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Eternity

Eternity is a philosophical and theological concept denoting the infinite or unending duration of time, or alternatively, a state of timelessness beyond the sequence of past, present, and future.^[1] In classical Christian thought, it is classically defined by Boethius as "the whole, simultaneous and perfect possession of boundless life," emphasizing a complete, unchanging grasp of existence without temporal succession.^[1] Similarly, Augustine of Hippo describes divine eternity in his Confessions as an eternal "today" where God exists in a perpetual present, wholly separate from the flux of created time: "in the Eternal nothing passeth, but the whole is present."^[2] In broader theological contexts, eternity often characterizes God's nature as immutable and the ultimate destiny for the soul, contrasting with the finite span of human life and history.^[3] Philosophers have debated whether eternity implies everlasting duration (sempiternity) or atemporal simultaneity, with influences from Plato's timeless forms and Aristotle's eternal celestial motions shaping medieval and modern interpretations.^[4] This concept extends to eschatology, where eternal life represents unending communion with the divine, free from decay or limitation.^[5] In scientific cosmology, eternity appears in models like eternal inflation, where the universe undergoes perpetual expansion and bubble universe formation without beginning or end, driven by quantum fluctuations in an inflating false vacuum.^[6] Such theories, rooted in general relativity and quantum field theory, suggest an infinite multiverse where observable time emerges locally but the overall structure persists eternally.^[7] These scientific notions parallel philosophical eternity by positing boundless processes, though they remain within physical laws rather than transcending them.^[8]

Etymology and Conceptual Foundations

Etymology

The English word eternity derives from the late 14th-century Old French eternité, which in turn comes from the Latin aeternitās (nominative aeternitās), meaning "the quality of being eternal" or "endless duration."^[9] The Latin term stems from the adjective aeternus "enduring, permanent," a contraction of aeviternus "of great age," ultimately rooted in aevum "age, lifetime, or era," from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root h₂eyu- signifying "vital force, life, or long life."^[9] In ancient Greek, linguistic parallels to concepts of endless duration include aiōn (αἰών), denoting "age, era, or eternity," which is etymologically cognate with Latin aevum through the same PIE root h₂eyu-.^[10] Another key term is aidios (αἰδιος), an adjective meaning "everlasting" or "eternal," often used in philosophical and theological texts to describe perpetual existence without beginning or end. Across other Indo-European languages, similar terms evolved to convey perpetuity, such as the Sanskrit śāśvata, an adjective meaning "eternal, perpetual, or everlasting," derived from the root śāś- "to last" combined with -vata "like," influencing early theological discussions of timelessness.^[11] This word appears in ancient Indian texts to describe unchanging realities, paralleling the development of eternity-related vocabulary in Western traditions.^[12] A pivotal early usage of aeternitās occurs in Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy (c. 524 CE), where eternity is linguistically framed as "the whole and perfect possession of endless life at once," explicitly contrasted with the successive nature of time (tempus).^[10] This formulation, drawing on classical Latin roots, shaped subsequent theological terminology in medieval Europe.^[10]

Definitions and Distinctions

Eternity is fundamentally understood as a state of boundless existence in relation to time, either as timelessness—where all moments are possessed simultaneously without succession—or as sempiternity, an infinite duration lacking both beginning and end.^[13] This dual conception highlights eternity's qualitative transcendence over temporal limits, distinguishing it from finite human experience bound by past, present, and future.^[14] A seminal formulation appears in Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, where eternity is defined as "the simultaneous and complete possession of infinite life," emphasizing a perfect, undivided present that contrasts with the fragmented nature of temporal existence.^[14] This atemporal view portrays eternity not as an extended sequence but as an indivisible whole, applicable particularly to divine nature.^[14] Eternity differs from infinity, which denotes mathematical or spatial boundlessness without inherent temporal quality, such as an unending series in quantity or extent, whereas eternity specifically addresses the unboundedness of time itself.^[15] Similarly, it is distinct from immortality, which refers to an individual's unending life within time—enduring through infinite succession—rather than the transcendent, non-sequential state of eternity.^[15] In modern philosophical discourse, eternity is often clarified as the absence of temporal succession, enabling simultaneous access to all reality, in contrast to infinite time, which involves an unending but sequential progression akin to sempiternity.^[13] This distinction underscores eternity's role as a conceptual framework for understanding existence beyond the arrow of time.^[13]

