7. The Antichrist: Chicken Before the Egg?

This should be the last point from "Twilight of the Idols". My old teacher criticizes philosophers for placing the"emptiest" concepts at the beginning. He says that this is a case of mistaking the last for the first.

Also, my old teacher's second point of criticism is that philosophers hold that the higher must not be allowed to grow out of the lower, must not be allowed to have grown at all. Moral: everything of the first rank must be CAUSA SUI. Origin in something else counts as an objection, as casting a doubt on value.

For me, certain issues should be investigated till the "rank of CAUSA SUI". Why? Some issues need to be understood for its purity in meaning and be able to stand on its own thus and be innocent of other motives. Issues like love, truth, ethics for example.

Its innocence of motives would then allow these issues to exist on its own and in whatever conditions.

So is this practical? Of course, it still and then can stand as something which we should strive towards. Abstract and idealist conceptions will allow us to rise above the mundane and limitations to dare to dream of nobler and greater heights.

Idealism of thought can and should co-exist with Pragmatism in action so to allow for human progress.

6. The Antichrist: My old Teacher and Plato

Towards the end of "The Anti-christ", my old teacher praises the moral laws of Manu.

"The order of the castes is of a natural nature.

It seperates the merely spiritual type, the predominantly muscular and temperamental type and the third type distinguished neither in the one nor the other, the mediocre type- the last as the great majority, the first as the elite

the most spiriual human beings, as the strongest, find thier happiness where others fins thier destruction...their joy lies in self-constraint...they rule not because they want to but because they are

inequality of rights is the condition for the existence of rights at all

let us not underestimate the privileges of the mediocre. Life becomes harder and harder as it approaces the hieghts- the coldness increases, the responsibility increases."

Islam and Moral Man

So I will just take this as revision from my NUS days.

Now, Islam as a philosophy as the Human Condition and its parallels with the theory of "Moral Man".

In Islam, human nature desires above all, peace and love.

Spiritual unity is very real. We only have to make people aware of its existence. Once the outer, artificial veils are removed, what remains will be pure spirituality.

This is because in reality, the various circumstances that confront man lead to drawing of different veils over man's natural propensities.

The veil of material greed produces self-centeredness; the veil of jealousy causes him to see himself as seperate from others.

The goal of Islam is to cultivate in the individual a complex-free soul who can withstand all kinds of negativity.

When such an individual rises above the mundane world, he/she will discover he higher realities. (2:186) tells us that there is no need for any intermediary to establish contact between God and man. At any place and time, God is accessible to us.

No matter how hostile a man may appear, he possesses a nature which is God-given. Thus the best way to break through through the outer surface of his antagonism is to return good behavior for bad behavior.

Idealism should be striven for with reference to one's own thoughts and conduct, but in one's dealings with others one had to resort to pragmatism.

It must be accepted that divergence of views does exist between man and man. Unity can be best forged through tolerance.

Diversity in opinion is natural and desirable as it will aid in intellectual development as the interaction of divergent thinking provides the requisite mental stimuli of running through a mental gauntlet.

Through diversity, we can understand that nobody in this world is perfect. One set of talents complements another's.

Salvation depends upon an individual's actions, it is not the prerogative of any group.

All violence is born in the mind and it can be ended in the mind itself through unveiling and intellectual awakening.

It is biological truth that all human beings are God's family. Where there is brotherly love, mutual solidarity will, of necessity, prevail.

There are two faculties in every human being which are mutually antipathetic. One is the Ego and the other is the Conscience. Violence invariably awakens the Ego which necessarily results in a breakdown of social equilibrium and non-violent activism awakens the conscience which would awaken introspection and self-appraisal.

The miraculous outcome of this is that "he who is your enemy will become your dearest friend."

I have to ask myself PT3

I have never been an atheist. But like I always say, you can never love something/ someone without questioning your love for it/him/her.

Ultimately for me, as a realist-moralist, does God need to exist?

Yes. From God, there comes religion(in its multitude of forms) which at the core teaches and preaches for behavior and actions that are in line with my "moral man" theory. This would increase the prevalence of "free agency" which would in turn bring about moral progress, even if they do not fully understand, so long as they act, they are still effectively contributing.

Secondly, "comfort-seeking" is important. It alleviates nihilism that would run counter to "free agent" behavior and moral progress for humanity as a species-being.

Yet, No. God does not need to exist to justify the very real need for man to love and respect each other as a species-being.

