Exactly. Posting such a question as 'when' time does such and such or did time do so and so 'always' only exposes his inability to understand the nature of the problem itself.
He asked me previously if I might explain 'metatime' - I think, for the passers-by and casual readers I might actually tackle trying to explain it.
First, let me just say that I have no idea if the concept exists under a different name already. As near as I can tell, the term 'metatime', as used here, seems to be a local term, rather than one commonly used.
Second, let me also say that the concept of metatime, as used in this thread, was only employed to attempt to highlight a misunderstanding about the nature of time, and in no way accurately reflects anyone's personal views here, necessarily.
We started with the term 'metatime' after the discussion began about cyclic time. BJ, still attempting to use the argument from incredulity, attempted to expose what he considered a critical flaw by asking how many times the cycle of time has gone 'round, or if indeed it has gone 'round forever.
In this question, BJ uses metatime as an assumption, although I doubt he understood that this is what he was doing.
Both of the expressions he used ('how many times'; 'forever') are themselves abstract measures of time itself. So if time exists in an eternal loop, there is no answer to either part of the question. The only way the question could have any meaning at all is if time existed as a subset of a greater temporal dimension - hence, a 'meta-time' - in which a number of cycles could be measured or not measured accordingly. The catch with making this assumption, of course, is that it simply regresses the problem further and leaves us with whether or not metatime had a beginning or is eternal, or of course, is itself 'spherical'.
Yet in spite of analogies with spheres and circles, BJ still persists on phrasing questions as if time itself exists within a larger set of time.
For the Reader, consider, for a moment, a simple circle. Yes, we know that, if drawn by hand, computer, or whatever, the circle has a technical beginning and a technical ending. But if we look at a circle as representative of a purely mathematical, 2-dimensional object, a 'perfect circle', we have an object without beginning or ending. If we ask, 'how many times around does that circular line extend', there is no answer (unless, perhaps, we say '1'). If ask, 'does the circlular line extend infinitely around', again, the question is meaningless. We can arbitrarily pick a point and measure the distance around it, of course, but that means nothing with the spatial dimensions within the circle.
Extend this to a sphere. If we say, 'how far around the sphere does the sphere's dimension extend', the question is meaningless; and if we ask whether the sphere's dimensions extend infinitely around the sphere, again, the question is meaningless.
So to go up another notch, we have spherical time. To ask how many times around in time has time curved, there's just no answer (except, perhaps, once); and to ask if time has curved this way eternally or not, again, has no answer at all.
Now, that's not to say an answer couldn't exist at all for the conceptual question he's asking; but the question and answer would necessarily involve higher dimensions to be meaningful - that is, we might be able to say how much distance in the fifth dimension has time been rotating through, or if time has been rotating infinitely along the fifth dimension. But that brings us right back to the same regression problems as before. Further, if as some theorize the higher dimensions 'collapsed' or 'compressed' (or whatever) just after the Big Bang, then we might actually have no possible answers for such conceptual questions. Time might be the uppermost limit for our measurable dimensions, and we may indeed be left with a reality that has neither beginning nor ending, and which is not eternal at all.
To give a more concrete set of examples: we might take our pencil to one spot on a circle, and measure a distance - say, of four inches - as one circumference of the circle. The circle itself doesn't extend infinitely - in fact, it's four inches - nor does the circle have a beginning or ending (except what we've arbitrarily decided to give to it).
We can do the same with a sphere. We mark a point on the globe, and measure our distance as we circumnavigate it - say, 100,000 miles (or whatever). The globe isn't infinite - it's 100,000 miles around - nor does it have a 'beginning' and an 'ending'.
Hence, if cyclic time is a correct theory, we'd be able to mark a point in time, circumnavigate the wheel or sphere of time, and measure a temporal distance around it - say, a googolplex of millenium. Time itself isn't infinite, nor does it have a beginning nor an ending - it just simply exists. And there's no point asking how long time has existed, nor whether time exists eternally - those are time-oriented questions, and are meaningless outside of time (which would be the only place to measure time's existence from).
Hence, to get back to an earlier point, there are at least three options - time without beginning, time coming from nothing, or time existing in cycles (or 4-D spherical formations), in which time would be neither infinite nor have boundaries such as beginnings or endings.
(And by 'time', let's agree that we mean 'spacetime', since it's all essentially one thing.)
- Zaayrdragon's gobbledegook.
