₦airaland Forum

SmoothCrim: I am not even of that Ethnic group so a neutral historian. I am saying there is no way it would have happened. Oyo is largely considered an Upstart and never was organized. The Fulani overran the place easily.

lmao

Buddy, there is archaeological evidence of pavements in Oyo before the Fulani were organized (and also before Asante was organized, by the way). Please actually try and read history.

I am not against the Fulani or the Hausa as an ethnic group, and I too am neutral as I am not from any ethnic group under discussion, but you keep making yourself look sillier and sillier with these claims.

SmoothCrim: If this happened it was when the Ashanti were trying to expand to colonize Nigeria. I believe it would have happened eventually. Look at where they are based and the distance. They were moving closer to conquering Oyo than the other way around.

lmao

In the only noted interaction between the two, we know what happened. No need for all this mumbo jumbo after the fact.

SmoothCrim: It won't say it because, it is not politically correct. Without European interference all of Nigeria today would be 100 percent Hausa Fulani..

Cavalry don't work in the forests, genius. Their entire mode of operation would have been worthless.

The Hausa Fulani couldn't even conquer a lot of the middle belt anyway (they couldn't get past the Tiv, for example), so these kind of silly claims don't need to be taken seriously.

SmoothCrim: What??


Fake history. I read west African history and there are More Ashanti sounding names closer to Nigeria than Yoruba sounding names near Ghana. That should tell you something about real expansion(not that it matters)...

It's definitely not fake.

There's pretty definite confirmation of the defeat from visitors to Ashanti.

I don't want to dwell on that because I'm not against the Ashanti confederacy or anything. I was just explaining to you what happened between the Asante and one of the southern groups that knew that they existed.

SmoothCrim: I am sorry to bust your bubble but, if you are from the South the people in the North who can't accept to be ruled by you have been your masters for 800 years

I read west African history...

Stop making stuff up. You look silly. There's no west African history book where you'll see nonsense like the above.

SmoothCrim: LOL pure lies...

It's actually a fact. After the battle of Atakpame, visitors to Asante were informed about this.

And on the Fulani, your own people are complaining about the Fulanis in Ghana and you're here kissing their butts when they didn't even ask you to. Smh.

SmoothCrim: Yes the Hausa Fulani have been trading with Ghanaians in gold and Kola nuts for 700 years prior to the groups from the south even realizing Ghana existed. Just because today there are Boko Haram terrorist there does not mean the area has always been bad...

lol @ this

There was no place called Ghana 700 years ago.

The Hausas are everywhere and they've been trading with others before they had ever heard of anyone in modern Ghana.

Why should anyone in the south have cared whether Ghana existed anyway?

Wait a minute. Actually, the Oyos knew the Asante existed, and they had them (Asante) scared of Oyo at one point according to oyinbo visitors. Smh.

SmoothCrim: The people in the Southern Part of Nigeria have been under the Boot of those of the North. I don't deal with second class citizens

Nigerians from the North are more noble with a deeper history in West Africa and I view them as Superior!! There

The President of the country is from the south right now.

More noble and with a deeper history? Stop kidding yourself, you don't know anything about history.

SmoothCrim: Well its economy is based on Tourism from a very good location. When you are stuck in a region with Nigeria and all these AL Qaeda issues it is hard to do well...


After all in every region of the world ones economy is limited by their neighbors!!

The borders of Nigeria were determined by the colonials.

Strictly speaking, these al qaeda issues actually belong in Chad and Niger and the borders would have been drawn to reflect the religious/cultural divide except for French/British rivalry. But since the borders are as they are, there's not too much point complaining to outsiders after the fact. Just letting you know for the record.

The people you're arguing with aren't Northerners, who are the source of these issues, but people from the south who feel that they're just better than you, the same way you might think you're just better than a Somalian.

My point is, Barbadians aren't inherently better than Ghanaians or Nigerians or something. But they're much better off than you for other reasons entirely.

