The Difference Between Future and Past
Surely it is self-evident that there is a difference between future and past. However, we cannot really claim to experience the future, and though we say we've experienced the past, it is not as the past that we've experienced it. So the question is what type of knowledge allows us to say that there is a difference between future and past, or is there really no difference between them and what appears as extremely self-evident is just a deep delusion?
Comments (84)
I agree.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Empirical (experiential) knowledge (factual semantic information).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The concept of time (including: past, present, future, beginning, end, instant/moment, simultaneity, serial, parallel, etc.) is embedded in language as mental modelling system, hence; human thought. It is part of the Human Umwelt.
Finite time (unidirectional duration) is measurable and divisible. It is a self-evident fact (perceived particular).
In other words, we can't say that there's not the phenomenon of of an oasis in the desert if that occurs as an illusion. The phenomenon would at least obtain as an illusion. We could say that the phenomenon doesn't correlate to something else, but in this case, we can't deny that there are changes/motion that happened versus . . . wholesale, because that would at least be the case insofar as the illusion goes.
If it "occurs as an illusion" (a conscious perception resulting in the misinterpretation of reality), the oasis is not a fact, it is a mirage. And in that case, it would be delusional to believe the mirage is an oasis.
Illusions, imagery, hallucinations, psuedohallucinations, and dreams are types of misperception, hence; not objective (fact-based).
We also anticipate both the future (e.g is this oasis I see a mirage?), as well as the past (e.g. will my current archaeological dig verify the massacre that allegedly took place here in 1942?). Of course in hindsight, yesteryear's predictions that supposedly refer to today are now seen retrospectively as mere instances of retro-futurism that in actuality only ever referred to what occurred when yesteryears so-called "prediction" was made ( how can yesterday's predictions even be wrong?)
We cannot definition-ally distinguish past-contingent propositions from future-contingent propositions on the basis of experiential content, unless we are prepared to bite the bullet and call a certain appearance "the past", such as the contents of a memory or photograph. But once we reject this as a mistake, as did Ayer, we realize we are then unable to provide an experiential distinction between past and future, even while we continue to insist on it.
There is of course, a big difference between an eaten Hamburger and a Hamburger sitting in front of us; if an object is called 'destroyed', then there does not exist a direct and local reference to the object that we can point at. There is instead a potentially infinite and interlinked fabric of facts called "the evidence of the destroyed object" together with our investigatory sense of anticipation. Hence an empiricist might be able to equate the past with our current sense of inferential expectation together with today's appearances taken holistically as an inseparably entangled whole. But this of course is too vague to constitute an empirical "theory" of any description.
Nevertheless, at least we can still speak of our expectations as being fulfilled, as for instance when walking up a hill to inspect the view, or when digging in the earth for relics. We can also partially order our historical knowledge in such a way as to minimize the statistical dependence of the occurrence of so-called "earlier" events on the occurrence of so-called "later" events. Perhaps it is possible to go neo-Kantian and argue that today's perceptual judgments necessitate an axiomatic past-future distinction in order to speak of "types" of objects and events. I don't know about this though.
What I wrote is "we can't say there's not the phenomenon of an oasis."
Are you saying there's not the phenomenon of an oasis?
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There is currently no way to tell presentism apart from eternalism.
It isn’t a type of knowledge; it is an understanding. From a past to a future, the regressive series of conditions (from any now to any before now**) are given, therefore necessary, but the progressive series of conditions (from any now to any after now**) are merely presupposed as possible, therefore contingent.
If one were to insist on a type of knowledge regarding experience with respect to time, it can only be a priori, because no direct a posteriori knowledge is at all possible for either past or future.
** and because it’s you, because of your name, the former is antecedentia, the latter is consequentia.
I don't think empirical knowledge can justify the claim of a difference between past and future, for the reasons outlined in the op. We experience neither past nor future. Could you explain what you mean by "semantic information"?
Quoting Janus
This might be a place to start. What makes the memory of an event different from the anticipation of an event. Don' refer to one event having already occurred, and the other not, because that would be circular, as we are referring to memory and anticipation to justify the claim that there is a difference between one event already having occurred and the other not yet
If I understand you then, you think that we have a particular orientation, and this orientation justifies the claim that there is a difference between past and future. To be oriented means to be pointed in a specific direction. What direction do you think we're pointed toward, the past or the future? If it's neither, then how can you call this an orientation?
What we feel may not be how it really is. In the block universe of eternalism, the future already exists and we are somehow traversing the 4D block. Or, there is presentism, with the future not yet made, although the 'now will make the next 'now' and the previous 'now' will be gone forever.
Either way, we feel as if it is always 'now' and that the series 'nows' also represents the past going to the future, since the World progresses; however, our conscious 'now' is not really as the physical 'now' but of the very recent past, since it took time to derive and paint the qualia scene, plus another slight delay from the speed of light. Of course, practically, it's all fast enough to be of use, but, technically, we live in the past.
I would say that's contradictory. One cannot be oriented towards two opposing things, that's like saying you're oriented toward the east and toward the west, at the same time. And, you cannot validate this by saying that it's in different ways, because the orientation is in relation to only one thing, the passing of time. This claim of "different ways" would require showing that there is a difference between past and future, to support the "different ways", but that there is a difference between past and future is what we are trying to justify in the first place. So we have something like, you're coming from the east, and walking toward the west, and you're saying that you're oriented toward both. But that's not really the case, because you're really only oriented toward the west, as that is the way that you're headed.
In the case of future and past, empirical knowledge is based in past experience, while moral knowledge is based in what ought to be done in the future. If we are headed into the future, then we orient ourselves through moral knowledge and not empirical knowledge. Saying that we use both, empirical knowledge and moral knowledge in our orientation doesn't make any sense unless one can establish a meaningful relationship between the past and the future, through which one type of knowledge can be converted into the other. Otherwise it would be like trying to establish where you are going by looking at where you have come from. It doesn't make sense to look back at the east to determine where you are going in the west, unless you have some principles to transpose the past points of being in the east, into future points of being in the west..
Are you honestly asking this? Your mind works so that you can't make out any distinction between memories of things that happened and imagining what might or will happen?
There seems to be past - present - future, as memory, sensation, and imagination. I suppose you privilege the present as all-encompassing, in that memory and imagined futures are also 'sensed' as 'present'
But one does not count prediction as knowledge; all factual knowledge is of the past; all prediction, even, is an extrapolation from the past. It is the blankness of the post below this one that marks it out as 'future'. Whose post it will be, and what it will say, is unknown until it becomes known at which point the post has been made and it is the past.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I am never afraid of the past.
I would be interested in knowing more about Ayer's rejection of memory as a means of distinguishing between past and future. Could you elaborate, or cite a reference?
It seems to me that experience (which happens in the present) is more than capable of distinguishing between before and after (e.g., cause and effect), and designating the measurable change: time (per Aristotle).
Have I said that you could be oriented to both the past and the future "at the same time"? It's irrelevant to the argument.
I think that if we say there is a difference between past and future, this necessarily gives ontological priority to the present. Don't you? Wouldn't such a difference be dependent on the existence of the present?
