The eternal moment
From a recent thread:
MU is referencing Ch 6 of Voice and Phenomenon. The discussion was about Deleuze with which I'm completely unfamiliar. SK's Repetition came up... with which I am familiar in an odd sort of way. I read it many years ago around the same time as The Sickness Unto Death and Fear and Trembling. At the time, I was wresting with questions about potentiality. I was deeply affected by K's outlook and came to the conclusion that all three books are about the birth of meaning. It seems like ages now that any of that stuff was at the top of my consciousness.
But to your question, MU. You'd have to tell me more about what you mean by "present moment." Is it like a grand basket that contains things? Is it an event? Is it a unit of time? Of course, I'd know what someone meant if they said "I'm disturbed at the (present) moment."
In that sentence, I'm being told that the disturbance isn't in the past or hypothetical.. it's now. And so "at the moment" is performing an adverbial role. It's modifying disturbance. It's a predicate.
I think you're wanting to speak of "the moment" as a subject. Are you sure that would work?
MU:Check out the summary of Ch6 which I'll quote here: "The ideal object is the most objective of objects, it can be repeated indefinitely while remaining the same". Doesn't that described object sound like the present "moment"? And doesn't that description, the possibility of indefinite repetition, appear to be predication? On what principles do you believe that the moment is not a thing?
MU is referencing Ch 6 of Voice and Phenomenon. The discussion was about Deleuze with which I'm completely unfamiliar. SK's Repetition came up... with which I am familiar in an odd sort of way. I read it many years ago around the same time as The Sickness Unto Death and Fear and Trembling. At the time, I was wresting with questions about potentiality. I was deeply affected by K's outlook and came to the conclusion that all three books are about the birth of meaning. It seems like ages now that any of that stuff was at the top of my consciousness.
But to your question, MU. You'd have to tell me more about what you mean by "present moment." Is it like a grand basket that contains things? Is it an event? Is it a unit of time? Of course, I'd know what someone meant if they said "I'm disturbed at the (present) moment."
In that sentence, I'm being told that the disturbance isn't in the past or hypothetical.. it's now. And so "at the moment" is performing an adverbial role. It's modifying disturbance. It's a predicate.
I think you're wanting to speak of "the moment" as a subject. Are you sure that would work?
Comments (97)
In the latter case we have a series of moments as real objects, each being a moment of the present, and this series is being perceived as the continuous passing of time. Each moment would have no temporal extension (outside of time, or eternal), and the passage of time would occur between moments. As a describable object, we can treat the present moment as a subject for predication.
So you're saying that time is discontinuous? If so, what separates the past from the present?
My angle was that eternity is in the now, and it is our limited awareness and experience of time as a series of moments bleeding into each other, like a strobe light, that makes us think of time passing.
I see the past as a bit of eternity we are familiar with, because we were there, we experienced it, we knew it. So with the help of physical matter etc, it is retained for us. Given a bit of permanence in our memories and old haunts that we can visit.
We have two distinct ways of understanding the world,1) in terms of what is, and what is not, 2)in terms of becoming. Being and not being refer to what is at any particular moment. Becoming refers to what happens between moments. Becoming is what separates the past from the future. "The present moment" is a way of speaking which refers to the most recent moment, but we also refer to future moments in anticipation. We can refer to "the present" in terms of our own presence, and this is distinct from the moments of the past, as one's subjective experience of becoming, while the latter is objective. The statement "I am" already separates the subject from the experience of becoming, placing it into the objective moments of being. To properly refer to my subjective presence, I would say I am becoming.
Quoting Punshhh
I am talking about a proper separation between moments, so there is no "bleeding into each other", they are truly individual objects.
What you describe reminds me of what the Buddhists say, that the world ends and is remade from moment to moment, as you say, like a movie.
–Augustine of Hippo, Confessiones lib xi, cap xiv, sec 17 (ca. 400 CE)
My own view is that we perceive everything as changing because both a fated unchanging universe and an utterly random one are not only physically impossible, but humanly inconceivable. Certainly we can all imagine higher spatial dimensions might exist or that our universe could be static and fated in some sort of abstract sense, but only a few mathematicians can even begin to conceptualize what the simplest four dimensional objects might actually look like, while the random remains unimaginable by definition. The arrow of time we perceive can also be attributed to the fact that the human mind doesn't work backwards. Thus, the simple observation that a context without significant content, and any content without a greater context, are a contradiction in terms provides a simple explanation for the passage of time.
It also means that nature abhorring a vacuum is just as good an explanation as any other for why crap seems to randomly fall from the sky, yet, inexorably roll downhill. Rather than an utterly random universe, as quantum mechanics suggests, or an unchanging fated mono-block universe, as Relativity strongly implies, a context without any content and vice versa being an impossible contradiction means space without time and the random without the orderly are unimaginable contradictions just like having an up without a down or a front without a back.
Look at post. It nails ten ways from Sunday what I would say about calling "the moment" a recurring object. Observation of time is inextricably linked to change. Where there is no observable change, per Leibniz's Law, there is no change and therefore, the context is eternity. Time is a relation between events, not an event itself.
