Time & Consciousness: Two Faces of One Mystery

QuantumDream (2010)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

In what follows, I suggest that, against most theories of time, there really is an actual present, a now, but that such an eternal moment cannot be found before or after time. It may even be semantically incoherent to say that such an eternal present exists since “it” is changeless and formless (presumably a dynamic chaos without location or duration) yet with creative potential. Such a field of near-infinite potential energy could have had no beginning and will have no end, yet within it stirs the desire to experience that brings forth singularities, like the one that exploded into the Big Bang (experiencing itself through relative and relational spacetime). From the perspective of the eternal now of near-infinite possibilities (if such a sentence can be semantically parsed at all), there is only the timeless creative present, so the Big Bang did not happen some 13 billion years ago. Inasmuch as there is neither time past nor time future nor any time at all at the null point of forever, we must understand the Big Bang (and all other events) as taking place right here and now. In terms of the eternal now, the beginning is happening now and we just appeared (and are always just appearing) to witness it. The rest is all conscious construction; time and experience are so entangled, they need each other to exist.

Links

PhilArchive

External links

  • This entry has no external links. Add one.
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Editorial: Time & Experience: Twins of the Eternal Now?Gregory M. Nixon - 2010 - Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research 1 (5):482-489.
Whitehead & the Elusive Present: Process Philosophy's Creative Core.Gregory M. Nixon - 2010 - Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research 1 (5):625-639.
Did time have a beginning?Henrik Zinkernagel - 2008 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 22 (3):237 – 258.
Simplicity and Why the Universe Exists.Quentin Smith - 1997 - Philosophy 72 (279):125 - 132.
Empty Time and the Eternality of God.Don Lodzinski - 1995 - Religious Studies 31 (2):187 - 195.
Why Does Time Pass?Bradford Skow - 2011 - Noûs 46 (2):223-242.
Did the big Bang have a cause?Quentin Smith - 1994 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 45 (2):649-668.
Education and the Concept of Time.Leena Kakkori - 2013 - Educational Philosophy and Theory 45 (5):571-583.
Time and Experience.Peter K. McInerney - 1991 - Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Analytics

Added to PP
2012-09-06

Downloads
4,680 (#1,137)

6 months
225 (#9,354)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Gregory Michael Nixon
Louisiana State University (PhD)

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references