Quoting Terrapin Station
I did not ask whether one can or cannot distinguish between memories and anticipations, I asked what makes one different from the other. And, I implied that saying one is of past events and the other of future events would be begging the question, because reference to memory and anticipation was used to support the claim that there is a difference between past and future.
Quoting unenlightened
Yes, I actually do privilege the present. That's because without the present, as the thing which separates or divides the future from the past, there could be no future or past. Also, I tend to think that it is impossible that the present could be a dimensionless dividing point, or else we couldn't exist in the present (as we are dimensional). So I believe that the present actually contains within it, some of the past, and some of the future, and this is why we have both memories and anticipations at the same time.
Quoting unenlightened
That's a good answer, but what if your memory started to fail you? If I started having trouble remembering things this would make me afraid. But maybe this would just be a matter of being afraid of my future in demential state.
Quoting Janus
If it's at different times, then what would separate one time from another time? What would constitute turning from being oriented to the past to being oriented to the future, and back and forth? It seems to me that such a back and forth would be a disorientation.
I don't think you can say that something is irrelevant to the argument until there is actually an argument. Did you present an argument?
I presented a suggestion which you can take as an argument, that the experienced difference between our phenomenological orientations to past and future events, and the ways in which we can imagine logically elaborating that difference, give rise to the very recognition that there is past and future. How else would we arrive at such an idea?
In other words, we recognize past and future and quite easily understand the difference, in terms of our experience, between them. I'm not sure what more you could be searching for. Are you asking whether there is "really" "absolutely" a past and future? If so, I would echo what someone else said earlier; which is that we have no way of telling whether presentism or eternailsm or indeed time at all is ontologically (in the absolute sense, if indeed that makes sense) the case, or real. But we do know very well that the distinction between past and future obtains phenomenologically
From one perspective I can argue that time-past events and time-future events are less real than time-present events because (excuse the pun!) I cannot experience the former in real time.
But from another perspective I can argue that even though I experience time-present events in real time they are in a state of constant flux and, thus, equally as unreal as the time-past and time-future events. In other words, can one question whether any temporal events are real?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You asked what type of knowledge allows us to differentiate between future and past.
Most people would say 'common sense' and experience. The present is seen as an immediate now, today, even though it changes and becomes the past super fast. When did you last take a breath, when is your next one. What did you have for breakfast? A future event which was anticipated - lunch - just as quickly is upon us. We can think about both past and future in the present moment.
So, yes, it is a sensible belief that the present contains memories and anticipation, expectation and preparation.
A practical sense of this is found in this article by Rafael Behr about Brexit.
Quoting Rafael Behr
Let me say it boldly; memory is time. There is a rare condition, associated with binge drinking mainly, in which the ability to lay down new long term memories is lost. Time for the patient stops at the onset, and ever after, they think it is the 3rd of October 1974, or whatever the date is. I think your notion of the present having some 'thickness' derives from short term memory, which again can fail to an extent, so that one 'wonders what one came upstairs for'.
There is a related condition in which patients confabulate. Not only is memory time, it is also identity - the narrative, episodic and incomplete, that gives the orientation that locates the present as an event at the end of the known - tune in for next week's exciting episode of The Philosopher's Journey. Confabulation is the automatic attempt to make sense of sensation by giving it narrative identity. Without memory, time is disconnected from itself into meaningless sensation, and the death of the narrative self is what dementia threatens.
The only way it makes sense for you to wonder what makes one different from the other is if you can't distinguish them. Otherwise you'd know what makes one different from the other. That would be how you'd distinguish them.
Semantic information is the process of decoding a meaningful message by a mind, and the resultant decoded meaningful message (knowledge).
The process of decoding a semantic message involves:
Awareness
Reflection
Nominalisation
Categorisation
Conceptualisation
Decoding a semantic message has factual (experiential) and/or logical (metacognitive) aspects.
You have one sort of attitude toward some events, and a completely different sort of attitude toward other events, and you classify two types of events, future and past, according to this difference of attitude. Is that what you are saying? If so, the question is, how does a difference of attitude toward different events constitute a real difference between the events? I mean it's not like we can see the events, or in any way sense them, to make the judgement that they are different sorts of events, so the judgement that there are these two distinct categories of events is not an empirically based judgement. What type of judgement is this? It is based completely in a person's attitude toward the events. Is it a moral judgement? Moral judgements seem to be based in one's attitude toward the event.
Quoting Amity
In the op I explained why we cannot refer to empirical knowledge to justify the claim of a difference between past and future. Perhaps it's "common sense", but what's that?
Quoting unenlightened
I can't agree with this, because you don't give proper recognition to the temporal aspect of anticipation. I think that anticipation has a greater effect on my overall psyche than memory does, hence I tend to be an anxious person. I think we have to respect Janus' determination that there are two distinct temporal orientations, toward the past and toward the future. I do not think we can just dismiss the orientation toward the future, and focus on the orientation toward the past, to say that memory is time.
However, having said that, there is a sense in which time only occurs at the present, as time passes. In this way, only past events are "within time", because they are within the passing of time. Anything in the future has not yet occurred, and is therefore outside of time. In this way, only remembered events are within time, and anticipated events are outside of time. Perhaps this is what you mean by memory is time, such a restricted sense of "time".
Incidentally, I think that confabulation is something which we all practise to some degree. When I try to remember a complex event which has occurred, I have to go over it again and again in my mind, putting words to the immediate memory, which is in images. As I do this, the event takes on the character of a description rather than an imaginary scene, like the inversion of making a book into a movie. This activity, of putting words to the images is driven by intention, the purpose for memorizing the event, (which is an attitude toward the future), and this intention greatly shapes the description. That shaping of the description is confabulation.
Quoting Terrapin Station
That's nonsense. I point to two things, and say that they are different. I ask you what makes them different. You say that if I can see that they are different, then I know what makes them different. You are missing the difference between using your senses and using your mind. Normally, your senses tell you that things are different, and your mind tells you what makes them different. In this case, my mind is telling me that future and past are different, but it is not telling me what makes them different. However, your claim that if I can say that they are different, then I must know what makes them different, is clearly false.
And furthermore, the issue of the op is that if we cannot say what makes them different, then the claim that they are different is not justified. That they are different might be an illusion. So your response is really nonsensical, because you are saying that if you see them as different then you know what makes them different (which is false). And then you assume that the claim that they are different is justified, without any justification, as the appearance that they are different may be an illusion.
So how does semantic information tell us that the past is different from the future?
Yes. I noted that. And clearly disagree.
Common sense means never having to look up Wikipedia.
But here it is anyway, for those who really don't know :roll:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_sense
?? Seeing something via using your senses IS using your mind.
Maybe you're referring instead to putting the difference into words or "intellectualizing" it?
I'm not sure what kind of an answer you'd want to a question like this. I'm not even sure knowledge comes in 'types' but I'm much more sure that it neither allows nor disallows the saying of things.
Any question of what 'really' is must have within it your means by which you propose to establish how we'd know such a thing.
I can relate to that. But what could you anticipate without memory? Excuse the Pavlovian, but one salivates in anticipation of dinner because one remembers dinner following the dinner bell. I don't think we'd be anxious without at least some memory of bad stuff having happened before.