But I have spent a fair amount of time considering time as discontinuous. It appears to me that the consequences are that All arises from nothing and returns to nothing. Why exactly the whole thing appears to repeat over and over... I don't know. Maybe it's just how our consciousness is wired (sts). Thoughts?
sts=so to speak
Buddhists say that? That's weird.
Could be. I can't do anything with info on quantum mechanics because the fundamentals of it are word salad to me.
Its contextual meaning quanta express greater context dependence than we're used to observing and, for example, a particle's position and momentum, spin and charge, etc. all effect one another more. However, quantum mechanics are currently formulated in six dimensions using classical causal mathematics which limits their expression to those of discrete integrals. We just don't have the analog logic yet to formulate how nature expresses both integrals and differentials.
Lao Tzu came close to saying the same thing, but what it means is the present moment is where the greater context of the future meets the contents of the past. It provides an explanation for why time appears to slow to a crawl during an ecstatic moment and such phenomena as the Quantum Zeno Effect as simply due to the greater context and its contents appearing to exchange identities.
You can think of it as the future normalizing the past and the past synergistically producing the future. Both synergy and normalization increase along with their content with Russian nesting dolls providing an analogy of their context dependent synergy and normalization. As the number of parts increase their synergy diminishes their individual impact until the two exchange identities and vice versa. The largest Russian nesting doll can be considered content until you open it, at which point, it becomes the greater context for the smaller doll inside with each successive doll having a less distinctive image painted on it and less distinctive shape. The smaller the dolls become the harder it becomes to distinguish between what is content and what is the greater context and if you were to continue that progression they would eventually become entirely indistinguishable with quanta, black holes, and an ecstatic moment providing extreme examples.
This may allow me to consider that the progression of moments and the emergence and return to nothing are artificial perspectives caused by our finding ourselves in this artificial world and experiencing only that appearance.
Consider the knight on the chessboard. He can't leave the chess game because what he is is bound up in the playing of the game.
The Buddhist perspective is very interesting. If we consider that anything in the world can be changed at any moment of the present, as time passes, the we must accept the logical conclusion that the entire world is remade at each moment of the present. Anything which can be changed at any moment of the present has no necessity for its existence at any moment as time passes. If its existence at each moment is contingent, then it requires a cause of existence at each moment.
Quoting MongrelThat's true, but what is change other than that we notice things to be in a different state, at a different time. That's the thing, we describe the world in terms of states, and assume that change necessarily occurred between two consecutive, but differing states, so we conclude that time has passed between these states. We deal with change by applying mathematics, and this creates the illusion that the mathematics is actually describing change. But that is not the case, the descriptions still describe states, and the mathematics simply establishes the relationships between these described states.
Its Rainbow Warrior poetry that's a mixture of Socratic wisdom and Taoism. Beauty and humor are viewed as indivisible complimentary opposites. That same poetic imagery can also be interpreted humorously. For example, what Lao Tzu said was, "Habits are the end of honesty and compassion, the beginning of total confusion!" Frank Zappa said something along the same lines when he said, "You are what you is, and that's all it tis!" The eternal moment is when we no longer make distinctions between who we are and what we are doing.
Assuming that the passage of time is discrete, as you say, let's say that there is a moment, which consists of a very short period of time. That's the inverse of what I said, that there's a moment which consists of no time, then a short time passes between moments. The difference, is that from my perspective change occurs between moments and from your perspective change occurs within the moment. If it is as you say, what do you think separates one moment from the next, in order that the passage of time can be discrete?
A moment that consists of no time is a contradiction in terms and there's no way to tell what you might mean by that other than to guess you are possibly suggesting that time is illusory and everything is fated.
Its quantum mechanics that says time is discrete, while my own view is everything is context dependent. That means there is no way to ultimately distinguish between one moment and the next and indeterminacy applies to everything because its a universal recursion in the law of identity. Hence, the reason even the causal theory of Relativity has established that space and time are indivisible and the theory contains the Simultaneity Paradox where two observers can witness the same events occurring at different times.
We perceive moments as separate and discrete, yet also flowing and indivisible, because a context without significant content is a physical and conceptual impossibility along the lines of insisting you can have an up without a down or a back without a front.
I don't see why you say this. "Moment" is used in a number of different ways. 1) it is used to signify a brief period of time, as you say, 2) it is used to signify a point in time. Under the second way, it is a point in time, just like a point in space. The point in space is dimensionless, free from spatial extension, just like the "moment", as a point in time is free from temporal extension.
Quoting wuliheron
Now you are the one contradicting yourself. If the moment consists of a period of time, as you say, then it consists of whatever changes are proper to that period of time. Therefore each moment is ultimately different, and so there are distinguishing features between different moments. To remove these differences from the moment itself, we have to consider the moment as a point in time.
Quoting wuliheron
Content and context are not ideal opposites, like up and down, which are absolutes that are defined by each other. Content, is in principle, separable from context, and that is why the same content can exist in many different contexts. Or, we can describe a context without any content, such as a fiction. But we cannot do that with ideal opposites.
