Translator:

I'd like to comment on your above post, per TIME, but the board seems to be in pandemonium, and my post to you will have to wait...

Translator,

I think we're pretty close to agreement on this issue. Thanks for the discussion. Who'd've thought such conversation would take place on a Ray Bradbury site? Then again, most everything seems to be discussed here so maybe I shouldn't be surprised.

Best,

Pete

It's very on-topic. Ray wrote a lot about time in many different aspects.

No problem at all. That's what I'm here for, discussion.
If some of you wish to pursue this further, read up on the physics of supermassive objects, on causality, and a bit on the theory of language (ie, Russel and the Vienna circle).

Cheers, Translator

Regarding the possibility of predicting the future...

It seems as though many comments about "predicting the future" are based largely--if not solely--on merely observing past behavior, i.e., the Venus transit. I can tell you today without hesitation the future of Old Faithful tomorrow. See? That's elementary.

Unforeseen Events, however, are the kicker. They are unattached and wholly separate from observed behavior. It is they which make the future impossible to predict.

Old Faithful will follow its schedule tomorrow (I've just predicted the future), provided a large meteorite does not drop from the heavens and plug it up (oops...looks like I haven't predicted it at all).

I think of time as being an infinite whole - like space. It is often though of as linear but I think it may be three dimensional - like space. Coexisting with space with no beginning and no end. I had cereal for breakfast yesterday, today I had fruit. I walked across the room to this computer. The other side of the room is still there I just moved away from it, yesterday is still there I just moved away from it. I can travel back to the other side of the room, yes - but just because I can't go back to breakfast yesterday (because I'm just not built to do so like I'm not built to hear colors) doesn't mean it is gone. It's still there and always will be. Psychics may just have a sort of abnormality that enables them to remember the future a bit.

I don't know.

[This message has been edited by From Greentown Illinois (edited 06-30-2004).]

I still like the idea, like in the book of 'The Revelation'. John, on the island of Patmos, is not predicting the future. He's looking at it.

It's one of those arguments FOR predestination.

It's like the story of the fellow, Jake, when he was young, who used to walk by this very ancient building near where he lived, which had on a doorway above it a sign that read, 'Enter Ye and be Saved!'

Well, as Jake grew older, he would often pass that doorway by, and somedays he would feel like just going in and seeing what it was all about, but might wind-up being distracted by something pressing at the moment. Other times he would just stand by the door and wonder about what it could possibly mean. And then there were days when he wouldn't give it a look, and would go on with his life.

Well, one afternoon, right smack in middle age, Jake, on a spur of the moment as he passed by the ancient building, decided to walk in the door and look around. And he did that, at exactly, 2:15 PM, on one specific date and year ...the same time, date and year, which was chisleled onto an ancient welcome sign bearing his name, that appeared 'inside' the building, just above the door.


[This message has been edited by Nard Kordell (edited 06-30-2004).]

"Time keeps on slipping, slipping into the future" -Steve Miller Band

"Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?" -Chicago

"It's a sign of the times"

"time out !"

Inkiling - your rebuttal was already answered. Read the posts about the Venus Transit again.

Cheers, Translator

"Keeping time, time, time,
In sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation
that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells bells."

Edgar Allen Poe


AND

"Time, time, time see what's become of me."

Simon and Garfunkel

[This message has been edited by Green Shadow (edited 07-02-2004).]

Thyme Sorbet:
10 gm or 4x50mm sprigs fresh thyme
2 tbl lemon juice
500 ml sugar syrup (qv)
250 ml each water and dry white wine

Method :
Slowly bring the thyme syrup and water to the boil.
Draw off the heat and add the wine.
Cover and leave to cool.
Chill overnight in the fridge add the lemon juice and strain.
Freeze remembering that it will be slowish going because it contains a fair bit of wine.
Serves 6

I like to think of time...
...as a done deal.

Everything sealed in. And all the drama of life unfolding, as proof once and for all for everything to see, what has already been agreed on, accomplished, and permitted.
Once all shown, time ceases, and creation continues again...from where it paused!