Here are some things that I consider to be a paradox:

Time is linear, but it’s always now. = paradox

Eternity implies no beginning and no end. = paradox

The world is an illusion, but the world is real. When you look close enough matter does not exist. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics says there exists no objective physical reality other than that which is revealed through measurement and observation. = paradox

The Universe is infinite, but what’s outside of it? = paradox

Where are we and the Earth using the scale of infinity? = paradox

I like to get confirmation from at least three different sources: people, books, videos or audios, etcetera before fully integrating things into my understanding.

After many years of inquiring into The Big Stuff, whichever way I look I run into paradox. I am comfortable with the idea that paradox is normal, at least from my current perspective and understanding, but what do you think?

asked 27 Nov '09, 09:10

Eddie's gravatar image

Eddie
20.9k12368


Some of these I don't consider paradoxes for example where are we in infinity? We are here now at the center always. If time and space continue on forever then we are at the center. In the consideration of forever any inquiring being anywhere in the universe is at the center.

Now all time is now and we live in determinism, that is a big paradox that I have been trying to resolve, trying hard to figure out how the two fit together. Unless NOW is the only time and past and future do not exist ohhhhhhhh wow I think I just solved it!!!!! That does make sense as so many times for healing over past wounds I had to convince myself the past is gone it doesn't exist, but as well for determinism to work the future is blank it equally does not exist. Now all time is NOW fits exactly with the Law of Determinism! Wow that is so cool, I am sorry I am not bragging I was just enlightened writing this.

Okay now on to look at some more of your paradoxes

Eternity has no beginning or ending, that is a concept so it can't like space it is just there it always was always will be. Now if used as a time frame like I am going to launch this rocket on a straight path up out of the Milky-way into blank space, it would supposedly travel forever if it never ran into any debris which that is very possible considering how vast space is compared to matter in space.

The universe is infinite but what is outside of it, outside of infinity, infinity is forever so where is there room beyond forever? Now if as science likes to say the universe is on a curve and that is why it is forever then we can ponder what is beyond the curve?

I think paradoxes can be resolved but it does take a lot of pondering and a will to look at things in other ways than we are perhaps used to, including new interpretations of things you thought meant one thing but now can clearly see could mean something else entirely opposite.

Paradoxes are great meditation tools though this was very revealing to me thanks! :-D

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answered 27 Nov '09, 10:49

Wade%20Casaldi's gravatar image

Wade Casaldi
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edited 27 Nov '09, 11:11

Nice answers. I'm pleased that you got something from this interaction.

Yes, I am open to the idea that paradoxes can be resolved as one's perspective changes.

By observing that all time is now, are you saying that time is fixed in place and it is we who move through time?

If each of us is at the center of our Universe, it implies that an infinite number of Universes exist, right?

Finally, if everything really is illusion, the question of paradox doesn’t really come up :-)

(01 Dec '09, 01:30) Eddie

I just wrote a big answer and it said I had to characters left I posted it only to see the message you are only allowed 600 characters then saw my reply deleted right before my eyes!

(01 Dec '09, 05:28) Wade Casaldi

I am enjoying this conversation very much, I wouldn't say time is fixed as much as non-existent. It is a standard to measure distance traveled or to be traveled in space so it is more of a human measuring tape like a tool we created. If you think of something every second passed does not exist anymore, what is present? lets go to the pico second still every pico second is gone that is I believe a billionth of a second, but that can be divided to infinity.

(01 Dec '09, 05:34) Wade Casaldi

No one universe forever infinite space ending never, take any point in that space as a point of location and go out ward in six directions up, down, right, left, front, back. and if you traveled a billion light years outward in all 6 directions, whatever is at the center of all those points is still at the canter of all those points. In infinity everywhere is center, the same with eternity pick any location and it is center.

(01 Dec '09, 05:40) Wade Casaldi

The interesting thing about if everything is illusion is we can not even measure what is present because we can go down to billions of billions of billions of a second and still could keep going forever and never find an answer to what is present? That is mind blowing because if we can not find present and everything is constantly moving into past and future we are constantly moving into then he only we can say really exist is thought. Think on that one a bit WOW!

(01 Dec '09, 05:46) Wade Casaldi

last part of that then the only thing we can say really exist is thought.

(01 Dec '09, 05:47) Wade Casaldi

ahhhh typos typos typos! I just noticed up above that sound have said two characters! lol

(01 Dec '09, 05:50) Wade Casaldi

should not sound lol I am off today with these typos!

(01 Dec '09, 05:51) Wade Casaldi

Yes, an enjoyable co-created inquiry. If time is non-existent it is therefore out of the equation. Then there is only now, so everything exists now, including all events, past present and future. Meaning that linear time never existed and is a man made concept as you say. Furthermore, now we are left with an already completed Universe, so it still seems like a paradox to me.

(02 Dec '09, 13:35) Eddie

If everything is illusion and we understand that, why bother trying to measure something that we know is not there? In the understanding that reality is illusion, we already know that matter does not exist and that there really is only thought, as you discovered. Now we can imagine anything we want and know that what we imagine must manifest, albeit an illusion. Now we can enjoy our illusions without worry or fear knowing that nothing is really real, which is cool...

(02 Dec '09, 13:36) Eddie

Oh, of course, creating through thought and imagination doesn’t tie in with an already created Universe, unless everything potentially exists and becomes activated by imagination. That’s it, we’ve co-cracked it and it feels good... Unless of course I’m on crack, but who knows, maybe that feels good as well :-)

(02 Dec '09, 13:37) Eddie

I think our answers lay in what quantum physics is discovering, we have moved through Nuton physics into Einstein physics and now to Quantum and each seems like we are discovering that what was wrote in the the ancient Hindu text fits that reality is just a dream. It would explain how God created everything from thought as it says in the Bible everything came from the Word.

