Are you and I only an illusion? Is our life an illusion?

[_Robert_]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Here is a book – The Arrow of Time – that has a good preview. And a video.

Nice, but what  is a ‘glass-e-ur’?

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

It sounds different when spoken in proper English 🙂

Here

[_Robert_]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

It sounds different when spoken in proper English 🙂 Here

No matter, they will all be gone soon enough.

[Unseen]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Here is a book – The Arrow of Time – that has a good preview. And a video.

I’ve seen that before, but if one accepts that past, present, and future coexist in a static reality, then the direction of time is merely an illusion and what stops an illusion from going backward?

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

but if one accepts that past, present, and future coexist in a static reality…

But I don’t accept that. There is always Entropy. There is no rule in Physics to suggest that a sandcastle will not randomly form on a beach but the odds are so unlikely that it will ever happen that it can be discounted as a feasible possibility.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

No matter, they will all be gone soon enough.

I guess so and the water from either will taste just the same. I find it funny when people pay extra for “smart water” or bottled water from an iceberg. It is still just H2O and not any different to what comes out of my tap…..err…I mean faucet!

[Unseen]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

but if one accepts that past, present, and future coexist in a static reality… But I don’t accept that. There is always Entropy. There is no rule in Physics to suggest that a sandcastle will not randomly form on a beach but the odds are so unlikely that it will ever happen that it can be discounted as a feasible possibility. <iframe title=”What is entropy? – Jeff Phillips” src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/YM-uykVfq_E?feature=oembed&#8221; width=”670″ height=”377″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen=””></iframe>

You can’t imagine reverse entropy and thus reject the static universe concept. However, the concept of illusion makes that moot. WHY do we imagine nature as having just one direction? That’s the interesting question.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 3 months ago by Unseen.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

We could say it only has one direction because the Universe is expanding. That is, Space is expanding and Time is the rate (or measurement) of that expansion. “Everything” is made up of individual “quanta” and “Everything” exists in a quantum field of energies.

I have wondered if the expansion of the Universe could be driven by the expansion of the quantum field itself. Maybe somewhere in that idea lies a solution to quantum gravity and relativity!  Anyway, NOW it’s teatime, not Planck time.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Just to clarify – when you reference the Static Universe concept are you thinking of Fred Hoyle’s ideas?

[Unseen]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Just to clarify – when you reference the Static Universe concept are you thinking of Fred Hoyle’s ideas?

No, I’m referring to a changeless universe in which past, present, and future all exist at once, with the present being merely an illusion in which nothing is actually happening.

[Simon Paynton]

Unseen wrote:

the present being merely an illusion in which nothing is actually happening.

I’m sure I’ve heard it said, but I can’t get it confirmed, that we are constantly travelling through spacetime at the speed of light.

[_Robert_]

Once you propose the illusion/simulation schtick….it’s recursive. After all, it’s just an illusion that you think it’s an illusion.

[Unseen]

Simon Paynton wrote:

Unseen wrote:

the present being merely an illusion in which nothing is actually happening.

I’m sure I’ve heard it said, but I can’t get it confirmed, that we are constantly travelling through spacetime at the speed of light.

Your comment reminds me of a well-known story, often told in philosophy classes.

**********

There was an Indian guru holding court at the well and under a spreading shade tree in the village square. Followers, seeking to absorb at least some of his wisdom, paid rapt attention to him, hanging on every word until…

A mad elephant burst into the square, at which time the guru and his followers started running away.

One follower ran up next to the sprinting guru and said, “I thought you said that the world is illusion and that nothing is real, so why are you running from the elephant?”

The guru replied, “What running? What elephant?”

***********

If the present is an illusion and we are already where we are headed, we are not really traveling.

[Unseen]

_Robert_ wrote:

Once you propose the illusion/simulation schtick….it’s recursive. After all, it’s just an illusion that you think it’s an illusion.

That’s true, but it doesn’t invalidate the argument.

[Simon Paynton]

Unseen wrote:

If the present is an illusion and we are already where we are headed, we are not really traveling.

We are travelling along a 4-dimensional path, through spacetime, at the speed of light.  If we have velocity in the space dimensions, our local time velocity slows down.

The present moment is any point along that path, which suggests that for an object within the universe, time and place are connected.

[Author]

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