This is a thread in which to discuss and share resources on timelessness (aka eternity).
It is motivated by the discussion in the recently(ish) revived thread Dualism or idealist monism as the best model for survival after death data across posts #415, #416, #418, #421, #422, #423, and #424.
The intended sense of timelessness for this thread is that of 'existing "outside Time"' as Sci put it in post #422, and "that of a domain beyond (outside of; not subject to) time" as I put it in post #424. I won't object too strenuously though to discussions about the other canvassed sense of timelessness, that of "existing all the [way] back to the supposed Beginning of a linear temporal progression" as Sci put it (again in post #422), and of being "in general of infinite duration, which could be back into the past, forward into the future, or both" as I put it (again in post #424), nor would I object too strenuously to suggestions of other senses.
Timelessness is relevant to us on Psience Quest for at least two reasons:
Whether this could be an ultimate solution - i.e., avoiding the need for a purely timeless realm - is doubtful, because each timeline would still be subject to the "beginning versus beginningless" conundrum that seems best solved for each by a timeless cause beginning its timeline, thus seeming to need an ultimate grounding in a truly timeless realm without a timeline (lest we run into a meta regress of timelines with beginnings being needed to explain the cause of the beginning of other timelines with beginnings).
I also think that it is worth bringing up that timelessness and multiple timelines are referenced in Episode 3 of The Talk Tracks for The Telepathy Tapes, between 15:08 and 19:08. Here's a transcript, with which I'll end this opening post:
Ky Dickens (host): We have a lot of questions in this space which are about the spellers' gifts. One is about what are some of the spellers'... that, you know... thoughts on time and precognition. I know we talked about this a little bit in the season. I'm sure Casey and... and Susie and Maria, you probably have some very interesting thoughts on this both being you know kind of teachers and therapists in this world.
Casey: Okay, so my student has always told me from the very beginning, like one of the first things he ever said to me is that timing is his thing, and I'm still trying to grasp exactly what that means, but he tries to explain the best he can that he has access to multiple timelines, and he can see future and past on those multiple timelines, and that's just part of his job here, to monitor certain events, help certain events come to fruition - and this is all energetically, but the way that they've explained it to me is that the physical - where we are, in this realm - is almost a reflection of the spiritual realm, so things happen there before they happen here, and the things that he does have a lot to do with time, but at the same time he doesn't experience it the way that we do.
What he has explained to me is that, like, time is not exactly what we think it is. It's not like this fixed thing. It's like our consciousness affects time, and - I don't know, I'm trying to explain this but it's really hard.
[Unknown]: Casey, that's amazing. I'm - I kept hearing something from all the kids around the timeless nature of our being. I kept hearing that particular phrase from, like, one kid after another, and I was like, "Okay what is that?", and then one child came forward and gave me the experience of this timeless nature of being. I have another kid who has written books about time travel, and precognition, and things like that, and so, in many ways I think we have to go directly to them and say, "Okay, we need more information about this; we need to be able to explain this to other people", so - and, I have zero doubt whatsoever that these kids play beyond time and space the way we know time and space. I mean, the very fact that they're not fully engaged in the physical body creates the opportunity for them to be everywhere, nowhere - you know.
Ky: Go ahead Katie [Katy?].
Katie/Katy: Precognition in its simplest forms is knowing of something before it happens. Houston - I found out that he had this great understanding of time. It was actually because of cuckoo clocks. So, he was always obsessed with cuckoo clocks, right - the old mechanical clocks and everything - and whenever he started being able to communicate, and he started telling me what he had seen in heaven, he started talking about time, and how there are these giant gears, and he said there are gears too wonderful to explain. Now what's really interesting about that is, um, is that Einstein actually got his theory of relativity from these big, giant, medieval clocks. So there's something to this, right, there's something about the clocks that's really, really important to understanding time, and when you understand that the way that these mechanical clocks operate is gravity, okay, kind of wind them up and then it uses gravity to actually - and then, the pendulum is the measure of the time, right, so, this is kind of how that it functions. And, he can actually see time moving on people, and he was actually studying - by studying these clocks, he was learning time and gravity.
(This post was last modified: 2025-06-02, 05:04 AM by Laird. Edited 1 time in total.
Edit Reason: Remove video link to eliminate duplicate embedded video
)
It is motivated by the discussion in the recently(ish) revived thread Dualism or idealist monism as the best model for survival after death data across posts #415, #416, #418, #421, #422, #423, and #424.
