Time: Days Of The Future Past?

[gHari]

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In today's VNN article entitled Time: Days Of The Future Past? the phenomenon of time is explored. I thought perhaps a discussion here might help me better understand the ideas visited therein. It seemed a good thing to do with my time at this time, even though my time is short and I must hope for some insight from our scientific crew aboard the Audarya to really understand the propositions presented by Dharmapad das.

 

Just noticed that Nights in White Satin is on the Moody Blues album, Days Of Future Past . Now that should ensure that Mahaksa das graces this thread.

 

Searching for the Lost Chord,

 

gHari

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[theist]

It was a great article from what I could grasp. I really don't understand time,or much of anything else. Which leaves me feeling a bit "Lost in a lost world."

 

For instance he seemed to be placing the etheral plane in a more subtle postion than the astral. I have been thinking of ether as being something in between earth water fire air and the astral. But I don't know.

 

 

 

[Avinash]

There was a time when it was thought that no wave could exist without any medium. When Maxwell proved that electromagnetic waves could exist in vacuum, then it was proposed that what we think as vacuum is not really nothingness. But it is ether (then it was called as aether). In fact, ether was considered to pervade everything (both vacuum and other).

Ether was also considered to be the absolute frame of reference. Eintein proved is his special theory of relativity that the laws of Physics hold good in all frames of reference and that there is no preferred frame.

Many people think that the special theory rejects the idea of ether. It does not. It just says that the concept of ether is not necessary to explain the behaviour of electromagenctic waves; it does not mean that it rejects the idea of ether. In fact, in his general theory of relativity, Eintein introduced the concept of something that pervades everything. But he did not name it ether; he called it "Space".

There was a very proper reason to have some other name. Because, even though, space was considered to pervade everything like ether, it had properties very different from the properties that were assigned to ether.

 

If you want parallel with scriptures, then the scriptures talk about five elements four of which are earth, water, fire, and air. The fifth (which scriptures call as "AkaAsh) is this "space".

[Avinash]

I have some questions on the marriage Balarama and Revati. The answers will help me contribute more to this thread.

 

1. What was Revati's age when her father took her to the abode of Brahma in order to ask Lord Brahma a sitable groom for Revati?

 

2. How many years after Revati came back on Earth, did she marry Balarama? Was it in the same year?

 

3. What was Balarama's age at the time of marriage?

 

Thank you

[theist]

Avinash,

 

Pardon please the elementary questions. Is the ether/space of the grosser planes (5 elements), of exactly the same as that that pervades astral worlds, or is it a subtle counterpart perfuming a similar function?

[Guest guest]

i thought the article made mistakes and speculations

with little value,that's my opinion.

 

First he says that in the gita ,Krishna tells Arjuna

that the future is decided, he said that this did not indicate that

that Krishna had it planned out.

It did mean that. i believe.

He then introduces a concept of psuedo mysticism,

of beings on subtler levels experiencing time differently,

somehow concluding that some mechanism other

then the absolute control and plan of Krishna events are occurring, and different people may or may not percieve

them in a "mystical" sense of time travel.

 

without the control over all things measured by time,

these beings would not experience anything,

also time is relative.

 

What may appear to take a long time,when you do something

tedious,is an indication of relativity.

 

The differences in relative experience of time,

described in the shastra shouldn't be explained

as always being a literal description, having at times

a metaphorical symbolic purport.

 

when Krishna says time ,i am,

this is due to his control over all that happens within the realm of time.

 

time is not an object, it is a relative measurement

,relative to the viewer, relative to space.

 

what is time ?

 

it is really nothing at all by itself, it only has relevance

relative to people,place or things.

 

therefore Krishna says Time,I am.

Without Krishna time would have no meaning, no substance,

no relevance.

 

Krishna is the controller of all things measured by time,

existing within the relativeness of time.

 

 

[Guest guest]

upon reading it again,it seems to be an advertisement

for astrology.

