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Originally Posted by zen_tom
Please, what does anyone mean by linear, or non-linear time?
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i'll try to answer this, and if i'm wrong i'm SURE i'll be corrected....
this discussion revolves around the nature of "time". if one is to say that time is "linear", it means that there is such a thing as a past, present, and future, and that "time" is moving constantly from the past to the future - envision a railroad car on a track, and you've got a pretty good analogy of linear time.
non-linear time refers to the concept that there is no such thing as "time passing" - "time" doesn't move, we simply move through it in much the same way we move through three-dimensional space. however, due to our nature, we are only able to move in one direction through it. the idea behind non-linear time is that there would in theory be a way to move around time in the same manner as we move around a room - we could pick a spot and just....go to it. in addition, we could (in theory) move to a different point in time that would have occurred if different choices were made - this again raises interesting philosophical discussions about the fundamental nature of the universe. this is considered non-linear because we aren't constrained by the concept of causality - we could explore the unlimited maze of the infinite number of choices that have ever (and will ever) be made.
again, this is all speculation - feel free to correct as necessary.
one final note - i fail to see why god was brought into the discussion, seeing as how there is plenty enough material concerning the "true" nature of space-time without bringing the existance of another being into it. after all, talking about "god moving through time" is simply piling speculation on speculation, isn't it?