Summations Only

Where in the "left-right" and "up-down" directions does the "forward-back" direction exist?

Then you'd better tell the public more about all those quasi-possibilities and semi-options, Vatican.
What have you got for us up your mathemagical sleeve? What is there apart from absence and presence? Are any sort of quasi-existent objects present in all the quasi-revealed by you dimensions or are they quasi-absent there?

In our universe, the thing that 'began' 13.7 billion years ago. But in the notion I was talking about time can move in both directions in the multiverse, while appearing to move in one in any given universe. I gave you a link to Carroll discussing this notion. Yes, I'm on board with that. Well not quite, it wasn't that time did not exist 'until' the universe began to exist. It's that time exists only in conditions where there is existence, and never when there is notWhat is it about the answer 'it's a dimension', does not describe what kind of 'entity' it is?Why don't you try explaining to me what entity is length, and I might have an understanding of where I might go in my description. OK. I think eternal can have a beginning, too, for the record. It's eternal because it 'goes on forever'. Not because it has an infinite past. It might do, but its not necessary for it to be considered 'eternal', in my view.

Hi Mod, Where do you think I got the quotes from Carroll from? I got them from the link you gave and the specific link in the last paragraph 'eternity'.Quoting Carroll again and adding emphasis:

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There is something of a paradox in the way that cosmologists traditionally talk about the Big Bang. THEY WILL GO TO GREAT EFFORT TO EXPLAIN how the Bang was the beginning of space and time, that there is no before or outside, and that the universe was (conceivably) infinitely big the very moment it came into existence, so that the pasts of distant points in our current universe are strictly non-overlapping. ALL OF WHICH, OF COURSE, IS PURE MOONSHINE. When they choose to be more careful, these cosmologists might say Of course WE DON'T KNOW FOR SURE, BUT... Which is true, but it’s stronger than that: THE TRUTH IS, we have NO good reasons to believe that those statements ARE ACTUALLY TRUE, and SOME PRETTY GOOD REASONS TO DOUBT THEM.

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http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/...-did-the-universe-startI am one who doubts them. Actually time only exists where there is a measurment of duration. The assertion that 'it's a dimension'.What is a dimension?

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In cosmology, the concept of spacetime combines space and time to a single abstract universe. Mathematically it is a manifold consisting of "events" which are described by some type of coordinate system. Typically three spatial dimensions (length, width, height), and one temporal dimension (time) are required.

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A concept is not an entity.

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A concept is a mental symbol, used to denote a class of things in the world.[1][2] Concepts are mental representations that allows us to draw appropriate inferences about the type of entities we encounter in our everyday lives

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A concept is mental representations that exist in the mind. Every entity has length, width, and height. They can be felt, and seen.You did not answer the question, "Could you explain what time is?"An assertion that time is a dimension is not explaning anything.Time is what is used to measure duration of existence.Our present system is based upon a day being the time it takes for the earth to make one rotation in relation to the sun. Mankind has divided that period of duration into hours, minutes. seconds, etc. The amount of duration required for the earth to make 1 revolution around the sun is called a year.Mankind figured out how to build an atomic clock that keeps near perfect time. But every so often it has to be adjusted to match the actual duration of the events, as they vary from the atomic clock.So time measures the duration of existence. From Google:eternal
Adjective:
1.Lasting or existing forever; without end or beginning.Looks like eternal means without beginning or end.God Bless,

Carroll. But I gave two links to Carroll. One where he is discussing the universe that 'began' 13.7 billion years ago. And another where he speculates on something that might have come before the big bang. I was talking about the latter, you were quoting him discussing the former. In the latter - his speculation is intended to resolve the time neutral laws of physics with the directionality of time as we perceive it. You can tell because Carroll said 'observable universe' and I was talking about him discussing a concept before the big bang - which is not presently observable. And I replied that I was happy with it, why the need to quote it again? And for something to have a duration - it must first exist. So that doesn't contradict what I said at all, does it? Are you denying the existence of dimensions? Is height a figment of your imagination? Of course it is. And since it exists, it is an entity that exists. And every entity has duration. What does length feel and look like? Do you mean we can experience length? Because we experience time too. That's one definition. Another is

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lasting or existing forever; without end:

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Why? Huh? Oh, I dunno, I was just offering a hypothetical conjecture. It was about being between absense and presence, did you notice? What? Do you understand at all the exchange that was taking place?

The cat understands that you have no hypothesis to offer. You just vaguely prevaricate and that would be the same in any language. You have neither a statement of facts, nor definitions for the terms the facts are stated with. All you have got is crapola so your semantic complaints are dismissed by the judge.
What is a dimension exactly, Vatican? What is it in aid of? What is the physical function of a dimension? If you do not know think about all the trees destroyed to print similar crapola about extra dimensions and quasi-existences.
Remember, you are not the first to come up with the vapours. Loads of it is already in print by popular demand.