Philosophical Explorations

Ancient and Medieval Philosophy

In pre-Socratic philosophy, eternity emerged as a central concept through contrasting views on the nature of reality. Parmenides of Elea posited an unchanging eternal being as the fundamental reality, arguing that true existence is singular, motionless, and without beginning or end, since what is cannot come from what is not nor perish into it.^[16] This eternal "What Is" stands in opposition to the illusory world of change and multiplicity perceived by the senses. In contrast, Heraclitus of Ephesus emphasized perpetual flux as the essence of reality, declaring that "everything flows and nothing remains," where stability is illusory and all things are in constant transformation governed by an underlying logos.^[17] Yet, within this flux, Heraclitus discerned an eternal harmony of opposites, suggesting a deeper permanence amid ceaseless becoming.^[17] Plato developed these ideas in his dialogue Timaeus, distinguishing eternity as the timeless realm of ideal forms from the temporal world of becoming. The forms constitute an everlasting, unchanging reality apprehended by reason, serving as the eternal model for the cosmos crafted by the demiurge.^[18] Time, by contrast, is a "moving image of eternity," created alongside the heavens to imitate the perpetual stability of the divine pattern through cycles of days, nights, and years.^[18] This framework underscores eternity as stability beyond the flux of generated things, where the eternal "is" without past or future. Aristotle further refined the notion of eternity in relation to cosmic order in Metaphysics Book Lambda, positing the eternal circular motion of the heavens as essential for the continuity of the universe. This motion, unending and uniform, requires an eternal unmoved mover as its final cause—a pure actuality, divine and without potentiality, that sustains all change through being eternally desirable.^[19] Unlike Plato's separated forms, Aristotle integrated eternity into the natural world, where the heavens' perpetual movement exemplifies divine immutability. Medieval philosophy synthesized these classical foundations with Christian theology, particularly through Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. In Confessions Book XI, Augustine describes God's eternity as an atemporal presence where all moments coexist without succession, exempt from the distinctions of past, present, and future that define created time.^[20] God "precedes all past and reaches beyond all future," existing in a perpetual "today" that transcends temporal extension.^[20] Aquinas, in Summa Theologica (Prima Pars, Q. 10), defines eternity as "the simultaneously-whole and perfect possession of interminable life," drawing on Boethius to emphasize its lack of succession in contrast to time's flow.^[21] For Aquinas, this total simultaneity characterizes God's immutable essence, allowing divine knowledge to encompass all temporal events without change.^[21]