Check out Concept Learning.
I'm not particularly knowledgeable about Ayer's particular ontological views regarding the relationship between memory, phenomena and time, and I am certain that Ayer, like all of us, had no problem acknowledging the practical role that memory serves as (unreliable) testimony to the truth of past-contingent propositions- i'm only referring to his general acknowledgement that the doctrines of logical positivism and verificationism failed -see for instance his interview with Bryan Magee. We still do not possess a theory spelling out what we mean by meaning, evidence and truth, especially in relation to past-contingent propositions for which there cannot exist direct observation or immediate testimony:
Is it logically consistent to be an empiricist who accepts a hard ontological distinction between past and future?
Is the semantic distinction between the past and future somehow reducible to appearances or to relations between appearances, or to potential appearances as a function of potential experiments?
How should physics and computer science categorize "future-directed" behavior in humans and other agents?
How can this be reconciled with the causal theory of reference which identifies the meaning of an utterance with it's causes?
Cheers. That takes the discussion in several more interesting directions.
Actually that's what I'm asking, the means by which we'd establish what really is. So it would be kind of silly to include a proposal of that within the question, unless the question was rhetorical.
Quoting unenlightened
This would be anxiety, a general anticipation without anything particular which is anticipated. In severe cases I think it's called an anxiety attack.
But that's the extreme, and I agree with you in the general sense that the two, memory and anticipation go together. That's why I rejected Janus' description of knowing the difference between future and past as a matter of orientation. Either we're oriented toward the past, or toward the future, but we cannot be oriented in two opposing ways at the same time. Janus suggested that it's not at the same time, but I think memory and anticipation come together at the very same time.
Quoting sime
Right, this is one of the key points of the op, we cannot claim to have any empirical knowledge which would justify the conclusion that there is a difference between past and future. However, the other key point is that we tend to consider it as self-evident that there is a difference between them.
Quoting sime
But the difference we are considering is not the difference between past and present, but past and future. So your example of the hamburger would have to be phrased differently. Consider a hamburger which could possibly be destroyed in the future, and a hamburger which actually was destroyed in the past. Now the situation at the present is as you say, an eaten hamburger (destroyed) and a hamburger in front of us (possibly to be destroyed in the future). From the situation of there being no hamburger now, one has to take the hypothetical situation of there being a hamburger now, project that situation into the past, at which point there would exist the possibility of the hamburger being destroyed, and then conclude that the hamburger was destroyed. So understanding the past is much more complex than understanding the future. Understanding the future requires observing what is present and considering the possibility that it might be destroyed. Understanding the past requires taking the idea of possibility for the future, which exists at the present, projecting it into the past to determine possibilities in the past, and then determining which possibilities were actualized. Whereas understanding the future requires only determining which possibilities exist now.
Quoting Galuchat
Before and after is a completely different concept from future and past. The former requires an ordering of events on a temporal scale, the latter requires a present.
Quoting sime
No, I think it is clearly not consistent. But the distinction between past and future is obviously "the present", and most modern empiricists seem to deny the reality of the present, so there is consistency there. Yet some empiricists might agree that it is self-evident that there is a difference between past and future, so this is where there would be inconsistency. Perhaps it's the case that what is self-evident cannot be demonstrated empirically. If this is the case, then what does "self-evident" mean? Is it completely semantic?
The distinction between past and future does not appear to be the present. Instead, human consciousness, when it pays attention, appears to be that which constantly distinguishes between the three (past, present, and future) phenomenologically, as described.
It is also interesting to note that when one's consciousness is totally absorbed in certain activities, like reading a book, his/her consciousness becomes timeless, so to speak. The consciousness, as we say, loses track of time, is not paying attention to the past, present, or future. It, in a sense, has transcended time while absorbed in the activity.
But, how is this possible? How can it happen? Are we not all prisoners of time?
Then I've misunderstood your question (as has everybody else it would seem). You've phrased it in a very weird way. If what you mean to ask is "by what measure can we know if some knowledge indeed corresponds with 'reality'?" then why make this about past and future, that just confuses things.
In a way, I think the whole question is misguided. How can I tell the difference between the posts that come before this one, and the posts that come after it? Well I can read the ones that come before. and the ones that come after are blank. In terms of orientation, one faces the past and walks backwards into the future, anxious that the next post will be unkind or make one look foolish, or worst of all, that there will be none. Spatially, one can look where one is going, but temporally one sees only where one has been, so I think one is oriented one way and travels the opposite way.
I can't agree with this charles. If when paying attention, human consciousness experiences these things, and it is only human consciousness which produces a difference between past present and future, then my present should not transform into the past when I am not paying attention, yet it does.
Quoting Isaac
If the only way that we can know things is by measuring them, then I might be asking that. But I think that we can know things by means other than by measuring them, like intuition for example. So I am not asking "by what measure" can we know this. But some people might not consider intuition as knowledge. The reason I made this about past and future is because it appears extremely obvious that past is different from future, yet we cannot measure these things.
Quoting unenlightened
The question might be misguided, and I think that's what Isaac is getting at, but I like your answer in this post. However, you haven't mentioned the other option. Perhaps we are actually facing into the future, walking that way, and oriented in that direction, and we only look backwards into the past. That would explain why anxiety is common. This is what I feel, like the vast majority of my "being", all my internal systems, which are mostly operating in the non-conscious level, are all oriented toward the future, and these systems create anxiety which is not produced by my conscious being. It appears like it might be only my consciousness, which comprises a very small part of my overall being, which is oriented toward the past. For some reason my brain has an extensive memory system and my consciousness is supported by this activity of looking at the past.
Now my consciousness is misguided, thinking that I, as a being, am facing the past, and walking backward into the future, when in reality my being is facing the future and only a small part of it, my consciousness, is looking backward at the past. So I have a serious inconsistency between my being and my consciousness with respect to orientation, and this is causing me to be completely disoriented, and probably the reason why I ask misguided questions.
Well, there you go. Your intuition tells you they are different. The fact that we can't measure that difference is unproblematic for you because you already believe that not all knowledge is measurable. I'm not seeing the problem you're trying to resolve.
From SEP
"
McTaggart distinguished two ways of ordering events or positions in time. First, they might be ordered by the relation of earlier than. This ordering gives us a series, which McTaggart calls the B-series. A second ordering is imposed by designating some moment within the B-series as the present moment. This second ordering gives us a series that McTaggart calls the A-series. According to McTaggart, in order for time to be real both series must exist,although McTaggart holds that, in some sense, the A-series is more fundamental than the B-series."
Yet aren't "the past", "the future", "the present" etc, indexicals that refer to different things on each occasion?
Supposing that each of us always carried a mobile phone and that we agreed to eliminate "the present", "now", " currently" etc. from public discourse by replacing each of their uses with the exact current reading of the International Atomic Time supplemented with the Gregorian calendar. Likewise, we respectively do the same for "the past" and "the future" by replacing their use with time-intervals that are before or after the exact current TAI time.
Doesn't this elimination of temporal indexicals also eliminate all talk of change, and therefore reduce MacTaggart's A series to his B series?