Still don't understand how a moment can be timeless. Either it has duration or it infinitely short, which case, its difficult to see why its worth distinguishing.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Everything being contextual makes everything much more metaphorical and obey pattern matching and self-organizing principles. That is, everything can be analyzed for both both juxtapositions and flow dynamics using the same metaphoric systems logic. Its the principle of Doctor Doolittle's push-me-pull-you and Tom and Jerry casing one another in circles so fast you can't tell what the hell is going on if anything. The more confusing a situation becomes the more important it is to pay attention to what's missing from this picture so you can retrodict and learn more about what you do not and cannot know.
Its analog logic that requires a little more swing in your hips because its more organic looking for what's missing from this picture. That's how it defeats metaphysics which is the alternative you are proposing because quantum mechanics and other observations suggests the context alone can run circles around any metaphysics because it alone can express what no single metaphysics can. In fact, a mathematical examination of causal mathematics and physics concluded you can take your pick from among any number of simple metaphors to explain everything causally from rubber bands to balls of string, bouncing springs, clockwork, or whatever. Life is just more complex than metaphysics alone can explain.
Do you understand how a point has no spatial extension in any direction? If so, then why can't you understand a point in time with no temporal extension? The point in space is not infinitely short, whatever that's supposed to mean, nor is it infinitesimal. An infinitesimal point is not a true point, and if we assume to be able to divide a line infinitely, we don't derive a point.
Don't we perceive the effect and impute the cause. We use our reason and memory to do this, perhaps memory is inner 'space' (how we measure), then time phenomenologically is reason spanning memories of what we have experienced, imagining causes.
But I think you're saying what I don't know if we can escape: that causality is a relation between propositions.. like between P1: The ball flew though the air, and P2: The window is busted. You know what I mean? It's not a relation between the toaster and the toast. Or maybe it is.
Depends on your ontological commitments?
I think language is the tool by which we think, it constitutes thought. Our conception of time seems, to me, to be built into the syntax of language.
Perhaps: Commas are pauses, semicolons are rolling stops, colons barriers, ellipses gaps in time and periods the terminus....?
Could you expand on that?
Answering the question why? means identifying a relationship, right? Maybe it's not always between two different things. Maybe it's.. how does this car of the train relate to the whole train? Is it the caboose? The engine?
Now I think we're getting to the point of the op. The geometrical "point", being non-dimensional, and occupying no space, really can't exist, in the sense that a physicist would say "exists", it is purely conceptual, theoretical. But we can describe it in a demonstrable way, like the exact centre of a circle, or the point where a tangential line meets the arc of a circle, so it is not gibberish. It's good theory, but cannot have physical existence.
Now the op proposes that unlike the point in space, the point in time has real physical existence. What exists at a point in time can be nothing other than a state, because no time is passing, so no change occurs. What we observe as change and motion is a series of such states, like the still-frame movie. Real change occurs between these still frame moments, such that we do not observe real change. It's what happens between the still-frame states which we observe in rapid succession as movement.
You can describe it merely in terms of gibberish! Mathematical gibberish, but gibberish just the same that has no demonstrable physical reality. Along the lines of me saying you have an invisible pixie on your shoulder that can't be detected which can just as easily be described as inhabiting the center of a circle and having no spatial dimensions.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That's again, just gibberish. Either you can show how it makes any difference with empirical evidence or its nothing more than fanciful speculation. I could also come up with any number of complex ways of describing time that are perfectly workable, but nobody would give a crap because it can't be proven and there's no point in adopting a more complex view of something without evidence when a simpler view will produce identical results.
Quoting wuliheron
I already explained the empirical difference that it makes. Since it makes an empirical difference, it ought to be testable. Were you listening, or do you simply reject, and forget, everything which is not consistent with your belief?
Well that's part of the problem, how do we independently conceptualize time, since it's inherent in our conveyance of thought, our expressions in language, which is why people like Augustine talk about it conceptually and not linguistically.
Augustine's point which I think holds is that all time is present. The past can only possibly be remembered in the present and what we anticipate, the future can only be anticipated in the present, this is his distension of time. He was interested in our phenomenal understanding of time.
Aristotle also talks about time in his Physics where he is interested in its basis, its quantification, there he says that motion occurs in time, and is never found separate from time, motion is in time but is not time, rather time is a measure, he uses the term 'number of change' . He presents time as the fleeting instant of the present where before and after meet, the present as a vanishing point. This is an ontological, quantative sense of time.
Speculation is not philosophy and claiming nothing changes when everything demonstrably changes is not making an empirically testable hypothesis. Mathematics must be demonstrable, self-consistent, and nontrivial and so far what I hear is merely trivial speculation.
Does he give an argument for that? I don't recall. At any rate, I do not agree with him.
Physics Book IV part 11.
http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/physics.4.iv.html
Re his argument:
His second sentence is incorrect. Time doesn't obtain insofar as something doesn't change/isn't in motion.
"Fast" and "slow" are simply measured relative to some other sort of change. But all of those changes/motion are simply time
So his argument fails on my view.
