TIME: Revisiting McTaggart's C Series

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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This, by the way, is how Relativity works. All events have a directionality inherent to them, by simple virtue of the elements of the series. It’s the inherent directionality in physical interactions itself, the composition of the series itself, that results in time, rather than time an arbitrary assigned direction.

Hawkins’ “mistake” is that of a Relativist at heart thinking he has become a Quantic thinker. But quantic mechanics subsumes Relativity, it incorporates the generation of time as a specific event from a specific series that has no claim on universal absolutness (in fact, of any and every studied event given certain parameters).

Even this subsumation quantic analysis does tentatively. I am a quantic thinker, at least in the sense that between every literal state there is God, and you cannot read God. Best you can do is plot some probability graphs.

Or, rather, at the very least, God precedes you.

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The math/physics can’t account for stuff disappearing out of one spacetime context and reappearing in a different spacetime context beyond the lightcone — or for information “transferring” faster than c (instantaneousness at more than one time t). Only an omnitemporal mind(s) can do/be that, and allow us to participate in them.

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Well, modern physics does make an account of that, whatever else.

Quantic mechanics studies how things relate in ways and on scales that don’t require temporal continuity, and plots these relations succesfully.

It’s only a “violation of physics” if you still hold to classical infinitesimals, and this includes Relativity.

But modern physics has no problem with information not being bound by a given time series.

So I wouldn’t call it “physical proof of God.” I would simply say that understanding God, rather, understanding his simple prescence, is understanding there is no bottom to that rabbit hole. No matter how beneath or behind you look, there will be infinity waiting. It’s not physics that binds us, it’s being human.

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Physical … compared to what other option? It’s weird how we think of physical as non-divine when it is informed by quality, did not self-initiate, and is contingent in Being. Directionality happens at our level… can you say the same at the omnitemporal level? No. They are not excluded from what they subsume, though (enabling providence, theophany, incarnation, resurrection.)

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That’s beautiful.

More answers en route.

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What I mean is that what omnitemporal subsumes is beyond us. The totality of it we not only will not ever, but cannot ever account for.

That is the “miracle” aspect of the events you mentioned.

There is a directionality to the physical, yes. What is beyond physical? I don’t know, I just know that “physical” is a human concept, already delimited and bound, and God is Limitless.

So I both agree and call upon something higher.

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ummm this is a funny tangent. Let’s start at infinity & count backwards. Or let’s just say 1 and call it good.

Past my bedtime. :waving_hand:

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God is here, in time, and his miracles are here, in time, and that is why he is beyond us.

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Yeah I mean cmon McTaggart.

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with, in, enveloping, upholding

go to sleep, me

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He was talking forms, though :stuck_out_tongue:

g’night

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That was his first mistake.

Good night.

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updated a little bit after our discussion

…which impedes this a bit… Click through because the way the formatting works obscures some stuff:

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The biggest problems I had with reading McTaggart’s article was the lack of definition of what an “event” is. The way it is presented is very vague and arbitrary, so I have chosen to use “moment” as opposed to “event”, as I find moment to be much less subjective, although it still usually is.

Once a moment has passed, it is no more, outwith how it is currently expressed in patterns in the field, where it may contribute to the recording of the cycle it finds itself part of as a deposit, or as an occurrence that is otherwise recorded as part of the resulting pattern. A true moment is zero-dimensional, it has no length, so we use any cycles it is anchored to (or influenced by) and assign a duration, then redefine this as the “moment”.

There is only N. O is purely hypothetical until realised, and once realised it immediately becomes N anyway. If O is the Sun rising in the morning, for example, then it is highly predictable, and we imagine it as a pre-determined future, although it is more expressed as evidence of being part of a stable cycle.

N does not exist as a moment passed, either the moment leaves its mark in the continuing present, or it does not (perceivably).

Once N has occurred, it ceases to exist, M is merely the echoes of that moment, whether held in memory, etched in stone, or otherwise expressed as a component of a pattern in the field of reality.

Looking at it triadically, O is the potential of future moments, it is not actualised until realised. N is the release of that potential, reality as we perceive it, events and all. M is the expression left by that moment in the current configuration. The moment itself has no life outside of that moment.

This is why I consider time to be zero-dimensional, and why I find this guy so hard to read. There is way too much hypothetical going on, and little of it is grounded in anything tangible.

Looking at it from a teleological standpoint, God is the Potential, Jesus is the Release, and the Spirit is the expression, and as those things exist in all times, then it follows that God has access to all times, so I’m not arguing against omni-temporality, or the C series, if it is expressed logically.

I’m still reading your outline, it’s a lot to think about, and it’s philosophy I wouldn’t normally go near with my training wheels on, but I’ve enjoyed the journey so far.

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It already exists or we’d be static & poof into nothing.

And since the whole thing is a revelation, it tends to fulness—could say O is hyperthetical.

but if it’s all just one unfolding moment, and the zero points are moment segments separated by c (fastest rate of info transfer), should prolly stay at A and have subscripts indicating each segment. Unless it’s a spiraling wave situation & you can label segments similar to this:

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no, what you are saying is actually incompatible with omnitemporality unless you go with Dr. Craig‘s definition which is A Theory & wrong

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I’ve told you 5,000 times I know you’re faking, so you can stop now.

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I’m not. It bends my noggin Ichthus, why would I fake such a thing? I use time as a measuring tape, nothing more, omni-temporalism isn’t something I have previously given much thought to.

What I’m saying is what I observe. The only time that exists is now. Everything else is conceptual and highly debatable.

The future does not exist, only the process to actualise it.

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Does not account for prophetic visions, or fulfilled prophecy.

The conceptual view that such things can be divinely deduced & orchestrated after the fact is absolute hogwash.

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Looking at the triad from the postion of the Trinity, God is the potential (being). In my view of time, the future is the potential. If God and the future are the same thing, then of course God knows the future, he is the future. But from our point of view as mortals, the future is not known, and can only be guessed, usually by paying attention to related cycles.

This doesn’t negate prophecy, if the source of that prophecy was God.

Best I can do right now.

And calling something hogwash is very 1870’s you know.