That is because you haven't likely thought how powerful it is indeed to witness as an abstract cosmic observer the gift that 1.65*10^12 days can deliver to a planet and 10^24 systems to a universe. Or what can happen in a single second if your characteristic time is 10^-23s. It makes all this possible. Time has the ultimate gift of patience. People fail to realize at a true level how old the world is. If you give it enough time it can do all this.

Just look again at the picture i posted from the moon in the art thread. This rock waited patiently for 4.5 bil years until it finally happened. There is nothing absurd about it, only powerfully putting things in perspective. Nirvana? Witness the world in all its glory before you were born and well after. The ultimate form of peace.

If time is the creator, why limit his scope to a finite universe?

Time is metaphorically the creator. The interactions, natural law and probability are the creators of the structure. And all have so far finite properties. Time itself (space-time geometry) is created by the interactions. It doesnt need anything infinite so far in the process. Calculus is just a tool to simplify the calculations and maybe it has reached its higher purpose in enabling the next breakthrough that will both replace and justify its value.

Matter is not forever, no matter how many permutations and combinations are presently present. There are too many questions here:

What is matter ?

The "eternal recurrence" ala Nietzsche and Schopenhauer (very Eastern) as mentioned along here, gives no recognition to Time which is a real entity(s).

Speaking to "Time" in the Eastern view reveals a never ending repetitive cycle(s) culminating into an evanescent obliteration . There is no "you" in this meandering of cycles for "you are that" according to Brahma, all outside is you and all inside is you but in the Eastern perspective you are "lost in space" as a finger on a body., without consciousness or individual activity.

"Go forward, Oh Man " for if one approaches the Western perspective, a worked through look which contain the Eastern view we have the idea of "Time" as witnessed by The Old and New Testaments in which we have:

" the son of Nahum, the son of Esli, the son of Nagghi,.....etc. back to the "Son of God" in the Luke bible and to the "son of Abraham" in the Matthew gospel, etc...

Time is considered here as in the West mankind is seen to have a "memory" to which stands tall our individuality. The East says, in effect, "no memory or memories" so that in this "eternal recurrence" we are again a "finger" of the evanescent storm but definitely not any particulate storm.

In Western esotericism, which does not depend upon the East, standing within its own right, knows that the individual man carries with him into the afterlife his biography and in doing so states his individuality by repeated earthly incarnations. Man has a biography. like it or not and in this Time is paramount and his memory is root of his being.

A little side issue which clarifies somewhat; a child learns his given language such as Greek; This doesn't mean that in the next life he will know Greek but in the learning of Greek he will accomplish "powers" or "abilities" to which he carries with him as gifts of his earthly sojourn.

The "memory" of man becomes his "supersensible body" to which as a soul/spiritual being he , in the humility of creation, knows and becomes his "self", a harbinger of the Love within the Freedom of Man.

Not bad, but ultimately I think wondering about a fly wandering across the table (and maybe having a little of "your" food) is life.

At least it's probably real.

Could there be space-time beyond the observable universe?

Yes it could. But then you have the finite problem with the super set too. It doesnt need to be infinite. You simply get a bigger set it doesnt have to be infinite. Stop using arbitrary bs from Buddhism about infinities that nobody ever proved and were arbitrarily argued. They only accidentally get some things right by the way. Instead apply the results of physics to think about philosophy because it is is the only safe way to do it. When not doing that remain aware its even more speculative and potentiality worthless which still has some value to do but better ways to use one's time probably exist. I remain equally skeptic and open to the possibility we have infinite number of worlds but it doesnt make mathematical and physical sense so far given what we have seen in our laws.

The problem i have with all these philosophies is that they served their purpose damn it. It was to bring us to Physics and Math. Now we do not need them anymore bring something stronger that is more relevant to the actual world. I respect the role they played but its time to grow up as mankind.

If philosophers were forced to study physics I feel like we'd have much less crappy philosophy.

Perhaps that's the ultimate goal of science. To improve our ability to do philosophy.

Human minds are broken and buggy bull**** factories. Learning about the world around us and comparing it with the hilarious predictions of cuck philosophers has improved philosophy more than thinking or meditation or introspection ever could. It taught us about our own flaws by rubbing our nose in them.

Physics has done more for philosophical and spiritual understanding than all theology, all meditation, all eastern religion, and all introspection, put together.

I think the problem is that you haven't gone deep enough in the oneness. When you've contemplated the vastness of time, the universe, the incredible richness of evolution, not just contemplated but felt it, reached back across time and space and seen it, seen life laid out before you in every form and variety as it changed from one to another, seen and felt and held inside everything that ever existed for all time, grasped the ultimate power and meaning of the universe in a way that's beyond words or even memory...you get to a point, once you come down off the rapture of revelation, where you say "now what"?

If you are equally skeptic and open to the possibility of infinite worlds, then you're equally likely to believe in something like eternal recurrence and eternal justice as you are to believe that they're nothing but outdated philosophical fables...

Yet, your posts here do not indicate at all that you're equally skeptic and open to this possibility. You have some irrational grudge against purely philosophical concepts, and I see no grounded justification for it. Your grudge against these concepts has throughout this thread, read like nothing but personal preference; with some vague appeals to the importance of process.

If you don't like philosophy, fine. Just stop discouraging others from enjoying it.