When you control for population, Barbados is way better than Ghana and Nigeria. All these statistics arguments are pointless.

edicolove: My brother took a taxi in accra some years back. He bought ice cream and after eating the ice cream, he threw the paper pack out the window while the taxi was driving.along. That day, what happened made me to understand why Ghana was doing better than Nigeria. The street practically stood still. The taxi driver stopped and asked my brother to get down. The whole street in unison, insulted the living daylight out of my brother. There was no police or lastma or kai. It was just normal Ghanian citizens standing up for their country and demanding a certain standard. They didn't need the government to come from the state house to do it. Here in Nigeria, no one cares.

One thing that's always bothered me when I go back to Nigeria is the filthiness that's tolerated in some places.

I know that things have to be burned up to be disposed of (which is time consuming and requires fuel and also gives off smoke) in the many many places where there is no proper waste management system, but it bothers me because the filthiness is actually unnatural - there was nowhere in Nigeria 150 years ago that was that filthy. It's social deterioration.

lol, those Nigerian military officers mentioned weren't trained by Ghanians. . .

The Gold Coast happened to be Britain's richest African colony so a military academy was placed there.

Try and use a little common sense here people

I have no problem with the references to past posts.

I went through the thread and it seems the responders on the opposing side pursued a different line of argument than I intend to, so instead of responding to all of your comments there (most of which are responses to other people's arguments that I am not necessarily making) I will start from the beginning and we can discuss your premises.

Deep Sight: Premise 1

If time was created by or at the moment of the big slam, then it is not possible to speak about a period "prior to " or "before" the big slam. Accordingly it is not possible to speak of anything existing prior to that instant - and this includes the pre-slam singularity that you spoke about.

Just to be clear, the singularity is the only object under discussion. The "big b.ang" is not a thing, but a descriptive term used to label a series of events. Spacetime originated with the singularity. The singularity expanded, then underwent inflation, and that process is described as the big ba[i]n[/i]g. It would be better not to use obfuscating term "pre-b.ang singularity" as if the singularity is not the starting point of the big b[i]a[/i]ng or as if they are really separate from one another when one is actually subsumed within the other.

The connection between the singularity - an object of zero size in all spatial dimensions, infinite temperature, and infinite density - and the beginning of time, is that spacetime began with the singularity.

Premise 2

Physical things exist in space and time. You stated that the pre slam singularity was physical. You then stated that there was no space or time at the point of the existence of the pre-slam singularity. How is it possible for a physical thing or state to exist without space and time.

Premises 1 & 2 evince the contradiction between (x) and (y).

Your reasoning here is faulty.

First you define physical things as those that "exist in space and time."

Then you use your definition of physical to preclude the singularity from existing by defining the singularity as something that has to exist in space and time, in order to create an apparent contradiction.

But space and time only came with the singularity to begin with so there is not a question of some sort of pre-existing space and time here in which the singularity emerged.

Premise 3 - the problem with statement (x)

The problem with statement (x) is that if space was created by the big slam, please tell me what space is expanding into?

In premise 3, you make an assertion - namely that the universe cannot be self contained.
Essentially you are asking that we accept your assertion that the universe cannot be self contained over the assertion that the universe can be self contained. There is no proof for either assumption, but there is no particular reason to accept your assumption over the other one.

Premise 4 - the problem with statement (y)

The problem with statement (y) is that it presumes a physical singularity to be self-existent. Aside from the fact that you have yet to properly articulate what that singularity is, the fundamental problem is that it is an illogicality to define any physical thing as self-existent because physical things are changeable whereas self-existence connotes immutability.

Well "self-existence" may "connote" immutability to you (this seems to be an assertion, but I don't think there would be a point arguing about this as it probably won't be relevant), but I don't think one can prove that a "self-existent" thing cannot be physical just because of how you have decided to define physical things.

Caveats & Personal Definitions:

I state it clearly that i subscribe to the idea of the occurence of the initial expansion that is called the big slam. What I dispute herein is the averrment that time and space were thereby created.

I see time as an intangible constant that cannot be created. The experience of time may however differ from place to place and from state to state. This is my view of time.

I see space as the infinite continuum of void into which things may be endlessly interpolated. This is different from the space which is merely an energized bubble in which our universe exists. This energized bubble, is in my view interpolated in the infinite continuum of void into which things may be interpolated. This space is not creatable in my view. It is self-existent. This is my view of space.

