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Some guy would probably tell me that [] your small human mind can't comprehend it, but it can comprehend some things; it knows 1 + 1 has to be two, so its not like it knows nothing. For example, some arguments say that since everything must have a cause, there must be an uncaused cause; but I don't see how existence can't imply time; please explain to me.

Mark Andrews
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loopit
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    but doesnt this imply that god cant exist if exist connotates time – loopit Jun 20 '23 at 18:08
  • No one who thinks God exists outside of time would agree that existence implies temporality, so this is not an argument; it is a conclusion. You need an argument to back up the conclusion. – David Gudeman Jun 20 '23 at 18:29
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    Do these answer your question? 'Is it possible for God to exist outside of time?' https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/39602/is-it-possible-for-god-to-exist-outside-of-time/81956#81956 'Are gods also bound to the laws of physics?' https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/47105/are-gods-also-bound-to-the-laws-of-physics/79439#79439 – CriglCragl Jun 20 '23 at 18:29
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    @MauroALLEGRANZA: Prior, huh – CriglCragl Jun 20 '23 at 18:30
  • Eternity transcends time . It is a problem of Zen contemplation. The West refers to such experiences as **ineffable**. 1. *Enlightenment is like a dumb man who has had a dream. He knows about it, but he cannot tell it.* 2. *Enlightenment is like a man who drinks a glass of water. He knows himself whether it is warm or cold.* 3. *An instant realization sees endless time. Endless time is as one-moment.* Only a photon, which has zero mass, but momentum and energy, can travel at the speed limit of light. A clock with mass cannot reach the speed of light. Moments and photons are timeless (eternal)! – SystemTheory Jun 20 '23 at 19:27
  • No one who says "God exists outside of time" has the faintest idea of what it could mean practically. It's just words chained together without meaning to solve a logical conundrum they put themselves in in the first place. Insist that they explain what this meaningless phrase means is the correct stance. – armand Jun 21 '23 at 00:41
  • God existing outside of time is what you conclude when you accept that God existing within time wouldn't make sense or creates logical problems, and you refuse to accept that God doesn't exist. – NotThatGuy Jun 21 '23 at 13:18
  • For what it's worth, time arises from entropy; it isn't a fundamental arrow which always marches forwards. There are several cosmological theories which allow for a beginning and end of time, in the sense that there are possible beginnings and endings of the observable universe which are extremely uniform to the point of time-reversibility. – Corbin Jul 13 '23 at 05:33
  • God exists ... the question is whether in a given sense or *not*, in a given sense. First porta call ... evident .. or not ... that's question # 2. Wishing it were simpler. Unfortunate, that! – Agent Smith Aug 12 '23 at 05:27
  • Indeed *existence* could be said to be the most mysterious and hidden concept in philosophy yet most people think it's mundane/straightforward since there obviously exist many ontologically committed finite things even in the strict first order logic sense. And it's rational and very logical to affirm or claim there must be an uncaused cause due to principle of sufficient reason since ancient (e.g. Aristotle's unmoved mover and Rumi's soundless sound). Ergo it's logical to claim if God exists God *precedes* the real extended colloquial physical time or our subjective idea of Kantian time... – Double Knot Aug 12 '23 at 06:57
  • Most people are naturally positivists demanding verification or confirmation of any unusual or extraordinary claims, so one may have to find evidence of the existence of God first to convince you the validity of claim that God precedes and thus 'implies' time in the colloquial sense if existence is a connotation of (eternal) time. However, as today's [post](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/101514/positivism-in-search-for-truth) hinted that in search of *extremely* hidden truth, verificational positivism may do as much harm as good to prevent direction to search the said truth... – Double Knot Aug 12 '23 at 07:16
  • @DoubleKnot This question made me doubt a religion, ut then I realized facts exist, but if statements such as if the world exists the world exists, if statements are eternal in a sense thus timeless however they still exist, but in different way, so I thought good exists in a different way – loopit Aug 12 '23 at 19:06
  • Of course God must exist in a different modal way from the POV of normal human ways to identify existence non-hallucinatively, positively and affirmatively, and Godel famously tried to rigorously prove this via his modal logic... – Double Knot Aug 12 '23 at 21:07

