Can God Speed Up Time? Does He Learn through fast simulation?

[Guest mormonmusic]

I was doing a computer simulation the other day, and I was able to simulate the working of a factory over 5 years using an Excel spreadsheet. I was able to simulate orders, inventory quantities and draw conclusions about basic operating parameters. And based on certain assumptions I made about probabilities of certain events happening, I was able to essentially make 5 years or production happen in about 5 minutes.

This got me thinking -- is this perhaps why a Thousand years is like a day to Heavenly Father? Is it possible that he has the ability to speed up time, so that he's really on the same 24-hour schedule we're on, but has learned to speed up the events of his creations?

And does the fact that there are so many lines of human evolution (including ape-like ones) represent experimentatiion with learning how to create man, perhaps in an environment where key variables, such as environment, physical characteristics, and social dimensions are being manipulated to eventually learn the right combination of attributes that allow man to subdue and conquer the earth? We know that God progressed to his current perfect state just as we are now. And part of progression involves making mistakes and experimentation until we acquire perfect knowledge.

I realize there are no answers, necessarily, but the thought was intriguing to me, that perhaps God uses similar methods to control time.....Comments, while resisting the urge to poke fun about such an outside the box concept?

Edited June 13, 2010 by mormonmusic

[Hemidakota]

I believe, if we can stimulate and simulate various models for a quantifiable outcome, I do not see why GOD or HIS servants cannot do the same. Having thousands and thousands of worlds as a previous testbed, it would not be to hard to come up with a probability equation before this earth was even form.

http://cs.byu.edu/files/Honored_Alumni_talk_Steve_Church.pdf

http://emp.byui.edu/SATTERFIELDB/PDF/Creation%20RMN.pdf

Edited June 13, 2010 by Hemidakota

[Moksha]

Perhaps God is into non-linear time.

[LocalFarms]

I believe we as humans PERCIEVE time to be linear but G_d is not bound by the same perceptions.

[Guest mormonmusic]

Perhaps God is into non-linear time.

Can you define what you mean by "non-linear time"?

[Justice]

If we hold the LDS idea that God Himself is part of an eternal family, and His roots stem back to infinity, then this method of creation and exalting His children was taught to Him, and not learned by experimentation. He carrys with Him all the wisdom and experience of an eternal family of man.

The idea that Christ is not just a person, but a philosophy and method of bringing salvation to children, would mean He chose this method in a pre-earth, earth, and post-earth life and therefore would only need to be taught the execution of this eternal method.

[Guest mormonmusic]

If we hold the LDS idea that God Himself is part of an eternal family, and His roots stem back to infinity, then this method of creation and exalting His children was taught to Him, and not learned by experimentation. He carrys with Him all the wisdom and experience of an eternal family of man.

.

I don't know about this -- as a teacher, you find that students don't always listen to your advice. You can tell them the way things are, and methods that work, and still don't listen -- I find this happens in Senior Projects where the students have more self-direction to produce some deliverable, rather than in a sheer theoretical classroom where they solve problems for points.

On complex matters, each person needs to learn within the context of their own experience, and often, this means experimenting with what they know, making mistakes, drawing conclusions, and then starting over again.

In various callings I had, it was that way. I had a manual, High Councilor and a Bishop to guide me, and often their ideas just didn't work for me given my own philosophies or variances in the brethren I had to work with at the time. When I finally got effective, my methods were a synthesis of all I had learned from everyone.

Perhaps you saw the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer". The movie culminates with a chess match where a chess prodigy is battling a gifted finalist. No teacher, no mentor or guide could intervene in this boy's game. He had to do it himself. The teaching was over.

A key scene for me was that he employed a strategy that was a synthesis of all he had learned from former mentors and teachers (parents, chess master teacher, amateur players, etcetera). And it all worked together to make him a winner.

Certain truths need to be internalized to be eternal, so I'm not convinced that you can just be "taught" and then run with it.

And then, there's the concept of eternal progression. Is it possible that God is still progressing, and that subsequent worlds are in IMPROVEMENT on the world we live in now>? Is it possible that God may well learn from this experience of creating Earth, and improve upon the structure of our mortal experience, the Fall, and the principles of the gospel He teaches, to lead to a higher proportion of saved souls upon final judgment, while still maintaining free agency? Could not this earthly experience now be simply another experiment and represent God's own progression as a Creator and Father?