The intended sense of timelessness for this thread is that of 'existing "outside Time"' as Sci put it in post #422, and "that of a domain beyond (outside of; not subject to) time" as I put it in post #424. I won't object too strenuously though to discussions about the other canvassed sense of timelessness, that of "existing all the [way] back to the supposed Beginning of a linear temporal progression" as Sci put it (again in post #422), and of being "in general of infinite duration, which could be back into the past, forward into the future, or both" as I put it (again in post #424), nor would I object too strenuously to suggestions of other senses.
Timelessness is relevant to us on Psience Quest for at least two reasons:
- Philosophically, metaphysically, and cosmologically (as discussed in those posts): beginningless time is incoherent (because it entails an infinite regress), so it seems that time has a start, implying a timeless cause of that start - a cause from a domain outside of time. Admittedly, this is difficult to make sense of too, because, as I wrote in post #418, "it's not clear how [timelessness] could cause anything in a domain subject to time, let alone time itself". From what little I know of his philosophy, this dichotomy between beginningless time and a beginning to time is at least roughly pointed to by one of Kant's antinomies.
- Mystically, spiritually, and empirically: descriptions of various anomalous experiences, particularly of NDEs, often refer to timelessness: of time not being applicable in the experienced paranormal realm. Admittedly, this is also difficult to make sense of, because these descriptions typically describe events and things happening, which seems to presuppose time.
Whether this could be an ultimate solution - i.e., avoiding the need for a purely timeless realm - is doubtful, because each timeline would still be subject to the "beginning versus beginningless" conundrum that seems best solved for each by a timeless cause beginning its timeline, thus seeming to need an ultimate grounding in a truly timeless realm without a timeline (lest we run into a meta regress of timelines with beginnings being needed to explain the cause of the beginning of other timelines with beginnings).
I also think that it is worth bringing up that timelessness and multiple timelines are referenced in Episode 3 of The Talk Tracks for The Telepathy Tapes, between 15:08 and 19:08. Here's a transcript, with which I'll end this opening post:
Ky Dickens (host): We have a lot of questions in this space which are about the spellers' gifts. One is about what are some of the spellers'... that, you know... thoughts on time and precognition. I know we talked about this a little bit in the season. I'm sure Casey and... and Susie and Maria, you probably have some very interesting thoughts on this both being you know kind of teachers and therapists in this world.
Casey: Okay, so my student has always told me from the very beginning, like one of the first things he ever said to me is that timing is his thing, and I'm still trying to grasp exactly what that means, but he tries to explain the best he can that he has access to multiple timelines, and he can see future and past on those multiple timelines, and that's just part of his job here, to monitor certain events, help certain events come to fruition - and this is all energetically, but the way that they've explained it to me is that the physical - where we are, in this realm - is almost a reflection of the spiritual realm, so things happen there before they happen here, and the things that he does have a lot to do with time, but at the same time he doesn't experience it the way that we do.
What he has explained to me is that, like, time is not exactly what we think it is. It's not like this fixed thing. It's like our consciousness affects time, and - I don't know, I'm trying to explain this but it's really hard.
[Unknown]: Casey, that's amazing. I'm - I kept hearing something from all the kids around the timeless nature of our being. I kept hearing that particular phrase from, like, one kid after another, and I was like, "Okay what is that?", and then one child came forward and gave me the experience of this timeless nature of being. I have another kid who has written books about time travel, and precognition, and things like that, and so, in many ways I think we have to go directly to them and say, "Okay, we need more information about this; we need to be able to explain this to other people", so - and, I have zero doubt whatsoever that these kids play beyond time and space the way we know time and space. I mean, the very fact that they're not fully engaged in the physical body creates the opportunity for them to be everywhere, nowhere - you know.
Ky: Go ahead Katie [Katy?].
Katie/Katy: Precognition in its simplest forms is knowing of something before it happens. Houston - I found out that he had this great understanding of time. It was actually because of cuckoo clocks. So, he was always obsessed with cuckoo clocks, right - the old mechanical clocks and everything - and whenever he started being able to communicate, and he started telling me what he had seen in heaven, he started talking about time, and how there are these giant gears, and he said there are gears too wonderful to explain. Now what's really interesting about that is, um, is that Einstein actually got his theory of relativity from these big, giant, medieval clocks. So there's something to this, right, there's something about the clocks that's really, really important to understanding time, and when you understand that the way that these mechanical clocks operate is gravity, okay, kind of wind them up and then it uses gravity to actually - and then, the pendulum is the measure of the time, right, so, this is kind of how that it functions. And, he can actually see time moving on people, and he was actually studying - by studying these clocks, he was learning time and gravity.
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