Well,

1) there really is no evidence that the "energized bubble" (the universe) exists in an "infinite void".

2) there is no explanation given for why this infinite void described above would have to be "self existent".

3) The arguments for why a "self-existent" thing "can not but exist" that were made earlier are either circular or just a series of tautologies.

4) the infinite void described here is the kind of blank empty space I was advising in my previous post to avoid when trying to imagine real nothingness/non-existence. This infinite void in your example has qualities and specifically it has spatial characteristics - it can contain things and you've even given it a specific size - which means it's quite a different thing from real nothingness.

5) why do you limit it to one void? Why not construct an infinite number of voids containing other voids? Since there are degrees of infinity, different voids could have a different extent from one another. But if one were to accept that this infinite void containing an energized bubble existed, what justification could you give to rule out an unending series of other infinite continua containing smaller infinite voids? I think maybe you might have avoided this for purely aesthetic reasons.

6) Time cannot be defined without reference to some thing because of the relativity of simultaneity:

"Every reference-body (co-ordinate system) has its own particular time; unless we are told the reference-body to which the statement of time refers, there is no meaning in a statement of the time of an event." - A. Einstein, Ch. 9: "The Relativity of Simultaneity" from Relativity: The Special and General Theory

Thus one cannot really speak of the time of an event without there being something there - whether it's an "infinite void" (which is definitely something and not real nothingness, as I pointed out in #4) or a singularity (t=0) or a galaxy or a solar system or an ant. If there is truly nothing, time cannot be indicated. There is only spacetime, not the Newtonian time that you are constructing theories around.

The part in bold is the most important thing and once you understand it, you'll understand that the kind of time you and justcool are trying to impose onto reality is not real.

lol, how did this thread get to seven pages? Just one mention of God and you get 7 pages of God vs. astronomy in a thread that's apparently about a different topic.

Anyway, I'm not an astronomy guy, but the bible and astronomy don't necessarily contradict each other as far as I can tell.

ezeagu: Whenever there's a discussion on ancient arms, how many times do you think the weapons of Africa, such as the cross-bow will be mentioned?

lol, this reminds me. . .a while back I used to watch this show "Deadliest Warrior"

They would pit ancient and modern warriors from different nations against each other hypothetically, and then run simulations to determine who would win after collecting information about the strength and capabilities of each warrior's weapons and defenses. For example, samurais, ninjas, pirates, vikings, green berets, etc. would go up against one another.

On one episode, they had a Zulu warrior with a war axe up against a fully armored Scottish knight wielding a claymore (in addition to other weapons).

Both sides started bragging about the greatness of their side's warrior in between tests of the weapons and defenses, as always happens on every show. But the white guy for the Scottish side (I think he was Scottish American or maybe just some other type of white American) on the show was chuckling at some points because of the disparity in weapon strength and defenses.

It was a bit of a joke. Even my roommate (white) at the time started laughing when they brought a "Zulu stick fighting master" (that was how they titled him) in to explain the stick fighting and to hype up their warrior. I tried to think of what to say as a counter, but I would have laughed myself if I was in my roommate's position (but in my position, I wasn't going to laugh at an African warrior going up against a European, even hypothetically).

The weird thing is that the Zulu stick fighting experts were totally oblivious to how it would look (despite coming from countries (SA, USA) with a history of racism) and were willingly hyping up their warrior only for it to be embarrassed. They actually thought anyone wanted to know - as if it wasn't obvious - who would win in a simulation of a battle between one fully armored knight using a claymore and one Zulu warrior.

But that wasn't the only time they put an African on that show. The other one that I saw involved a group called the Zande from central Africa that I hadn't heard of before. Their warrior was actually more versatile than the Zulu in terms of unique weaponry, but didn't really look like a formal military type.

I could understand their use of the Zulu, since they were actual fierce warriors with notable victories in battle - although I think it's mainly because of their battles with a European group when the Europeans had no machine guns that they're known in the West - even though the match up with the armored knight made them look bad for no reason. But the Zande? Who has heard of the Zande when talking about African warriors or armies? I'm supposed to believe that in all of Africa, that's all they could find? No offense to the Zande, but I really didn't see why they chose them specifically unless they wanted to reinforce the idea that any warriors from Africa had to conform to a certain limited type of weaponry and defenses.

