Dear Dad, thanks for the input. Why is it that a point has no dimensions? Might it be that the reason is because it exists everywhere? Another question, because a line is just a series of points that have no dimension, how is that we can see a line?
P.S. I like picky.

Majik, I like your thoughts....

a point has to have dimensions....think of a cordinate plain ok....is a point had no dimensions how would you identify it there? and if a point had not dimension it would be nothin' empty space..well that's what I think for now

may luck find you,
majik

As I said in another topic, "God I love these posts".

If you think back to your Geometry days, these definitions I use are the abstract geometric concepts definitions.

The point that you could not see a line composed of dimensionless points is totally true. Also, the definition of a line is the intersection of two planes.

Nox

Think of a point like a location, it has position, but no width, no height, no depth.

if you were to draw a true mathimatical line you wouldnt be able to see it because it only has one dimention.

j0 is correct. I will try it from a different direction.

You are one of four people seated at a square table. You and the person directly across from you are looking each other in the eye. The same event is occuring for the other two people at the table.

Between each pair, there exists a "line-of-sight". The end point of these lines is not the cornea of the individuals eyeball, but extends to infinity behind their head (Line).

Where these two lines intersect (somewhere around the middle of the table) is a point. We cannot see this point but we know it exists. It is dimensionless.

Now let us not get caught up in the two eyeball bit, you see my point.

Nox

ok..I'm going to try this at a diffrent angle.......

perhaps there is more that one time..say that what we think of as time has a twin in some other universe.Ok....but befor the the universes were created these 2 times constantly clashing with each other.....so this creates friction wich inturn builds up over the circular cycle of time.....then the universe is formed with this excess energy.

Also ponder this...

Time is measure via relative postions, mainly rotations. First the sun was used to measure time, then gears within a watch were used, and the the atomic clock uses the orbit of electrons to measure time.

The whole point is we use two objects relative to each other in space to measure time. Thus the begining of time started when the universe (two objects) existed. If the universe stopped we wouldn't be able to measure time, in fact we wouldn't know it stopped. Our universe could be starting and stopping all the time and just resuming where it left off. We would never know because are concept of time is relative to this universe.

And to restate what i've always have said. If something and nothing are two states of possiblity something being a 1, and nothing being a 0, then the inital state of the universe could be either. Its a 50/50 chance that you could have started with nothing, or you could have started with something.

This is why questions amoung these lines of thought are flawed, your assumption might not be true. You assume that nothing HAS to come before something. Not even realizing that something could have always been there.

Great post. Now we're getting to the place I tried to get to in another topic. What if there were multiple big bangs followed by multiple big crunches. Buddism and Hinduism are now looking pretty good in terms of philosophy. However (I love that word), the question remains....where did the initial energy come from....Did God explode?

Nox

Think of this, if a god created the universe then what created the god? and what created that - it goes on foreva

I guess this means that man didn't create God. Interesting question you ask.

Nox

"the question remains....where did the initial energy come from....Did God explode?"

The inital energy could have always been there. There is a 50/50 chance that it could have been there or it could have not been there. This is what i am getting at.

Interesting point. I hope to God (pun) that the energy just always being there isn't true. If it's true, the consequences are frightening.

Nox

what if man crated god instead of god creating us?....the questions could keep going and going....each side has a theroy.....except that both of them have no proof....with that in mind..who cares there may not even be a universe....it could all just be an illusion or somethin'.....either way this conversation doesn't really matter unless someone comes up with an air tight solution....that holds up....

it seems wrong to assume that your "god" could have allways exsisted without a creator but yet matter and energy needed to be created and could not have allways exsited

maybe it's like exponintial equations we can approach an awnser but never get there

About the Circle/Loop of the universe..

Well first off, I don't think I believe in a UNIverse, rather a MULTIverse, which would also explain the time being relative (more than one 'universe').

I think of everything as being a sphere. You can take any certain theoretical point and move straight from it, which will eventually return you to the point you started from. Now suppose the second time around, when you get to the origin, you change your path 10 degrees to the left. It will be entirely different, except where points from each path junction. Although most situations would be completely different, there would still be some that would be identical.

If that makes sense..

Makes sense to me. It is something like what I tend to agree with.

Before I get picky, I want to say I find the sphere concept interesting.

It is the sphere, however, where I disagree with a small part of your post. A point (by definition) is dimensionless. Beginning at a given point and going around the sphere will indeed bring us back to the original point. Shifting 10 degrees will create a straight line track which will only intersect the original line in one point (directly opposite the beginning point).

Now, relating this back to your post, you used the word points and implied multiple intersections of the lines.

If we apply these different tracks to different universe's we will only have one common event in both places (refering to two different universes).

Where I fully agree with you is in the multilple universe theory. The ten degree divergence, to use your example, is more akin to Robert Frosts, "The Road Not Taken". We will change course and not go back to the point where we changed course from. The non-return is why I believe that our choices dictate every aspect of our life.