What? To dismiss speculation as unphilosophical is a big mistake.
As the thing which is measured, there is no necessity for something to change when time passes. Change is the means by which we measure time passing, and it is possible that time could be passing without us being capable of measuring it.
Philosophy is defined as the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline, while Socratic philosophers like myself prefer to define it as the love of wisdom. Speculation is neither knowledge nor wisdom, although, it can be useful for making money or any number of other ventures such as writing fantasy novels.
I'm a bit confused by your first sentence. Time doesn't pass insofar as something doesn't change. Insofar as it does, time passes. When you measure something (temporally, I'm assuming we're saying), you're quantifying changes. We can imagine that we're temporally measuring something not changing for some period, but the only way that makes sense is if something (else) IS changing--say that a clock is ticking or whatever we might be looking at for our change quantification base.
On my view, time occurring is simply those changes, and time doesn't occur insofar as there are not changes. So what we're really saying is that time didn't occur in x (the unchanging thing) relative to n changes in y (however many ticks of the clock for example).
I don't agree with "change is the means by which we measure time passing" because I'd say that "time passing IS change" (and then we simply quantify those changes--that's the measurement).
Re the last sentence, sure, changes can occur without us being capable of quantifying those changes.
I'm saying that this statement is not sound. One is the means by which we measure the other. But a thing does not have to be measured, or even measurable, to be real.
Quoting Terrapin Station
What you describe here is using time to measure something, this is definition 1). The second definition is that time is something which is measured. We measure time passing by referring to change. But it is possible that time could pass so fast, an extremely short period of time for example, that no change could possibly occur in this short period of time, so we'd have time passing with no change occurring.
Quoting Terrapin Station
That's why you disagree with what Aristotle said. I do not disagree with that. It assumes that time is a real, objective thing, which is everywhere, and which can be measured.
Quoting Terrapin Station
That's not what I'm talking about though. I'm talking about time passing without change occurring. I could word it differently for you. Let's say that time passing is itself a change. But time is not a physical thing, it is everywhere, as Aristotle said, so this is not a physical change. Now we have a change which we are not capable of quantifying, because it is not a physical change. This is the change which is called time passing. The problem though, is that we do quantify time passing, so this is not a good representation. Instead, we should represent time passing as something other than change.
Well, yeah, it's clear that you think it's false. I think it's true. But if you think it's false, you're going to think it's not sound, since soundness refers to whether it's true (at least in this sort of context). One isn't the means by which we measure the other in my view. The relation is one of identity rather.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That I certainly agree with.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That's not possible on my view, since time is identical to change. It's simply contradictory to say that "no change could possibly occur in this short period of time," because it amounts to saying, "no change could possibly occur in this short period of change."
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
With this also being simply contradictory as it is saying, "So we'd have change (passing) with no change occurring."
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Definitely it's a real objective thing. Not all real, objective things can necessarily be measured, however. That would be about our limitations as the sorts of creatures that we are in the world.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I don't agree with this, though. Nothing exists that is not a physical thing on my view.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
So that is contradictory. If something isn't physical, you don't have it--it doesn't exist.
Not sure I understand do you meaning. I looked up time space bubble and found:
The concept of Alcubierre drive, which (as I understand it) is the shifting the space around an object, contracting the space in front of a space craft and expanding space in the rear,or something along these lines. Enabling the craft to go faster than the speed of light without upsetting physical laws.
Well, time and change are quite clearly two distinct things. Change refers to difference, and time refers to a continuance of existence. So they are closer to being opposed to one another than to being the same. And this conflation of yours is totally unwarranted and unjustified.
So the idea is that there might be a material that can exude its own time and space independent of any other manifold of spacetime.
"Continuation of existence through time" is a matter of genidentity--it has to do with (a) how contiguous, causally-connected development occurs, and (b) conceptual abstraction with respect to what an individual's criteria are for calling x @ T1 and x' @ T2 "the same x."
So on my view it's no conflation, of course, it's rather a matter of ontological verisimilitude rather than myth-building based on mistaken or misconceived views such as buying logical identity through time.
This is the point of the op though. What allows you to assume a T1 and a T2? Unless you can justify your premise that T1 is separate, or different from T2, then you have no basis for the claim that x is different from x'. So it is only by taking the position described in the op, that there is a real separation between T1 and T2, that they are actually individual objects, with separation between them, that you can support such a claim, as a difference between x and x'. So it is only by means of the unstated premise, that there is a real difference between T1 and T2, that you can support your claim of a real difference between x and x'.
Now that earlier statement of yours, is supported only by circular logic:
Quoting Terrapin Station
According to this earlier statement, time can only pass if something changes. But according to this latest statement, that x @ T1 is different from x' @ T2 unless proven otherwise, it is the assumed difference between T1 and T2 which allows you to premise that x is actually different from x'. This is a clear cut case of circular logic. Your notion of change is support by the assumption that there is a difference between T1 and T2 (i.e. time passes), yet you insist that time can only pass if something changes.