Yet for every other group in the world besides Africans, whenever they were doing comparisons of ancient (not modern) warriors, they used the most formidable types or most famous warriors from the places with the greatest military traditions.

Given the history of the Mali empire, why couldn't they have used a Mali warrior like this?: http://www.culturekiosque.com/art/exhibiti/rhepics1.htm

http://malicav.files./2010/12/f152i.jpg%3Fw%3D640%26h%3D1121

or warriors like this from another kingdom:

http://img112.imageshack.us/img112/9733/sreiter0pc.jpg

http://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/lookandlearn-preview/M/M095/M095166.jpg

when they were doing their comparisons to the Scottish knight?

Anyway, I got annoyed and I stopped watching that show even before it was cancelled.

- Rant over -

davidylan: Haiti is an example of the failure of the black race. QED.
I'm black by the way. But lets call a spade a spade.

I see. Well, anyway, when you have time, try and read the book The Black Jacobins by CLR James. You might change your mind.

Davidylan, what do you have against Haitians exactly?

The way you're going out of your way to put down Haiti is literally exactly in the manner that white supremacists do.

davidylan: Nigeria has 300 million blacks.

Slow down.

I think you're in another time right now.

shymmex: I know PhysicsQED will be the first to post on that thread..

I like the brother - but he's just too Eurocentric..

Where have I ever praised Roman ingenuity?

Man, just stop misinterpreting my comments. I don't see eye to eye on some things with you guys and you label me "something-centric" in order to dismiss my posts.

shymmex: This Physics guy and his Eurocentric mumbo jumbo is comical..


This guy said Gobekli Tepe sanctuary is the first form religion lol..

Turkey also built the first civilization in the world.

I didn't say the people who built it were Turkish and I didn't say they had the world's first religion. (And the Turkish are not really considered European anyway, even if they might use the Euro.)

Also, I don't believe you can pinpoint the first religion, but since the first religious structure is already known, you can go with that.

If I had said the first religious structure was in Africa, what would you have said?

Anyway, I don't see what the significance of some of this is. One of the oldest boats ever found was discovered in Nigeria. Does that mean we were suddenly great sea-farers in the past? No.

ekt_bear: OK, fine. So in every society/culture, there are Rossikes.

But are there more Rossikes in black/African society/culture or in white society/culture? Empirically, what have you observed, as a percentage of the populations?

White people that I know don't give a sh1t about stuff that happened several thousand years ago. This is not what they use to boost their self-esteem.

Granted, there is some bias since I don't actively seek to find the white equivalents of Rossike

Yeah, I've come across more people that exhibit this kind of behavior that are black, unfortunately.

Rossikk: Uhmmmm, actually, YES, seriously. If you consider that humans wandered the earth for thousands of years WITHOUT those things UNTIL they began to be developed in Africa. As stated earlier, this is all backed by scholarly research, which strangely, you seem either blind to, allergic to, or unwilling to explore.

Just because we have these abilities today in abundance doesn't mean we've always had them, or that they should be taken for granted.

Speech - not an invention. A consequence of evolution. The people who lived 100,000 years ago looked nothing like modern day black Africans by the way.

Art - even toddlers can make art. Who decides what the first art is? Are cave paintings art? And if not, why not? Anyway, once again those people 75,000 years ago didn't even look like modern black Africans and they're the ancestors of many peoples in the world today, not just black people.

Religion - the Gobekli Tepe sanctuary is the oldest religious structure known in the world. Nevalı Çori is also quite old. You can't just quote some guy who lived in 60 BC as if he would know what was going on in 6000 BC let alone earlier.

ekt_bear: Similarly, I guess in theory the Germans might be somewhat bummed that they didn't do anything 3,000 years ago. But fortunately for the Germans, they have some things today and tomorrow to be happy about..

They do the same kind of stuff Rossike is doing though.

They claimed a few sticks and stones arranged in a certain way several thousands of years ago in Germany was some kind of ancient astronomical observatory or something. It was passed off as actually being significant or something other than a trifle because the authors were university researchers. The white supremacist types nearly busted a nut when that "significant" "discovery" was published.

