If you have no perception of time, does infinity pass within the blinking of an eye?

Without time there would be no perception. Without perception there would be no time.

In order to have a perception of something one would need the time to pay attention and reflect. I would have to somewhat agree. Without perception, time would be meaningless. Although, perception is everything. For instance your statement of, “So maybe in this place of eternal joy and happiness…” leads to a theory. Ever notice how enjoyment never seems to last long enough? It’s very much the latter for someone full of depression and despair. The two different perceptions of time would vary greatly.

Time is a contradiction. Without time nothing can evolve, but time is short. Sometimes we despise time for being so lengthy, sometimes we wish time would never end. Time is infinite, unfortunately human life is not. I doubt a “soul” would perceive time in the same way as a living being would. To something not actually existing physically time might actually be a blink of an eye. As for the living, we see things change daily. So I think, life was created to be more appreciative of time.

I don’t see why you have to get all “deep” about being an atheist. It’s basically like this: I don’t believe in god or divine intervention. I believe there is a scientific explanation for everything.

Although I’ll be honest, I do wish there was an after life. I, however, am not lying when I say I don’t believe there are souls or any of that mumbo jumbo. This is just my opinion, clearly stated.

I think it’s pretty ignorant for you to say all atheists are lying about their beliefs just because they don’t coincide with yours.

@Parrappa
Please excuse my lenglthy ignorance, but as is yours, its not my belief that all atheists are lying, its just my opinion. Also what I actually wrote was “I think anybody who says they can’t accept the possibility of the existence of a soul or even contemplated it has to be lying”.

So if your telling me you can’t accept the possibility, or that you’ve never contenplated it, then I sincerely apologise.

It is not my intention to offend, but to provoke a response so that I can better understand other peoples views.

Suplimental: there are no right of wrong opinions, there are only opinions.

Ps. good rant tho, liked it ;-)

Infinity isn’t a period of time that can pass since it stretches out backwards and forwards from your current position. Even if you have no time perception, you would still be within time. I think it would be more of an unconscious existence, like a particle floating in space, so time would irrelevant; if one can exist forever then there would be no need for time awareness. So for me, a timeless object would not feel the passage of time (pretty redundant).
Also, being an atheist, I agree that I would love for there to be a pleasant afterlife, however, I know I can’t get things even if I really really wish for them.

I’ve often wondered about this and it always bring up another question for me, would the in-existence of time (or at least our inability to perceive it) make us incapable of sequential thought? Would nothing be in sequence ever? would any and all events just blend together into one eternal jet infinitesimal small moment? Or would we still be able to separate specific events?

Also… you are a heathen bible-basher left wing liberal softie and will be going to hell in a handbasket carried by the liberal media. Or just you know… Hello ~

@slugbunny
So your saying there is nothing infinite?
There is time, but it isn’t infinite?
There is a universe, but nothing exists outside of it?

Maybe the universe exists within something else. Afterall if the big bang theory is to be accepted, the universe must have come from somewhere, or are you telling me it came from nothing?

I find it hard to accept (even though I think Hawkings latest answer was that nothing existed before the big bang) that something can come from nothing. Although I can’t escape the posibility.

@Dr_C
I think you’ve answered the fundamental part of my question, maybe being incapable of thinking sequentialy would leave a soul (for want of a better word) devoid of empathy.

What usually rattles me are the two arguments about human suffering at the hands or not as the case maybe, of a God.

On one side of the fence an atheist argument could be that humans suffer because there is no God, plain and simple.

On the other side of the fence people of faith may argue that its all a divine plan.

All I’m saying is, that my mind is still open to all posibilities, one of which is that maybe it doesn’t matter, if we’re all going to live for eternity, at the instant of death you’l have probably forgotten all about it.

Charlie Chaplin once said, “In the end, everything is a gag.”

You used big words and complex sentences so I’m not sure if I understand exactly what you are talking about but I’ll take a stab at it. First and foremost, without time I’m pretty sure there’s nothing. At all. Life is a movie. Without time, life is only a picture. We all come into the flick at a certain point, and we all eventually leave. We don’t get read the script though. In fact, our part of the movie is complete improvision.

