Time does not exist.

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Hobbes' Choice
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Re: Time does not exist.

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

uwot wrote:
Terrapin Station wrote:When you have phenomena of there being another person, or a rock, or whatever you have a phenomenon of, why do you believe that it's a mental phenomenon that you have? What would be your grounds for believing that it's not really just another person, or a rock, or whatever it seems to be?
It's those bloody 'terms' again. Sorry to butt in, but you experience phenomena. The phenomenon is not the ding an sich, as Kant might have put it. Of course we assume that the phenomenon is caused by something external and 'objective', but all we know for sure is that we experience the phenomenon, as Descartes might have said.
Terrapin seems under the bizarre impression that ""The object is evident. We do not only have access to the subject.", which is absurd.
Londoner
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Re: Time does not exist.

Post by Londoner »

Terrapin Station wrote:
Londoner wrote:I have taken enormous care in several posts to explain why even if one is not a solipsist, even if we do think there are things 'out there', it does not follow that we would think our perceptions directly represent those things.
That's beautiful, and the lecture was filed where I believe is appropriate.

Now, how about simply, directly answering the question I had asked you, which was:

When you have phenomena of there being another person, or a rock, or whatever you have a phenomenon of, why do you believe that it's a mental phenomenon that you have? What would be your grounds for believing that it's not really just another person, or a rock, or whatever it seems to be?
Do you promise to read it? Even if it drags on for more than 28 characters? Once more:

Because the rock cannot directly place itself in my mind. It can only come into my mind through things like nerve impulses, which are not that rock. I therefore have to construct the idea 'rock' by interpreting those nerve impulses. If I had different sorts of nerves, or a different sort of mind, or a different general idea of the world, then I would construct a different idea. Thus I cannot know my idea of a rock corresponds to what that rock might be in itself.

And do you see how this is distinct from solipsism? It is the difference between saying that 'there are no sensations' and 'our interpretations of sensations are just that, interpretations'.
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Hobbes' Choice
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Re: Time does not exist.

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Londoner wrote:
Terrapin Station wrote:
Londoner wrote:I have taken enormous care in several posts to explain why even if one is not a solipsist, even if we do think there are things 'out there', it does not follow that we would think our perceptions directly represent those things.
That's beautiful, and the lecture was filed where I believe is appropriate.

Now, how about simply, directly answering the question I had asked you, which was:

When you have phenomena of there being another person, or a rock, or whatever you have a phenomenon of, why do you believe that it's a mental phenomenon that you have? What would be your grounds for believing that it's not really just another person, or a rock, or whatever it seems to be?
Do you promise to read it? Even if it drags on for more than 28 characters? Once more:

Because the rock cannot directly place itself in my mind. It can only come into my mind through things like nerve impulses, which are not that rock. I therefore have to construct the idea 'rock' by interpreting those nerve impulses. If I had different sorts of nerves, or a different sort of mind, or a different general idea of the world, then I would construct a different idea. Thus I cannot know my idea of a rock corresponds to what that rock might be in itself.

And do you see how this is distinct from solipsism? It is the difference between saying that 'there are no sensations' and 'our interpretations of sensations are just that, interpretations'.
It has always amused me the way a naive realist insists that the senses provided by nature, unintentionally, are supposed to have provided the human species with a comprehensive and completely real view of the world that can be accepted simply as 'reality', as if the interpretive power of the brain had nothing to do with it.

What we experience is a representation, the object is not evident, in itself. Only the subject experiences
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Time does not exist.

Post by Terrapin Station »

uwot wrote:Fair enough. Does force fit in anywhere? (I won't go into mind; not my field. Ginkgo's yer man for that on this forum.)
Forces are processes of matter.
As for "empirical claims aren't provable period", I disagree. To me, the empirical claim is that the point of light corresponding to our understanding of Mars, say, is in a particular position relative to the fixed stars, or it isn't.
There's a fact that the point of light is in a particular position relative to the "fixed stars" or not, but facts are not the same thing as proofs. You're referring to the fact there. With the extension of what we'd be referring to ontologically in other words. Proofs, on the other hand, are in the realm of epistemology. They're arguments for knowing something where if it's a proof, we can't possibly be wrong about it.

For empirical claims, there's no way to establish that we can't possibly be wrong. That doesn't imply that there are no facts. It's just that we could be getting facts wrong.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Time does not exist.

Post by Terrapin Station »

uwot wrote:The phenomenon is not the ding an sich,
That would be the claim.

Now, what do you believe is a good support of that claim?
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Re: Time does not exist.

Post by Terrapin Station »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:Terrapin seems under the bizarre impression that ""The object is evident. We do not only have access to the subject.", which is absurd.
I'm not saying that I disagree with that. But I didn't say that I agree with that either. I brought it up because it's an empirical claim that's the opposite of the empirical claim that you are avoiding supporting. They're both empirical claims. The question is why would we assert one or the other?
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Re: Time does not exist.

Post by Terrapin Station »

Londoner wrote:Because the rock cannot directly place itself in my mind. It can only come into my mind through things like nerve impulses, which are not that rock. I therefore have to construct the idea 'rock' by interpreting those nerve impulses.
But how would you be getting to the point of even believing that you have nerves? You can't say that you can observe nerves. Your argument is that you can't observe things external to your phenomenal awareness.
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Re: Time does not exist.

Post by Terrapin Station »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:It has always amused me the way a naive realist insists that the senses provided by nature, unintentionally, are supposed to have provided the human species with a comprehensive and completely real view of the world that can be accepted simply as 'reality', as if the interpretive power of the brain had nothing to do with it.

