Terrapin Station

I just want to do one topic at a time for the moment: Is there any way for change to come about? Does change need to be created?

It depends on what motion we're focusing on. In the scenario you're describing, we usually focus on the watch faces and what they read. We're talking ...

With the "empty space" only as our frame of reference, correct, time does not pass. If we're broadening the frame of reference to include other things...

This is wrong. Time is identical to change/motion. If photons change, they're not timeless. It's not possible to move timelesslessly, because motion i...

Any motion, any change would BE (identical to) time. You can't have motion/change without time, because motion/change is what time is.

There isn't any time without matter, by the way, so time can run differently "in the present of matter." At any rate, any motion, any change would be ...

I'll leave that alone for a moment (we're not going to get anywhere with me pointing out that the stuff in the first paragraph is all incoherent in my...

This, and the rest of the comment, seems to have nothing to do with my comment that you quoted just prior to it. Neither 4D spacetime nor presentism h...

I don't get that either without further explanation. How do we get, as an acrostic, "portmanteau" from Come, pack my things, and let the clothes Be ne...

I don't think that the idea of a fourth spatial dimension is coherent aside from it being a sort of "game" we can play with the way we've constructed ...

What is the fourth dimension supposed to be?

Our task at the moment is to define "permanent" so that it's somehow not relative to time (in the sense of whether something persists relative to time...

The way I've used "real," and especially in its connection to any discussion of nominalism, should be pretty clear from context to anyone who has stud...

I asked you how you'd define the term "permanent" if you're not using it to refer to a concept of something existing for all time (or at least for som...

Wait, if we're basing an argument on the notion of permanence, we'd better know what we're referring to with that term.

So what would you say that "permanent" refers to in general?

Doesn't "permanent" only make sense in relation to time? Permanent refers to something lasting for all time (at least of a particular range), no? What...

Why can anything exist permanently?

Of course it's real. It's just not a "thing itself" that can then change or not.

On my view, all abstracts, all abstraction is only a (particular, physical) mental event. It's a way that we think about things, about relations, etc....

We need to go back a step then. I asked you this: "If x at time T1 and x at time T2 have an absolutely unchanged identity in your view, isn't (aren't?...

Why can anything start on its own (as in whatever you figure started time)?

I'm confused. Where are the letters a-l-l-a-h in the poem at hand (whether directly or via word substitutions or whatever, akin to the infamous "Mabel...

So you can't do a definition, just ambiguous examples? Empirical claims can not be proven period. Again, you'd learn this in Science Methodology 101 s...

The difference in your view is?

No.

Empirical claims are not provable. Science methodology 101.

"Change itself" isn't a thing that's changing or not.

Right. At least on my view. On the alternate view, one would need (what I consider to be) a wonky ontology of propositions. No, not on my view. Well, ...

What's more frustrating is how it seems to go more quickly the older you get. Oh well, back to my Christmas shopping.

??? Who wouldn't be able to do that if they're literate? Someone says, "Hey Joe--where you going with that gun in your hand?" You should be able to tr...

It's not a property of all propositions. But it's a property that only propositions have. It's not a property of something else. Again, re the analogy...

Synonyms for "diagnose" include "identify" and "recognize." "Diagnose" doesn't imply pegging the cause of something.

That's very incoherent rather.

Re this, falsehood is a property of propositions, too. "Truth is a property of propositions" isn't saying that all propositions are true. It's instead...

So what do you sense?

What's mutually exclusive is that either you sense extension or you do not. If you do not, but you sense something, what's left? A point, right?

Are you choosing that it "compares better"?

In analytic philosophy, it's standard to see "the way the world is" (aka "states of affairs" (aka "facts")) as distinct from truth. Truth is taken to ...

To which I say, "Yes, that's correct. There's no truth beyond people's thoughts . . ."

With respect to the aspect that you'd say is identical, how would you say that time passes, since time is change or motion?

If x at time T1 and x at time T2 have an absolutely unchanged identity in your view, isn't (aren't?) the identity of x at T1 and x at T2 identical? If...

Okay, but do you understand that nominalists are only denying something absolutely unchanged on numerically distinct instances?

So would you say that you're choosing to believe the principle of noncontradiction, for example, where you could just as easily choose to believe the ...

So the way that I'm using "literally" or "logically the same," which is a conventional way to use both terms, is that there's nothing different in eit...

In other words, you don't accept that either are defined by thought, and you're positing some sort of abstract, extramental existent instead.

The whole notion of "free reasoning" seems rather odd. That doesn't seem to mesh with the logical notions of validity, soundness, implication, etc. We...

I don't think there's any good basis for trying to state a generalization about that.

Claiming that something is the case for most people for something like this would require empirical studies that no one has done.

Boole's 1854 text had an insightful title: "The laws of thought." Or more fully, "An Investigation of the Laws of Thought on Which are Founded the Mat...