So, I'll reiterate. This assumption, that time can only pass if something changes, is unsound. Your conclusion, that x is different from x' ,i.e. that change has occurred, is based in the assumption that there is a difference between T1 and T2, time has passed. Where is the premise which allows you to say that time only passes if change occurs?
I'll suggest that this unsound premise is based in empirical evidence, and inductive reasoning. In all your instances of experience, if time is passing, change is occurring, so you conclude inductively that if time is passing, then change is occurring. But inductive reasoning cannot rule out the possibility that things could be otherwise. Therefore, if this proposition is supported only by inductive reasoning, then to properly proceed in analyzing this subject, time, you must allow the possibility that time could pass without change occurring.
Quoting Terrapin Station
What is "buying logical identity through time" supposed to mean?
What?? It's no assumption. You, for example, look at a clock. The clock reads "10:42" and then it reads "10:43". That's all the justification you need. "10:42" is T1. "10:43" is T2. The clock with "10:42" displayed is x, the clock with "10:43" displayed is x'. "10:42" is different than "10:43"
Unless you do not agree with this, we can move on (and I'll answer the rest of your post) (Since we've solved what justifies T1 vs T2, x vs x')
No, the clock indicates "10:42" is, the clock indicates 10:42, just like the clock indicates "10:43" is the clock indicate 10:43. You need another premise, to allow you to say that one is T1 and the other is T2. I suggest we premise that time is passing. You do not like this premise, care to suggest another?
I don't know how to make it any clearer, except to explain to you that 1 is not the same as 2. 10:42 is what the clock reads. Then 10:43 is what the clock reads. We could assume that the clock indicates "the time". Then we have, "the time is 10:42", and then "the time is 10:43". Now you propose that we replace "the time" with T1 and T2. On what principle do you replace, something identical, "the time", with something different, 1 and 2?
You could say that you never assumed the identity of "the time" in the first place, but what does "T" stand for then? And if we remove time, then all we have is the shear difference of 1 and 2. And we are not discussing time at all.
So to support your assumption of a T1 and a T2, we need some difference between these. That difference is the assumption that T is not the same at T1 as it is at T2. What, other than the assumption that time is passing, supports the claim that T1 is different from T2? It is necessary that T1 is different from T2, otherwise we would just refer to them both as T. The proposition of T1 and T2 is a proposition of difference.
T1 is the first time variable. T2 is the second time variable.
In this example, were plugging "10:42" into the first time variable, while we're plugging "10:43" into the second time variable.
We can't call them both T1, as the values are different. And we want a way to distinguish the values. Is that clear to you?
Oh, and yes, "T" is an conventional abbreviation for "time" or "the time" if you like.
Yes, now do you agree that "T1" and "T2" implies a difference in time? And, that the difference described by T1 and T2 can only be supported by an assumption such as "time is passing"?
Quoting Terrapin Station
It's very clear to me, but is it clear to you that the difference in the values of T1 and T2, is due to the fact that time is passing? If not, then can you propose some other reason why T1 is different from T2? Please, don't say that it is a change in the clock, from 10:42 to 10:43, which supports this assumption, because then we have that circular reasoning.
???
Why would you have thought that I was saying there are no differences of time? I don't know what I would have written that might suggest that to you. After all, since time is motion/change, time IS difference. So you don't have time if you don't have difference.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Sure, "time is passing" = "change/motion is occurring." And in the example I gave, the change that occurred is that the clock's display changed from 10:42 to 10:43.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Sure, and again that simply amounts to "change is occurring."
OK, you have two distinct phrases, "time is passing", "change/motion is occurring". My question is, on what premise do you equate these?
You have justified "time is passing" by referring to change, the clock changes from 10:42 to 10:43. How do you know if time hasn't passed with no change occurring? Perhaps the clock still says 10:42, time has still passed without change, seconds went by without a change in the clock's registry of minutes. And if your clock registers seconds, there would still be a shorter period of time. And so we go on to the shortest period of time which can be measured by change, and we can still assume the possibility of a shorter period of time, in which no change occurred.
How does "time is passing" necessitate "change/motion is occurring"?
Right, so you're instead asking why I believe that time is identical to change/motion.
It's due to a functional analysis, over many years, countless contexts, etc. of what we're referring to with "time." I'm not referring to what people have in mind, what their specific beliefs about time are in that. It's not a survey of beliefs. It's a functional analysis of what is being actually referred to, extensionally, that is; how the term is being used, etc.
There's no reason to believe that "time could be passing with no change"--what the heck would we even be referring to there? What are we "pointing at" in other words?
And of course, on my analysis, the notion of that is simply incoherent, it's contradictory.
McTaggart suggests an A and a B series to time. The A series views time's passage. The B series views time from moment to moment historically. The B series would be impossible without the A series, even if the B series is ontologically superior to the A series. It seems to me, in reading your conversations, that both of your positions mashup these differences...The A series I associate with Augustine's phenomenal position and the B series with Aristotle's mechanistic/scientific position.
Of course his argument is about the unreality of time, but I find it helpful in thinking about time.
