A question

[lionkingcmsl]

I was wondering about this:

If you have a timeline for an "event" to oocur, but that timeline exceeds the life of the univerese, then could it be said that the event would take "forever", or, as someone else said, is it "transfinite"? Or would said event, although it would happen, be said to never to happen, as no-one, not even the universe, would be around to witness the event?

More thoughts from a lion with too much time on his paws.

Comments

Cats with strings

[plonq.livejournal.com]

If you subscribe to String Theory, and more specifically the Cyclic Universe Theory, then it is technically possible to have events that exceed the time boundaries of our universe in both temporal directions.

[sci.livejournal.com]

Even with the cyclic universe theory, the universe still ends and with no time there's no way to determine a time measurement of how long exists between them. By this the question itself is flawed.

[lowen-kind.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't think the question is flawed.

I wasn't trying to time events between different incarnations of the univerese, but merely asking if something was started "now" and it was calcultaed to take longer than the present universe to complete.

See my next post for a clarification.

[quickcasey.livejournal.com]

You are obviously refering to the schedule I have of completing my project cars.

[welah.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid that in trying to answer this question, I'm getting bogged down in semantics.
What is time?
What is forever?

In my personal view, time is an abstraction of movement. All time "measurement" is based on some sort of movement and speed (which is a function of time), from gears in clocks to the movement of electrons through neurons.
After the universe ends, and before another begins, there could theoretically be a point at which all movement ceases. Without some other standard of measurement, time utterly fails at this point. That "moment" could be called an eternity or an instant, because time does not exist.
That is completely unprovable, of course.
If the former hypothesis is true, I suppose you could say it would take forever, because a period both infinite and zero would be between "now" and "then". But for that matter, you could say it happens "now", as well, since a zero moment of time would be omnichronic, to coin a word: existing at all times.

I don't like that hypothesis, much, though.
I prefer the idea that new universes are spawned from old, not end-to-end, but continually. According to this, our universe could be "birthing" other universes as we speak, universes that would exist in completely separate planes.
In this hypothesis, you could in fact argue an unbroken timeline stretching to infinity in both directions, with a web of universes spawning and dying. You could imagine a sink full of soapy water with the faucet running, bubbles being created and then popping at near-random.
In this model, you would have to specify whether your "event" occurs inside or (somehow?) outside of a "universe bubble". Inside a bubble, each universe has its own timeline, its own rules of how time works. It may not even be the same thing as what we call time. In this case, you can't compare. It's like asking how many inches it takes to fill a litre; they're different measurements, so you can't compare. If your event occurs outside of a universe, then we have a problem, because we don't have a concept for outside a universe. A universe is currently defined as everything ever, so anything that happens, has to happen in it. Of course, that directly violates the idea of multiple universes. This is where language itself starts to break down.
The final possibility would involve a timeline that stretches through all universes, like a thread through our sink full of bubbles. This would take an assumption that time is the same thing in all universes, which I don't have any reason to believe, but we'll try it anyway. In this case, the event does not take forever. It takes a perhaps long, but measurable, quantity of time. It may happen in another universe, but pretending for a moment that you could get there with a working clock, you would eventually be able to declare how long your event took.

My final answer: Good question.

-Welah!

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

My vote is for the latter: you have too much time on your paws. ;)

Have teh best

-=TK

Giving A Shot At This...

[light-lion.livejournal.com]

Actually-

I think the event would never happen. After all, if the “event” exceed the life of the universe, then that would mean it would exceed the time of existence. It theoretically would be incapable of happening as the time things “exist” has stopped.

At least that’s what I think Lowen Shisho. Not sure on what kind of answer you’re expecting.

[camstone.livejournal.com]

The answer typically depends greatly on the theoredical construct you are using.

But, since you have "built" the construct into the problem already (If you have a timeline for an "event" to oocur, but that timeline exceeds the life of the univerese...) - then you have to say that *NEVER* happens.

You can't be a creator, then change the rules in mid-stream.

Well, you can... but, it's typically just not cricket.