But "Emotion is stronger than Logic", so it is "better"if God exists.

What then is my idea and ideal of God?

God, for me, is truth (in which I will find love and respect for my fellow human beings due to uncompromisable and undeniable similarities between us as a species-being).

I can find God in the vast and incomprehensible expanse which I should and can strive towards so long as I recognise the fragility of my known intelligence and mind and open my mind. I will then be in progress towards the truth.

Thus I realise that since I can never fathom God as a being. I can only grasp nuances of God as a ideal. I thus find myself more concerned with the end goal of knowing God.

If I live according to this convictions, I know that I will be at peace as an individual and with humanity and with God.

I have to ask myself PT2

We were at the question of the human mind and whether it was distinctly human?

To solve this puzzle, I realise that I have to find the reason for this "Exceptionalism" of the Human mind. I need to find out why we evolved as such. Was it a coincidental miracle or was it all because of conditional factors? Are we truly exceptional?

But before I head down the anthropological path. I should better define the distinctive qualities of the Human mind.

Ultimately, it is our exceptional quality to conceptualize on the abstract plain that has allowed us the ability to think beyond the corporeal. This has perhaps enabled us to conceptualise a God.

This ability also aided our development of language which allowed for knowledge to persist and for discourse to stretch beyond physical constraints.

But we had to have the aid of other exceptional mental faculties. Please take note that the effects of these faculties often are blurred. Below, I am just trying to categorize it neatly.

Other exceptional faculties of our Human mind which perhaps aided in the creation of God are as follows:

The recognition of ourselves as individuals, this led to the conceptualization of our "will" and in turn allowed for "willed and calculated actions" which meant that we possessed rationality.

Our sense of memory also allowed us to gain appreciation of Time and to act to our calculated actions and identify cause and effect.

We were also able to overcome the "pleasure principle" and with this, it gave greater prominence to our rationality and calculated actions.

I have to ask myself

So here I am, a realist-moralist. And I need to know/think about my ideas about God.

First of all, I need to stop thinking of God as masculine. Well, of course it is because of the patriarchal and semantic lineage that has bombarded me since young.

So I should begin understanding that God is not of one gender. This is because by right, God should be the unity of all since he is the creator of all. But hold on, am I going too fast? Before I even begin, I have to ask myself what I understand by God?

Who/what is God?

I understand the concept of and feel close to God when I am experiencing "anxiety". When I sit before the vast expanse and come to realize the vast incomprehensible and the limits of myself. My mind wanders in its yearning to attempt to grasp the incomprehensible. My mind can explore this realm whereas my body is what limits me. So thus from this, I understand that my God exists beyond the corporeal.

Why do I believe in God? The vast incomprehensible does exist but we are cutting down on our lack of knowledge through science right? Phenomenon that we used to attribute to God's actions can and now is explained through the workings of nature.

Of course, this can be easily explained away by God's actions through nature itself and that in turn explains the brilliant workings of nature. This beauty and brilliance is something that I have appreciated since a child but it could also be purely evolution at work.

Evolution. This then brings us to the next problem. Are we proof of God? Or did we give birth to God through the evolution of our minds?

Our Minds. This would be our tool to create a God. So the question is are our minds that different from animals? Our minds seem to be advanced, distinct from animals. It is what makes us human. Our minds serve fundamental functional similarities with animals.

What then is it about our minds which makes us distinctly human? Some would say the ability of us to recognize ourselves as an individual, to conceptualize and to rationalize based on other considerations other than instinctual.

Why then are we special in this respect? Why is it that we "happen" to have this faculty and this is coupled with our evolved opposable thumb which allows for written language and also our windpipe formation which allows for speech?

These three "coincidental" traits are what has allowed us to develop as a intellectual species. Maybe to the point that we had to conceptualize a God.
This then would fit in with what Nietzsche sees as "seeking comfort" in the unknown.

I will be back to write more on this.

Something New: Judaism

Picked up an encyclopedia-like book on the subject and started ploughing away.