That's what I've always been asking you, because it's what you assume to be justification for your claim that there cannot be time passing without change. The point is that this supposed identity is false, and therefore does not justify your claim at all.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Clearly that's a faulty functional analysis, as is indicated by your example, x is different from x' because x is at T1, and x' is at T2. The difference between x and x' is based in the assumed difference between T1 and T2.
The difference between x and x' is assumed to be something different then the difference between T1 and T2. This is expressed by the two distinct sets of symbols {x, x'} and {T1,T2}. To support your claim, requires that you demonstrate how there is a relationship of equivalence between x and T1, and between x' and T2. You need to demonstrate that x is equivalent to T1, not just related to T1. Then the difference between x and x' (which is called change), is equivalent to the difference between T1 and T2 (which is called time). Inability to demonstrate such an equivalence indicates a failure of your functional analysis. In other words, it is very clear that what we refer to with "time" is something different from what we refer to with "change", despite the fact that these two are commonly related. Therefore you have produced a faulty functional analysis.
Okay, but that wasn't clear to me with the way you'd asked before.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
C'mon man. Obviously I'm not going to think that it's false just because you have a different view that you're explaining. It's not like I just came up with this yesterday and your objection-oriented comments are the first I've run into.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The difference is that time is any change/motion, of anything. Or in other words, it ranges over, in the sense of being identical to, ALL changes/all motion. The T variable represents this.
The x variable in this case is being applied to the clock, as a clock, as "that object" in other words. It wouldn't apply to water dripping from a faucet, say, as that's not the clock, That can be y and y' or whatever. The water dripping, however, is also T1 and T2 (or T3 and T4--if we're talking about the same example, it would only be T1 and T2 if the dripping happened simultaneously with the clock display changing.). But time isn't something other than those changes/motions. Again, it's change/motion in general, that is, the changes or motions of everything. But if we're focusing on a particular thing, like a clock or water dripping or whatever, a clock isn't the same thing as water dripping obviously.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It's not an equivalence. It's that x (the clock) is in one state, which is T1, and then it's in another state--it has changed. So that's T2. Change is what we're naming with T1 and T2. "X" on the other hand, is a variable for the clock.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Of course, I couldn't disagree with you more. I'm not saying that you have change in mind with "time," but that's what you're referring to functionally.
Now you have taken a generalization, an abstraction, change, which is what we say about any change, that it is a change, and assigned the name of a particular thing "time" to that abstract thing. So either that particular thing which you refer to as the "T variable" has no meaning other than as the abstract generalization, "change", in which case the T variable is redundant, or else it refers to a real particular thing, time, and therefore it could not be the same as the generalized "change". Which is it, is time a thing to be referred to, or is it just a generalized "change"?.
Quoting Terrapin Station
OK, so what we have is "the clock reads 10:42", and "the clock reads 10:43". This is change, in one instance 10:42, and the other, 10:43. The difference between these is the difference between a 2 and a 3. That is the change which has occurred, a 2 has been changed to a 3. How do you infer that there is something other than this, which is called time? If there is nothing other than the change from a 2 to a 3, what is this "T variable"? How is the change from a 2 to a 3 construed as a T variable?
Quoting Terrapin Station That's not what you said though. You said that there is one state x, and another state x'. Your claim was that you know that x' is different from x, because x was at T1, and x' was at T2. You also claim to know that T1 is different from T2, because of a different reading on the clock. If x now becomes the clock, we have circular reasoning. You now know that x is different from x' because they represent different numbers on the clock, not because one is at T1 and the other at T2, only because 2 is different than 3. So how do you know that any time has past, just because there is a different number on the clock?
I'm not sure I understand all of your comments there, but it is "a set of things to be referred to" if you like, namely all changes. I'm not saying it's an abstraction. Changes aren't abstraction, they're real, particular occurrences. Time is those occurrences, it's all changes/motion. (And at this point I'm just saying the same thing again, really.)
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Why other? Again, change is identical to time. If it's identical, it's not "other." It's the same thing.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'm having to explain things to you that I already explained. "T" (and "T1" or "T2" etc.) is a variable because we can use it to refer to "10:42" or "10:43" or "this drip" or "that drip" or "that bird wing flap" or whatever. We can plug "10:42" into the variable "T1." This part is like I'm having to explain how variables work to you, which shouldn't be the case if you're capable of having an advanced discussion about ontology.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, it is. Quite a few posts ago I wrote this for example:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Which is a change, yes. Time is identical to change. That means difference. You don't have change if there's no difference.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
"Circular reasoning" is pertinent to an argument. I'm not really stating an argument here. I'm explaining something to you. But if you want to claim that I'm stating premises and saying that they imply a conclusion, go ahead and tell me what the conclusion is that's also a premise.
You might be mistaking my definitional statements for an argument. "Time is identical to change" isnt' an argument, it's a statement or definition of what time is. Definitions will ultimately be "circular" if you go enough steps, otherwise they're not doing the job they're supposed to do.