You are so miserable and full of yourself, you'd probably make people flee to religion for mere comfort of getting away from you.

And yet you're here.

Again with the zero content personal attacks. Physician, heal thyself. I'm actually discussing the topic, which, you know, is why we're here.

By the way, do you disagree with what I wrote? This isn't politics. We're meant to actually discuss ideas here.

Oh, no. That is full content feedback for you, particularly.

Wtf? No. Eternal justice goes against principles of ergodicity, simplicity, symmetry, not to mention any number of philosophical objections (is it just that I rape you if you rape me in the year 184u483 in the universe AFH89DF?). Eternal justice is impossible.

It's a ****ing dumb concept whether you're a philosopher or physicist. Believing in that is nothing whatsoever like believing in eternal universes. Jesus.

Ok...

You seem very passionate about your position on eternal justice. Great.

When i am saying i am equally skeptic it means that i assign skepticism a nonzero value, it doesnt mean i assign it the same probability and i am 50-50 in between in limbo. I have no evidence for infinity. I remain skeptic of science and open to the possibility one of these days some philosophical idea can show physics a new paradigm that works even. That doesn't mean i expect it with more than 1% chance. It means i remain open to such possibility.

I remain skeptic to the concept of energy conservation too as long as we do not understand everything about geometry and QM but it doesn't mean i expect to find a violation any time soon.

Its not about enjoying something. Its about using productively your time to learn vs confuse yourself at the mercy of all kinds of charlatan ideas.

When philosophy finds it necessary to initiate a trillion definitions of things that dont describe the world convincingly yet my response is stop enjoying bs wasting of time and study something that will not lose its value and will allow you to be a better philosopher eventually rather than a follower of other "philosophers". How the f is one going to do any useful philosophy without what they say having a connection to actual physics?

People study Plato for example and are amazed at his work and they forget that if he lived today he would see things differently in many things. Can you go into all the trouble to adjust his ideas to modern science and then trust only a fraction of the work? That is very hard effort. If not then good luck celebrating work that the author would question himself already.

I don't learn about philosophy because of some delusions about its practical utility. I'm well aware that it's useless practically.

I could spend my time more productively? Do I listen to music because it's productive?

Perhaps the productive thing is the one that adds to my sense of happiness, and by extension, to the happiness of others around me... or perhaps not?

Perhaps this is a better way to spend ones time in an infinity, as compared to striving, striving, competition, responsibility and....more striving.

Strive away good sir. Whatever floats your boat.

Strive for more knowledge that can help your thinking? Thats not a strive its a thrill. Its not about what pleases you but about what makes you a stronger thinker. It helps of course if newfound clarity pleases you. That then will buy more pleasure in other areas too.

Good Philosophy is not useless. It just needs more science to be good, relevant and creatively influential.

You will have stronger lasting happiness with more dependable knowledge that is founded on math and sciences. And you will be developing your own philosophy too.

"Philosophy is useless practically but it’s okay because not everything has to have practical utility, like listening to music, which actually has a lot of practical utility because it makes me and those around me happier."

Right, so you're a privileged teenager still stuck deeply in hedonism, and philosophy allows you to maintain and justify that hedonism in the face of the fact that you're really no different to a slave master, living off the unhappiness and striving and responsibility of others.

If you're less than 20 or so, good for you. But IMO now is the best time for truth seeking - you have the ability to handle any awful revelation and still wake up and be happy. Your happiness isn't a function of your philosophy, it's a function of your privilege/quasi-aristocratic position in life right now, and youth. You can explore anything right now and still enjoy your life. In fact, probably enjoy it more and have it mean more.

All we do around here is philosophy. Philosophy is dead is the silliest thing Hawking has said on record for it is a philosophical assertion. All we do as humans is think assuming half a brain and in that regatd old philosophy prevents us from wasting time thinking about ideas people before have already thought through. That should have some practical purpose.

Of course if an asteroid is heading towards Earth we look to the scientists.

You have to be careful about how you use words. When Hawking said philosophy is dead, he means that "just thinking" had taken us as far as it can go. New insights into philosophy will come from physics, both from the technology it creates and its products. That has been true for > 100 years, by the way. Philosophy has produced nothing of worth and its advancements have come after new insights brought by physicists.

You're using philosophy in the sense "anything non-empirical that touches on truth, on which you can have an opinion", rather than the body of scholarship, which is what Hawking was referring to.

Physicists do far deeper philosophy these days than philosophers. Which is to be expected. Words are extremely limited and imprecise, and the human mind is horrible at generating new avenues of inquiry or questioning its own assumption. Symbolic logic - which is what physicists do - mixed in with a reality-prod is far superior to what philosophers do.
And yet there are two people in this thread, wasting time thinking through old discredited idea (the eastern mystical "oneness")

I think the advances in biology are very important too.

Right. Philosophy is advancing from incoming input from the world, made possible by physics. Philosophy advances not at all from sitting and thinking, and hasn't done so for centuries, since the low hanging fruit were picked.

This will be true of the future too - philosophy will advance from AI and improvements in brain mapping. People who aren't philosophers as a profession will be doing all the meaningful philosophy in the coming years. Which is why Hawking says philosophy is dead. And he's right. The insights you can get staring at your navel ended a couple of hundred years ago.

Philosophy remains a useful training tool for weak and inexperienced minds, but is incapable of providing insight or advancement.