Edited June 13, 2010 by mormonmusic

[TheAngelPalmoni]

God doesn't Learn anymore, and I don't think he needed a hyperbolic time chamber to become an all knowing GOD.

[Justice]

Perhaps you saw the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer".

That's one of my favorite movies. What struck me was that he exibited behavior that neither coach taught him, but that he learned from his mother... compassion.

In any case, I see your point, but I recognize it as one looking from this side of the veil. From the other side of the veil, where perfection and righteousness will reign (for all those who will have children of their own, and therefore even NEED this information) I don't see this as being their attitude or method. They will be taught the methods by perfected, glorious beings. Future parents will be willing to learn instead of trying to find their own way (like parents and people do while in this mortal existence).

[Justice]

Can you define what you mean by "non-linear time"?

I would say it means God does not use time to reckon His activities with, but His activities are used to reckon time. He puts time in motion when He creates new physical worlds in order to bring about His eternal purposes.

Time is a tool He uses, not something that He is subject to. He is not bound by any time contraints, since He lives in eternity.

[Hemidakota]

Can you define what you mean by "non-linear time"?

Good luck with that one...

[Hemidakota]

If we hold the LDS idea that God Himself is part of an eternal family, and His roots stem back to infinity, then this method of creation and exalting His children was taught to Him, and not learned by experimentation. He carrys with Him all the wisdom and experience of an eternal family of man.

The idea that Christ is not just a person, but a philosophy and method of bringing salvation to children, would mean He chose this method in a pre-earth, earth, and post-earth life and therefore would only need to be taught the execution of this eternal method.

I do believe HIS Knowledge is complete to be GOD for this state but for experiences, I believe it is still on going. I do believe every earth is the same play, but fielded with different actors playing the roles. The play always has the same ending but the variations of acting in the play may be experienced slightly differently everytime the play is reacted.

I totally agree, there is a greater meaning behind in this title called CHRIST we may learn latter as we enter into that realm.

Edited June 14, 2010 by Hemidakota

[GADBabaganoosh]

Time is relative (Time is measured unto man) I don't think that he controls time, but his perception of time is different. And he has had much longer to learn what he's learned. A veritable eternity prior. We're only at the beginning. We always were, but we are at the beginning of being like God is.

[Hemidakota]

I would say it means God does not use time to reckon His activities with, but His activities are used to reckon time. He puts time in motion when He creates new physical worlds in order to bring about His eternal purposes.

Time is a tool He uses, not something that He is subject to. He is not bound by any time contraints, since He lives in eternity.

What is your thoughts concerning Ludlow's postulation?

Time and Eternity

In Latter-day Saint understanding, time and eternity usually refer to the same reality. Eternity is time with an adjective: It is endless time. Eternity is not, as in Platonic and Neoplatonic thought, supratemporal or nontemporal.

In religions where eternity is radically contrasted with time, time is seen as an illusion, or utterly subjective, or an ephemeral episode. God and the higher realities are held to be "beyond." This is still the premise of much classical mysticism, Christian and non-Christian, as it is of absolutistic metaphysics. It is written into many Christian creeds.

But scriptural passages that ascribe eternity to God do not say or imply that God is independent of, or outside of, or beyond time. Nor do they say, with Augustine, that God created time out of nothing. In context they stress that he is everlasting, that he is trustworthy, that his purposes do not fail.

The view that time and eternity are utterly incompatible, utterly irreconcilable, has taxing consequences for theology. If God is supratemporal, for example, he could not have been directly related to the Creation because being out of time-and also beyond space and not subject to change-he could not enter this or any process. Theories of emanation were thus introduced to maintain God as static Being, and intermediaries were postulated as agents of creation, for example, intelligences, hosts, pleromas, etc.

In LDS understanding, God was and is directly involved in creation. The creative act was a process (the book of Abraham speaks of creation "times" rather than of "days"). His influence on creation, then and now, is not seen as a violation of his transcendence or of his glory and dominion but a participative extension of them.

The dogma of a supratemporal eternity led to another set of contradictions in postbiblical thought, the paradoxes of incarnation. The coming of Jesus Christ was recast within the assumptions of Greek metaphysics: God the universal became particular; God the nontemporal became temporal; God, superior to change, changed; God, who created time, now entered it. Most Christian traditions have embraced these paradoxes, but LDS thought has not. In LDS Christology, Jesus was in time before he entered mortality, is in time now, and will be forever.