As I explained earlier, the reason that I believe that time is identical to change isn't based on anything in the vein of a formal argument, where I'm stating premises and taking them to imply a conclusion that time is change. I believe this--and this is the case for many things I believe--due to years of functional analysis in many different contexts. It's more of an empirical observation than anything like an argument.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Again, x is the clock. x and x' are different because the clock displaying "10:42" is different than the clock displaying "10:43." 10:42 and 10:43 are different.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, since time is identical to change. Part of the problem here might be that you're having a difficult time parsing time in a different way than what you take it to be ontologically (which is obviously quite different than what I take it to be ontologically). It's pretty simple though: if one takes time to be identical to change (and that's a definition, not an argument), then that there's a change tells us that there is time.
OK, there is a set of things named "changes". You want to refer to those things under a different name, "time". What justifies this change of name? You already suggested a "functional analysis", from which you claimed that people use these two words, "time" and "change" to refer to the same thing. But as I demonstrated by referring to your example of x to x' indicating change, and T1 toT2 indicating time, you yourself do not use these two words to refer to the same thing. So this so-called functional analysis has been proven faulty, and does not suffice to support your claim.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Definitions are not circular, they are grounded in how a word is used. The dictionary provides a description of how each word is commonly used. Your definition of "time" clearly does not represent the way that "time" is commonly used, and is therefore unacceptable as a proposition.
Quoting Terrapin Station
This functional analysis is clearly faulty, as your example demonstrates, you yourself do not use "time" and "change" in the same way. I really don't believe you ever carried out any such functional analysis of many different contexts over years of time. Just try replacing the word "change" for the word "time" in any common statement to demonstrate how absurd your claim is. "It's time to change my clothes" becomes "it's time to time my clothes". "Something has changed here" becomes "something has timed here". "Change is what an object does" becomes "time is what an object does". Your so-called functional analysis appears to be a real farce.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I agree with "that there's a change tells us that there is time". But this does not entail that time and change are identical, because it does not exclude the possibility of time without change. "If X then Y", does not necessitate "if Y then X". That would be affirming the consequent which is a known logical fallacy. Furthermore, we cannot start with the assumption that time and change are identical, due to the arguments presented above. Therefore you still have not presented me with a premise, or principle whereby we can say that if there is time, then there is change.
I couldn't see the relevance of Cavacava's post.
Quoting Cavacava
TS and I were discussing the reality of time. TS thinks that in reality, time is nothing other than change. I've been trying to dispel that illusion, but TS is persistent.
MU I think McTaggart's argument is like a river you must cross to get to the promised land, there might be another route but I have not found it yet.
By the way Aristotle thought about time in three ways:
1) Quantitatively as a measure
2) As motion
3) Chronologically, 'before & after'
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It's not a name change, It's a statement of an identity relationship. What justifies asserting the identity relationship is the years of functional analysis re how "time" is used--what it actually refers to, functionally.
Do you understand that part so that I don't have to explain it again? I know you don't agree with it, but I shouldn't have to keep explaining it as my view.
Yeah, well, this has been my view for decades now, including in the context of doing academic philosophical work, and it's remained my view throughout tens of extended discussions with philosophers and physicists etc. who've had different views, so more than likely one more person with a different view isn't likely to persuade me to change my view, especially when I feel like most of your comments are odd misunderstandings of what I'm saying. (Such as you parsing me as suggesting a "name change" rather than an identity relationship.)
As I said, I think your functional analysis is faulty. Try, as I suggested, replacing "change" with "time", in any common use of the word "change". You will find that the meaning of the statement is greatly changed. "Change is what objects do" becomes "time is what objects do". Any such exchange which I tried ends in absurdity, so really I don't see any validity to your claim of identity.
Therefore your claim is incomprehensible to me, and I really don't understand it. If you could proceed to explain your functional analysis, and how you came to this conclusion, which appears to be extremely faulty, perhaps you could help me to understand.
Yeah, obviously.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
A comment I've encountered unfortunately too many times in discussions about this. Unfortunate, because this is yet another odd midunderstanding. Why? Well, because I'm not saying anything about conventional language usage per se. I'm not making claims about linguistic substitutions that would work just as well with respect to conventional language usage.
Do you understand that?
No, you've insisted that time is change, time is identical to change, so why can't we switch names? That doesn't make sense to me. If we are referring to the same thing with two different words, we should be able to switch words at will.
Wait a minute. I'm asking if you understand that I'm not making claims about linguistic substitutions. You can believe that I'm not making claims about linguistic substitutions while thinking that linguistic substitutions should work given my views.
To say, "No," you don't understand that, should entail that you think that I am indeed making claims about linguistic substitutions. (Otherwise you're not actually answering the question that I asked you.)
Okay, I just wanted to clear that up. So I'm not making claims about that.
The reason that linguistic substitutions aren't entailed by my view is something I explicitly told you earlier in this thread (for me, it's on this same page even . . . I don't know if everyone is set up to see the same amount of posts per page though). I said this: "I'm not referring to what people have in mind, what their specific beliefs about time are in that. It's not a survey of beliefs."
Well, language conventions are what they are because they reflect people's beliefs, how they think about things, etc. I'm not saying anything about that. It's not a survey of beliefs.