Since I know close to nuts about Judaism, but now I know more. This is what I know now. :)

Judaism’s trinity of Ethnos, ethos and logos

Distinctive holy people or nation

Effort to bring order into the world

History from Beginning to period of First Temple

Special covenant with Abraham

Exodus from Egypt

Relevation at Sinai

David first monarch to successfully unite the nation (12 tribes) and establish a secure ruling dynasty

Jerusalem as his political and religious capital

David’s son, Solomon

Temple as sacred center of Israelite state as well as universe

Sacred and social laws

Lucrative trade routes through the land of Israel

Babylonian overran Israel destroyed temple of Solomon, 586 bce

Assyrian invasions prompted major rethinking of the Israelite religion, represented punishment

Prophets Hosea, Amos, Isaiah critiqued ancient Israelite or Judean society and religion

Judaism and Christianity

Jesus’ movement emerged within early Judaism as an anticipation of the kingdom of God

Christianity understood itself within the terms of reference of Israel

Theological revolution then marked emergence of Christianity as a religion distinct from Judaism (When priests started to exalt Jesus?)

How the Jewish understandings of the scriptures were faulty

Jesus’ transcendent coordinate

John the Baptist: God could raise up children for Abraham from stones in order to replace those of Israel who refused to repent

Paul understands the role of Abraham as the patriarch of Judaism, but he argues that Abraham’s faith, not his obedience to the law, made him righteous in the sight of God

Jesus’ announcement of salvation held superior to Moses, Joshua, the angels and their messages

The son was “perfect once and for all, when he offered himself up.” Moses’s prescriptions for the sanctuary were a pale imitation of the heavenly sanctuary that Jesus has actually entered.


Prominence over and oustripping of Judaism

Christianity gained a boost through its connection to Rome (Constantine) and accessibility to all, away from Judaism’s trinity of Ethnos (not accessible to all), ethos and logos

Divine rule

Judaism and Islam

Allowed to practice and retain lifestyle and religion at cost of Jizya

Arabs bought their love and respect of Arabic language as God’s perfect language spurred Jews to study Hebrew to prove otherwise; healthy artistic/ linguistic rivalry

100years after Muslim conquest, majority of the Jews in the Islamic world had adopted Arabic as their native language, gave them access to evolving philosophical thinking of the Arabs who were reviving Greek antiquity


Ethics of Judaism

Morals- concrete norms of right and wrong in a given situation

Ethics- abstract higher level, why it is right/ wrong? What is right/wrong?

Divine reward and punishment alone would not suffice (a mere 40 days after Mt Sinai, the very people started worshipping a golden calf)

Thus inherent wisdom and morality of promise keeping and the duties of the covenant were included in the Torah

Empowers Jews to wrestle with Jewish tradition, encourages-even demands- that they learn more about their tradition in order to carry out this task

The body belongs to God- it is loaned to us

Affront God when we insult another person; must treat people with respect, recognizing each’s uniqueness and divine worth

Body is seen as inferior part, which we share with animals

Mind is distinctly human

Body and mind morally neutral and potentially good

Body’s pleasures are to be enjoyed, but only when experienced within the framework of holiness delineated by Jewish law and theology

To attain holiness is thus not to endure pan but to use all our God-given faculties to perform God’s commandments

Ideal in Judaism is marriage

Sex for procreation and joy and companionship

Education life-long activity

Contrary to enlightenment, does not see us as isolated individuals with rights: it sees us as members of a community with duties to each other and to God

We humans are to help God in ongoing repair of the world through social action

5. The Antichrist: My old teacher is a Gnostic like me?

well, not so much in practice, I am sure. But in agreement, I think we both fall along the same line.

Now that I reread and reconsider my old teacher, I realize that Organised religion, is to him, the antichrist.

This is what my old teacher speaks of Jesus, "not to "redeem" mankind but to demonstrate how one ought to live...evangelic equal right of everyone to be a child of God which Jesus had taught...what came to end with the death on the Cross: a new, an absolutely primary beginning to a Buddhistic peace movement, to an actual and not merely promised happiness on earth."

Thus my old teacher is Gnostic, like me at our core. His words speak of Jesus as a "Free Agent". He, like me, wants man to be able to reach his full potential (though of course, we are in disagreement over what the above mentioned "full potential" entails).

Then he says of organized religion.

Because born out of the need to keep their followers and maintain power over them, organised religion has need of the tools of "Morbid barbarism" which teach/ condition man to feel quilt and inward (instead of outward through the exercise of his rationality). Such man then need the

The priestly class also exalted "Jesus in an extravagant fashion, in severing him from themselves....the one God and one son of God." and left themselves as the crucial bridge upon which the rest must then depend on.

This is in line with the semantic power that the priestly class sought to maintain in Latin, the "holy language". Foucault and Said would agree on this point of power distancing and monopolisation of the tools of knowledge and representation.

And then my old teacher carries on with strength and strikes out at "proof by potency."

