Transcending time in the mind

From a metaphysical point of view, time travel is not necessarily a physical endeavor.


In Yogic practices, mystics are said to be able to practice a range of miraculous feats such as bilocation, and casting energy forward or backward through time. Perhaps non-physical energy like thoughts can transcend time. It could be possible that the past, present and future do exist as one, and that some people are able to tap into the universal mind and see the future.
One thing is certain: The more scientists learn about the nature of reality, the more *slippery* the coments of past, present and future — or here or there — become. There’s other speculation that just thinking about the future is time projection. What do YOU think?

 

all that will happen and all that could possibly happen has already happened or is happening in other dimensions, we're just conscious in this dimension navigating through time making decisions that have infinite different outcomes and the goal is to have the best of outcomes. Who knows if that's fully true, I'm just glad I could get it in words to read myself.

 

In August 1901, two Oxford professors, Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain, were walking through the gardens of the Palace of Versailles when they noticed a shimmering effect on the landscape. When the shimmering had passed, the women noticed that they seemed to have been transported back in time to about a hundred years earlier.

The people around them wore 18th century clothes and wigs, and were behaving in a very agitated manner. Eventually the vision faded, and the two women found themselves back in 1901. Â Shocked at what they had experienced, they carried out some research and concluded that they had somehow witnessed the sacking of the Tuleries and the massacre of the French Guards during the French revolution in 1789.
So… can the veil between past and present be momentarily lifted? Would this also explain why some people say they can hear battle sounds at historic battle sites? Â

 

I am a mathematics graduate student at a research university and about a month ago, another student gave a lecture about Minkowski Spacetime- the mathematically accurate representation of the universe as a 4-dimensional manifold (well, there might be more spatial dimensions in a micro-scale if you are a string theorist). I was fascinated by it, especially in the boldly simple and elegant equations that relate time and space.

I have spent countless hours since then trying to "settle" myself with the fact that time is almost identical to space. The only difference, mathematically, is that it is represented by a basis vector orthogonal to the other three spatial basis vectors, yadda yadda...

Anyways, Wednesday night I finally "convinced" myself of how this exists and how time passing being considered so different than passing in space is just our simple minds trying to make sense of the mathematical structure. I had a moment of great peace and comfort at the epiphany of it. Very interesting subject. I felt like I "transcended time" in my own way.

 

Something being the same mathematically doesn't make it the same in reality. The equations you use in math may make it appear so, but it's not.

 

Could you kindly elaborate on what issue you have with what I wrote? Nothing I wrote is particularly controversial, so I don't see what the problem could be.

 

The concept of time being almost identical to space. You seem to be talking about it as if it were real.

 

It is real. Time is not identical to space, but it is so similar that the two can essentially be interchanged.

The concept isn't intuitive at first glance, but after you really study the subject for awhile, it becomes quite natural. I wouldn't expect someone with no training in Mathematical Physics to pick something like that up "right away." I have studied the mathematics and physics of Special and General Relativity for years, so that is why it makes sense to me. But, if you would have asked me if time and space were essentially the same when I was first beginning my higher education, I am sure I would be skeptical as well.

But, you shouldn't dismiss something just because it seems contradictory. Instead of saying "No," you should hit up your local university's library, or if you don't live near a campus, check out the internet. There is plenty of good literature on the web on the subject matter at hand.

 

Why did you ask me to explain why I made my first point if you were not going to address it? The concept of time is not time itself, any more than a piece of sheet music isn't the music itself. Transcending time that this topic is about is about time as an actual thing, not a concept on paper which you can transcend by 'getting your head around it'.

 

Etkearne's views are grounded in reality and years of cumulative research, mainly by some of modern society's greatest minds. That makes his perspective very compelling to the likes of me (realist).

I find it odd that when people ask questions about time travelling, they neglect the fact that we time travel all the time, usually steadily forward! So of course, we know time travel is possible, just that most humans seem to have no control over it.

My instant reaction to yoga practitioners and the like claiming t be able to transcend the physical realm is always to scoff. Never has conclusive proof been provided by these people and the only believers of these claims seem so enraptured by their gurus that they would believe anything they claimed. Of course, conclusive evidence has not been provided to disprove these claims, either.