OK, so you've managed to distinguish between what people think they are referring to, and what people are actually referring to. Don't you think that this is just a case of you misunderstanding these people? I mean, if you determine that people are actually referring to something which is not what they think they are referring to, haven't you misunderstood them?
That would follow if the aim were to talk about persons' beliefs, how they think about things, etc. But for at least the third time now, that's not what I'm doing. I'm not referring to what people have in mind, what their specific beliefs about time are. It's not a survey of beliefs.
What I'm doing is looking at what actually obtains in relation to how terms/concepts are being used, from more of a "behavioral" perspective. Thus, when people are believing myths, fictions, ambiguities, incoherencies, etc. (as might be the case with various terms/concepts/etc.) we can talk about what's really going on in relation to those terms/concepts/etc. with respect to things that do exist.
If you're not referring to what people believe about time, then what are you referring to, your own personal belief? Clearly your own personal belief, that "time" and "change" refer to the same thing is not consistent with what others believe, or else we could exchange these two words in common phrases. Since your belief is not consistent with others, don't you think that the onus is on you to justify this belief?
Either you're not reading what I'm writing or you're not capable of understanding it, because I just explained this in the post you're quoting.
This appears to be irrelevant, if anything more than gibberish. Perhaps you could explain?
In my opinion it wouldn't be worth my time at this point. My judgment is that you wouldn't be capable of understanding, at least without a monumental effort on my part--basically it would be the equivalent of teaching you for at least a year or so, but it would also be a monumental effort that would require cooperation from you rather than you wanting to argue, which doesn't seem likely.
I have a background in music as well as philosophy. I taught music for awhile, including teaching some private students. What this is reminding me of is a student I had who had a serious learning disability. It took me a year to teach him the concept of major scales. He eventually got it, sort of, but it was a challenge to say the least.
You'd have to first show me how this is not a case of you prioritizing the wrong evidence. When we want to understand what a person is referring to, we first and foremost consider the person's choice of words, context of words, as evidence. The context of words in relation to other words forms the primary evidence of what the person is referring to. Other behaviour is secondary evidence. In some cases, especially in cases of a mistaken choice of words, the two distinct forms of evidence appear contrary to each other. Then we have a problem of interpretation, and may find secondary evidence to be a key factor. But to choose secondary evidence in priority over primary evidence, on a regular basis for interpretation, is to me, a big mistake.
So in order to make me understand your claim, you'd have to demonstrate why you think that secondary evidence is more reliable as the basis for interpretation of words, than primary evidence is.
I think my learning disability is much more serious than this. I really don't think I'll ever "get it".
Actually, in able to aid your understanding of my comments, I'd have to get at whatever rudimentary issues are causing you to not even be able to parse a simple sentence such as, "What I'm doing is looking at what actually obtains in relation to how terms/concepts are being used, from more or a 'behavioral' perspective."
You've repeatedly been incapable of understanding very simple sentences I've written, as evidenced by me having to repeat the same thing again and again in different words after you've either shown no sign of being abel to cognize them at all, or alternately after you attempted to paraphrase my comments, but the paraphrases showed gross misunderstandings.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yeah, either that or it's essentially trolling.
OK, I think I'm starting to understand what's going on here. You are assuming that "time" does not refer to anything real, you are treating it like a fiction, or something that does not exist. That's what you insinuate with this passage. I thought it was clear from prior discussion in this thread, before you joined, and the op itself, that we are discussing time as a real thing. The op does allude to the possibility that "the moment" itself is not a real thing, but I thought it was clear that we were assuming time to be a real thing in this thread, and this is the thing we are discussing, time. There is no suggestion that time might be a myth or fiction, only that the "moment" might be a fiction.
Of course, if you want to debate whether or not the word "time" refers to something real, that's a slightly different issue. You however, seem to begin from the assumption that "time" does not refer to anything real, and you proceed to give meaning to the word from that perspective. I think that this is way off track of the op, and that's why I'm having difficulty understanding what you're talking about. We have opposing assumptions, I assume that "time" refers to something real, and you assume that it does not. Then we proceed in our separate directions, me talking about a real thing called "time", and you assuming that I am talking about some fictitious thing, without ever establishing any consistency in our assumptions. In other words, we have no agreement on what we are talking about. It's as if I were talking about God to you, not realizing that you are atheist, so that all the time that I refer to God, you are thinking that I am talking about a fictitious thing. But if I'm not atheist, and truly believe in God, then I am not talking about a fictitious thing, I'm talking about a real thing, and you really haven't got a clue what I'm talking about.
All this time, I thought you were talking about the same thing as me, a real thing called "time", when in reality you were talking about a fictitious thing called "time". I now see why we have no degree of understanding on this issue
Oy vey, hahaha. It's like you're not quite able to understand anything I write.
I wonder what you'd think I'm saying if I were to write, "My user name on this board is Terrapin Station."
Ever consider the possibility that this says a lot more about you than it says about me?
Sure. My conclusion? That possibility is incorrect.