My consciousness can function just through its temporality, which
has existed as an organized structure. The three so-called dimensions of time: past, present, and future, should not be considered as a collection of isolated "givens." The only possible method by which to study temporality is to approach it as a totality, as an original synthesis, which dominates its secondary structures and which confers on them their meaning.
I don't really think it's known by intuition, I used intuition as an example of knowledge without measurement. If it's intuition, then what type of knowledge is intuition? I think many would say that intuition doesn't even qualify as knowledge. Do you think that intuition qualifies as knowledge? Why is it so often wrong if it's knowledge? I said it was self-evident. And self-evidence gives us certainty, intuition does not.
Quoting sime
I see a problem with this scenario. If it eliminates talk of change, then it denies us the capacity to talk about, and understand, this aspect of reality, change. Furthermore, it creates a very artificial "time" which is not consistent with what we experience. What we experience is that if we want to be precise, then by the time we say what time it is, it is no longer that time. And if we limit ourselves to very vague designations of the time, like "it's a little after six", or, "it's Tuesday", we rob ourselves of the precision which is needed in some instances. So doing this would be making a move away from understanding time.
Actually, it is my opinion that looking at this as a question concerning "time" is a mistake. I am not looking at any type of series, as described by McTaggart, what I am looking at is what is evident to us, and this is that there is a past, and there is a future. If it is the case, that we have to turn to a series, some sort of ordering of events, to understand this future and past, then I would like to see the logic behind that. But right now I see no need for this. I understand that there is a future for me and a past for me, and I apprehend these as radically different, so this necessitates an assumption of something that separates them, that is the present. Until I validate this difference between future and past, I have no claim on any "present", and no principles for talking about the present being extended in "time". Isn't that all that "time" is, the extension of the present?
Quoting Number2018
My method for studying things is analysis, dividing things into parts and trying to see what makes the parts fit together as a unity. What makes you think that this method is not suited for studying temporal issues?
No, I don't think intuition provides us with knowledge, for the reason you gave. Which is why I remain baffled by your question. How are you going to demonstrate that anyone has the answer right?
Past and future are just words. We can use them to describe whatever phenomenon we like, so long as we're understood. There's no thing they 'really' are because we made the words up they weren't handed to us for us to decrypt.
Sensations, incongruous feelings, memory, anticipation, planning, the observed passage of cause and effect... These are all what past and future 'really' are because they are all what we use the terms 'past' and 'future' to describe.
It's all in the angle, dear observer.
This is randomly composed nonsense. The observed passage of cause and effect refers to the past only. That is the point of the op, empirical knowledge, knowledge based in observation, refers only to the past. If we want to apply this knowledge to the future, through the application of prediction, we must employ some other principles. These principles are not derived from observation. This is because there is a difference between future and past which cannot be understood through observation.
Quoting Isaac
This is blatant contradiction. If being understood is a condition which restricts how we use these words, then we cannot use them however we want.
Quoting Isaac
This is philosophy, why must one be looking to find "the right answer"? I'm looking for suggestions, possibilities, not the right answer. I don't believe that any human being is capable of giving the right answer because I believe that this is something unknown to all human beings. But why should this prevent me from investigating, looking for ways to proceed into the unknown. Isn't that what philosophy is?
Doesn't 'knowledge' itself presuppose "a difference between past and future"?
Also, more precisely, the empirical / computational concept of Entropy ... :death:
Nice question. Makes you question old and entrenched assumptions about reality. How do we distinguish between the past and future? A very simple technique would be memory. We don't have memories of the future but we can remember what has happened. The part of reality that is now in the past imprints itself onto our memory and we can recall certain events with varying degrees of clarity. The future, being unexperienced, hasn't had a chance to imprint itself on our memory and so can't be remembered. This would be a simple method of distinguishing the past from the future.
Another thing would be entropy which I don't claim to understand fully but from my readings its supposed to increase in a given closed system and our universe is a closed system. Therefore, hypothetically, given two points in time we could measure the entropy of a system and the arrow of time would point from the low entropy state to the high entropy state. This may be a very simplistic interpretation of the true theory but this is how I understand it.
If time is cyclical then the entire notion of past-present-future breaks down because on a circle there's no definite past or future. Each moment of time leads to the next and then circles back to where it began. It's like 3 people, call them A, B, C, standing in a line on Earth.
A is after B
B is after C
A is after C
So
C is before A
But, because the earth is a sphere/circular C is after A
So we have the paradox C is before A and C is after A
I’ll give it a try – here borrowing ideas from some of the previous posters.
Experientially speaking, the past is composed of memories, both long-term and short term. The future is composed of both expectations (anticipations) and intentions. The present is where we use our memories to a) construct expectations of what will be so as to b) best appraise how to optimally satisfy our wants via intentions.
Some caveats: Other than that not all of this occurs consciously, we are not sole selves. Hence all three when experientially addressed - past, present, and future – are contingent on a multitude of selves co-existing and, nearly always for almost all, interacting.
The past as memory is grounded in coherency between all memories. This is applicable both intra-self and between selves. When memories result in logical contradictions, something is amiss and we infer that something about our specified set of memories is wrong. Its only when all recalled memories flow effortlessly into themselves that we hold confidence in them. This applies just as well when we interact with each other. Our history is, experientially, composed of intersubjective memory. To the same extent that our memories, both personal and interpersonal, are found to be fluidly coherent and, thus, devoid of logical contradictions, our past is then determinate for us – unchangable.
Intentions are all goal driven. In Aristotelian terms, telos guided. Add the premise of limited freedom of will to a) choose between different alternatives toward that goal(s) aimed for and b) to choose between different goals and the intention facet of the future becomes to the same extent (semi-)indeterminate. Add the fact that the future is partly created by the intentions of multiple selves, and this same indeterminate aspect of the future becomes even more so.
Expectations hold their own reasoning. They are grounded in that which our memories tells us to be determinate. Given facts and causations of the past, the future will then be inferred to be in this way and not that. This will apply to everything from expectations that one will successfully recall a memory at will when so intending to expectations that tomorrow not all leaves of all trees worldwide will be fallen to the ground. I’m inclined to say this inference of future events is no more “imagined” than are our memories—both, when trusted, are thoroughly steeped in reasoning and justification (tacitly so if not otherwise). But unlike our memories which ground us in a determinate past, expectations, being best inferences, are endowed with far greater degrees of uncertainty (but not necessarily doubt: “the future is uncertain” always works, but not “the future is doubtful/dubious”). Experientially, this uncertainty of inferences (most of which will be explicitly inductive) will likewise make the future indeterminate. When conjoined with the indeterminacy of intentions on the part of all selves, this will hold even more so.
So the past, when we are (and hold good reason to be) certain of it, will be experientially determinate for us. The future will, however, be experientially semi-indeterminate (for it is still bound to the determinate facts and causations of the past which we hold in our memories). And the present is where we hold awareness of the past and of the future, as well as where we actively intend (edit: with intentions always extending from the present to the future wherein the goal dwells).
To (again) quote a little jingle that I like from a Tom Waits song, “Time is just memory mixed with desire.” This, at the very least, when experientially addressed.
Of course, all this imo.
:up: :up: :clap: :clap:
It seems that we learn from the past and plan for the future in our present!