Dude, you claimed speech, religion, and art were inventions.

Seriously?

I think even you don't believe that and that you posted some of this just for the hell of it. If you had taken a more reasonable approach to an ancient African inventions thread, there would be fewer objections.

Ibime: This is an old and silly debate we used to have on Nairaland years back.

Nigerian Government cannot survive without oil.

Large majority of Nigerians do survive without oil.

Can large majority of Nigerians survive without the services Government provides ie roads, hospitals etc etc? No!

Only an undeveloped country sees agriculture contribute 30-40% of GDP.

That basically means a lot of people are surviving for themselves. There is no Western country with more than 5% Agriculture contribution to GDP.

This is true.

But I think the reason people get so annoyed about being told that they're living off of oil is because they know that without oil they wouldn't "be Somalia" like some people are claiming (well, actually, maybe much of the North would be Somalia) and they know that there are many successful countries that don't rely on oil. They are right to question the exaggerated picture being painted of oil keeping them from Somalian poverty, but at the same time they should acknowledge that oil contributes majorly to the development of all regions of Nigeria. I don't know why this last part seems so hard to do.

Not to join sides, but "racial esteem", "national esteem" etc. can impact on self esteem for some people. See for example the "stereotype threat" phenomenon as far as race is concerned.

This thread could become quite entertaining.

@ Deep Sight, I don't know if justcool is still posting or if he is on the forum anymore, but since you've stated that his position and your position are essentially equivalent, let me go through his statements and give my objections.

justcool: It will help people see that scientific terms are not exactly the same as the lay man’s terms. I have said this many times, that often scientific terms should not be viewed in the ordinary sense. Everybody knows what “time”; the “time” that Deep sight is talking about; the “time” that everybody intuitively knows, but very difficult to put in words. This “time” is what I refer as to “the real time” or “the lay man’s time” But when science talks about “time” they are not talking about the layman’s time or the real time.

Of course every rational person knows that the idea that time was born at the big slam is not possible in view of the real “time” or the lay man’s time. What science calls time is simply a dimension of motion, or a derivative of motion; a derivative of the speed of light to be more exact. Scientific time is referenced to the speed of light because at that time light was the fastest thing the scientist can conceive of.

1. They are talking about the real time/layman's time. Scientists are trying to determine what it actually is, as opposed to what it is assumed to be.

2. There is nothing inherently irrational about concluding that it is possible for time to have existed only after this universe existed. To prove that it did exist before the universe existed would be quite a feat, which one would have to be a scientist to do convincingly. Assuming that it did exist before this particular universe, I don't think that would upset scientists too much since surprises happen all the time in science and since there are already several who theorize that there is a multiverse in which our universe is only one of several that exist. (Only that they would probably hold that time began with the multiverse, not before.)

3. Time is not defined by the speed of light. The definition of time is contained in chapter 8 and chapter 9 of this document:

http://www.bartleby.com/173/8.html

("On the Idea of Time in Physics" and "The Relativity of Simultaneity" from Albert Einstein's Relativity: The Special and General Theory)

Note that the value of the speed of light is irrelevant.

Hence if anything moves at the speed of light, time becomes stand still in respect to that thing. Just as when two cars move at the same speed, they appear standing still to each other. And consequently, if anything can move beyond the speed of light, that thing will be time-traveling because it’s moving faster than time, i.e. moving backward in time.

The fact some things can move beyond the speed of light (a fact that I strongly believe that will soon be confirmed by science) will only show people that scientific time is different from real time. Because such particles, which can move faster than the speed of light, scientifically speaking, are moving backward in time. Imagine two cars “A” and “B” in motion, if car “A” speeds faster than the “B”, it will appear as if car “B” is moving backwards; judging from the motion frame of car “A”.

4. As I posted in an earlier link, a massive particle would need infinite energy to actually reach the speed of light and a (real) massless particle moves exactly at the speed of light and not faster. Time only stands still from the point of view/reference frame of massless particles.

