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Author Topic:   Existence
Rahvin
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Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 13 of 1229 (614446)
05-04-2011 11:47 AM
Reply to: Message 10 by ScientificBob
05-04-2011 4:53 AM


Re: Cause
I've been using exactly those same arguments with ICANT for years now.
He doesn't understand them. His faith and unfounded confidence in the Bible as the ultimate authority acts as a mental block preventing him from even attempting to grasp the concept of finite time and what that means for causality at T=0.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 10 by ScientificBob, posted 05-04-2011 4:53 AM ScientificBob has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 19 by ICANT, posted 05-04-2011 1:25 PM Rahvin has replied
 Message 37 by ScientificBob, posted 05-05-2011 1:56 PM Rahvin has not replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 14 of 1229 (614456)
05-04-2011 12:09 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by ICANT
04-29-2011 12:05 PM


Talking in circles
Is existence responsible for bringing into existence all that exists?
How many times can you use iterations of the word "exist" in a single sentence, ICANT?
Your nonsense doesn't even make superficial sense this time. Even your three "definitions" use the word they define in their definitions!
What I assume you're really asking, without all the bullshit behind it is, "why is there something, rather than nothing? Why should anything exist at all, rather than nothing?" You then tried to surround that with a bunch of apologetic "interpretation" from the Bible, as if that would support anything at all.
But the answer to the root question, "why does anything at all exist rather than an absence of anything," is "We don't entirely know, we might never know, but why not?" For all we know, existence may be the default inevitable state, and nonexistence, a total absence of anything at all could be the impossible.
Not everything about the Universe has to make intuitive sense to a human perspective. That's a big part of why we use math to model the early Universe instead of the type of philosophical navel-gazing you're so fond of. Special Relativity, the Uncertainty Principle, and Quantum Mechanics might seem strange or weird to us...but in reality, that place you fear to tread, Quantum Mechanics is normal, it's our human understanding that's messed up because the human brain is not equipped with an intuitive understanding of the underlying mechanics that govern the Universe. We're primates, not supercomputers. Causality doesn't make sense when you don't have a time dimension for linear progressive events to occur in. Causality is even just a simple way of describing the increase in entropy within a system - and entropy cannot change without time.
You are also, of course, opening yourself yet again to infinite regression: if existence was required to cause existence, what caused existence?
See how absolutely stupid that is? Of course you don't...but I'm sure everyone else does, and now we can all laugh at your expense.
Obviously, it's turtles all the way down, and the turtles are all named "Existence."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by ICANT, posted 04-29-2011 12:05 PM ICANT has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 22 by ICANT, posted 05-04-2011 1:54 PM Rahvin has not replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 20 of 1229 (614470)
05-04-2011 1:32 PM
Reply to: Message 19 by ICANT
05-04-2011 1:25 PM


Re: Cause
But what you have never explained is how the universe and everything in it could begin to exist out of an absence of anything. (non-existence).
Would you like to explain how that could happen?
How absurd - of course Ive explained it, dozens of times in every thread you bring up cosmology.
The Universe did not begin to exist out of an absence of anything. There is absolutely no point in time where there is an absence of anything. None. "Non-existence" was never a state of the Universe.
That you're incapable of comprehending that you cannot have a "before" without an earlier point on a timeline, and that such a thing is impossible if the timeline has no earlier point, is irrelevant to the rest of us.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 19 by ICANT, posted 05-04-2011 1:25 PM ICANT has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 25 by ICANT, posted 05-04-2011 2:23 PM Rahvin has replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 28 of 1229 (614493)
05-04-2011 4:29 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by ICANT
05-04-2011 2:23 PM