Modern and Contemporary Philosophy

In modern philosophy, Immanuel Kant introduced a distinction between the phenomenal world, structured by space and time as forms of sensible intuition, and the noumenal realm of things-in-themselves, which transcends temporal conditions and thus partakes in a form of eternity inaccessible to theoretical reason.^[22] In his Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Kant argued that eternity cannot be cognized within the bounds of possible experience, confining it to the moral domain where practical reason postulates the immortality of the soul to enable unending moral progress toward the highest good.^[23] This limitation underscores Kant's critical turn, emphasizing that eternity serves ethical imperatives rather than speculative metaphysics.^[24] Building on but diverging from such Enlightenment frameworks, Friedrich Nietzsche reconceived eternity through the doctrine of eternal recurrence, presented as a thought experiment in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883–1885). Nietzsche posited that if existence were to repeat infinitely in identical cycles, one must affirm life in its entirety—including suffering—to achieve authentic self-overcoming and amor fati (love of fate).^[25] This cyclical eternity challenges linear progress narratives, serving not as a metaphysical truth but as an existential test for valuing one's life without appeal to transcendent afterlives.^[26] In 20th-century analytic philosophy, J.M.E. McTaggart's analysis in "The Unreality of Time" (1908) distinguished the A-series of time, characterized by tensed properties like past, present, and future, from the B-series of tenseless relations like earlier-than and later-than, ultimately arguing that time—and by extension, a straightforward notion of eternity as endless duration—is unreal due to contradictions in the A-series.^[27] McTaggart suggested that reality consists in timeless B-series relations, aligning eternity with a static, atemporal order of events rather than dynamic passage.^[28] Contemporary philosophy of time has developed eternalism as a prominent view, holding that all temporal moments are equally real in a four-dimensional "block" of spacetime, where past, present, and future coexist without privileged now.^[28] This perspective, influenced by McTaggart's B-series, contrasts with presentism and implies an eternalist ontology where change is relational rather than substantive. In response, process philosophers like Alfred North Whitehead critiqued static eternalism in favor of becoming, positing in Process and Reality (1929) that reality is a flux of creative events prehending each other, with eternity residing in the consequential nature of God who integrates all temporal occasions into an everlasting harmony rather than a frozen totality.^[29]^[30]

Religious Interpretations

In Abrahamic Traditions

In Judaism, eternity is conceptualized through the term "olam," often denoting a world without end or boundless duration, as reflected in Torah passages describing God's enduring nature, such as Psalm 90:2, which states that God is "from everlasting to everlasting." This notion underscores the eternal covenant (brit olam) established between God and the people of Israel, exemplified in Genesis 9:16 and 17:7, where God promises an everlasting bond through obedience to divine commandments, ensuring perpetual relationship and protection. Regarding the afterlife, Sheol represents a shadowy, indistinct realm of the dead—a place of silence and dim existence rather than reward or punishment—mentioned over 65 times in the Hebrew Bible as the common destination for all souls, lacking the vivid eternities of later traditions.^[31] In Christianity, divine eternity is articulated as atemporal, meaning God exists outside of time in a simultaneous whole of unending life, a view pioneered by Boethius in his Consolation of Philosophy, where eternity is "the whole, perfect, and simultaneous possession of endless life."^[10] Thomas Aquinas further developed this in the Summa Theologica, arguing that God's eternity differs from temporal creation by lacking succession, allowing divine immutability and omnipresence without change.^[21] For humanity, the New Testament promises "aionios zoe" (eternal life) through faith in Christ's resurrection, as in John 17:3: "Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent," emphasizing relational knowledge of God leading to unending communion post-resurrection.^[32] This eschatological hope culminates in bodily resurrection, transforming mortal existence into imperishable life, as detailed in 1 Corinthians 15:42–54.^[33] In Islam, eternity manifests in Allah's attribute of "Al-Qayyum," the self-subsisting and eternal sustainer, as proclaimed in Quran 2:255 (Ayat al-Kursi): "Allah—there is no god except Him—the Living, the Eternal," who upholds all creation without need or fatigue. The afterlife features Jannah (Paradise) as an eternal abode of bliss for the righteous, with rivers, gardens, and companionship abiding forever (e.g., Quran 4:57), contrasting Jahannam (Hell), an unending realm of torment for the unrepentant, where disbelievers "will abide therein eternally" (Quran 4:14). These states reflect divine justice, with entry determined by faith and deeds on the Day of Judgment. Across Abrahamic traditions, eschatological eternity converges on a final judgment ushering unending states: resurrection and reward for the faithful in Judaism's Olam Ha-Ba, Christianity's new heavens and earth, and Islam's Jannah, versus separation or punishment in Sheol's echoes, eternal exclusion from God, or Jahannam. Recent theological debates, including ecumenical discussions on universal salvation, explore "inclusive eternity" as potential reconciliation for all souls, though orthodox views maintain distinctions based on response to divine revelation, as seen in ongoing dialogues among Christian denominations.^[34]