Real time, intuitive time, or the lay man’s time, I believe is what Deep sight has been talking about, which obviously cannot be born at the slam. This time, real time can be defined as the continuum onto which events happen. This time existed before the big slam, indeed the big bag is just an event that happened within it. Only that the big slam commenced the physical time or the scientific time which scientist reference with the speed of light.

5. This can't really be proven.

The idea that time must exist, even if nothing else does, is just an assumption.

If there was a "universe" that existed in such a way that everything that ever happened was to happen at once (instantaneously), and not need to appear or disappear, we wouldn't even need time. Time is relevant to a particular kind of universe where space or objects appear/form, persist, and disappear or don't disappear, i.e. a universe in which either objects or even empty space has some kind of persistence/duration - and we do happen to live in such a universe.

But just as you can conceive of time existing without the universe, I can conceive of a "universe" existing without time.

Consider an alternate universe where everything was just there - without needing to take time to appear - and within the same instant not there, without taking time to disappear. Is that hard to think of? Of course. Now let me really define this alternate "universe". Consider this alternate universe as being where the "everything" (which was there and not there instantaneously without having to appear and then disappear) was actually nothing - not objects and not space. Since there is nothing there, why must there be time? Is time even necessary for this universe? Is it required for it to "exist"? Absolutely not.

And without asserting the existence of time either directly or indirectly - that is, without employing circular logic - could it be proven that this "nothingness" has to have a duration or persist for a time period? No.

Time does not necessarily have to exist where it is not relevant.

Now the counter argument one could make is that even the nothingness of this universe has a duration or a time period over which it is persisting, but that would be based on thinking influenced by our current universe and a misconception that nothingness - a perfect void - is equivalent to what we would consider a perfect vacuum or truly empty space. Even any kind of empty space has actual physical properties and characteristics (dimensions and their relations to one another) - it's not really nothing and not really a complete negation of existence. Real nothingness is hard to conceive of because of the fact that it doesn't seem to exist within our universe, but when one starts to understand what it would entail, it becomes clear that it would not necessarily need duration.

Time may be necessary for "anything" - including existence ( physical or "spiritual" ) itself - to exist, but there is certainly no reason why time must exist in a situation where there is no such thing as existence to begin with.

6. The fact that time can be dilated by mass (gravitational time dilation has been proven repeatedly in experiments) within our universe does suggest very strongly that within our universe time is actually physically connected to space. When space is distorted by mass, time is also distorted. For example, any kind of clocks in the strong gravitational fields of planets run slower than any kind of clocks far away from them or another strong gravitational field. You and Deepsight seem to think that scientists define time by movement/motion, but when nothing is moving, mass distorts space and consequently, time, anyway.

justcool: People keep trying to marry scientific concepts with ordinary concepts. These ordinary concepts like “time”, “work” and etc. existed before modern science. Modern science only borrowed these terms to define scientific concepts.

Deep sight’s notion of time is right. He is talking about the real time, the lay man’s time. Posters are refuting his argument with the scientific concept of time which is only limited to the physical, i.e. the duration of physical events. This scientific concept of time is referenced to the speed of light because up till now “light” is the fastest physical phenomenon that science has observed. I will give an analogy: Deep sight is talking about motion in general, posters are refuting his argument by talking about the motion of a particular car. Of course just as motion is not limited to a particular car, time is not limited to this our particular universe. If there are other universes, their time frames will be different. And of course the motion of a particular car is born the minute the car started moving, yet the car itself is on earth which is in turn in motion; by the same token, the speed or duration of events (which science calls time) in our universe was born with the big slam; but even the big slam is an event which occurred in a lager time frame.

But I think every good scientist knows that the concept of time is not limited the scientific time. Science creates models that help them visualize and represent certain phenomena in numbers so that they can be solved mathematically to predict or give an idea of the behavior of the phenomena. It will be very misguided to expect that the phenomena itself is limited to numbers and scientific models. Certain phenomena in nature can never truly be captured on the blackboard or in a test tube. Real Time existed before the big slam will still exist afterwards.