I could go on, but I hope I've made the point. My point would be that we don't shift ten degrees. These trips around the sphere would cut concentric circles, not intersecting circles.

Each parallel universe would have its own unique events ... nothing in common.

Nox

Nox

first of all,

to assume the big bang happened is false.

because it did, it has been proven.

if you tune your television or am radio to a frequency that doesn't have a broadcast signal, that static you hear is the microwave radiation that the big bang produced.

two scientists discovered this and realized it had the same intensity and strength no matter which direction they pointed the telescope.

the discovery made world headlines by one of the scientists exclamations that he had "heard the voice of god"

second of all,

you people put WAY TOO MUCH emphasis on time.

soullace i'm thinking more and more that time does not exist as a physical or even temporal dimension.

the way we measure time is by the change in positions of three physical objects.

stick+ground+sun=shadow(time)

barrel full of water+bucket+dripping water=% of bucket full(time)

you can measure time using the position of two objects in relation to the changing of a third which will produce a result by which you can measure a time.

what you a really measuring though is the change.

i guess position of the sun and earth in relation to our rotation is too long to use for practicality.

time sounds much better.

it's a hard concept to comprehend at first, but pay close attention to all that you measure time by, and all that you can measure time with,

you'll find it is all just change.
www.julianbarbour.com

barbour is a theoretical physicist who has worked on occassion with both stephen hawking(discovered black holes) and michiu kaku(co-founder of superstring theory)

now that we've eliminated time, maybe some of you can eliminate a beginning and end to absolutely everything,

and realize it is just change from a previous state, that has always and will always exist,

namely a perfectly orderered and structured 9 dimensional universe(10 if you do include time),

now maybe that will eliminate the questions of where god came from as well.

although most of what we experience has a beginning and end and we mark time and ages through the changes inbetween,

that which encompasses change is, for lack of a better word, eternal.

Nox: By points I meant the origin and the direct opposite, no more than that.*

It is interesting to think of parallel universes rather than intersecting, which is how I usually think of them.

*Sort of like those choose-your-own-adventure books I read as a child, I think each decision can take the path into a different direction. What I mean by this is the chosen path may end up being zig-zagged, crossing the straight path in multiple points, or completely straying away from the straight path, but all situations will ultimately end up at the origin.

lostmind: I am trying to understand what you're saying, and I think I have it, but just to make sure..

So the energy created by time is really energy created by change of states, and a given state will always be? This is a really poor example, but are you saying something similar to.. instead of worrying about the time between yawns, the bodys way of changing states, realize that the state of being tired and the state of being awake will always exist, just not at the same time.. or do you mean that which is the actual change between awake and tired is important? ... Maybe that's not a great example.

Another thing, what are the 9 dimensions?

lostmind,

Didn't i just say time was relative in this paragraph?

"The whole point is we use two objects relative to each other in space to measure time. Thus the begining of time started when the universe (two objects) existed. If the universe stopped we wouldn't be able to measure time, in fact we wouldn't know it stopped. Our universe could be starting and stopping all the time and just resuming where it left off. We would never know because are concept of time is relative to this universe."

I was talking more of what was the inital state it could have either been a one or a zero.

quote:

---

if you tune your television or am radio to a frequency that doesn't have a broadcast signal, that static you hear is the microwave radiation that the big bang produced

---

How do you know the microwave radiation was produced by the Big Bang?

Personally I see a lot more evidence for evolution...

This may be slightly off topic, but I think it applies.

I hear this one theory over and over again that time moves on a curved line. (example not curved.)

___________________________

We are perpetually in the present here

___________X____________

Past is here

_*________X____________

And Future is here

_*________X_________*_

Excuse the lame example, I'm trying my best.

Anyways, the past exists as well as the future and the present, simulataneously. As "spirit" or energy we can travel in and out of these different planes, but with mortal bodies we are simply stuck in the present.

Well, the theory that I hear so much about is that since time moves on this line there is nothing before the line. (The line is - I guess - metaphysical - O, fuck, I don't know how to explain it. But, it's not like a line on a piece of paper, just in case anyone didn't catch that.) So, the line just started and kept going, for instance if something is floating around in space and gets nudged it continues on in this direction until it hits something, building speed faster and faster.

Question out of place: if time is moving on this line in this fashion, does that mean that time is speeding up as though it were an object in space?

Back to topic: if, in fact, it's moving on a curved line then that entails that eventually it has to loop. Which means that time would start all over again. May be something like "The Apocolypse".

So, if we are living along this line of past, present, and future and we're stuck in the present, and we're just "hurtling through space" and it never began, isn't it just as easy to believe that that line that we're moving on is what "God" is? Because personally, that is exactly what I figure "God" is. He's simply the action of the being of our universe, if that makes any sense at all. But, that's just my opinion.

What do you all think?

Cheers,
Lost