(02 Dec '09, 19:52) Wade Casaldi

Amen to that :-)

(03 Dec '09, 02:25) Eddie

I am sorry to post a reply in an already amened discussion, but if only thing that really exist is thought, then maybe thought is God? And everyting that exists is God? I think you've just discovered the main truth about he world!

(16 Jun '10, 15:40) Asklepios

@Asklepios. No need to apologise. If someone posts an even better answer, then the accepted answer can be changed...

(16 Jun '10, 15:55) Eddie

Yes I agree Asklepios.

(17 Jun '10, 01:47) Wade Casaldi
showing 2 of 16 show 14 more comments

I am reminded of Arthur C Clarke's famous quote about technology here:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Arthur C. Clarke, "Profiles of The Future", 1961 (Clarke's third law)

Is this not the same principle at work regarding paradoxes? i.e. what causes the paradox is our lack of understanding (or ability to perceive from this physical plane) rather than paradox itself being some kind of natural or universal concept.

For example, the concept of height would seem paradoxical to a two-dimensional being in Flatland. Height in that place would seem to give the ability (to a three-dimensional being) to effortlessly glide through parallel Flatland realities...if you assume those realities to be just piles of Flatland zero-height paper stacked upon each other.

And so you would have the paradoxical ability (for a 3D being) to exist in multiple realities at once...or, at least, it would seem paradoxical to a 2D being.

I believe that at some level of consciousness, the paradox ceases to be a paradox because we clearly understand the broader principle that gave rise to it.

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answered 28 Nov '09, 12:08

Stingray's gravatar image

Stingray
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edited 28 Nov '09, 12:13

Good analogies.

(30 Nov '09, 07:09) Eddie

This looks like an answer I might have written.

(16 Jun '10, 14:33) Vesuvius

Infinety and Eternity is all apart of time. Is the only way God had of explaining to us by using our time frame so in our time frame eternity and infinity is both used in our time frame so that we would understand it was an very, very long time or an extremely large number but when we loose our physical bodies and we just have our spiritual bodies and their will be an New Earth, New Heaven, and New Jerusalem there will be no moon, stars, or sun and God and Jesus will be the light than there will be no more time for the moon, sun, and the stars correspond to make time exist; for the old earth was destroyed.

Hubble shows there are plenty other universes outside of our own. Now, personally I believe we are to not worry about the other universe we were put here on this earth an this is where our exporing is suppose to be. For God made the earth for us to inhabit and live on not any where else.

Paradox: Something absurd or contradictory: a statement, proposition, or situation that seems to be absurd or contradictory, but in fact is or may be true.

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answered 29 Nov '09, 00:10

flowingwater's gravatar image

flowingwater
7.1k63797

The best pair of docs are the hand made leather type that come from England.

alt text

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answered 29 Nov '09, 02:03

The%20Traveller's gravatar image

The Traveller
19.6k12142

edited 16 Jun '10, 14:31

Vesuvius's gravatar image

Vesuvius
32.7k1165201

I'm sorry. I have tried to see the relevance of this answer to the questions, but I can't see any?

(01 Dec '09, 01:33) Eddie

Pair of Doc Martens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Martens) = "Pair of docs" = Paradox...say it out loud if you still don't get it. Took me some time to see it too...sneaky Traveller :)

(03 Dec '09, 22:14) Stingray

Ahh, thanks Stingray. Sneaky, but the Universe invented humor, so it's all good :-)

(04 Dec '09, 08:40) Eddie

Humour is definitely worth a vote:-)

(16 Jun '10, 18:49) Michaela
showing 2 of 4 show 2 more comments

I think the Universe has not paradoxes, but simply IS, lives by own rules (laws) and evoluates. The paradoxes exist only in the human mind.

  1. For the space. Infinity has no center; a posibl;e center could be on each and all points of the infinity, as reference arbitrarily considered by man.

  2. For time, also arbitrarily and also man, could considere the NOW as reference MOMENT (even if moving), between the shadows (traces) of the past and perspective (probabilities) of the futura. The NOW could be anywhere on the cause-effect chain.

  3. For us, humans, paradoxes truly exist as conceptual fulcrums for multiple control levers, very necessary for our interactions with the universe. Paradoxes are also the points of balance between known and unknown and the measure of our unknowing. If we considere our knpwledge (collective and individual) as a sphere and the unknown outside of this sphere, as the knowing sphere is growing, the area beyond which starts the unknown is also growing with an exponential progression, which I cannot calculate, I only know that number Pi is also implied. (Surely there is somewhere in the mathematics a formula). I stop here because, imaginating this process into and to the infinite I feel a vertigo and (word of Vesuvius), appears the risk of "head explosion".

The paradoxes had their "life story". They born from the insatiable human need of knowing, for a time rack one's brains, gain solution and dead, but other paradoxes are borning continually on the fascinante adventure of human mind.

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answered 16 Jun '10, 20:27

Gleam's gravatar image

Gleam
1.8k1437

Being an illusion does not exclude its existence. Though it may not be able for us yet to take it all in; do we commit ourselves to explore? paradox as well as analogy exists, on which do we focus

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answered 16 Jun '10, 23:26

fred's gravatar image

fred
19.7k176

Regarding the world being an illusion and being real simultaneously. I mean, yes it exists in our mind and, yes we experience it as though it's real, but matter has not been scientifically proven as an objective independant reality. Seeing this helps us to move beyond that paradox and beyond the restricting and limiting viewpoint of reason and logic and into advanced logic.

(17 Jun '10, 01:07) Eddie
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