In Eastern and Other Traditions

In Hinduism, the concept of eternity is articulated through the term Ananta, signifying the endless or infinite, as referenced in the Vedic texts where it symbolizes the boundless nature of existence.^[35] Brahman, the ultimate reality, is described as the eternal, indivisible, and infinite essence underlying all phenomena, transcending temporal limitations.^[36] The cycle of samsara—the perpetual wheel of birth, death, and rebirth—represents a temporal framework that binds the soul (atman), but this is overcome through moksha, liberation that merges the individual soul into timeless union with Brahman, achieving eternal bliss beyond cyclical time.^[37]^[38] In Buddhism, eternity manifests in nirvana, the state of ultimate cessation that transcends temporal suffering and the cycle of rebirth (samsara), offering release from dukkha (suffering) without beginning or end.^[39] In Mahayana traditions, the dharmakaya—the truth body of the Buddha—embodies an eternal, immutable reality, intimately linked to the Buddha-nature inherent in all beings, representing the unchanging essence beyond impermanence.^[40] This eternal dimension emphasizes transcendence through enlightenment, where the mind's infinite nature aligns with the cessation of karmic rebirth. Other traditions further illustrate eternity through cyclical and timeless frameworks. In ancient Egyptian cosmology, djet denotes eternal sameness and permanence, contrasting with neheh (cyclical recurrence), symbolizing an unchanging eternity tied to the divine order and the afterlife's stability.^[41]^[42] The Mayan cosmic calendars, such as the Long Count, encode eternal cycles of creation and renewal, where world ages conclude and restart in perpetual regeneration, reflecting a universe in unending temporal loops.^[43] Indigenous Australian Aboriginal views conceptualize the Dreamtime as a timeless creation epoch, an eternal "everywhen" where ancestral beings shaped the land and laws in a sacred, non-linear continuum that persists indefinitely.^[44]^[45] In 2025, interfaith dialogues are increasingly exploring the integration of Eastern conceptions of eternity—such as cyclical transcendence in Hinduism and Buddhism—with quantum philosophical ideas, examining parallels between timeless realities and concepts like quantum entanglement in global forums on science and religion.^[46]

Scientific Perspectives

In Physics and Cosmology

In the framework of special relativity, as formulated by Albert Einstein in 1905, the universe is conceptualized through Minkowski spacetime, a four-dimensional continuum where past, present, and future events coexist eternally in a "block universe." This interpretation arises from the relativity of simultaneity, which eliminates an absolute "now," rendering all moments equally real and timelessly fixed. Hermann Minkowski's 1908 geometric reformulation of Einstein's theory solidified this view, portraying spacetime as a static structure unbound by temporal flow. Cosmological models incorporating inflation extend this notion of eternity on larger scales. Alan Guth's 1981 proposal of cosmic inflation addressed key issues like the horizon and flatness problems by positing a rapid early expansion driven by a scalar field. Subsequent developments by Andrei Linde in 1983 introduced chaotic inflation, which naturally leads to eternal inflation: regions of space continue inflating indefinitely, spawning an ever-growing multiverse of bubble universes with no global origin or termination. In this scenario, inflation persists eternally across the multiverse, with our observable universe as one finite pocket within an infinite, timeless expanse.^[47] The prevailing consensus on the universe's long-term fate, informed by observations such as those from the Planck satellite's 2018 data release (with refinements through 2025 analyses), supports eternal expansion driven by dark energy, culminating in heat death—a state of maximum entropy where the universe reaches thermodynamic equilibrium after trillions of years. This aligns with the ΛCDM model, where the universe's accelerated expansion prevents recollapse, leading to an eternally dilute cosmos devoid of usable energy. In contrast, alternative cyclic models, such as Roger Penrose's conformal cyclic cosmology proposed in the 2010s, envision an infinite sequence of aeons: each universe expands to a conformally rescaled "end" that seamlessly transitions into the Big Bang of the next, evading a singular beginning or absolute end through Weyl curvature scaling. Quantum gravity approaches further challenge temporal linearity. The Wheeler-DeWitt equation, derived in canonical quantum gravity by Bryce DeWitt and John Wheeler in 1967, yields a timeless constraint on the wavefunction of the universe:

\hat{\mathcal{H}} \Psi[g_{ab}, \phi] = 0

where \hat{\mathcal{H}} is the Hamiltonian constraint operator, g_{ab} represents the spatial metric, \phi denotes matter fields, and \Psi is the eternal wavefunction encompassing all possible universe configurations without an external time parameter. This "timeless" formulation implies a static quantum state for the entire cosmos, aligning with eternalism by treating the universe's evolution as an illusory emergence from a fundamental atemporal reality.

In Mathematics and Logic

In mathematics, eternity manifests through concepts of infinity, where structures or processes extend without bound, as exemplified by infinite sets. Georg Cantor developed transfinite set theory in the late 19th century, introducing cardinalities to measure the "sizes" of infinite sets. The smallest infinite cardinality, denoted \aleph_0 (aleph-null), corresponds to the set of natural numbers \mathbb{N} = \{0, 1, 2, \dots\}, which represents a countable infinity and embodies an eternal sequence without end.^[48] This countable infinity arises because the natural numbers can be put into one-to-one correspondence with any finite initial segment, yet the set as a whole never terminates, serving as a foundational model for unending mathematical progressions.^[48] Supertasks further explore eternity in logic by considering the completion of infinitely many actions within a finite duration, raising paradoxes about temporal limits in formal systems. In 1954, James F. Thomson introduced the "lamp paradox" to illustrate this: imagine a lamp that starts off at t=0 and is turned on at t=1/2 minute, off at t=3/4 minute, on at t=7/8 minute, and so on, completing infinitely many switches by t=1 minute.^[49] At exactly 1 minute, the lamp's state—on or off—cannot be determined, as no final switch occurs after the infinite sequence, challenging the coherence of supertasks and implying that logical eternity may defy finite resolution.^[50] Thomson argued that such supertasks are impossible because they require resolving an undefined outcome from an unending process.^[49] Kurt Gödel's incompleteness theorems, published in 1931, reveal eternal truths inherent in sufficiently powerful formal systems that transcend provability, underscoring limits in axiomatic mathematics. The first theorem states that in any consistent formal system capable of expressing basic arithmetic, there exist true statements that cannot be proven within the system—such as Gödel sentences that assert their own unprovability.^[51] These undecidable statements represent eternal mathematical realities independent of any finite axiomatic framework, as they hold true indefinitely but evade mechanical derivation.^[51] The second theorem extends this by showing that no such system can prove its own consistency, implying an eternal hierarchy of truths beyond any single formal structure.^[51] Temporal logic provides formal tools to model eternal properties in computational and logical systems, particularly through modalities expressing persistence over infinite timelines. Linear Temporal Logic (LTL), introduced by Amir Pnueli in 1977, extends propositional logic with operators like \mathbf{G} \phi ("always \phi" or "globally \phi"), which asserts that a property \phi holds eternally along a linear path of states. In computer science, LTL verifies "eternal" liveness and safety properties in reactive systems, such as ensuring a program always eventually responds to inputs, by checking against infinite execution traces. This framework enables automated model checking, where eternal invariants are confirmed without enumerating all possibilities, bridging logic with practical eternity in algorithm design.^[52]