7. As stated above, time is not defined by the speed of light.

8. There is no strong evidence of alternate universes actually existing. Of course, if one is into the idea of the existence of membranes or multiverses (a la David Deutsch), then these statements above need to actually be analyzed. As I don't subscribe to multiversalism, I'm not really interested in speculating on what the specifics of a multiverse would be and whether there would be some "ultimate multiversal time frame" that would necessarily have to be different from or greater than the timeline of the universes within it.

9. You and Deepsight believe in eternal time. You both seem to subscribe in some way or another to the credo "Time precedes existence".

As I stated above in another manner, the idea that time must precede existence is either based on the confusion of empty space with nothingness or is based on the assumption that non-existence (what I called an alternate "universe" of nothingness) must persist and endure through time - an assumption which does not seem warranted at all. If there were no time, there could still be nothing (and please don't incorrectly imagine "nothing" as blank empty space after reading this sentence, otherwise this sentence may become confusing and one may start thinking that "nothing" needs to be qualified by time or given duration). It may be hard for us to conceive of absolute and total negation - real nothingness - but when we get our heads around the concept, we understand that it doesn't have to be qualified by time.


10. For an interesting perspective on time, without unnecessary detours into issues of hypothetical multiverses, please read "The Beginning of Time" by Stephen Hawking:

http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-beginning-of-time.html

Reading this may not convince you that time is an artifact of existence and not something pre-existing ( or as Deep Sight would put it "self-existing" ), but it should at least let you know that the "real time" or "lay man's time" is what scientists are talking about and it's directly connected to the space of our universe.

Deep Sight: What do we mean when we say that something is self-existent? We mean that by its nature it inherently exists. "Existing" is core to what it is. It could not but exist because its very nature is existent. Accordingly such a thing does not "come into" existence, nor does it cease to exist, because existence is inherent to the principle of what it is.

Now let us understand this carefully. A self-existent thing is so because the core principle, the very principle of what it is, is inherently existent. So it is what it is for that reason. Since it is what it is, it is not something that can change. It just is. Constant. A constant and non-ceasing reality.

This is why we say that a self-existent thing is immutable. Its existence is predicated on a principle that is inherently existent and could not but exist and accordingly it cannot but be that principle. Thus it cannot be or become something else because inherently it is that principle. We thus understand that some-thing that self-exists cannot change.

Matter and Energy as we observe them in the physical are changeable. Thus they are not self-existent things

I may further indicate that there is a deeper, more subtle reason why it is obvious that self-existent things are non-physical. Without being wordy, and selecting my words very carefully let me simply say that a self-existent thing being something that cannot be created, thus cannot be something of form and mass. I hope this resonates within your mind.

And so a self-existent thing can not have a form or physical mass as it is an intangible and neceesary, non-contingent reality.

An example of a self-existent thing is eternity. Eternity is eternity. No birth or death of physical universes could circumscribe eternity. It is just there: a constant: eternity. It is not to be confused with the finite time that we use our indicators to measure. Eternity is just a constant. It could neither change nor be created. It is simply the constant vacuum into which things are interpolated.

Every self-existent thing that one may discern is a great key and a great help to understand what God is. Because God is the sum of intangible self-existent realities. The sum of all self-existent law.

With all due respect, this all sounds a bit dated. It sounds like something one might read in one of Immanuel Kant's writings - a subordination of the outside world's realities to the human mind's natural or unrefined perception and conceptualization of them. Claiming - without actually stating so - that how the mind perceives and initially understands certain concepts ( such as so called "eternity" ) is how they must apply to reality, without either experimental confirmation or theoretical proof. Well, anyway, I don't want to get too much more philosophical, so I'll just say I disagree completely with virtually everything in this quote.

The second post by justcool that you quoted (responding to KAG) is essentially a restatement of, and an elaboration on, the first post that you quoted.

The third is also more or less the same except that it goes on to mention the supposed connection of time to spirituality.

Since I responded to the 1st quote and the 2nd and 3rd are quite similar to it, it will be unnecessary to respond to those two as well.

So I guess that sums up my response.

ekt_bear: Out of curiosity, can you name some examples?

I do agree that African Americans are in a better situation on average than Africans.

But one wonders whether this is their own doing, or simply a function of being a resident of the most powerful country on earth...