"Belief makes blessed; therefore it is true...but with that we have already reached the end of the argument...the experience of all severe, all profound intellects teaches the reverse. Truth has to be fought for every step of the way, almost everything else dear to our hearts...greatness of the soul is needed for it; the service of truth is the hardest service...one despises 'fine feelings', that one makes every Yes and No a question of conscience!"

My old teacher is a Gnostic philosopher. :)

4. The Antichrist: After Tea, we talk about "Pity" and "Love"

Though I am not a Christian, I feel obliged to challenge my old teacher's condemnation of it as a "religion of pity". My old teacher argues that Christianity's unjustified 'pity' for the weak goes against nature and preserves 'those ripe for extinction'. Thus my old teacher claims that it multiplies and preserves misery.

I disagree on the point of it being "pity". For me, at the true core of all religion is love. And love is not pity. Love requires more than pity. It requires empathy: a meeting of minds.

Pity is akin to empathy but with a great difference.

The one who pities feels and recognizes the pain that the "pitied" is in but yet he does not want to be like the pitied. He does not want to share the same boat, mentally or physically.

And most importantly, he does not understand the situation that the pitied is in. Thus it is a two-fold "pedestral" that the "pitier" is on: One of his non-suffering condition and another of non-understanding.

The one who empathises, on the other hand, is able to intellectually identify with the "sufferer" and thus shares the suffering, albeit only on a mental level.

Fine, then do we give aid to the suffering, you ask?

To me, the act of giving aid should and can be born out of an empathy. True, the suffering may not want/ need our help but it is a natural response of "free agents" to want to alleviate another man's suffering since he too empathizes with the situation. Of course, if the aid is refused, then should "free agents" still push forth with it? Now that is a tricky question.

Also, the "free agent" aims at helping the suffering to overcome their dispositions through personal struggle. The aim is not purely to alleviate the suffering.

So long as the act of giving aid is not born out of a feeling of superiority and privileged generosity, I think that it is highly acceptable.

That then is love and loving actions born out of empathy. And empathy can be made natural to us through the actions of "free agents" which would yield more "Moral Man", who possess a common understanding of all man being common in that we all experience the same pains ('anxiety' and 'sensory pain') and possess a will.

3. The Antichrist: At tea with my old teacher

As I reread my old teacher's arguments, I laugh, I scratch my head and I nod at times.

My old teacher is brutal towards what he does not deem fit. But we still have some similarities even though I am now what he would call a moralist since I find myself a realist-moralist. So our lines still do cross at times.

"The value of a thing sometimes lies not in what one attains with it, but in what one pays for it- what it costs us."

I totally agree. Thus my understanding that the realisation that there are root commonalities in man as a species-being and in turn objective truths and morals must be a personal struggle and as Frankl rightfully pointed out, men often achieve this through "fire-walking".

"I saw all their institutions evolve out of the protective measures designed for mutual security against the explosive material within them."

And if we never go beyond this mechanistic operation of civic education and behavioral-conditioning, then we will never overcome the "explosive material". This is why we both are against organised religion.

"A virtue has to be our invention, our most personal defence and necessity: in any other sense it is merely a danger."

This is pretty self-exemplary and goes on to supplement the above two assertions.

2. The Antichrist: The Four Great Errors

My old teacher expresses displeasure at the fact "The most general formula at the basis of every religion and morality is: "Do this and this, refrain from this and this- and you will be happy! Otherwise..." Every morality, every religion is this imperative- I call it the great original sin of reason, immortal unreason."

This I have to agree with based on my understandings, that true action must originate from within man and from his active will and not from what he calls "Immortal Unreason."

My old teacher then goes on to discuss about our "inner facts". The will, the consciousness and the ego (the "subject') are in fact non-existent. Something which we "latch onto" in pursuit of our excited cause-creating drive because we want to have a reason for feeling as we do. He states something quite interesting and which I feel inclined to agree with (at a certain level)- the fact that we only possess 'General Feelings' and are consistently and continuously engaged and involved in the "play and counter-play of our organs". To trace something unknown back to something known is alleviating, soothing and gives moreover a feeling of power.

Even while I sit here typing, focusing on the task at hand, my stomach is warm, I feel comfortable, my legs are tingling due to a lack of blood. This whole jibble-jabble of multiple feelings and sensations constitute our 'general feelings' which in our minds are felt first before termed and hence given meaning.