I noticed something interesting and would like your views on it.
SPEED. A very basic concept. Some are fast, some are slow and some don't move at all. Speed of objects differ and so we have some objects ahead of us, some behind and some at the same position as us.
Now, in the context of time divided into the 3 classical divisions - past, present and future - consider speed and the different divisions of the world's nations. Some nations are labeled advanced, some developing and some underdeveloped. These divisions of nations can be framed in terms of speed. The advanced nations are faster than the other two groups. Therefore we can say that the advanced nations represent the future of the developing and underdeveloped world. In other words the three divisions of time (past, present, and future) exist simultaneously on earth, visible through the differences in the stage of development of the world's nations.
If you want to visit the future you can do so in Europe and USA. If you want to go back to the past then you can go to one of the underdeveloped nations.
Isn't that strange that we can time-travel through space?
I’m currently seeing this as mismatch of ideas. For instance, from the pov of some aboriginal society, our modern western societies might be considered to be over-developed, in a negative sense of the term. Not ripe but spoiled, kind of thing. As argument (myself being firmly planted in ‘over-developed’ societies as a constituent), many facets of the developed world are arguably poisoning the world to the point of us nearing a global suicide of sorts, unless things change. Our glutinous dependency on thing such as fossil fuels – powering this conversation as we speak – being an important cause for global deforestation, some 200 species of life going extinct per day (last I heard), us entering a sixth mass extinction, global climate change, lack of resources needed to sustain future human life, etc. (Its a bummer to talk about, but its not a bad thing to explicitly address.) So, in this example, more and less developed, or advanced, or beneficial becomes very contextualized on points of view held. So we can’t affirm a necessity that advanced nations represent the future state of undeveloped nations.
Aside from which, what you address is closer to notions of B-series time than to A-series time. And I’m under the impression that MU was interested in the latter.
Otherwise I like the twilight-zone thought process to the idea.
Thank you for the reply.
On the other hand, whereas we ordinarily speak of the "the present itself as changing", as if "the present" was a rigid designator, for some reason we tend to merely think that our knowledge and remembrances of an immutable past has changed, which indicates that we tend think of "the past" as partly an indexical in relation to our present state of knowledge and remembrance, and partly a rigid-designator referring to an immutable and transcendental temporal object.
Now the main point of contention here, as i see it, is whether or not the concept of the past deflates to our interaction with "present" appearances, including memories. If it does, then we can eliminate "the past" in the sense of an immutable entity that transcends phenomena, and as with 'the 'changing present', we would merely be grammatically wrong to speak of the "the past" as changing.
I don't think Entropy provides us with a principle to distinguish between future and past. It may distinguish between before and after, but this is insufficient to distinguish future from past.
Quoting TheMadFool
We touched on this briefly already. It's true that we remember past things, yet we might imagine future things. How do you think we distinguish, within our minds, remembered past things from imagined future things?
Quoting javra
OK, this is good, consistency, lack of contradiction, corroboration, personally and publicly is an indication that what is in the mind is a memory, and not imaginary.
Quoting javra
This is the future part, goals and expectations, and I think it is much more difficult than the past, because of the doubt and uncertainty which you mention. But maybe this uncertainty is key to recognition of the difference between past and future.
Let's say that with respect to the past, it is easy to establish consistency and certainty in relation to what has happened, but in relation to the future it is more difficult due to uncertainty. This produces the distinction between determinate and semi-determinate which you referred to. But why do you think that the future is semi-determinate, not completely indeterminate? Doesn't this confuse the distinction, making it unclear? What produces the idea that the future is in some way determinate?
Returning to the consistency and lack of contradiction which we find in past memories, we find this also in our predictions for the future. However, predictions are very different from memories, and to be true they rely on the fulfilment of certain conditions. These are conditions of continuity. It is this continuity which gives determinateness to the future. If things continue to be in the future, the way they have been in the past, the predictions will be true. So the determinateness of the future is distinct from the determinateness of the past, because it relies on the condition of continuity, whereas the determinateness of the past is based in a corroboration of memories.
Yes, unclassified semantics can get in the way. Just checked and wikipedia has this to say:
(emphasis mine)
So indeterminism proper seems to serve as an umbrella term for any category that is not (full) determinism. This gets further complicated by the semantics of determinate and indeterminate, which are not the same as determinism and indeterminism, respectively. What I was alluding to is that the future is always partly determinate and partly indeterminate, rather than fully indeterminate - as in "not possible to determine" or else "not of a fixed state of affairs".
One example: flick a rock from the top of a mountain onto the mountain side. Its future will be partly determinate: it will move downward along the mountain side. Its future will also be partly indeterminate: whether it will stop descending in a few yards distance, lead to an avalanche, moves leftward or toward the right, etc., are things that cannot be epistemically determined and, contingent on ontology, might themselves be ontologically indeterminate. Nevertheless, either way, because the rock will never move upward once flicked (nor sideways), some aspects of its future will remain determinate. And we justify that it will never move upward via a mixture of coherent memories and reasoning that is applied to this former experience (i.e., to memories).
By "semi-(in)determinate" I basically wanted to emphasize that not all future events are fully indeterminate.
I'm a self-labled compatiblist in a Humean sense of the term, so I'm very comfortable with this perspective - though I can apprehend how others might not be: In truth, for the record, I don't take the past to be *fully* determinate either. Via discovery of new info in the future, on occasion our knowledge of our past changes. On an intra-personal level, false memories can be discovered to so be via new info acquired - again, issues regarding coherency of both personal and interpersonal memory. On an inter-personal level, what we once "knew to be historically true" sometimes changes due to new info: take, for example, our once knowing that the story of Troy was fiction and, after discovering ancient city ruins that correlate very well to the city, now knowing that the city of Troy, at least, was real.
But as generalities go, yes, the past is determinate, fixed, and, hence, unchangable - whereas our future is indeterminate. The further into the future we try to predict, the more indeterminate the details of the future become. Upon seeing a cat walking before me, I can easily predict where it will be in ten second's time - not so in ten hours time, and even less in ten day's time.
Nevertheless, my prediction of where the cat will be in ten seconds time pales in degree of certainty when compared with my memory based certainty of where it was ten second's past. And, as per my first post, I think this distinction epitomizes the difference between memory stored past and the expectation stored future.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I very much agree.
We can verify memories but imaginary things can't be corroborated. For example everyone remembers the 9/11 tragedy but someone's imagination lacks this kind of universal corroboration.
That's right there is a fundamental continuity, expressed in a very simply form as Newton's first law, inertia, which makes future events somewhat determinate. According to this law though, inertia may be interrupted by a force. This makes the determinateness of the future rather complicated because the continuity expressed as inertia is always being interfered with by forces. So the determinateness of the future is really reliant on the determinateness of forces, and "force" is a complicated concept.
Here's the basic problem with "force". By Newton's fist law, a force is what interrupts the continuity of predictability. In Newton's second law, the force itself is described as being predictable according to the principles of the first law. However, the predictability of the force itself may be interrupted by another force. This produces a potential infinite regress, exposing a fundamental indeterminateness. This indeterminateness indicates that we do not really understand the nature of force.