Re: Cause
You;'re making up your own definitions for virtually every term in this discussion, as per usual with you. You use concepts of time and the Universe and existence that no physicist would agree with.
You speak in circles, claiming that existence must have caused existence to exist but existence existed before existence because existence had to have a cause to come from nonexistence and that cause had to exist before existence so that existence could make things exist...
Time is a dimensional component of the Universe where events occur sequentially in the direction of increasing entropy. Time can be represented by a set of numbers that includes only positive values and zero. This can easily be represented by a ray - a line segment where there is a definite beginning, an absolute minimum value, that then stretches off into infinitely larger values. As the distance one travels on that ray increases, from say T=23 to T=57, entropy increases.
Causality is the term used to refer to the fact that each event that occurs in time is preceded by an immediately earlier event. I throw the ball, and afterwards the ball flies through the air. After the ball leaves my hand, it gradually loses upward momentum as gravity acts against it, and eventually the ball falls back to the ground, where it bounces along and comes to a stop. There is a clear progressive chain of events, one after the others, in time, in the direction of increasing entropy.
Causality requires time. Causality makes no sense with only the spacial dimensions - entropy only changes over time, not distance. The spacial location of causes and effects is limited only by the speed of light, in that no event can have an effect that breaks c. The total entropy of the Universe is identical at all spacial locations for a given value of time. Causality has no meaning without an increase in entropy. An increase in entropy requires movement in time. Therefore, causality has no meaning without time.
We keep telling you that time is a subset that includes only positive numbers, and you keep on demanding that we explain what came before zero. You've wrapped this same idiotic notion behind a variety of Biblical hoobyjoo and bullshit, you've repeated yourself often enough and stupidly enough that no cosmology thread you initiate can ever wind up in the science forums any more, and you refuse to acknowledge anything that anyone else says because it would require you acknowledging that you have no fucking idea what the hell you're talking about. You've been told the same things from laypersons like myself as well as actual physicists like cavediver and son goku, and you still arrogantly proclaim that you somehow know the truth of things rather than accepting the word of an actual expert in the field.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 25 by ICANT, posted 05-04-2011 2:23 PM ICANT has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 31 by ICANT, posted 05-04-2011 5:20 PM Rahvin has not replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 39 of 1229 (614640)
05-05-2011 2:50 PM
Reply to: Message 38 by ScientificBob
05-05-2011 2:32 PM


Re: Cause
The result of this is that I have NO CLUE what your position is.
ICANT's position is that the Bible is inerrant. The rest is apologetic window dressing.
He just throws around synonymous translations of Biblical passages that were very clearly never intended to convey any cosmological meaning, mixes it with some actual physics terminology that he doesn't quite understand, and some misquoted and out-of-context quote mines from famous physicists like Hawking.
The result is a lot of almost-philosophical mumbo-jumbo apologetic word-salad. He's not trying to find out how the Universe actually works, he's trying to find justification for his existing beliefs - some interpretation of physics and the Bible that allows him to justify what he already believes to be true.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 38 by ScientificBob, posted 05-05-2011 2:32 PM ScientificBob has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 40 by arachnophilia, posted 05-05-2011 3:12 PM Rahvin has replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 41 of 1229 (614654)
05-05-2011 4:47 PM
Reply to: Message 40 by arachnophilia
05-05-2011 3:12 PM


Re: Cause
he doesn't understand why his "translations" show about as much comprehension as those of ronald pegg, who found CD-ROMs and time machines in the bible by replacing words with synonyms and ignoring grammar and usage.
It's a natural consequence of looking for evidence to support your own pet hypothesis rather than letting the evidence dictate your model of reality. If some combination of synonyms lets him pick a specific English word that carries additional meaning that the original Greek/Hebrew/whatever could never have intended, he can allow himself to continue believing whatever it is that he already believes.
He's stuck. He can't change his mind. He can't learn. He can't improve. Every experience that he thinks involves him learning is really just another false epiphany that allows him to go on believing what he already believed in the first place.
On the positive side, he functions as an excellent warning on how that mode of thought, seeking confirmation of beliefs rather than forming, modifying and even discarding beliefs based on new evidence, is an intellectual dead end.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 40 by arachnophilia, posted 05-05-2011 3:12 PM arachnophilia has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 42 by PaulK, posted 05-05-2011 4:57 PM Rahvin has not replied
 Message 43 by arachnophilia, posted 05-05-2011 5:01 PM Rahvin has not replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 51 of 1229 (614756)
05-06-2011 12:25 PM
Reply to: Message 47 by ICANT
05-06-2011 10:36 AM