I realize that they are registered as generally positive or non-positive before my mind analyzes it and gives it reason. For example, true, I am hungry and this is negative but I am doing something of a higher calling (applying myself mentally in place of fulfilling my hunger). So then my hunger becomes more positive than negative.

But my old teacher goes on to posit that the will is but a convenient invention. Men were thought of as "free" so that they could become guilty; consequently, every action had to be thought of as willed, the origin of every action as lying in the consciousness.

This point leaves me a little upset and perplexed and I will be back to write more about this in a bit, I hope.

1. The Antichrist: Hello Again, Teacher

Is what I said to my newly acquired book. And it strikes me so strongly how I used to be intelligent but not discerning. Rereading and rethinking. Absolutely devouring this book.

So many things to challenge, to counter. Yet, I also recognise the need just to sit back and read and to accept his views.

Let me begin with a fast one for now. "By saying "God sees into the heart" it denies the deepest and the highest desires of life and takes GOD for the enemy of life...the saint in whom God takes pleasure is the ideal castrate..life is at an end where the "kingdom of God" begins.."

Well, I refute. Firstly and quite simply, it is suffice to say that I am delineating from the Christian theological point of view and/or argument. As always, my approach is one of an all-encompassing morality and religion. The "kingdom of God" begins when men is living. When man realizes that he has to live as man, life and the achievement of the "kingdom of God" then goes had in hand.

And secondly to me, the saint is the man who exercises himself in betterment, with the end goal of personal and species betterment. True, he may not be exercising his will to power as Nietzsche advocates. But he is exercising his will, this cannot be refuted. Language and ideas are the weapons of the weak, so he argues. True enough, I can give him that. But resistance is still resistance, weak or otherwise. It may not last, it may be stamped out but it is still an exercise in will. And when we are stripped bare of all and compared with all, we are similar in this respect, our possession of a will. It is our basal weapon. But I am not done here yet. So it may be a little dodgy. I should not be even cross-examining his arguments on organised religion right? Since I am coming from the angle of general philosophy. So let's just leave these refutations as that.

But he does touch on some regarding the will. And I feel inclined to challenge.

Will carry on this thread tomorrow. Can't wait.

Tuesdays with Morrie

Everyone has read it. I never felt the need to read it. But oh well...so I picked it up from the school library.

Hmm....I am not impressed. But something there did make me think a little, or rather made me reflect.

So Morrie is telling Mitch that he wants to be happy at the specific moment when he passes. Even when the pain is all engulfing, he wants to be able to detach himself from the moment so that his last thoughts are not those of fear and suffering.

But before this, he had shared with Mitch that we all needed to stop living in fear. As life is full of possible negative consequences, pain and suffering is then an irrevocable possibility of every action.

This then led me to think about what I had realized about the beauty of life, the irreversibility of time and the fragility of that moment when our minds were "open".

But then, to be able to achieve detachment as Buddha preaches, I don't know.

Normally my entries are very impersonal and objective, but for once, I am going to break out of my shell and share a bit of my personal feelings. Because it is the "mortal", "ego" side of me that is holding me back from the ability to love fully and in turn to be able to free myself (detach fully).

We can consider any kind of pain. As I had theorized before, since I now understood the beauty of real man and moral reality and moral truth, I also stated that it is entirely impossible to live based on my understandings of the moral truth since we have to function in the world of social reality which is still very real.

What is holding me back? Pain. More specifically, my fear of pain and suffering. Which is human, I guess. To truly be unafraid, we have to look it in the face and live in the moment. We have to live with our emotions on our sleeves consistently.

But of course, the problem here is that (merging with Eugene's theory), not all of us are playing at the same game level. We are not all playing at the level of the moral game, most probably the other is playing at the level of the "ego" game.

I think this is what perpetuates our fear of pain and suffering, thus we will never be able to experience fully what love is (for example) and then since we can never fully grasp what it is to love (unless we surrender fully to the experience and allow our minds to be open to it), then we can never detach ourselves from what we do not understand.

Of course, to bridge this gap and incongruity in playing levels, "free agents" are then necessary.

So yet again, I realised the vast spiritual, philosophical and mental challenge that Buddha was able to overcome as he loved fully and in turn could detach himself fully.

Progression

From the brilliant "Outsider" to the drawn-out and dreary "Nauseau", I naturally progress to Viktor Frankl's "Man's search for Meaning".

Now for a mere 11 bucks, I have laid my hands on a book which makes me go "wow!" continuously. I mean, it is truly fresh to see a psychological approach based on a philosophy which is by no means baseless. Who can doubt the cauldron of extreme conditions that produced it.