 

the idea that dreams and near death experiences are experienced in a different mode of time, is speculative

and unreliable.

 

time is constant, we are experiencing time relative to

our awareness of our environment.

In a dream we have limited awareness, therefore our awareness of time is relative to our limited awareness,

this means time appears skewed.

It doesn't mean that time itself is different,just that

our perception of it has changed.

 

Astrology as a science is dependent on to many variables

to be considered entirely accurate.

 

this is why Srila Prabhupada discounted astrology ,and

told his disciples not to take it seriously.

 

why ?

 

because Krishna has control over our destiny, not the stars.

when you assign astrological formations power over

your destiny, you can become slaves to a preconcieved notion

of what is your destiny, expecting a future to happen

in a certain way, due to the stars.

 

This is not the fact for the transcendentally situated,

Srila Prabhupada used to say when you clap your hands in kirtan, all the lines in your palm dissappear.

 

The karmic destiny laid out in horoscopes(even if there were

actual bonafide astrologers) is there for the benefit of the conditioned soul.

 

Why ?

 

Because he can see the control over his life by a higher power, his destiny is written out.

 

For the person who is allready transcendentally situated

astrology is an impediment, giving expectation

when there should be none, the post karmic soul

is no longer under the supervision of the karmic

destiny of conditioned souls.

 

The transcendentally situated soul is involved with the internal energy of God, this overrides any previous karmic

considerations, and the horoscope becomes irrelevent.

[Guest guest]

I can not say what is meant by astral plane here. If it has something to do with spiritual world, then science has nothing to say on that. But, ether does exist for this material world. I will read the web page gHari ji has mentioned in more detail to understand what the author has called as astral plane.

Do you have answers to the questions I asked regarding Balarama's marriage?

[theist]

Astral matter is also material.Subtle material energy.

 

Sorry, I can't help with the questions on Balarama.

[Avinash]

As you might have guessed, the previous post is by me.

In this post and some of latter posts, I am going to talk on the concept of time and space from scientific perspective. But, I will try to do my best in such a way that it is quite easy to at least grasp the concepts.

Let me start with a question. Why do we feel that there is time? I am not asking what any scientific theory says about time. I am asking from a layman's perspective.

We perceive time because we perceive changes, isn't it?

When there was no matter, then there was nothing to change. And hence there could not be any time. It may sound very strange, but just think over it and you will feel that it is quite obvious that there could not be time when there was nothing to change.

 

Does it mean that time came after matter? It can't be. After all, whenever something exists, it has to exist at sometime. But I have also shown above that time can not exist without matter. So, time did not come before matter and time did not come after matter. What option are we left with? The only option which is left is that time and matter came together. This is exactly what modern science says.

Big band theory does not say that there was a big explosion at one point in the universe. The explosion had at each and every point in the universe. To take an analogy, suppose that you have a balloon and you are trying to expand it by blowing air into it. Consider the surface of the balloon as the universe. Does expansion happen at one point on the surface of the balloon? No. It happens everywhere. Suppose that you have a telescope. And suppose that it is possible for you to make any measurements you like and any calculations you like. You try to find out the place at which the big-bang took place. Do you know what answer you would get? You will find that the big-bang happened at the eye of your telescope. You will get this result no matter wherever in the universe you try this experiment.

[Avinash]

Astral matter is also material.Subtle material energy.

 

In that case, it is the same space.

[Avinash]

I will talk somewhat about the special theory of relativity. According to this theory, the duration of time of any incident depends on the frame of reference from where the mesurements are made. Suppose that I am watching some aeroplane start at A and move to B. I have a very very accurate clock. The moment the plane starts at A, the time of take off is recorded in the clock. The moment it stops at B, the time of landing is also recorded. By calculating the difference, I can find out how much time the plane took.

Assume that you also have a similar clock and you are also making these measurements. The result which you get will not necessarily be the same as the result that I get. The difference between the two results will depend on the relative speed between the two of us. If we are not moving relative to each other, then we will get the same result.