Cultural and Symbolic Representations

Symbolism in Art and Iconography

The infinity symbol (∞), introduced by English mathematician John Wallis in his 1655 treatise De sectionibus conicis, takes the form of a sideways lemniscate curve, evoking an endless loop that visually captures the concept of boundlessness and perpetual motion.^[53] This design, resembling a figure-eight ribbon twisted at the center, symbolizes eternal cycles and continuity, often interpreted as a representation of infinite recurrence without beginning or end.^[54] Similarly, the ouroboros—a serpent or dragon devouring its own tail—appears in ancient Egyptian art as early as the New Kingdom period (circa 1550–1070 BCE), where it embodied the eternal cycle of renewal, life, death, and rebirth, as seen in tomb inscriptions and protective amulets.^[55] In alchemical traditions from the Hellenistic era onward, the ouroboros further signified the unity of all matter in an unending transformative process, frequently depicted in illuminated manuscripts and laboratory diagrams to denote the philosopher's stone and perpetual regeneration.^[56] In religious iconography, early Christian art in Roman catacombs from the 3rd century CE employed circular motifs such as laurel wreaths encircling the Chi-Rho symbol, representing eternal victory and everlasting life through Christ's resurrection, as evidenced in frescoes from the Catacomb of Priscilla.^[57] These "eternity bands," often intertwined with vines or palms, underscored the hope of immortality amid persecution, appearing in burial niches to invoke divine perpetuity.^[58] In Islamic art, arabesque patterns—intricate, interlocking vegetal and floral designs—emerged prominently from the 8th century in mosques and manuscripts, symbolizing the infinite unity of creation and the divine, with their seamless, non-repeating flows evoking God's endless oneness and the harmony of the cosmos.^[59] Such motifs, avoiding figurative representation in line with aniconic principles, proliferated in architecture like the Alhambra's tilework, where they conveyed spiritual boundlessness and the eternal interconnectedness of all existence.^[60] During the Renaissance, Albrecht Dürer's 1514 engraving Melencolia I juxtaposed symbols of transience against aspirations of the eternal, featuring an hourglass with cascading sand to denote the fleeting passage of time and human mortality, placed beside a brooding winged angel embodying melancholic genius and contemplative immortality.^[61] The angel's inert pose amid scattered tools of measurement and creation highlights the tension between temporal limitations and the soul's quest for timeless insight, with the hourglass serving as a memento mori contrasting the divine, enduring nature of intellectual pursuit.^[62] In modern art, Salvador Dalí's 1931 oil painting The Persistence of Memory subverted conventional timekeeping through melting pocket watches draped over barren forms in a surreal landscape, illustrating the illusory and subjective quality of temporality against the backdrop of an eternal, dreamlike reality.^[63] The soft, liquefied clocks, inspired by Dalí's subconscious visions, challenge linear progression, suggesting that perceived time dissolves into a persistent, unchanging surreal essence that transcends physical decay.^[64] This iconic imagery, set against a vast, unchanging horizon, evokes the permanence of memory and the subconscious in opposition to ephemeral existence.^[65]

Eternity in Literature and Popular Culture

In classical literature, eternity often manifests through themes of transformation and permanence amid flux. Ovid's Metamorphoses (8 CE), a narrative poem compiling over 250 myths, portrays eternity via characters who undergo irreversible changes into immortal forms, such as constellations or trees, symbolizing a defiance of mortal decay through divine intervention.^[66] Similarly, William Shakespeare's sonnets, particularly Sonnet 18 ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"), explore eternity as an artistic conquest over time, asserting that the beloved's beauty endures indefinitely through the immortal lines of poetry.^[67] The 19th and 20th centuries expanded eternity into metaphysical and fantastical realms in literature. Jorge Luis Borges's short story "The Library of Babel" (1941) envisions an infinite, eternal archive comprising every possible book, representing the universe as a boundless repository where all knowledge and chaos coexist in perpetual totality.^[68] In J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (1954–1955), the Undying Lands—comprising the blessed realm of Aman—serve as a haven of immortality for elves and other ancient beings, embodying an eternal paradise beyond the temporal strife of Middle-earth.^[69] Eternity permeates popular culture through narratives of repetition and timeless cycles. The film Groundhog Day (1993), directed by Harold Ramis, depicts protagonist Phil Connors trapped in an endless loop reliving the same day, a scenario that echoes Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of eternal recurrence as a test of life's affirmability.^[70] In video games, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998) employs time-travel mechanics that create branching loops across child and adult timelines, allowing player Link to navigate eternal cycles of heroism and destiny in the kingdom of Hyrule.^[71] As of 2025, streaming series continue to reinterpret eternity through multiverse frameworks in sci-fi. Renewed shows like Dark Matter (season 2 anticipated), based on Blake Crouch's novel, probe infinite parallel realities where choices spawn eternal variants of existence, blending quantum uncertainty with narrative immortality.^[72]