I conceptualize it differently. Something more akin to stratifications along a determinancy-indeterminacy spectrum. But I greatly doubt I'd be able to properly explain myself in the soundbite form that forum discussions require.
Still, as a best attempt to sum things up, one aspect of my thoughts on the matter is that certain determinate states of affairs supersede indeterminate states of affairs in their causal influence (in more Aristotelian terms, something akin to a universal telos and the natural laws it necessitates being a prime example - but this phrase may not express too much). This while indeterminate states of affairs play an active role in existence. To me, the future is partly determined by those states of affairs that supersede the causal influence of all others, and partly undetermined due to ontically indeterminate states of affairs. Kind of thing.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I know I have hindsight on my side, but Newton loses me with his premise that the space of the universe has a singular geometric axis point. (Nope, it doesn't.) As I've previously mentioned, I'm not a determinist, but a causal compatibilist of a Humean type (not of the type that specifies freedoms of this and that nature to be themselves fully deterministic yet still existent as freedoms - which I take to be metaphysical bs). Which is to say that I easily accept your argument against Newtonian notions of deterministic force. Yea, I'm of the view that there is an interplay of ontic chaos and order within existence. Nevertheless, imo, tackling causation in its broadest sense - to include Aristotle's four causes - is not something that is ever easy.
It’s ‘will be’ is real, with no unreal contrast class,
As there’s no opposite to existence—no Nil;
It’s not just that future is going to exist.
The present now undergoes an updating,
In a fleeting swoosh that passes it away,
For the ‘now’ fades, consumed, as future becomes,
Yet, what will become past can’t just non-exist.
Is future connected to the present?
Yes, and in more ways than you’d want it sent,
As the consistencies you might resent:
All future flowers from seeds of the present.
As of now we hold reality’s attention—
This is the time of our present comprehension.
What is past exists only in our memory,
The future only in our imagination.
Memory’s ideas recall the last heard tone;
Sensation savors what is presently known;
Imagination anticipates coming sounds;
The delight is such that none could produce alone.
Why not? Please explain.
In the OP you asked "what type of knowledge allows us to say that there is a difference between future and past" not for "a principle". Entropy isn't merely "a principle" but a physical theory (re: statistical mechanics, thermodynamics, information theory ...)
[quote=Metaphysician Undercover]It may distinguish between before and after, but this is insufficient to distinguish future from past.[/quote]
Explain why entropy is not sufficient (enough) "to distinguish future from past"?
Btw, MU, stating that entropy (which describes the disordering of closed systems) can "distinguish between before and after" - that is, relations among discrete system-states [micro] - seems to entail differentiated magnitudes, or degrees, of disorder of closed systems in their entirety [macro], wherein Minimum Disorder corresponds to "past" and Maximum Disorder to "future" (i.e. Arrow of Time); and so, for consistency's sake, either entropy is "insufficient" for both - this I hope you'll explain - or sufficient for both (in different ways) which is epistemologically warranted (e.g. beginning with what I've sketched here).
But don't you agree that the determinacy of the future is distinct from the determinacy of the past, being grounded or justified in a different way? Determinacy of the past is grounded in consistency of memories which produces a certainty in the idea that something specific actually occurred. So determinacy of the past is complex due to the necessity of coherency in "what happened". Determinacy of the future is based in an assumption of continuity, the idea that things will continue to exist as they have, if not caused to change. And since things are caused to change, determinacy of the future is made complex by the need to understand causation.
Both forms of determinacy are complicated, but they are made complicated by different elements. So we cannot make one determinacy-indeterminacy spectrum, we would need two, one relating to the past and one to the future.
Quoting 180 Proof
Entropy refers to the ordering of the descriptive quantities which describe a specified system. The second law of thermodynamics states that within a closed system entropy cannot decrease as time passes. So there is a number of problems here. First, we cannot find, or create a completely closed system so the theory cannot be properly tested. But more relevant, is the fact that if we take an increase in entropy as an indication of a later time, this produces the basis for a before and after. And we cannot derive past and future from before and after because past/future requires a principle which is not available within the concept of before/after. Before and after implies a changing time, movement in a particular direction, the supposed "arrow" of time. But future and past implies a specific point in time, dividing one section of time from the other.
So one (entropy) implies the notion of a changing time, while the other implies a static division between two distinct sections of time. The difficulty in understanding time is to establish consistency between these two ideas, as they both appear to be well grounded principles which are fundamentally inconsistent with each other. The approach of "entropy" makes the point in time (the present for example, but not necessarily the present) a moving target. The approach from future/past makes the point in time a static divisor. If the point is static, the idea of determinate periods of time is well supported. But if the point is moving, then the idea of determinate periods of time cannot be supported.
Quoting 180 Proof
Why entropy is insufficient is that "past and future" cannot properly refer to the division made at any random point in time, which can be properly referred to with "before and after". For example, if we take a point in time two years ago, there is a before and after relative to that point. We cannot convert this before and after into past and future though, because "past and future" implies "the present" as the dividing point. And, it is quite obvious that this is inconsistent with the premise which clearly states a point in time two years ago. It's very clear that to call this point in time two years ago "the present" is a falsity.
.
In the context of your full reply, its almost a trick question for me: yes when addressed epistemologically, but no when addressed ontologically - ontologically they're two different facets of the same overall process.
Whereas we’ve previously mostly addressed past and future epistemologically, we’re now starting to mainly address them ontologically. By analogy:
If we are to address the present epistemologically, the present is that portion of time in which we (in part) hold direct awareness of everything that is not past and future. I’ve bracketed “in part” because, on one hand, the present is also where we intend things (with intentions always extending toward the future) as well as – hopefully not making this overly complex – being a time-span during which we are also aware of the past (memories) and the future (expectations). Still, when I’m aware of a bird chirp in the present, for example, this awareness pertains to neither the past nor the future.
But once we address the present ontologically, our views should take into account and thereby encompass all individual, intra-personal, experiences of the present. Many views can be found in relation to the issue of an objective present. My own – again, very difficult to justify in a forum setting – is that the objective present is a non-deterministic version of the theory of relativity’s notion of the present: the objective present, to my understanding (here summarized), consists of pockets of causal interactions between individual observers (or agents). For example, when two or more people interact, they will ontically share the same present moment; when there is no interaction between persons, there then is no guarantee that their two or more intra-personal present moments will be synchronized. (But a) this is a mouthful and b) again, other perspectives on the ontology of the present moment can also be found.)
The jump from the epistemological to the ontological consideration of the present requires different approaches. So too with the jump from the epistemological to the ontological consideration of the past and future. I'll try to explain myself better below.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Given what we've so far discusses and in large part agreed upon, we could argue that the objective past - though stored in memories (both unconscious and consciously recalled) - is solidified (another way of saying fixed or determinate). Whether or not our experiences of the present are, for example, hallucinations also gets solidified by their noncontradictory accord to our past.* As to the future, I can only address this via my own philosophical understandings; these include a determinate, Aristotelian telos which entails certain natural laws (such as that of gravity, for one example - notice how gravity can be extrapolated to be a noncontradictory coherency between gives that produces mass to which other gives are attracted ... long story though). Epistemologically, yes, we know gravity will continue to occur due to an upheld causal continuity between past and future. But, for me at least, ontologically, gravity is as determinate a property of existence as is this Aristotelian telos. Any hypothetical personal experiences of gravity not being as it always was can only be discovered in the future to have been hallucinations. At the same time, and with the same aforementioned determinate givens, I do subscribe to a limited freedom to choose between alternative means toward goals. Keeping this as simple as I currently can: This ontological interplay between determinate, time-invariant aspects of being (which thereby persist throughout the future) and partly indeterminate decisions on the part of agents in the present, is then one facet of a reality wherein there is a mixture of interacting indeterminacy and determinacy (of chaos and order).
