Thread: If matter cant be created or destroyed, where did all this stuff come from?

Ok, I gots something - are width, height and depth real? They're not material or energy. And while we did have to invent the symbolic language of drawing to represent these qualities so we can work with them, the qualities themselves actually do exist as inherent properties of the objects.

What they are is qualities of physical objects. I suppose that's what time is too - a quality of movement or somesuch. I think maybe you're taking the word exist too literally, thinking something must be material or energy in order to exist. Qualia exist without being physical or energy.

** Edit - decent video on theories about time:



It strikes me that they're all nearly the same, just observed from different viewpoints. Aside from the Presentist theory, they all involve a dot that represents the present sliding along a timeline with events posted along it, and the observer is either in a fixed position with the dot seeming to move, or stationed on the dot itself, watching events move. Presentism seems to be one of those theories modified to ignore the idea that even the present moment is in constant flux.

At least it's good to know we're not the only ones who can't seem to think with great clarity about the nature of time.