h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

sorry misread cyclical as cylindrical .
doh!

That's reassuring! One of the worst time theories I've ever come across (in JB Priestley's 'Man and Time') is Ouspensky's doctrine of eternal recurrence. He said (Priestley) that he had to cheat when he wrote a play about it, or it would have nothing happening, no dramatic tension. THis idea is also used in a TV show called 'Lexx: The Dark ZOne'. The doctrine says: I was born in 1953. I die, in say 2004, and then I zip back around in - 1953 all over again, and everything happens just the same as it did! My baby brother dies in 1957, all sorts of other (mostly unpleasant) things happen... No prgress! No thanks!

Terribly sorry to hear about your brother.

Thank you, Bloozer. That's very kind of you.

Math, you're making the same mistake as Hass but a touch more overtly. You're talking about each 'time' that time goes around. What is that first 'time' then? Why ain't it part of the circle?

Toxx
Which mistake?

Della
No this doesn't happen in my theory.
We don't repeat the lives identically is what I think Math said.

If the lives aren't repeated identically, then time isn't circular. And while there could be VERY large scale cycles in the existence of the universe, the later cycles still occur AFTER the earlier ones. I can visualise (sort of) a finite but unbounded space, but I can't do the same for time, even though time is intimately linked with space (spacetime) in a way that implies that time *should* also be finite but unbounded. The problem is not that it is/isn't true; it is for me that I can't figure out what implications it has.

Noggin

Ah Noggin. The relief to have a rational response. Phew! You're a star!

Hi Toxx. Thank you. How's life treating you?

Noggin

Hi again, Nogg. I'm gonna be having dealings with the legal powers within a coupla weeks. Me doing cops and them doing me! Crazy the way it's worked out. Hope you are keepin on truckin.

Poor you. Still the same thing as last time?

I think Hass might be talking about the rather annoying theory whereby the 'Big Crunch' is followed by another 'Big Bang,' which is followed by another 'Big Crunch, which is...

I'm using the word 'followed very badly here, oh ye pedants, but the meaning can be discerned. At least she isn't falling into the same trap as Stephen Hawking stumbled upon! Anyway, the idea doesn't seem to be held up by current evidence - inasmuch as we can claim to have any evidence!

If that were so, then the universe would be completely different each new phase. But are all the phases happening at once - since no time passes outside the universe, to our knowledge - and thus is it analogous to Everett's 'Many-Worlds' interpretation?

- Jordan

If there is a "greater being" Then there are a few options that could explain evil. 1, god is not all good. 2, god is not all powerful. 3, god has a funny sense of humor or just doesn't care. My personal beleif is not in god but just some force beyond human understanding, be it magic, fae, or god.

Another side note: I think that all people worship something. Some people, like atheists might worship certain principles or their lack of beleif in god, but it's still worship.

This is all just an opinion, sorry to ramble.

It's 3.

There are more options: -

4. God lets evil happen so as to maintain the possibility of free will.
5. There isn't a God.
6. There's no such thing as evil - aka it's a human concept.

I hold that it's 4.

I think it's possible to worship nothing, though. It can't be too hard. I could do it, I'm sure.

And don't worry about rambling, I'd say that 50+% of this thread is ramble!

- Jordan

So what about a mobius Noggin?
But I still think that you're treating time as chronological because that's the way we have it imprinted in us.
It's difficult to think outside the box (did I really say that !)when using the physical laws that in the case of time we've invented for our convenience. But there is at least a possibilty that there are laws we do not know of yet.
When we use words like ; repeated, again, first time, second time nth time, we are imposing this law.

"If that were so, then the universe would be completely different each new phase. But are all the phases happening at once - since no time passes outside the universe, to our knowledge - and thus is it analogous to Everett's 'Many-Worlds' interpretation?"

Jordan
Yes.
Thank you

lx
Welcome to the conversation

Evil isn't something that is, it's something that is done, by humans mostly.
But I'll still go with the theory that all expereince is ultimately beneficial, retrospectively

Hi Toxxin .

Aah, but I am not. When I say time is cyclical I am linking it to the general druidic theory that all things move in cycles.

Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter. Dawn, Noon, Dusk, Midnight. Birth, Growth, Decline, Death, Decay, Re-Birth. New Moon, Crescent Moon, Full Moon, Crescent Moon.

I am not saying that each turn of the cycle is identical. If you take a spring and stretch it out flat so it looks a bit like OOOOOOO and then travel along it you go up, around and down repeatedly. If we imagine a road like that then although you follow a similar pattern of movement along it time and again, the view at each point on the road will differ.

I am sorry but I am not a mathematician, despite my soubriquet, more of a natural philosopher .

Blessings,
Matholwch /|\.