There are several feats that the brain (and body) perform that question what we know of our physical relation to time. From reacting to something thrown at you suddenly (the time involved does not allow for the nerve impulses to complete their journey to and from the brain before the catch is made) to dreams that apparently tell us the future and of course twins that can share a connection when they are on differen sides of the planet. Add to this the everyday occurence of time speeding up or slowing down according to our activities and we have a lot of big fat question marks. All of these, of course, could be little more that matters of perception but that does not mean it is not reality.

Arguably, any one of us could transcend time (or as good as) simply by travelling at light speed!

Personally, I think that the human mind itself transcends time (the physical version, at least) at every moment. The "time" it takes for our thoughts to originate, be refined and surface and even sometimes materialise is an abomination to time itself. The big question t me is whether or not this is actually useful in any way, whether it could be beneficial to us. The claims by the "mystics" are often so frivolous, it really wouldn't matter if true or not!

 

I am sorry to cause a bit of controversy, which, unnecessarily de-railed the thread. My last thoughts, though, are simply that I whole-heartedly believe that if you are on a quest to expand your mind (which most people on this site are..), then a good place to start (and a legal one at that!) is by trying to understand the amazing SEEMINGLY contradictory facts about our existence. I think the whole spacetime duality principle is a great place to start digging for answers.

That's all from me. Sorry to de-rail the OP's intention.

 

I think the past as well as the future are artifacts of current emergence. Both space and time are grown in the present. The more forward reaching the physical universe the older it gets. History is always told in the present and despite the view the time is cumulative, the past does not become the past until it occurs in the present.

 

No, don't go, I want to hear more from you. I enjoy hearing the views of someone who has attempted to inform themselves and take a deepe understanding through formulaic mediums, as opposed to supposedly spiritual pseudo-religious doo-hicky. Far from derailing the thread, you opened new doors of perception to those participating. You merely expressed your view, it was your respondant that instigated the debate. Do not shy away from said debate, it is your chance to share your education and thus educat the rest of us.

Could you explain in one paragraph the duality of space and time? WITHOUT referring to the double lightning strike on a vehicle concept?

 

The most basic way to explain it is as follows:

Think of the Pythagoream Theorem: a^2+b^2=c^2. This is usually used to describe triangles, but it can also be thought of a measuring tool. If you know the distance along one axis (what I called 'a') and the distance along a PERPENDICULAR axis (called 'b'), then you know how to measure 'c' which is a distance that involves both axes. Now, expand this to three dimensions, you would have something like (distance)^2=(distance along x)^2+(distance along y)^2+(distance along z)^2. This is called the Euclidean Metric and is how we generally measure things in our spatial universe. However, it has been shown (for real, not in the made up sense that the previous poster said) that there exists a Minkowski Metric when describing the distance between 'events' in spacetime. Spacetime is a 4 dimensional extension of Euclidean Space, but instead of simple (distance)^2=(distance along x)^2+(distance along y)^2+(distance along z)^2+(distance along time)^2, through complex mathematics, it is actually found to be (distance)^2=(distance along x)^2+(distance along y)^2+(distance along z)^2-(the speed of light constant 'c')^2*(distance in time)^2. Note the minus sign and inclusion of the constant 'c'. I wish I could explain the reason for this, but it involves matrices and tensor algebra which I can't format in the html code here. However, it is fascinating to reach the 'aha!' moment in understanding the inclusion of that minus sign and constant. So, in conclusion, time is essentially the same thing as space, except that it follows a Minkowski Metric instead of a Euclidean Metric.

Sorry I can't type more, but the html limits me from a full explanation.

Bring on the heat that I am sure this will provoke (for some unknown reason...).

 

See the attachment for a more visually appealing version of what I am saying.

 

Thanks very much for the understandable explanation, despite your limitations. I shall attempt to fill in the gaps using the wonder that is the internet as I'm still a few steps away from the "aha" moment.

Apparently, you can't have one without the other (time and space), which would suggest a very close relationship, even implying that they are the same thing.

 

Here is the basic matrix math behind it:

 

To actually comprehend this, I have to fill in the blanks in my own head.

It's going to be a long night.... But thanks for showing me how much I don't know.

 

If there is only one particle in empty space, does time exist? I say No.

 

It depends on the nature of the 'space' you refer to. You would need to know a bit about it's properties, like it's metric tensor, and such. Time could exist. It might not. However, if you are referring to empty space in the universe we exist in, then, yes, time exists. Just because of the lack of particles does not mean that a fundamental property of the space itself is absent!