He's operating under the naive assumption that there aren't African scientists or inventors with some achievements simply because Africans don't compile lists. Africans don't compile lists not just because it's not that easy to track all these people down, but also because they know that the number of recent achievements of black people in science isn't comparable to that of other ethnic/racial groups right now so there's not really a point.

Percy Julian, David Blackwell, Mark Dean, James Edward West, Ben Carson, and Vivien Thomas are the African American scientists that stand out.

On a secondary tier, but still impressive, you could put Kerrie Holley, Keith L. Black, Arthur B.C. Walker, Joseph S. Fransisco, Erich Jarvis, Levi Watkins Jr. and Herman Branson.

I think Donald J. Darensbourg is also claimed to be black, although I wouldn't classify him as black personally.

For the rest of the people you see listed on these African American inventors lists, there are Africans or Caribbeans at the same level of achievement (e.g. Haile Sossina (Ethiopian - African), Cardinal Warde (Barbados - Caribbean), Kwabena Boahen (Ghanaian - African), some Nigerians, and some other Africans) or higher. Then of course there are people you see listed in some of these lists whose inventions or discoveries weren't really that significant or weren't even used or were patented after the original invention had already been made by someone else. A layperson might get the mistaken impression that they're all actually important inventors though.

@ Royal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation

https://www.cityofart.net/bship/china_cartoon.gif

[img]http://www.coedu.usf.edu/main/departments/seced/webq/social%20studies/history/jberringer/berringer_cartoon.jpg[/img]

That's China's problem with the west.

Blyss: In regard to what you've addressed to me, I've got this to say. YA BULLLL Shitzin!! So these Northerners blowing up southern Christians is a fluke, ey? Or what about the monthly clashes between ethnic groups in which end in scores dead? Yeah, those are flukes to. Huumm, or what about the endless Igbo vs Yoruba, or south vs North, Muslim vs Christian, so on and so forth that goes on relentlessly right her on this site, is that a fluke as well? OOOOH, wait; my bad.. since you'all are slaughtering and belittling each other for your differences, while kissing foreign azz there in NAIJA/AFRICA and abroad, it makes it ok. Right? Since, you know.. a fellow Nigerian/African isn't worth your respect. Is that how it's going down round there Ace? Come correct now, or don't come at all next time.

You wrote all that crap and yet you couldn't understand a single word that I wrote?

I said that a direct confrontation results in argument or violence or deliberate self isolation. The examples you gave are a confirmation of that.

~Royal~:
Ill ask you one more time...Has China Lost Control to Outside Racial Forces and "White Rule"

The Opium wars? The Eight Nation alliance? The boxer rebellion?

That old humiliation of a weak China that was the plaything of westerners and Japan is the entire basis of the deliberate political isolation of the communist machine that exists today. The Nationalists leaned too much towards the same west that humiliated China so the communists were seen as a better alternative.

k.o.n.y:
The bolded is completely wrong lol. All of you ffools saying white americans are better are delusional. It is white america that fuels the negative images of africa. Africa has the worst media image maybe in the world because of them lol. Black americans always find ourselves defending Africa in this society. Theres probably more black american afrocentrist than africans

None of them said outright "white Americans are just better".

What they said was obvious, but you decided to obfuscate it and twist it into something else.

By the way, if black Americans and Africans weren't directly tied by race, which is a huge deal in America, how much defending would there really be? When there is another group of people that you have to coexist with directly all the time that are trying to degrade your existence and put down your entire race (which they see you as a subsection of) and try to use another section of your race to "prove" their point, it might be in your own interest to defend that section of your race. Those who don't have to coexist directly with this other group may not be under as much of a burden to engage in all that defending.

Blyss: Hummmm, very interesting. I never knew that that was the reason some of us have picked on you'all as youths, and here I was thinking it was simply due to typical behavior to pick on that in which seem out of the norm around you. Like the cool kids picking on the geeky kids, the kid with the lisps getting picked on and so on and so forth. So how did you crack this mystery?

How often does an African in Africa mock or insult an outsider (whether African or non-African) directly to their face merely for being different?

The result of those interactions are heated arguments or fights - or the same deliberate self-isolation some Africans in America engage in.