(The difference depends not only on relative speed, but also on gravity, but as of now, let us ignore that; I will talk about that latter).

The greater our relative speed, the more will be the difference between our results.

[Avinash]

I wrote in my previous post that the measurement of time duration depends on the frame of reference. But how to measure this duration?

Suppose that we have devised a technique such that the moment the plane takes off at A, signal starts from the plane and reaches the clock and time is recorded. When the plane lands at B, then again a signal from the plane reaches the clock and this time is also recorded. Will the difference between the two give me the correct time duration of the flight? The answer is no. This is because the plane is not touching the clock. So, any signal from the plane takes some time to reach the clock. So, the time of take off recorded in the clock is not the exact time of take off. Similarly, the time of landing recorded in the clock is not the exact time of landing. Let

tA = actual time of take off,

dtA = time taken by the signal to move from the plane to my clock when the plane takes off,

tB = actual time of landing,

dtB = time taken by the signal to move from the plane to my clock when the plane lands.

 

Then,

the time of take off recorded in the clock = tA + dtA,

 

the time of landing recorded in the clock = tB + dtB.

 

Therefore, the calculated duration of flight = (tB + dtB) - (tA + dtA)

= (tB - tA) + (dtB - dtA)

 

This is wrong because the correct result is tB - tA.

 

So, we have to make correction. Suppose that I make correction and get the correct result. You also make the correction and get the correct result in your frame of reference. Both of us have got correct results. Even then, the results will be different.

__________

 

Any questions so far?

[Avinash]

I decided to revive this thread because I realized that this thread will proceed to a point which has relevance to free will.

[Guest guest]

I am bringing this thread to the first page because I feel that some of the posts here are relevant to a question put by Sid in the thread "Big bang was not the beginning of time" in the "World Review" forum.

 

Avinash

[Guest guest]

Madhavacharya was the first one to say that atoms can be split, before that it was believed that it could not be(which are written in the vedas and upanishads).

Madhava also had recognised wave mediums such as infrared rays etc. See this person was in 13th century and our so called modern scientist recognised this in 17 or 18th century. Isnt he sooo great????????

[Avinash]

Is it necessary to believe that time extended indefinitely and continuously if we believe in our scriptures? I think no.

 

Since God can exist beyond space and time, therefore there is no need of postulating that time extended indefinitely and continuously. In fact, scriptures say that that time itself came into being from a potency of God. This means that time had some start. But it does not mean that time never existed before that. This may sound paradoxical. If time had a start, then how can it be that time existed before that? (I know that the word 'before' is not proper here but I can not think of any more appropriate English word.)

 

Suppose that I copy some document from a floppy into my system at time tc1. I delete it from my system at time td1. Then I again copy it at time tc2 and delete at time td2 and so on. At anytime between tc2 and td2 if I am asked when the document was put into my system, then the answer will be tc2. Now, let us ask another question. Did the document never exist in my system before tc2? The answer is that it did not exist between td1 and tc2. But it did exist between tc1 and td1. This is the case with time also.

 

Currently, time exists. Some time in future, time will cease to exist. Then again time will come into existence and so on ad infinitum. This happened in the past too.

 

I do accept that there was a beginning of time. If we believe in big bang, then the time as we perceive it now started at big bang. Therefore, so far Physics is concerned, we can assume that this material universe started when big bang happened. But, since God is eternal, from the perspective of God, time and space are eternal.

 

Let me use Time for time from the perspective of God and time for us. Similarly, let me use the words Before and After when we are talking from the perspective of God and before and after when we are talking from our perspective. We can say that time is created and destroyed, but Time is eternal.

There is no meaning of the word before when we are talking of the time when big bang happened. But, it does make sense to use the word Before. So, time is created and destroyed in Time. Another way of looking at Time and Space are to treat these as some dimensions different from time and space dimensions as we know.