account that
even this "line" in an alleged higher space would
have to have duration in time.  Regardless, time
cannot be itself motion, despite physic's convention,
for if all motion stopped there would still be the duration
of all things stopped.  Anyway, there is before-after
series.  Then there is past-present-future series that
seems tied to a consciousness because this series
depends upon knowledge of what time it is now.
For example, lets say a god knew a before-after
series but was timeless in such way he or she
did not know past-present-future series.

1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940, 1950, 1960, 1970, etc....

So, this god would know that WW I started in 1914
and that that was before WW II ended in 1945.  Lets
say he or she could survey the entire time line of
before and after series.  Lets say he had to be
an avatar who had to rescue world in year 2000.
If he or she had no knowledge of past-present-future series,
he or she would not be able to incarnate because he or she
would not know where in the before-after series "now" was.
He or she might know that he or she has to incarnate in
2000 and that 2000 is after 1990 and before 2010, but without
sense of what part of before-after series is NOW past, and what
part of before-after series is NOW yet to happen, based on
knowledge of what time it is NOW (i.e. if he or she has no ability
to locate themselves temporally in time by knowing what time
it is now or which before is past because it is before now), this
poor god would not know if now or later was time to appear
in 2000 or if he or she missed it.  He or she would only
know 1990 is before 2000 and 2000 is before 2010 but not
whether it was NOW 1990 (get ready!), 2000 (do it!), or 2010
(missed it!).  So, minimum, structure of time for a consciousness
that knows at least as much as we do (we know what time it is now
and what is now past) must be the following.

b past-present-future
e            v
f            past-present-future
o                       v
r                       past-present-future
e                                   v
v                                   past-present-future
v                                               v
a                                              past-present-future
f                                                          v
t                                                        past-present-future
e                                                                   v
r
past-present-future

Now, if emailers and ISPs and list preserve diagram, I make few beginning
comments before proceeding further.  First notice that left side has a
vertical
series of one before->after sequence.  Second, notice that horizonal
past-present-
future sequence at diagonal is due to earlier presents (the present before or
higher
on vertical axis) becoming pasts later (afterwards or lower on vertical
axis), which means past futures become presents too.  Third, time seems to be
a series of presents becoming the past for the presents that come after them,
and so.  To
account for this graphically in diagram, one must have diagram that has all
elements
the one above does.  To mathematically represent the above diagram leads to
significant ramifications about further properties of time.

More later if diagram is not screwed up by all the various protocols.

Grigor Ananikian