Re: Cause
Does Stephen Hawking in this lecture which I quoted, say:
"the universe has not existed forever"?
"it had a beginning"?
"Yet it is now taken for granted"?
If the universe has not existed forever that means it had to begin to exist.
No, it doesn't. We've gone over this with you multiple times.
"the universe has not existed forever"?
"it had a beginning"?
"Yet it is now taken for granted"?
Yes and no. Time, the defining factor of that "forever" word, is part of the Universe. The other "parts" of the Universe have existed at every moment of time. Time has an absolute minimum value - there is no "before" T=0 any more than there is a location farther North than the North Pole, so the Universe has not existed for infinite time, but the Universe has existed for all of time, because time is part of the Universe.
If the universe has not existed forever that means it had to begin to exist.
There is no moment in time that the Universe did not exist.
When something "begins" in the way you are using the term, you can refer to one point in time where the thing in question does not exist, and another point in time where it does. At some point in time between the two, the thing had a "beginning."
That's not the case with the Universe, because time, the very dimension that allows such concepts as causality and beginnings and endings, is part of the Universe. Every point in time contains the entirety of the Universe; there is no alternate point in time where the Universe does not exist. It did not have a "beginning" in the way that you use the term; instead, there is simply an absolute minimum value to the dimension of time.
You're still trying to fit the Universe into the intuitive experience of a human being. The Universe doesn't play by your rules, it doesn't have to make intuitive sense to you, English words are imprecise because they aren't mathematics, and just as with the Bible you seek an interpretation of the words used that allows you to continue to believe in a nonsensical, baseless bullshit model of the Universe.
You don't know what you're talking about, you don't know what Hawking is talking about, you don't know what cavediver is talking about, you don't even know what I'm talking about, and in a massive demonstration of hubris you claim to know exactly what all of us are saying when we keep telling you that you're getting it wrong every single time. You're like a kid in school who flunks every test and somehow still thinks he has a firm grasp of the material! And then tries to tell the teacher he's wrong!
What is wrong between your ears, old man?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 47 by ICANT, posted 05-06-2011 10:36 AM ICANT has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 59 by ICANT, posted 05-06-2011 1:13 PM Rahvin has replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 60 of 1229 (614791)
05-06-2011 1:28 PM
Reply to: Message 59 by ICANT
05-06-2011 1:13 PM


Re: Cause
Are you saying I made the quote up and put words in the lecture Stephen Hawking gave?
Not at all. I'm saying you didn't correctly understand his meaning.
I don't care whether the statements are true or false Stephen Hawking did make the statements.
And I don;t dispute that. But let me put this plainly: when Stephen Hawking or any other physicist uses English or other normal spoken language to try to explain cosmology, they are dumbing it down for you and me. They sacrifice a lot of accuracy, knowing that people like you will "interpret" their words with additional meaning, because you and I won't be able to understand the actual, accurate, precise mathematics.
The difference is like an engineer saying "steel is a really strong building material," as compared to the actual, specific and accurate tensile strength of a steel I-beam.
So who is the one relying on their belief system now?
You don't believe what he said is fact so you reject it and translate it to suit yourself.
You're an idiot, ICANT. We have actual physicists on this board who do understand cosmology on the level of the specific, accurate mathematics. When they tell you that you aren't correctly understanding Hawking's words, you should listen.
How can the universe exist in time when time is a part of the universe according to you?
Exactly: the Universe does not exist in time, time is part of the Universe. If it were possible to "look" at the Universe from the "outside," you'd be looking at all of time along with all of the spacial dimensions, all the mass/energy, all of the quantum fields that are our Universe. Time and space are parts of the Universe just like latitude and longitude are parts of a globe - you can't describe the globe "outside" of its latitude or longitude any more than you can describe the Universe "outside" of time or space.
Your concept of the Universe seems to be that the Universe is a collection of "stuff" inside of a container of space and time. That's absolutely false.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 59 by ICANT, posted 05-06-2011 1:13 PM ICANT has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 63 by ICANT, posted 05-06-2011 1:51 PM Rahvin has not replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 61 of 1229 (614793)
05-06-2011 1:32 PM
Reply to: Message 56 by ICANT
05-06-2011 12:54 PM