While I did state "stratifications" in the plural, when it comes to ontological appraisals, I also find that the determinacy of the past and of the future are two different facets of the same overall ontological process. But I get that this is imposing my own worldview into this discussions in manners that I cannot properly justify on a forum platform. Still, to provide an example of the way I think of things in relation to the past and the future:
* You see an oasis in the dessert; at this moment, your drinking of water in a little while (the future) is plausible because the present experience currently isn't contradicotry to the past. But once you arrive there and there is only sand, you now know that the experience of the oasis was only a mirage - because this conclusion is now the only one that is not contradicotory to the entirety of your solidified past. To this logic is implicit a desire to avoid the dolor of chaos that comes with extreme unpredictability. This impetus in us is not something we have a freedom to choose but is rather a predeterminate facet of our being - one that, roughly speaking, predetermines and also facilitates our capacity to choose goals and alternatives toward them - those that to us seem to optimally minimize our overall future dolor (in a mixture of both short- and long-term appraisals). Due to this determinate facet of our being, we will generally not freely choose to believe (although we could when metaphysically appraised) that a physical oasis was there but then it progressively vanished physically as we approached it. This would shatter the solidity of our past and, along with it, of our present - as well as most, if not all, our expectations of what will be in the future. And this would be exceedingly unpleasant. So, instead, we typically choose to appraise the oasis as a mirage.
Hope that example made some sense (I can easily see how it wouldn't to some/many). To try to recap, our past is solidified, determinate, fixed, though only composed of memories, for reasons aforementioned. Our future is, at least to me, a mixture of determinate and indeterminate states of affairs - in which we seek to obtain, or actualize, goals via a limited freedom of choice but, importantly for me, due to a fully determinate innate impetus to minimize overall dolor that (to me) is part and parcel of all sentient beings. And it is due to this same impetus (that is always conjoined with the future) that our past is as determinate as it is.
Now, I get that I've said a lot, and that a lot of it might be confusing, so I'll stop short and wait to see how the cookie crumbles. Short on time so I posted. I'll try to regroup if I need to.
The types of things that exist in the present moment, are spirit and matter: matter being the physical things, like computers and cameras, while the spirit is a way of thinking that directs the matter and seeks to propagate it's momentum, spreading from one mind to another.
So, because the past is only an abstract concept of a moment that has already happened and it doesn't actually exist, all things that exist are things in the present moment that have arrived to be with us as a result of the past.
For example, you have mentioned memories. What is a memory? It is a way of thinking in the imagination. The imagination might not be wrong to remember a memory, because it is re-imagining what the eyes, ears and mind actually did comprehend. But the future is different, because when we imagine what will happen in the future, we cannot be relying upon anything but a speculation, a promise or a calculation.
Therefore, naturally we do not allow future events to be used as facts, while we do accept the imaginations of witnesses as fact, (if in the present moment, the judge believes the witness' testimony to be reliable).
Other artifacts of the past that exist to remind us in the present, are objects, photographs, recordings, rubble, fossils etc.
But in absence of all rubble and photographs, and without anyone to give testimony to the past, we would really have no idea. The past would have literally disappeared. So in reality, the past doesn't exist at all, just it's echoing in the present by way of artifacts, and it is upon the facts of the past that we qualify our rights in the present.
The future on the other hand, is a coming moment. The things we do now contribute to a chain of events that, with skill and notwithstanding coordination of events beyond our control, we can contribute toward creating a specific situation when the present moment arrives at that place on the timeline.
Yes, we find ourselves able to know the past and unable to know the future. And entropy determines the direction of the arrow of time, the notion of which is intelligible only in terms of past and future.
What I was trying to show is that the difference is ontological. But we have to approach a demonstration of ontology with epistemic principles in order to make sense, so the ontological difference I was describing appears epistemological. The point was that the determinacy of the future is known by a completely different epistemological process from the way that the determinacy of the past is known, and therefore we can conclude that these distinct types of knowledge, knowledge of the past, and of the future, have distinct objects.
Quoting javra
I don't completely agree with this, because I don't see how you jump to the position of drawing any conclusions about the present. The point of the thread was to approach the present from the position of recognizing a difference between future and past. When it becomes necessary to conclude that there is a difference between these, then the conclusion of a present, as necessary to complete the separation between them becomes justified.
You have suggested that we have direct awareness of something which is neither past nor future, and this amounts to the present. But until we established accurate principles for things past, and things future, we are just wasting time thinking about what kinds of things might be neither. Take your example of a bird chirp. You know that sensation takes time, don't you? So by the time that you are aware that you've heard a bird chirp, that bird chip is in the past. Therefore, I don't think it is possible that you could actually be aware of a bird chirp in the present.
Looking at it from this perspective, "the present" becomes quite difficult to grasp. We might be able to isolate and distinguish the way that we relate to the past, from the way that we relate to the future, in theory, but in practise these two are completely intertwined. So the theory tells us that the future is different from the past, and therefore we ought to conclude a present which separates these two. But in practise, our relations with the past are all mixed together with our relations with the future, and suddenly it becomes evident that there is no sharp division between the two. Then we ought to consider the possibility that what we call "the present" is really just a mixing of the future and the past.
Quoting javra
I'll take this example of drinking water, and explain why I see an ontological difference between past and future. We have a difference between having drank water in the past, and, will drink water in the future. The truth, or reality of having drank water in the past relies solely on the accuracy of the memory. I remember having drank water, and we say that there is a truth or falsity to this memory, which is dependent on my capacity to remember. With respect to the future, I anticipate drinking water. But the truth or falsity to whether or not I will drink water is beyond my control, as your mirage example demonstrates. The way Aristotle explains this (the sea battle tomorrow is a famous example) is that there is no truth or falsity in relation to future events. So he explains with a number of examples, very articulately, how it doesn't make any sense to assume that there is any truth or falsity to whether or not specified future events will occur.
Because we are talking truth and falsity, it appears like this is an epistemological issue. But it is really an ontological issue which has epistemological ramifications. What it says is that the world is such, or the reality of being, existence, is such that we can make true and false statements concerning events of the past, but we cannot make true or false statements concerning events of the future.
Quoting Janus
I think that this is demonstrably false. Entropy and the arrow of time are compatible with eternalism. "Past and future" only have meaning in relation to the present, and the present is not compatible with eternalism. Therefore entropy and the arrow of time do not rely on past and future for intelligibility. As I explained, they are based in before and after, which is distinct from future and past.