Whatever the subtleties of the ultimate nature of time, or of scientific postulates on the relativity of time, and of the modes of measuring time, several assurances are prominent features of LDS understanding:

1. Time is a segment of eternity. One may distinguish eternities, long epochs of time, within eternity. Influenced by passages in the writings of Abraham and Enoch, some early LDS leaders speculated on the length of an eternity. One (W. W. Phelps) suggested that time "in our system" began two billion five hundred million years ago (T&S, Vol. 5, No. 24, p. 758). In any case, time itself had no beginning and will have no end.

2. Time unfolds in one direction. It extends rather than repeats precisely. The view of eternal recurrence common in the Far East that leads, for example, to the pessimism of Schopenhauer, is rejected. Worlds and world systems may come and go, as civilizations may rise and fall, but history does not exactly repeat itself. Individual creative freedom modifies the outcomes.

3. Eternity, as continuing time, is tensed: past, present, and future. God himself, eternal in identity, self-existent, and therefore without beginning or end, is nevertheless related to time. At his own supreme and unsurpassable level, he has a past, a present, and a future. Neither he nor his creations can return to or change the past. He has become what he is through eons of time gone by. He is now in relation to, and responsive to, his creations. Response implies time and change.

4. In a cosmic sense, the reckoning of time is according to the rotations of the spheres. It is presumed that God, angels, men, and prophets reckon time differently (see Abr. 3; D&C 130:4). There is some connection between time and space, for example, "one day to a cubit" (see Book of Abraham: Facsimiles From the Book of Abraham, Facsimile 2, Figure 1).

5. The eternal is sometimes contrasted to time as the permanent is contrasted to the transitory. "Every principle proceeding from God is eternal" (TPJS, p. 181). The phrase "for time and eternity" is equivalent to "now and forever." LDS thought is uncommon in the Christian world in its affirmation that intelligence, truth, the "principles of element," priesthood, law, covenants, and ordinances are eternal.

6. Time is occasionally used in scripture as a synonym for mortality. In this sense, the time will come when "time shall be no longer" (D&C 84:100; 88:110). The mortal probation will end. But another segment of measurable existence will follow, namely, the Millennium. Time and eternity also function as place names or situations as in such expressions as "not only here but in eternity," or "the visions of eternity" (heaven). Eternal is also the name of God-"Endless and Eternal is my name"-hence, eternal life is God's life, as it is also everlasting life (HC 1:136; cf. D&C 19:10-12; Moses 1:3; 7:35).

The thesis that God is beyond time has sometimes been introduced to account for God's omniscience or foreknowledge. Only if God is somehow transtemporal, it is argued, can he view past, present, and future as "one eternal now." This position is assumed by much postbiblical theology. But, again, this leads to contradiction: What will happen in the infinite future is now happening to God. But "now" and "happening" are temporal words that imply both duration and change. For Latter-day Saints, as for the Bible, God's omniscience is "in time." God anticipates the future. It is "present" before him, but it is still future. When the future occurs, it will occur for the first time to him as to his creatures. The traditional concept of "out-of-time" omniscience does not derive either from the Old or the New Testament but is borrowed from Greek philosophy.

Bibliography

Kenney, Anthony. "Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom." In Aquinas, pp. 255-70. Garden City, N.Y., 1967.

Robson, Kent E. "Omnipotence, Omnipresence, and Omniscience in Mormon Theology." In Line Upon Line: Essays on Mormon Doctrine, ed G. J. Bergera. Salt Lake City, 1989.

KENT E. ROBSON

[MarginOfError]

My guess would be that he uses this:

[Hemidakota]

I see X moe...

[Hemidakota]

Getting back to the "non-linear time" issue, here is thought given by Robert Burton [bYU Studies, vol. 20 (1979-1980] talks about the various differences of observation points and scriptures evidence that there are macroscopic physical dimensions outside of the 3D-time continuum in which we appear to reside [stated by the web owner]. Remember, this paper was not scanned at BYU. I am grateful for this website owner scanned the documents. I have it in soft copy but to add it to the site may require some pages. Do a quick review and see what can be a positive or a negative learning from the paper.

Some thoughts on higher dimensional realms | Adventures in Mormonism

PDF version: http://adventures-in-mormonism.com/wp-content/20.3BurtonWebster.pdf

Edited June 14, 2010 by Hemidakota

[Dr T]

I do not think God learns anything, He knows and does not lack any knowledge whatsoever.

[Justice]

Hemi, if you imagine what it must be like in eternity, you have to stop short of thinking about infinity, because our minds just can't reach that far. So, I guess it's impossible for us to imagine what it might be like. Yet, I've seen glimpses of what it must be like, and how time is viewed.