I don’t believe in anyone one religion, because they all are focused on Earth and the human race. This universe is WAY too damn big for God to make us the epicenter of the whole she-bang. That being said, I do believe in some sort of God. To me, God is simply “the beginning.” It can be the dude in the white cloak with the white beard, or it could be a single-cell organism, floating in space completely oblivious to what it did. Of the question arises, “Where did God from come?” And that leads to whole news set of debates and questions and next thing you know, we’re old men and women.

Is there an afterlife? Nobody living knows. But relax, we’ll all know soon enough. Deal with what’s on your plate right now. Life. Enjoy it.

But quite honestly I have no idea what I’m talking about.

By the way, your entire post reminded me of this scene from Spaceballs:

Helmet: “What the Hell are we looking at? When does THIS happen in the movie?”
Sanders: “NOW sir. Everything that’s happening now is happening now.”
Helmet: “What happen to then?”
Sanders: “We passed then.”
Helmet: “When?”
Sanders: “Just now. Were in now now sir.”
Helmet: “Go back to then.”
Sanders: “When?”
Helmet: “Now.”
Sanders: “Now?”
Helmet: “Now.”
Sanders: “I can’t!”
Helmet: “Why?”
Sanders: “We missed it!”
Helmet: “When?”
Sanders: ”Just now!”
Helmet: ”...When will then be now?”
Sanders: “Soon.”

Gag.

@Haroot That part is awesome! “You can now get the movies before they’ve finished making them.”

@Haroot
LMFAO…...
A fine response the best giggle I’ve had so far, and so apt. Life really is for living, in the end if you don’t try to make the most of it here, you may be left with an eternity of regret, or not….....

I’m saying that infinity is just a concept. Infinity goes on forever so it is impossible for it to pass. Time is infinite as long as there is change with which we can record time.
And I am so glad you brought up universes, a subject I adore. Universes do not have to come from something. Before the Big Bang, particles were condensed at extremely high pressures and temperatures (when time was zero!) and tiny quantum fluxes are what eventually resulted in inflation. Matter was created and destroyed, but more so created which is why we live in a particle dominated universe. And also matter is still being created right now by the expanding dark energy and the roll off energy from virtual particles but that’s probably more than you wanted to know :P

@slugbunny
Soooooooo, all matter fits into an infinitesimally small point, time doesn’t exist in this place which is no place, with no space…..... Its all under immense, no, unimaginably high pressure and tremperature?

More questions:

Did anything exist outside of this node point? and if not, what held all the matter in this point?

Is the big bang a fact, and what proves this fact?

Is it an assumption that time was ‘zero’?

If tiny quantum fluxes are what caused the expansion how did they achieve this if they had no time to affect anything?

And I’m actually quite happy with particles still being created, my laymans mind is quite capable of understanding how matter can be created along the seam of a black holes event horizon. Though my mind (and I know I’m probably being quite presumptuous here) doesn’t work the same way yours does, I take it you see the math, and then try to conseptualise it, being an engineer, I see three dimensions and try to make things fit. That is to say that I don’t see how Einstein’s wafer thin space time fits a 3d model of the universe. It seems to me, that as soon as you introduce a third objects into his curved space time analogy of gravity, that the whole thing falls apart.

I’m hoping you don’t subscribe to this four dimensioanl donut by the way…....

You can’t mix 3d with 2d, I just won’t have it I tell you!......and besides thinking about donuts just makes me bloody well hungry!

Oh, also, I did like the way you described time, does this mean you see time as a perception?????

Confused about how, if matter and anti-matter are identically opposite, how more matter than anti-matter survived????

My personal felling is this, though its probably way way out there (where ever that is!)

Picture a line, now, so far as I know, theorecticaly you can divide this line into an infinite number of pieces. So lets say we do this, we’re going to need a slicer, this slicer is going to have to be infinitly thin, now start slicing from one end, cut say five slices. Now how far have you gone? I know, I know I’m insulting your intelligance, but at the end of the day once you start slicing, you’l never get anywhere.

By the same token, if you wanted to travel along this line starting from one end, you’l have to step on every one of these slices, so surely you’l never get anywhere?

So my mind tells me that the only logical explanation is that distance is merely a perception, and that its the relationship between the points along the line that lead to this perception.

One last thing, I’m not saying this is your line of thinking, but it does vex me somewhat, how people who can calculate and understand the language of maths, seem to believe that just because they can, and someone like me can’t, that they must be right, this is ignorance at its boldist, you find this soft of ingnorance in religion,

“I understand God, and you don’t, because I understand the bible!”

How rude!....