I don't agree that eternalism denies the phenomenological temporal movement which is understood in terms of past, present and future. It merely denies that there is any privileged or absolute past, present and future and it denies that only some universal present moment is all that really exists, with the past ceasing to exist and the future yet to exist. As Plato says: "Time is the moving image of eternity".
Maybe a misstep on my part. In fairness, my point was to illustrate the difference between experience-based epistemology of time, and reasoning based appraisals of what time is ontically, this via the example of the present moment. And this as an analogy to discussions regarding the past and future. Your mention of how the bird chirp is already the past at the moment we hear it (a moment which is the experienced present, but not the experienced past) is by my appraisals one of reasoning based ontology regarding time - but, again, not a description of how the present is experienced by us: (at the risk of being repetitive) we experience the present to be the present; it's our informed reasoning that tells us that what we are aware of at any given moment occurs in the past. Nevertheless, you bring up a very established interpretation of the present - one that I don't have a desire to debate against. And this thread isn't about the present but about past and future, as you rightly point out.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I acknowledge that. The past is determinate; the future is in many ways contingent. Because of this, one does not place truth values on statements regarding the future in almost all cases. (I'm thinking of exceptions such as, "it's true, rather than false or else uncertain, that the natural laws will apply tomorrow as they have today," but examples such as this are likely not what you were addressing.)
The issue, as I explained to 180 is that the understanding of past present and future does not produce any understanding of temporal movement. There is a part of time called the past. there is a part of time called the future. There is a division between them called the present. There is no temporal movement implied here. But what we observe is change and to understand change we assume a temporal movement. However, you can conceive of the present as static, eternal, with the entirety of the physical world changing relative to the static present. The static present has no movement, so there is no temporal movement, only a changing world relative to the 'God's eye view'. But there is a fundamental incompatibility between the two perspectives, the one has "temporal movement", the other denies it. the entropy perspective, expressed by the second law of thermodynamics, necessitates a temporal movement, as the arrow of time. so that law produces an understanding of time which is inconsistent with the understanding of past, present, and future.
We do not conceptualize change as past, present and future, we conceptualize it as before and after. And, this before and after may be conceptualized as completely in the past, completely in the future, or part past and part future. There is no place for "the present" in the conceptualization of change.
Quoting Janus
Change requires time, it takes time for an event of change to occur. If a change were happening at the present, then when the change starts, part is in the future. Likewise, by the time the change is finished part would be in the past. If you assume a midway point, then part of the change is in the future and part is in the past. So a change cannot occur at the present because it has temporal extension, and part would be in the future, and part in the past, with none of it at the present.
This ought to become evident to you when you recognize what I said above, that we conceptualize change in terms of before and after. There is a before the change, or prior to the change, and there is an after the change, posterior to the change. That's how we understand change, before and after. And if you say that there is a duration of time during which the change occurs, then there is a prior part, and a posterior part of that duration with a point dividing them. if the prior part is in the past, and the posterior part is in the future, there is never any part which is present. The present is always a dividing point between future and past.
The only inconsistency (or incoherence), MU, is you refering to the Past "two years Ago" which is synomous with two years Before "the present" yet dissociating Before and After from Past and Future. You use the former in terms of the latter, MU. Res ipsa locquitur. Saying "We cannot convert this before and after into past and future" is ... nonsense.
[quote=Metaphysician Undercover]The issue, as I explained to 180 is that the understanding of past present and future does not produce any understanding of temporal movement.[/quote]
Assertion without argument or evidence isn't an explanation. And "temporal movement" is a perceptual illusion/cognitive bias (no doubt an adaptive trait), so ...
:roll:
[quote=Janus]There is no "static present", really, for us, there is just past and future in the sense that we cannot speak about the present until it is past. [/quote]
:up:
Probably this is referring to the block universe eternalism mode of time.
On that view temporality would be a movement from one frozen moment to the next with nothing in between. This is not how we experience time though, for us it is a continuum of change. It would be analogous to how the 24 static frames per second of a movie are experienced by us as continuous movement.
Are you sure?
What about an emulated static present?
An animation is the composite of two or more stillframes.
If we are to perceive the animation at whole, it is entirely present and static.
Likewise each frame by itself is a static present bit.
But if we were to emulate these frames, i.e give them an angle or keyframe - then through a rotary process, one may produce a momentum or tempo which animates what is still.
One could make more or less the same analogy through/with light.
So in summary, there is a static present but it's not perceivable from within the frame of reference; so if you were to slightly edit your claim as 'static presenting' then I would be inclined to agree.
I'm still not entirely clear on what you are saying. But responding to the above if I read you rightly, I would say that saying there is no "static presenting" is equivalent to saying "There is no "static present", really, for us". But then perhaps I did not read you rightly?
I meant to say, that all references made are made to and/or from a static present.
But the referencing itself is not static.
It is, for lack of a better word, flowing - hence flowing in and out of stillframes and presenting, not merely present.
So by saying there is no static presenting, you would be saying there is no static present from within the static present.
So
Quoting Janus
I would agree, that it is not perceivable.
The problem with this claim of yours, that two years ago is synonymous with two years before the present, is that it requires a further premise which states that the past is before the present. When you derive your concept of before and after from the second law of thermodynamics your are not provided with such a premise. Before and after are defined in terms of entropy. There is no reference to "the present" here.
Now we have to refer to concepts of "past, present and future" to determine whether "past" necessarily means before the present. So let's say past means gone by in time, having already occurred, and future means expected to occur, or going to occur. We need a principle by which we can say that things which have already occurred are "before" things which are going to occur, and vise versa, things which are going to occur are "after" things which have already occurred.
We can say that before means earlier in "time", and after means later in "time", But our concepts of "past, present, and future" have not produced a concept of "time", so this doesn't provide the needed principle. To derive a concept of "time" form these concepts of past, present, and future, requires that we take notice of an exchange between these, things expected to occur, do occur, and become things which have occurred, for example. This relates to the concept of "change", and we say that things are changing. Notice, that what we observe is a direction to change, future things become past things, and never the opposite. This is the principle which supports conversion of past and future into before and after. So, your claim that "past" is synonymous with "before the present", is supported by this empirical claim, an inductive conclusion, that there is a direction to change. "Earlier and later", "before and after" presuppose change, and a direction to change.
The issue I raised, is that there is a gap between the concepts of "past, present, and future", and "the directionality of change and time". These are distinct sets of concepts (conceptual structures) which have not been made compatible with each other. Take "past, present, and future" for example. We have the distinction between already occurred and expected to occur, and this is an intelligible difference. There is nothing here to indicated that what is expected to occur might not have already occurred in the past, and nothing to indicate that what has already occurred might occur in the future. These assumptions are supported by referring to the other conceptual structure, that of the directionality of time. That inductive principle places those restrictions. Likewise, within the conceptual structure of the directionality of time, there is nothing which provides a basis for distinguishing between events which have already occurred (past), and other events which are just expected to occur (future), because it provides no principle for dividing one section of time from another.
So what I was asking for, was the principle by which we relate these two distinct conceptual structures. It's obvious that the relation is made through 'the present", so that "past" becomes before the present, while "future" becomes after the present. But if this is the case, there are some ramifications. It appears like change could only occur at the present, and as I explained in my reply to Janus above, this is problematic.