What is time? We measure it by how long it takes the earth to revolve around the sun.

We age and decay. We die. In this life, things have an end.

This measurement of the earth's revolving and this death we see go hand in hand to help formulate our understanding of what we think time is.

Let's say we're living on the sun, and the solar system revolves around us, and then let's say we are immortal and will not age, decay, or die.

What is time then? Death can no longer be used to aid our definition.

Planetary movement can be, but which do we choose? It can be whatever we choose. Do we choose the earth as a measuring stick? Or, do we use Saturn? The amount of "existence" that transpires would be different, but it wouldn't matter if we are eternal.

Let me say it another way.

We go to work based on the time of day. "I have to be at work at 7:00 and I get off at 3:00." Time governs our activities.

When God created the heaven and earth, time was dictated by His actions. God spoke and created something, then said "this is the first day." Then He created for a period and said, "This is the second day." The first and second day didn't have to occupy the same length of existence, and in my opinion they did not. But, as I said in my last post, time is dicted by His actions.

I don't know what time is to an eternal being, but I do know that actions are used to determine time, not the other way around.

God can only measure time by how long it takes Him to accomplish a task. The ultimate being "one eternal round" or the span of existence it takes for Him to have children, and then perfect all of them that can be. That is one eternal round or one generation. Each "eternal round" isn't necessarily a set amount of time, but that "span of existence" (or time) marks the event.

It's hard to wrap your brain around. But, if you can manage to step outside of time in your mind, you can get an idea of what it must be like.

Edited June 14, 2010 by Justice

[Hemidakota]

What is infinity? Now imagine in looking from the outside of the universe, looking within. Infinity is now meaningless and pales the size of our known universe. It was a predicament statement between Ram and I had earlier this month on another post.

Though, Joseph Smith description is accurate from his observational viewpoint [after his vision of D&C 76 – statements made] from where he is standing, I am suspecting our own galaxy was his footstool of viewpoint, looking outwards to the edge of universe may look infinite to him. But seeing the universe on the outside at its boundary, changes the whole perspective regarding to size and what is contained within. Does that make sense?

A reasonable education answer for GOD’s time, noting the pattern is already seen with us, time I suspect for GOD will be governed by HIS FATHER. But to discern it and explain it, we simply don’t have the language or the math for it. It maybe a grandeur super galaxy cluster where even our galaxy is part of this overall structure.

Edited June 15, 2010 by Hemidakota

[Moksha]

I do not think God learns anything, He knows and does not lack any knowledge whatsoever.

Why would we be put to any tests if the outcome was known?

Likewise could God create an immovable obstacle that he could not move?

[Dr T]

Hi Moksha, :)

In answer to your questions:

Why would we be put to any tests if the outcome was known?

Because God knows what the person choose the way they did, to obey or not, does not take away from the person's agency. I don't think God's foreknowledge makes the person's obedience any more or less genuine. Maybe it has a lot to do with the person's reaction to what God laid out to us as a measure of the relationship we have with Him or a measure of the attitude which guide our decision making process. There is something known as Open Theology which holds that God does not know what will happen until it happens. I think God is outside our created time and knows that beginning from the end in the here and now.

Likewise could God create an immovable obstacle that he could not move?

That question is not really worth thinking about as it is sort of a non sequitur or it’s an absurdity because the question really has no meaning. That question answers the question asked. If it is an "immovable obstacle" then why are we asking if it can be moved?

Thanks :)

[GADBabaganoosh]

I think a long time ago, all matter was mashed into one. Then some entity divided by zero, causing the big bang. Now because of that, God needs a bunch of people like him to fix it all again. Which is why we're here becoming like him. What does this have to do with anything? Nothing. I have no idea.

[Hemidakota]

Never knew if we are part of the 'mush' which was derived from the Big Bang...

[mordorbund]

Why would we be put to any tests if the outcome was known?

Do you think there's room in God's omniscience to deal with probablistic outcomes? (Let's have Moses tell Pharaoh to release my people. hmmm... 15% chance of Pharaoh going along with it, so if he doesn't I'll have Moses call down one plague after another. Looks like a 7% chance that Moses won't go along with it so I'll have Aaron come along with a rod and knock some sense into the lot of them...)

Likewise could God create an immovable obstacle that he could not move?

Whenever that happens, I think he usually commands us to move it so we can "grow".