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[PDF] Hinduism : Grade 12 world of religions : a Canadian perspective
May 27, 2019 · Moksha is for the human soul (atman) to become one with god, to merge the atman with The Brahman (the ultimate reality, supreme god, or creator ...<|separator|>
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All Buddhas and All Living Beings Are Just This One Mind
The mind of the Buddha is never stopped, it was never produced, it has no duration in between production and stopping, it gives no support, it is infinite.
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Buddhology | Religion Wiki - Fandom
It is this transcendent yet immanent Dharmakaya-Buddha which is taught in certain major Mahayana sutras to be immutable and eternal and is intimately linked ...
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Time and Eternity: An Egyptian Dualism » Latter-day Saint Blogs »
Jun 25, 2008 · Neheh is generational time and repeats, whereas djet is permanent and unchanging in eternity. The model of “one eternal round” illuminates both ...
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ANCIENT EGYPT : The Book of the Hidden Chamber - sofiatopia.org
Eternal recurrence or "neheh"-time involves the return to the First Time of Atum, whereas everlastingness of "djedet"-time points to the Duat and Osiris ...
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Cosmology, Calendars, and Horizon-Based Astronomy in Ancient ...
Providing extraordinary examples of how Precolumbian peoples merged ideas about the cosmos with those concerning calendar and astronomy, the volume showcases ...
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'The Dreaming' links with creation | Global Sisters Report
Oct 3, 2017 · "The Dreaming" is their timeless way of interpreting creation, relating to their ancestors, and passing on their knowledge, stories and laws ...
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[PDF] The Dreaming: time and space - Brown University
May 4, 2025 · It represents all that exists as deriving from a single, unchanging, timeless source. All things have always been the same, forever deriving ...
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https://philevents.org/event/fileDownload/137521?fileId=18874
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Inflationary universe: A possible solution to the horizon and flatness ...
Inflationary universe: A possible solution to the horizon and flatness problems. Alan H. Guth*. Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University ...Missing: Eternal | Show results with:Eternal
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Infinity - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Apr 29, 2021 · The Aristotelian distinction between potential and actual infinity has had a major influence up to contemporary times. (For further discussion ...
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[PDF] J. F. Thomson Source: Analysis, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Oct., 1954), pp. 1-13 ...
By J. F. THOMSON. " TO complete any journey you must complete an infinite. Inumber of journeys. For to arrive from A to B you must first go to from A to A', ...
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Supertasks - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Apr 5, 2016 · Supertasks are often described by sequences that do not converge. J. F. Thomson (1954) introduced one such example now known as Thomson's Lamp, ...Missing: James | Show results with:James
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Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems
Nov 11, 2013 · Gödel's two incompleteness theorems are among the most important results in modern logic, and have deep implications for various issues.
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[PDF] Temporal Logic: The Lesser of Three Evils - Leslie Lamport
Apr 5, 2010 · Amir Pnueli introduced temporal logic to computer science in 1977 in a paper presented at FOCS [10]. That paper inspired Susan Owicki to ...
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mathematics - Where did John Wallis get the idea for $\infty$? - History
May 21, 2016 · The ∞ symbol was introduced by John Wallis (1616-1703) in 1655 in his De sectionibus conicis (On Conic Sections) as follows: Suppono in limine ( ...
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8 Infinity Facts That Will Blow Your Mind - ThoughtCo
May 13, 2025 · The symbol, sometimes called the lemniscate, was introduced by clergyman and mathematician John Wallis in 1655. The word "lemniscate" comes ...
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The ancient symbol that spanned millennia - BBC