Now there is really too much to say about this book. So I'll just draw out some snippets.

"There is nothing in the world that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one's life. There is much wisdom in the words of Nitezsche: "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.""

"For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefor, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment."

"In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life , he can only respond by being responsible."

"Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!"

"What is demanded of man is not, to endure the meaningless of life, but rather to bear his incapacity to grasp its unconditional meaningfulness in rational terms. LOGOS is deeper than logic."

"To be sure, a human being is a finite thing, and his freedom is restricted. It is not freedom from conditions, but freedom to take a stand towards the conditions."

7. Time and Space: So I learn about something called "Absolute Time"

And obviously this means that I have to reconsider what I think I know.

WHAT IS ABSOLUTE TIME

Newton introduced the idea of absolute time. Although he understood that clocks weren't perfect and measuring time was subject to human error, Newton believed in an absolute time that was similar to a universal, omnipotent God-like time, one that was the same for everyone, everywhere. In other words, someone standing at the North Pole on Earth would experience time the same way as someone standing on Mars.


Luckily, it is debunked. We are getting nearer to a picture here.

WHY TIME BEING ABSOLUTE MAKES SENSE

First of all, a clear understanding of the concept of time (2) is necessary.

Time is reckoned by noting the intervals that occur by the motion of material things.

Historically, this has meant how many times the sun is at its highest point in the sky (days), the moon at the same phase (month), and the passing of the seasons (year).

Recognition of the passage of time is always in relation to something material.


WHY TIME IS NOT ABSOLUTE BUT SPECIFIC ABSOLUTE, THUS NOT A UNIVERSAL ABSOLUTE

Every material thing can also be said to have an absolute character, providing we choose the appropriate reference frame to consider with.

when time is measured within a system, it is a constant to this system. This is a specific absolute, not a universal absolute.

A "moving" system is the same as a "resting" system from the perspective of those doing the measuring within the system.

To further explain this: What is the universal fact to be witnessed by all observers who are part of an inertial frame?

It is that all things that are at rest in that system will stay that way and that things that are set in motion will continue that motion in a straight line with a constant speed unless acted upon by external forces (Newton's first law of motion).

An inertial frame is a frame of reference in which bodies are not accelerated from the perspective of within the system.

Yet, the whole inertial frame of reference will be accelerated relative to something else.

The important point here is that gravity accelerates all material things (including light) equally together, so that an inertial observer will notice that all things move equally and together within his system, even though his entire system will be accelerating relative to something else.

His space-time region will be perceived as being flat and isotropic.

From http://home.pacbell.net/skeptica/time.html


NOW TO FINALISE, TILO, LADDIE AND MYSELF WILL TAKE A GO AT IT

**Now consider I am standing still and looking at Laddie and Tilo run towards me. I can measure the time at which they take to reach me. Time is then absolute since I am not moving.

But consider the same scenario when I am running away from them as they run towards me. Suddenly the same time to reach me becomes pulled out and stretched.

Time has become relative to the speed at which Tilo and Laddie and me are moving at.

In actual reality, we all are constantly in motion since our earth is in motion in relation to itself and also in relation to the universe. Just like how Tilo and Laddie's positions and mine are never truly fixed in the second scenario.

Thus through this simple illustration, we can see that Absolute time is not possible on both Earth and Mars.**

6. Time and Space: St Augustine on TIME

St Augustine agrees with Plato that time begins with the creation.

Like Aristotle, St Augustine questions whether the past or future really exist.

Surely only the present actually exists and this is instantaneous, only measured by its passing.

Yet, like Aristotle, St Augustine says how can it be that past and future time do not exist.

He tried to answer the apparent contradiction by claiming that past time can only be thought of as past if one is thinking of it in the present. He identifies three times:-

The present of things past is memory, the present of things present is sight, and the present of things future is expectation.


time does not exist without an intelligent being who is able to think in the present about things past, present and future.

5. Time and Space: WOW! Hypercube animation of Nonlinear Time

This is a hyper cube. Use the URL below to watch the hyper cube in motion. Just like time in flux the way it really is. You will notice that your mind's eye tries to hold onto a reference point because it is natural to our 3 dimensional perception but somehow when the hyper cube moves, the reference point is lost and the hypercube seems to bend and warp, just like nonlinear time.

Beautiful. Just beautiful.

watch this..holy Shite! Now this is a representation!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP_d14zi8jk