Re: Cause
So then, why are you still replying to my posts braying like a jackass?
Not to respond for cavediver, but for me...in the Free For All forum, we can get away with showing the lurkers exactly how absurd, stupid, ignorant, and stubborn you and your crackpot ideas actually are. Besides, it's hard to let a crank like you just spout off nonsense like your circular "existence caused everything that exists to come into existence" without mocking you at a minimum.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 56 by ICANT, posted 05-06-2011 12:54 PM ICANT has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 64 by ICANT, posted 05-06-2011 2:00 PM Rahvin has not replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 86 of 1229 (615054)
05-09-2011 8:03 PM
Reply to: Message 85 by ICANT
05-09-2011 7:18 PM


Re: Cause
Which was very acceptable to the clergy of the day. As that gave proof for the need of a creator.
That's jsut the thing, ICANT - it didn't prove that a Creator was needed.
This statement of yours is jsut another perfect example of your line of thinking - when you look at evidence, you start with the conclusion, and seek evidence or interpretations of evidence that allow you to continue to believe that conclusion.
That the Universe had a first moment sounds like it fits with your pre-existing hypothesis that there was a Creator.
You dismiss utterly the other alternatives, and in fact you intellectually avoid arguments that suggest that, despite having a minimum value of time, the Universe may not have had a "beginning" in the way you choose to use the term.
Where is the beginning of the surface of a globe, ICANT? Where does it start, and where does it stop? The North Pole? The South Pole? Paris? Beijing? Dallas? What's farther North than the North Pole? If you stood on the North Pole, and tried to go North, which direction would yo go in?
I know the analogy is lost on you, we've tried it so many times before, and you're just not capable of understanding how causality breaks down when you don't have an earlier point in time than the first moment, a point farther North than the North Pole. But we can at least still point it out for the lurkers.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 85 by ICANT, posted 05-09-2011 7:18 PM ICANT has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 87 by ICANT, posted 05-10-2011 1:36 AM Rahvin has replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 94 of 1229 (615104)
05-10-2011 11:38 AM
Reply to: Message 87 by ICANT
05-10-2011 1:36 AM


