Skip to main content

Excerpted: Time-Travel and Trinity

Excerpted from Omniscience

Time-fictions that imagine oneself traveling to the past or the future and being able to see oneself as another self only cash on the imagery of a realistic video playback. One can go to the past in the same way that one can go back to a time frame in a video and playback from there, they imagine; the exception in this reality playback: one can interfere. Similar is the imagination about the future. Of course, this involves the paradox of going back and killing oneself and yet being able to survive in the present. Some have even tried to suggest theories about several parallel universes and possibility worlds, which look interesting to the mind, but pose an interesting plurality. Of course, this could be one area where fiction allows for man to imagine a unity of being and yet a plurality of persons at the same time. For instance, in this imaginary time-trip, I find myself in 2010 at a University campus where I am presenting a paper. I (standing under a tree) see myself (near another building) on way to the Seminar hall inside. There is a duality here. I am standing under a tree and yet I am near another building on way to the Seminar hall. It doesn’t appear very problematic to those who think this could be possible in time travel; because, at least from one point in time (2016), I have gone missing. Nevertheless, it doesn’t seem impossible to the imagination to allow two different persons of the same one being in the same place with two different personalities at the same time. Also, in this view, the present is meaningless; for, 2010 is as really present to me (both me standing under the tree and myself on the way to the Seminar hall) in that framework as 2016 was real to me “earlier” (i.e. in my past). At the same time, due to the possibility of time-travel, I (2016) and myself (2010) are both at the same place and the same time, fictionally speaking. This temporal imaginative permission is incredulous. This violation of reason, perhaps, should forbid us trying to question how the eternal Godhead cannot be three persons in His eternal being.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Placebo and the Philosophy of Mind and Matter in Drug Research

A placebo is a non-therapeutic substance administered under the camouflage of medication to deceive patients into believing that they are receiving medications; this done solely for psychological and not for physiological effects. Placebo may usually be used to compare its effects with the effects of other drugs in drug research. Let's take the case of an experiment that tries to establish whether a particular drug, say to treat weariness, is genuine or merely has the effects of a placebo. Suppose 20 candidates are chosen for this experiment. 10 are given the drug and the rest are put on a placebo while they are told that the placebo is a genuine medication. They need to make sure that the deception is well carried on for the success of the experiment. If both the groups make similar improvements after taking the treatments, the new drug seems to only function as a placebo in effect. The basic hypothesis of the placebo raises the question of mind over matter. Of course, this pushes...

What is Theology? Its Divisions with Short Descriptions

Published in REVIVE, May 2012 (Malayalam Edition) A simple and literal definition of “theology” would be “the science of divine things”. It comes from two Greek words theos meaning “God” and logia meaning “discourse or speech”. In modern times, it is the stream of knowledge that differentiates the secular pursuit of knowledge from the sacred one because of its starting point: all secular studies begin with reason and experience while theology begins with faith. The starting point for all extra-theological studies is the world (Latin: saeculum); the starting point for theology is the Word of God. So, while one may say that theology is the study of God, the factual definition would be that theology is the science that rationally pursues the understanding of the self-revelation of God in the Scriptures. It would be interesting to note that many of the universities had originally begun as seminaries and theology was once known as the Queen of Sciences. However, with the dawn of theAge of E...

Reliability, Predictability, and Paul the Octopus

Paul the Octopus has recently become very famous after his predictions for Germany and Spain during the World Cup 2010 came right. The 100% accuracy tag distinguishes him from any other diviner who had attempted a prediction during the World Cup. There were responses and reactions from various people including sportsmen, statesmen, and mathematicians. Whatever, the use of Paul has demonstrated once again that mankind's search for an extra-temporal, psychic foresight has not quelled through the historical calendar returning a decade over this millennium. The question before us is can such predictions as those of Paul be counted on as reliable (in other words, can they be seriously taken as true)? The mathematicians have plumped for chance. It's all a matter of probability, they say ( BBC News ). However, the argument of chance in itself is weak. The mathematics of chance will calculate that the probability of Paul being right seven times out of seven is 1/128. But, the conclusi...