What is "the present" and how long is it?

[Radagast]

Were I to try to simplify what I said, it would go like this: Just because some local event may exist a few seconds in the future (a few minutes, whatever)

The effect is linear in terms of distance. At astronomical distances, the effect may be days, weeks, months, years, even centuries or more.

it does not follow that the totality of the future exists in the sense of most theological discussions

Well it does, if you accept special relativity.

- that time exists or is just a concept - that all of eternity is or is not determined - that God is in time or he isn't.

Special relativity implies that the future is determined, and it has something to say about the nature of time.

Obviously, it tells us nothing about God.

 

[Bob Crowley]

From the point of our experience of the "present", it's a bit like trying to pin down a point, a line, a circle, or the value of pi.

What's a point? What's a line, or a circle if you consider that pi is an irrational number? Some "adepts" have apparently memorised it up to 70,000 digits. If you're interested, the following link gives pi to the value of 100,000 digits.

100,000 Digits of Pi

The "present" is instantaneous. I'm also inclined to doubt the existence of time, which has never been physically detected, although its existence has to be assumed for physical laws to work, and calculations to take effect.

I'm intrigued that if a bloke in a very fast space ship flying at near the speed of light flashed past a bloke standing on earth, they would allegedly both have very different experiences of time, yet in theory they could be pass very close to each other. Time has slowed down for one compared to the other.

Since light obviously travels at the speed of light, do photons of light not experience time, or are they independent of time?

 

[J_B_]

Well it does, if you accept special relativity.

Only per certain interpretations of SR, but since what I said seems nonsense to you, I guess I shall remain mired in my pre-determined nonsense.