Dec 4, 2017 · As such, the ouroboros in its original Egyptian context symbolised repetition, renewal, and the eternal cycle of time. Known as the oldest ...
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The Ouroboros · Salvador Dalí: Alchimie des Philosophes
The Ouroboros, the serpent which devours its own tail, is the most ancient symbol of alchemy. It is also called the paradoxical serpent.<|separator|>
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Early Christian Symbols in the Catacombs - Bible Study
Early christian symbols found in the catacombs including symbology of the Chi-Rho, anchor, good shepherd, fish, peacock, cross, dove, orante, and funerary ...
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Catacomb of Priscilla, Rome - Smarthistory
[4:13] Within the catacombs we see lots of inscriptions that speak to the people that were buried, and there were also inscribed Christian symbols. We find the ...
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Architecture & Tradition - The Universal Principles of Islamic Art
It encourages a contemplative state of mind and a perception, through the language of symbolism, of 'unity in multiplicity and multiplicity in unity '. The ...
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Arabesque is a distinct style in Islamic art - Ismailimail
Dec 21, 2014 · The arabesque style is characterized by its rhythmic waves, often implying an infinite design with no beginning or end.Islamic Art Series · Imams Series · Music In Islam Series
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Albrecht Dürer, Melencolia - Smarthistory
The hourglass is a symbol of limited time, often connected to the idea of the memento mori, a reminder of death. [3:55] Next to this is a balance, a symbol ...Missing: eternal | Show results with:eternal
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Closer Look: Albrecht Durer's Melencolia I - LSU Museum of Art
Dec 6, 2024 · Alongside the bell and the magic square, the hourglass underscores the inevitability of death, even though the exact moment remains unknown.Missing: eternal | Show results with:eternal
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Understanding “The Persistence of Memory,” Salvador Dalí's ... - Artsy
Aug 4, 2020 · Dalí painted The Persistence of Memory in 1931 when he was just 28 years old, and the Surrealist movement was at its height. By this time, he ...Missing: eternal | Show results with:eternal
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Bending Reality: How Surrealism Reveals The Subjectivity Of Time
Nov 15, 2024 · This is famously depicted in Salvador Dalí's “The Persistence of Memory,” where clocks melt in a barren, dream-like landscape. Here, time is not ...
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The Persistence of Memory: Surrealism, Time & Dreams
Jul 7, 2025 · Dalí's The Persistence of Memory, where melting clocks challenge our perception of time, memory, and reality in a surreal dreamscape.
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OVID, METAMORPHOSES 1 - Theoi Classical Texts Library
His most celebrated work is the Metamorphoses, a poem in 15 books recounting stories from Greek and Roman myth. His two other myth-themed works were the Fasti ...
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Shakespeare's Sonnets: The Secret to Immortality
Apr 25, 2024 · When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st, So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee ...
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Borges, The Universe And The Infinite Library : 13.7 - NPR
Jul 23, 2010 · In the short story The Library of Babel, the great Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges constructs a metaphorical replica of the universe.Missing: eternity | Show results with:eternity
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Undying Lands - Tolkien Gateway
Feb 11, 2020 · Undying Lands was a name for Aman, or at least that part of it inhabited by the Valar, Maiar and Elves.
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Groundhog Day | Issue 93 - Philosophy Now
Groundhog Day presents a far more human version of eternal recurrence. Connors largely muddles his way through. Sometimes he's less affirmative, sometimes more.
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How the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time gave us a timeless legacy
Apr 14, 2023 · It's a game that takes you on a perfect adventure, one that anyone of any age can relate to: you're the hero, you scale the castle, defeat the villain.
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20 New & Renewed Sci-Fi Series 2025 - IMDb
20 New & Renewed Sci-Fi Series 2025 · 1. Pluribus · 2. Fallout · 3. The Last of Us · 4. The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon · 5. Dark Matter · 6. Alien: Earth · 7. Black ...