What kind of intelligence can you imagine that doesn't depend on time?

Question

Religious folks argue that their deity is intelligent, but yet exists outside of time (because time was only created when the deity created the universe).

Well, what kind of intelligence can you describe that doesn't exist in time? Intelligence means the ability to acquire knowledge, to perceive new information and make sense of it, to make decisions, to design, to create and so on. All these things require the passage of time - they all require a 'before', when the thing hasn't happened yet, and an 'after', when it has. Moreover, the only kind of intelligence we know about involves growth, development, acquisition of tools and skills etc., so not only does it require time, it also means change from a state of lesser intelligence to a state of greater intelligence - It doesn't make any sense to imagine intelligence fully formed with no 'infancy', no growth, no development.

How can you explain an intelligence that could exist before there was time or a universe to develop in?

Jennifer and Yo Yo Mama: I tend to agree.

Aurora, Nick, Tom, edward: Sorry, but any answer which is based on "We're too stupid to understand this but it's true anyway" is worthless, as far as I'm concerned. The only thing we have to understand the universe is our own human reason. I'm not going to deny that just because someone says I'm too stupid to understand the truth.

da chet: Sorry, but all your ideas there rely on 'before' and 'after'.

bobkgin: I see what you're getting at - look forward to more details :-)

Answer 1

There can be no coherent thought without relativity. It's that simple.

Answer 2

Intelligence doesn't need to learn to be considered intelligent. For example, if I just poofed into the world and knew everything that I know right now, is it not intelligent because I didn't develop or learn, despite what we usually witness?
And it seems that you are saying that since we only witness intelligence through learning, there can be no other way. Or that we need to observe this somehow to be possible. Not at all.

God created time itself, the changes that he does to the world occur at the same time for him, but at differing times in our world.

The world itself couldn't have come out of a universe where time has existed even as an atheist. There must be a start to get to any point in time, otherwise... it is just like decimals for a logically understandable reasoning, you never get from .0000000000000...01 to 1. How many decimals are in between? counting upward never gets there. If it did, you could look back to where it started.Time is rather, from 1 counting in whole numbers starting from 0. 1, 2, 3... and has no end until God ends it.
Eternity can only go forward, whether time can be reversed or not doesn't matter, but you cannot have an infinity coming before something.

Answer 3

None, IMO. This question has gone through my mind so many times. What kind of "thinking" can a creature that already knows everything do? The whole purpose of thinking is to figure out the answer to something you don't already know.

A cell doesn't need to think. Because, for the most part, it already "knows" everything it needs to know. And because of that thought isn't required, intelligence isn't required.

All that being said, I suppose it's kinda vain for me to try to understand how the "thoughts" of a god would work. The religious people act like they know everything about gods though, there's not a question you can ask them that they can't answer, so I don't feel too bad.

Damn fine question.

Answer 4

Hello Icarus,

This is going to take a bit of space, so bear with me.

Let's start with a concept I call "continuity of existence". This concept is based on looking at matter from a fourth-dimensional (time) perspective.

Let us start with an electron. Any electron. This electron existed billions of years ago, shortly after the Big Bang and as a result of energy converting into matter. If you look at this electron from then to now along the fourth dimensional axis, there is no change in its structure, only its location (in the other three dimensions).

Seen from the third dimension (our mundane perspective), an electron looks like a sphere. But from a fourth dimensional perspective, it looks like a long thread stretching from its beginning to its ending (conversion to energy). The thread weaves about in the mundane three dimensions, yet because the electron does not change its structure, a fourth dimensional perspective shows that every three dimensional cross-section is connected to the next nanosecond's three dimensional cross-section.

Now this electron (and a lot of other matter) all connect to the Big Bang event. Again, from the fourth-dimensional perspective, it is all connected like threads flowing out of a common source. In this sense, the entire universe, all matter, energy, everything, is connected to the BB event.

And because everything is connected to the BB, through the BB everything is connected to each other. Just like the twigs can be traced back to the trunk, so to the course can be reversed and we can recognize that every twig is connected to each other even if the twigs are on different branches.

From a fourth dimensional perspective, there is no then and now, there is perception of the whole, from what we call "beginning" to what we call "end".

Yeesh, really long. I promise to finish this Sunday morning...

Answer 5

Oddly the story of Adam and Eve comes to mind even though I do not believe in God and am not Christian:

The story is about man coming forth into the realm of time. Into the dual nature of the universe. It is about humanity leaving the dreamlike place where we did not know the difference between male and female, God and human, good or evil.

To move out into the world, to gather 'intelligence' or knowledge, we had to leave the Garden. This is the shift in consciousness from the consciousness of identity to the consciousness of participation.

The result is that we now look at women with desire and God with fear. We see evil in a perfect world and separate ourselves from that world.

We still live blind within the Garden, but we sit feeling alone stimulating ourselves with fleeting objects as they pass by.

Our life’s quest is to learn how to reawaken ourselves to the Garden.

The timeless Garden. From participation to identity we must straddle the world.

Answer 6

All our thinking is time, our mind is memory of the past. All the events, experiences, knowledge everything in our brain is time-the past. All the now moments are immediately transformed as memory. If we are imagining we are just getting the record of the past and projecting it as the future or the unknown, but it is still the past. Past is time, the limited intelligence of ours. How can a limited intelligence discover the everlasting intelligence? By seeing the limitation or boundary of time is the flowering of timeless intelligence.

Answer 7

Try to think of it this way. Since God was the only thing around before everything else, and had no beginning, He would also have to be what everything else is from. It only makes sense if all He had was himself. In order to make anything else, it would have ot come from Him, and then He could convert it or do whatever He liked with it. That being said, if He knew Himself through and through, because He was all-knowing (or aware of all things at all times), then He wouldn't need time to acquire knowledge. Do you need time to learn about yourself, not to form opionins or to clarify thoughts, but the exact way you think, the way you feel, and who you are at this very moment, do you need time to learn that? No, you know what you are, as you are. the same thing with God. He would know Himself in order to have the intelligence to design everything else from Himself perfectly.

Answer 8

I can't explain it, because I am the created, God is the creator. A clay pot can not explain the potter, but the potter does indeed exist! I can't explain the Trinity, but I believe it. There comes a point where understanding must yield to faith. We understsnd up to a point, then take the rest by faith. You have faith in many other things, (think about it), why not have faith that God is, and is who he said.?

Answer 9

Your argument seems to say - because we define intelligence in a certain way and because God, who exists outside of our time and restrictions, doesn't fit our definition then therefore He is either stupid or doesn't exist. My friend just because someone or something doesn't fit into a definition that you, I, or someone else created doesn't mean that person or thing automatically doesn't exist or is beneath us. :) Sometimes new information makes you change old definitions. Think about your argument in other ways also - God exists above our concepts of intelligence, time, reality, and even gravity. Just because He doesn't fit the 'mold' we want to put Him in doesn't mean He no longer exists or is in any way unintelligent. :)

Answer 10

It's not a comprehensible idea. Possible, I suppose, but beyond my comprehension.

Those who make that claim do not seem to understand that what they are really saying is that their God does not exist.

If something "exists outside space/time" then it does not exist in space/time or in other words, it is imaginary.

Answer 11

No, because I'm human and my brain cannot conceive of it. Therefore, if you believe in a god, only the god could experience that form of intelligence. I can't even fully conceive of eternity and infinity.