Is the concept of 'the present' ambiguous?
Is the concept of 'the present' ambiguous?
1. The objective present of abstract clock time, which is not experienced as such but hypothysised as far as I can tell.
2. The experience of "being in the moment" might also be called a present. When I experience this, time seems to fly by.
3. The experience of boredom, or alienation, in which you are not "in the moment" and the present goes on for ever. The present is a burden in this case
4. The socially appropriate now. E.g. now is the right time to eat dinner, not breakfast. This 'present' easily becomes apparent when somebody breaks the norm that constitutes that shared present.
5. The differing or non simultaneous present in Eienstein's theory of space time. Again not experienced as such.
6.Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
7. The future-present. E.g. "tell me about it during lunch tomorrow" points to a present in the future.
8. The past-present. "You told me about it yesterday during lunch" points to a present in the past.
9. The ontological present. Some people like to equate "exist" with "being present".
10. The present in the sense of now we are doing this task. The present in this case covers the whole duration of the task. E.g. "Now we are eating dinner, then we will eat dessert!" The context in which this now is said seems to determine its duration.
1. The objective present of abstract clock time, which is not experienced as such but hypothysised as far as I can tell.
2. The experience of "being in the moment" might also be called a present. When I experience this, time seems to fly by.
3. The experience of boredom, or alienation, in which you are not "in the moment" and the present goes on for ever. The present is a burden in this case
4. The socially appropriate now. E.g. now is the right time to eat dinner, not breakfast. This 'present' easily becomes apparent when somebody breaks the norm that constitutes that shared present.
5. The differing or non simultaneous present in Eienstein's theory of space time. Again not experienced as such.
6.Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
present as the division between past and future.
7. The future-present. E.g. "tell me about it during lunch tomorrow" points to a present in the future.
8. The past-present. "You told me about it yesterday during lunch" points to a present in the past.
9. The ontological present. Some people like to equate "exist" with "being present".
10. The present in the sense of now we are doing this task. The present in this case covers the whole duration of the task. E.g. "Now we are eating dinner, then we will eat dessert!" The context in which this now is said seems to determine its duration.
Comments (13)
Yes, although I would only refer to 1 and 2 and 5 as 'present'.
3 folds back into 2, 'specious time', and other considerations about tasks or lack-thereof.
4 doesn't refer to 'present' as time, but to 'present as context. Context and present will always be deeply associated, because a context can be said to define a present, but I think that's only due to that correspondance, and not because context necessarily refers to a present.
Very interesting... You want to distinguish between context and present. I would probably disagree but I would struggle to argue for it... At the root of the idea that I'm attempting to express is that we are each generally and deeply constituted by social norms. The context (or the situation) we are both referring to here is what we usually find ourselves 'in' in an 'everyday' way. I would ask the question how are these everyday contexts constituted? Or better, how do we find the contexts to be intelligible? Think of a group of people sitting at a table holding knifes and forks at 7pm. Does this 'context' define a present? Does this context correspond to a present? Or is this context intelligible only on the basis of a shared socially appropriate 'now'. I.e. Now is the time to eat dinner, not the time to eat breakfast. I think this particular context is only intelligible on that basis. If you choose to eat breakfast 7pm rather than dinner, then the context you and others find yourself in will still be intelligible on the basis of the socially appropriate now; afterall, eating breakfast at 7pm is considered 'odd' only on this basis. So the present (in the sense of the socially appropriate now) doesn't correspond to the context, but rather constitutes that context.
I feel that the socially appropriate now is a way that we legitimately experience the present, and is a particular distinct kind of 'present'. One pertinent way I experience this shared socially appropriate present is while coming home from work on the train everyday.
e.g "I call all of what I see around me the 'present' "
Isn't our concept of the present as discussed in public discourse an entirely different usage, that typically involves pointing to a spatio-temporal axis and saying "the present is at this location" when making plans?
You left out present as the division between past and future.
Good point. Perhaps one meaning of the present is just experience as you say. This seems like an ontological present which would, as ontology, involve conceptualisation. However, what you're pointing to is an implicit pretheoretical or preconceptual experience I think.
Quoting sime
Here you picked up another meaning. The future now. When we make plans we talk of a present in the future when we will do such and such. It's not the future per say but a future-present that is referred to.
What I notice is a distinct difference between past and future, in reference to events, one referring to events which have occurred and the other to events which have not yet occurred. Therefore I encounter the present as that which is responsible for this difference, the separation between them. So that is exactly what I am describing, a way that we encounter the present and make it intelligible. It is intelligible as the separation between past and future.
Quoting bloodninja
Actually I do not think that the past and future are ambiguous. What has occurred, and what has not yet occurred is a very clear distinction. It is only the present, when things are occurring, that there might be ambiguity as to what has or has not yet occurred. An event occurring cannot be said to be past or future. So the ambiguity is due to not having a clear division, and that is the present.
I think that if we were to move through it then context would have to be something external to us. What I mean by saying we are in it is not 'in' in an internal/external sense but 'in' in the sense of that we are that meaningful context, we are in the meaning. Saying that we are those norms, is not quite the same as saying that the external has become internalized. Does that make any sense? I think my brain is too tired from a hard day at work to express the idea any better sorry...
So how can the present be ambiguous if it is not a concept of perspectival experience, while having no definition in physical theory, except as an arbitrarily chosen time-slice that is mentally equated with experience?
Isn't it due to the fact that the notions of "stillness" and "change" are phenomenally ambiguous and do not possess a simple relationship with their corresponding physical notions?
In fact, are "stillness" and "change" privately deducible experiences?
How can I tell if my immediate and unshareable experience is static or dynamic?
What does it mean to speak of error here?
This statement is ambiguous. We don't experience concepts if that is what you mean? We articulate our understanding of experience using concepts. Do you mean, the present must be an experience for it to qualify as ambiguous? According to whom? Besides, the present is experiencable and/or intelligible in different ways which is why it is ambiguous. Do you mean it needs to be a concept to qualify as ambiguous? It is both conceptual and a pre-conceptual experience.