Re: Cause
Rahvin writes:
That's jsut the thing, ICANT - it didn't prove that a Creator was needed.
What makes you think the clergy of the day did not believe that science proving to their satisfaction that the universe had a beginning was proof that a creator was required?
Of course some of the clergy then and now think that a minimum value of time "proves" the necessity of a creator.
I said they were wrong, because it proves no such thing.
Rahvin writes:
That the Universe had a first moment sounds like it fits with your pre-existing hypothesis that there was a Creator.
That don't fit my hypothesis. Haven't you ever read any of my posts you have replied too?
In this thread alone I have mentioned multiple times that I believe the universe has always existed in some form.
And yet you continually argue with us about T=0 and the Big Bang. Your hypotheses are always mishmashed and poorly defined, and we wind up discussing the same damned things as the last time, with just about as much success in breaching the impenetrable wall of ignorance that is your thick skull.
In this thread, you've had two main arguments that I can see:
1) God is existence, and existence brought everything that exists into existence.
2) if the Universe had a beginning, there must have been a mechanism that caused it to begin.
The first isn't even a proper thought - it's circular, referencing itself.
The second is your usual cosmology-fail, and it's largely what we've been arguing about, since everyone is just laughing at you over your overuse of the word "existence."
Rahvin writes:
You dismiss utterly the other alternatives, and in fact you intellectually avoid arguments that suggest that, despite having a minimum value of time, the Universe may not have had a "beginning" in the way you choose to use the term.
Hawking says the universe has not always existed but had a beginning.
BBT requires a beginning to exist.
Expansion requires a beginning to exist.
I do not require a beginning to exist.
I do require a beginning to exist of the universe as we observe it today.
You understand neither Hawking nor expansion, because you don;t understand time. How can you possibly understand space-time if you don't even have a minimal layman's comprehension of time as a dimension of the Universe?
Rahvin writes:
Where is the beginning of the surface of a globe,
At the point your finger stops when you move it in the direction of the globe.
Nice dodge, ICANT. You;d think we had never heard that before. You know as well as I that it's an idiotic purposeful misinterpretation of an analogy. The surface of a globe has no boundaries - there is no beginning, no end. You could walk around a globe forever and never find the edge.
Rahvin writes:
I know the analogy is lost on you, we've tried it so many times before, and you're just not capable of understanding how causality breaks down when you don't have an earlier point in time than the first moment, a point farther North than the North Pole. But we can at least still point it out for the lurkers.
Why do you continue to make such a stupid analogy?
You are comparing the earth to the universe.
Can you go to the North Pole or the South Pole? Yes you can.
Can you walk on the surface of the earth? Yes you can.
Can you go to the surface of the Universe? No you can't.
Can you walk on the surface of the Universe? No you can't.
I know you like to use a balloon with ants crawling on the surface or dots on the surface and say that is an analogy of the universe.
The universe is nothing like the surface of a baloon with dots or ants on it.
In the balloon analogy the objects move away from each other in two directions but in the universe objects move away from each other in three directions.
Now if you had a big pile of dough and put raisins in the dough and baked it causing the dough to expand the raisns will move apart from each other in all three directions.
That is a decent analogy of the universe as that is what we observe in the universe.
So clean up your act and quit telling people how stupid they are because you can not explain your stupid analogy.
God Bless,
You're an unabashed idiot, ICANT. Those are all various analogies we've tried to use to help you understand the nature of the Universe, expansion, the Big Bang, and the first moments of time and the implications for causality.
Your reaction, rather than trying to understand what we try to tell you, is to call the analogies "stupid."
No wonder you can't understand what we tell you - you're like a 13-year old in school who, when presented with material he thinks might require a little effort to understand, calls it "stupid" and dismisses it.
How old are you again? I would have thought you'd have left those years behind an awful long time ago.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 87 by ICANT, posted 05-10-2011 1:36 AM ICANT has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 100 by ICANT, posted 05-10-2011 2:11 PM Rahvin has not replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 106 of 1229 (615146)
05-10-2011 5:15 PM
Reply to: Message 105 by ICANT
05-10-2011 3:45 PM


Re: OP
ICANT writes:
Hi All,
In the OP I presented the following:
ICANT writes:
The question is:
Is existence responsible for bringing into existence all that exists?
If not, then what is responsible for bringing into existence all that exists.
I will ask the questions in this form.
1. Has the universe existed eternally?
OR
2. Did the universe begin to exist?
Yes...to both.
The problem ICANT, that we;ve been trying to explain to you forever, is that the two are not mutually exclusive.
The Universe has existed for all of time, because time is part of the Universe. Therefore it is eternal.
Time has a minimum value. In a sense this means that the Universe had a "beginning."
At no point in time did the Universe not exist - suggesting so would be like suggesting that there is a latitude on a globe where the globe does not exist. Yet just like the direction North on a globe, time has a minimum value, beyond which the direction (into the past, or North) no longer applies.
3. If the universe began to exist, can you present a mechanism whereby that process would take place?
Why is it a "process?" Why must there be a "mechanism?" Is it not possible that existence is the default state, that the Universe MUST exist in some form? What could precede the existence of the Universe if time is part of the Universe and thus there is no time dimension for a preceding event to occur?
Is there anyone here at EvC that is willing to put their bias aside and answer these questions with supporting evidence or argumentation?
Some have expressed exasperation at the course the discussion is taking. But there has been very little attention paid to the topic of the OP.
So lets discuss the 3 questions above.
God Bless,
We have discussed them.
Endlessly. I'm repeating myself in my response above, even - we've gone over this before, and you act as if nobody ever responds to you.
You've just been too incompetent to understand what anyone has said.
You can ask the questions as many times as you like, ICANT. You still won't get the answers your looking for, because those answers would be wrong.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 105 by ICANT, posted 05-10-2011 3:45 PM ICANT has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 107 by GDR, posted 05-10-2011 5:37 PM Rahvin has not replied
 Message 109 by 1.61803, posted 05-10-2011 5:56 PM Rahvin has not replied
 Message 110 by cavediver, posted 05-10-2011 6:28 PM Rahvin has replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 111 of 1229 (615154)
05-10-2011 6:50 PM
Reply to: Message 110 by cavediver
05-10-2011 6:28 PM