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"Some guy would probably tell me that it your small human mind can't comprehend it"

This is the point of Kant's antinomies, that time and infinity are a bafflement to reason, and so at least Kant starts again, from the point of view of mind, that "strikes a self", which Heidegger then rearranges as self making a change to self thus effecting time. And from this subjective, co-emergence of time an operational cognition can subsequently conceptualise a different kind of impersonal time: clock-time, which is then challenged by the understanding of a gravitational singularity in which clock-time is stretched to the limit. Now, in this context should we discuss beginnings and endings? : the remotest things we could possibly attempt, or shall we perhaps deal with what is at hand and what keeps this show on the road : the self generation of time that facilitates human existence. (Not as the existence of humans but the form of existence co-created by humans.)

Chris Degnen
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"Some guy would probably tell me that [] your small human mind can't comprehend it" Yes, that guy would be a Brittish Empiricist like Hume or Locke. They consider the mind to be a tabula rasa, a blank sheet of paper on which we can write whatever we want.

That seems fine and well, because after all, we learn go to school for many years to gain knowledge, and then spend even more years systematizing and expanding what we have learnt at school. Empirical knowledge seems like that's the only true and valid knowledge, however, as you said "but it can comprehend some things". What you meant to say is that you can comprehend them a priori, just with your reason, apart from any empirical sense data. 1 + 1 = 2 is an example of such knowledge.

Around 1750, a very smart young man named Immanuel Kant spent his whole youth thinking about empirical and a priori knowledge, and he came to an amazing conclusion that empiricists are wrong. They are right about some things, but the foundational concepts behind Hume's and Locke's philosophies are mistaken, in particular they are mistaken in their explanations of what causality is, and how we learn a priori truths like those of mathematics or metaphysics.

"it knows 1 + 1 has to be two, so its not like it knows nothing". Yes, the mind comes equipped with a priori cognitive faculties that allow you to learn mathematics and other abstract areas of knowledge.

"For example, some arguments say that since everything must have a cause, there must be an uncaused cause". That is another a priori truth that you know prior to any empirical dealings with the world.

Seems like you still have not read Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason', so go ahead and start today! This book is what separates serious philosophers from amateurs. A philosophy professor will never take you seriously if you have not the 'Critique'. Doing philosophy without seriously studying Kant is like doing mathematics without knowing any calculus.

Dennis Kozevnikoff
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  • It seems like you spent 6 paragraphs trying to argue how the asker doesn't know what they're talking about, while making no attempt whatsoever to answer the question they actually asked. – NotThatGuy Jun 21 '23 at 12:50
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    +1 "[Kant]" came to an amazing conclusion that empiricists are wrong" I'd just add a footnote that Kant is famous for trying to bring the empiricist and idealist doctrines together under transcendental idealism, so in a sense Kant believed everyone before Kant was wrong. And then the German idealists immediately after him set about correcting him. I'm not sure there's many philosophers who will concede anyone but themselves are fully right. – J D Jun 21 '23 at 12:56
  • It's probably a bit of an exaggeration (if not blatantly wrong) to say that Kant "came to an amazing conclusion that empiricists are wrong", considering that he used empiricism himself. In any case, the question never mentioned empiricism; you seem to be strawmanning. Being able to comprehend a claim is not equivalent to being able to experience and observe evidence of that claim. If you think that God existing outside of time can be argued with rationalism then, I'll be waiting. It's also really odd that you used `1+1=2` as an example, given how heavily empirical that is. – NotThatGuy Jun 21 '23 at 15:33
  • 1+1=2 isn’t empirical – thinkingman Aug 31 '23 at 22:11