AM - wow ! The irony ! Seriously my friend, you could flatten the Himalayas and use them as a bowling green with that one !You've been using a trial metaphor recently. Ok, I'll adopt that. The guys here have been presenting their evidence and case to date, and we'll say that you've been cross-examining.Let's say now that the time has come for your case to be presented. What is your case AM - what theories and (really, really crucially) what evidence are you presenting for an alternative theory to BB ? Give us a model - give us a theory - give us the evidence - give us your case. What's your alternative theory ? (It would help if you have some math to back it up, but I know that you don't believe that math is the language of physics, so we'll go for a cogently presented and argued competing theory to BB instead).AM - present your case !

Hi Mod, So you are completely in agreement with the statement:
"THE TRUTH IS, we have NO good reasons to believe that those statements ARE ACTUALLY TRUE, and SOME PRETTY GOOD REASONS TO DOUBT THEM." Where did I say length, width, or height was not a dimension?I have said time was not a dimension. But was a concept of man that was developed to measure duration. So if I think you are an idiot for what you believe that makes it an entity. Being a confirmation that you are an idiot since that entity exists in my mind. What is the duration of a 2 x 4, 2 foot long? I can take that 2 x 4 that is 2 foot long and feel the distance from one end to the other as well as see it. No. I mean we can see and feel length, height, and width.You can not feel time nor can you see it. You can see existence in the now. You experience now. You may have experienced 1 second ago, but when you experienced it, it was now. You may experience 1 second from now but when you do it will be now.So explain how you experience time. I find that over 400 years ago the definition of eternal was without beginning or end of existence.God Bless,

Hi Son, Are there more than 3 spatial dimensions?God Bless,

ICANT, That's right, I don't know if its true, but I'm happy to take Carroll's word on it, as it reflects other things I've heard cosmologists talking about and doesn't seem particularly extraordinary. And you didn't need to go through the effort of bolding and capitalising it In that article later on he again discusses the baby universes and arrow of time issues:

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The baby-universe idea at least has the chance to give rise to a spontaneous violation of time-reversal symmetry and explain the arrow of time. If we start with empty space an evolve it forward, baby universes can (hypothetically) be born; but the same is true if we run it backwards. The increase of entropy doesn’t arise from a fine-tuning at one end of the universe’s history, it’s a natural consequence of the ability of the universe to always increase its entropy. We’re a long way from completely understanding such a picture; ultimately we’ll have to be talking about a Hilbert space of wavefunctions that involve an infinite number of disconnected components of spacetime, which has always been a tricky problem. But the increase of entropy is a fact of life, right here in front of our noses, that is telling us something deep about the universe on the very largest scales.

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So why don't you explain to me what makes length a dimension. Duration exists independent of our measurements, just like length does. And they are both 'concepts' at some stage of the process. Your thought is an entity, yes. Show your reasoning? How does your conception of my being an idiot being an entity, make me an idiot?Just because a concept is an entity, it doesn't make it a true concept. Just as you can see that the 2 x 4 has a beginning a middle and an end in time. Obviously, in our region of space time, we travel through time at a near constant rate, whereas we are freer to move in space. So yes, time seems different than space. But duration is measurement of one of the dimensions of an entity, just like its length is. Wait a minute.There you just felt time. That's what time feels like, yes. An excellent example of using temporal coordinates. As you know, we're not having this discussion 400 years ago. Are you criticising me for my own preferred word choice? On the grounds that it is different than some definition you might find 400 years ago. 200 years ago it could mean

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Without end of existence or duration; everlasting; endless; immortal.

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400+ years ago (1604) I find a 'dictionary' that gives this defintion:

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eternall, euerlasting, without end

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Not without beginning.I find other definitions suggesting 'without end' as being a valid use of the word, though some also suggest 'without beginning' too.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Your chosen definition is ambiguous. Does it mean, "lacking both a beginning and an end," as you suggest, or does it mean, "lacking either a beginning or an end"? It does use the word "or", not "and".A line can be infinite at only one end, you know. An infinite timeline could, mathematically at least, have a beginning but no end or an end but no beginning.

Well there is the temporal dimension. Are there any more spatial dimensions? Maybe, maybe not. Most of the theories that predict more are currently untested.

Thanks for the explanation.I understood your previous mention of "quasi-existence" enough to know that it was a valid idea... but your mention of the extra dimensions reminded me of some stuff I had forgotten. It makes even more sense now.

I do not understand the distinction you're attempting to make. What's the difference between invoking eternity or time? Doesn't the use of eternity imply the property of time?If you're attempting to imply some sort of "time-line-like-thing-that-isn't-time-that-extends-beyond-our-universe"... then you are messing it up as I explained. If not, then you'll have to explain what it is you're talking about."Eternity" is a lot more connected to "time" than the word "always" is. The connection to "time" is the problem. When I say time I mean to refer to time. Anything time-related at all.
I'm not sure what you mean by existence, because you don't seem to be using eternity correctly either... so I can't say if you understand me or not.Time is a dimension in which events can be ordered from the past through the present into the future, and also the measure of durations of events and the intervals between them.
Time is not merely an intellectual structure, it is a property of our universe.It can be determined many ways. The most accurate way is to do it with math using data (example: time = distance/velocity). Generally, though, it can be determined with a simple stopwatch for simple observations. Space, matter and energy are not dimensions of the universe.
Time is not an entity like these, it is a dimension of the universe, as explained above.