Re: OP
cavediver writes:
Time has a minimum value. In a sense this means that the Universe had a "beginning."
Just to stress the point: it may not have a minimum value. The Universe could be past-infinite as some modern extended "theories" suggest. But if the Universe is past-finite, then all that you say carries through. Of course, there are more exotic possibilities that aren't adequately covered by either of these two options
I'm familiar with the "Big Crunch" hypothesis, which would in a way be past-infinite, though ti thought that had been discounted through the observation that the expansion of the Universe seems to be speeding up.
Are there other past-infinite hypotheses? Is the finite-past model still the predominant one, or is something else considered more likely?
Unlike ICANT, I'll actually listen to what you say

This message is a reply to:
 Message 110 by cavediver, posted 05-10-2011 6:28 PM cavediver has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 112 by cavediver, posted 05-11-2011 3:30 AM Rahvin has not replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 114 of 1229 (615208)
05-11-2011 12:25 PM
Reply to: Message 113 by ICANT
05-11-2011 12:11 PM


Re: OP
Why is it necessary to have more than the three dimensions we observe in the universe?
Why is space required when what we call space has to be filled with what is called dark energy, and dark matter?
Why do we need time when existence is all that is required?
Is any life form other than man concerned with what we call time?
Are you seriously suggesting that "time" is a concept of the human mind, and isn't real? That it only "exists" because human beings use natural cycles to measure it?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 113 by ICANT, posted 05-11-2011 12:11 PM ICANT has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 115 by ICANT, posted 05-11-2011 1:42 PM Rahvin has replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 117 of 1229 (615223)
05-11-2011 2:43 PM
Reply to: Message 115 by ICANT
05-11-2011 1:42 PM


Re: OP
ICANT writes:
Hi Rahvin,
Rahvin writes:
Are you seriously suggesting that "time" is a concept of the human mind, and isn't real? That it only "exists" because human beings use natural cycles to measure it?
I am seriously suggesting that "time" is a concept of the human mind that we have invented to measure duration in existence.
Existence is all that is necessary.
Yet here:
Why is it necessary to have more than the three dimensions we observe in the universe?
Why is space required when what we call space has to be filled with what is called dark energy, and dark matter?
Why do we need time when existence is all that is required?
Is any life form other than man concerned with what we call time?
you seem to draw a distinction between time and the spacial dimensions. You've done so elsewhere in this thread as well.
Time is an integral part of the Universe, just as with the spacial dimensions, or the total mass of the Universe.
We sometimes do give locations with only spacial dimensions...but only when the time component is understood to be "currently." I can give my spacial coordinates right now...but in an hour, they will be different. Time is absolutely important in locating a specific point in the Universe. Without time, the spacial coordinates mean nothing - it would be like telling you my longitude without telling you my latitude, you'd have almost no idea where I actually am.
I'm sure we could go deeper into why time is relevant by using relativity, but just knowing that you can't locate an object without all four dimensions should be enough for our purposes here.
Time isn't just a human construction. Its a dimension, as real as length or width or height. The Earth's rotation and other natural cycles are some of the ways that we measure time, but just as with a ruler measuring length, the dimension is real and present regardless of whether we measure it or not. The measurement, the units of seconds, minutes, inches, meters, are all human constructs used to represent the physically real dimensions.
If our human consciousness were not bound by requiring increasing entropy to run the electrochemical reactions that make up our minds, time would look exactly the same to us as the spacial dimensions.
The Universe is not "made of" matter and dark matter and dark energy, contained by the spacial dimensions.
The Universe is the sum total of all of its mass (some of which takes the form of matter, some of which is energy, etc) and the dimensions of space and time (and possibly a few others as well).

This message is a reply to:
 Message 115 by ICANT, posted 05-11-2011 1:42 PM ICANT has replied

Replies to this message:
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