What we experience is a representation, the object is not evident, in itself. Only the subject experiences
It amuses me that representationalists think that we can know anything whatsoever about perceptual appartuses. After all, according to representationalists, we can't literally observe eyes and nerves and brains and so on. We only know mental data per se.
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Hobbes' Choice
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Re: Time does not exist.

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Terrapin Station wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:Terrapin seems under the bizarre impression that ""The object is evident. We do not only have access to the subject.", which is absurd.
I'm not saying that I disagree with that. But I didn't say that I agree with that either. I brought it up because it's an empirical claim that's the opposite of the empirical claim that you are avoiding supporting. They're both empirical claims. The question is why would we assert one or the other?
I already told you and you have chickened out of a discussion on it.
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Hobbes' Choice
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Re: Time does not exist.

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Terrapin Station wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:It has always amused me the way a naive realist insists that the senses provided by nature, unintentionally, are supposed to have provided the human species with a comprehensive and completely real view of the world that can be accepted simply as 'reality', as if the interpretive power of the brain had nothing to do with it.

What we experience is a representation, the object is not evident, in itself. Only the subject experiences
It amuses me that representationalists think that we can know anything whatsoever about perceptual appartuses. After all, according to representationalists, we can't literally observe eyes and nerves and brains and so on. We only know mental data per se.
You are good at trying to pigeon hole people, but never really get it right. One day I'm empiricist, and another I'm idealist, now I'm a representationalist.

Luckily for you, god has given your the perfect senses to exhaust the possibilities of perception.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Time does not exist.

Post by Terrapin Station »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Terrapin Station wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:It has always amused me the way a naive realist insists that the senses provided by nature, unintentionally, are supposed to have provided the human species with a comprehensive and completely real view of the world that can be accepted simply as 'reality', as if the interpretive power of the brain had nothing to do with it.

What we experience is a representation, the object is not evident, in itself. Only the subject experiences
It amuses me that representationalists think that we can know anything whatsoever about perceptual appartuses. After all, according to representationalists, we can't literally observe eyes and nerves and brains and so on. We only know mental data per se.
You are good at trying to pigeon hole people, but never really get it right. One day I'm empiricist, and another I'm idealist, now I'm a representationalist.

Luckily for you, god has given your the perfect senses to exhaust the possibilities of perception.
Jesus you're a moron. You can't read. And you really know/understand jackshit about philosophy.
uwot
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Re: Time does not exist.

Post by uwot »

Terrapin Station wrote:Forces are processes of matter.
Well, you describe processes as "changing relations of matter". I don't think that tells the whole story. Force only changes with distance, the potential at any point remains the same.
Terrapin Station wrote:There's a fact that the point of light is in a particular position relative to the "fixed stars" or not, but facts are not the same thing as proofs.
I'm not really interested in proofs. The only 'proofs' about the world are analytic a posteriori, which Kant thought impossible, although I think Parmenides' 'There isn't nothing' qualifies; Descartes' Cogito too, if you prune it back a bit.
Terrapin Station wrote:You're referring to the fact there.
So what would be an example of an empirical claim, as in "empirical claims aren't provable period"?
uwot
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Re: Time does not exist.

Post by uwot »

Terrapin Station wrote:
uwot wrote:The phenomenon is not the ding an sich,
That would be the claim.

Now, what do you believe is a good support of that claim?
I can't see it in the dark.
Belinda
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Re: Time does not exist.

Post by Belinda »

Hobbes'Choice wrote:
We were not talking about individual subjects, but the entire universe.
I have what we like to call 'intentionality', and am consciously pursuing my personal goals. To what degree these are determined is for another discussion. But you cannot apply that to the universe as you seem to have.
But I have quoted evolution of species by natural selection to support the claim that there is no Designer therefore I do not apply telos to the evolution of the universe.
As for subjective. Subjective is all I have and I do not consider that in any way a lesser assessment than the collective (or objective) assessment of human society.
If, by my own assessment I am in a state of becoming a sculptor then that is what I am.
"what I am", You sound as if your ontological thinking is captured by the verb 'to be'. Being is a useful concept for everyday living but it's not to be presumed when we are doing ontology.

Similarly, time as the flow of time is a concept peculiar to modern thought (and I myself am immersed in that culture) however linguistic study of the Hopi of Arizona language shows that a reasonable metaphysics exists without the time concept and instead orders existence according to manifest and unmanifest. (Benjamin Lee Whorf 1950)
Londoner
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Re: Time does not exist.

Post by Londoner »

Terrapin Station wrote:
Londoner wrote:Because the rock cannot directly place itself in my mind. It can only come into my mind through things like nerve impulses, which are not that rock. I therefore have to construct the idea 'rock' by interpreting those nerve impulses.
But how would you be getting to the point of even believing that you have nerves? You can't say that you can observe nerves. Your argument is that you can't observe things external to your phenomenal awareness.
No, that is not my argument, as I think you know. My last post was very short but it seems you still didn't make it to the second paragraph. It went:

And do you see how this is distinct from solipsism? It is the difference between saying that 'there are no sensations' and 'our interpretations of sensations are just that, interpretations'.

Absolutely, I cannot observe 'nerves'. Again, my concept of 'nerves' is something I posit as an explanation for the mechanics of experience. For example, if I put my hands in front of my eyes, the rock we are discussing disappears. I have concluded that the appearance of rocks depends on my being able to see them, and that this involves eyes. By making other investigations, others have elaborated this theory to involve optic nerves, brains etc.

But presumably you disagree and think we see rocks without having to use our eyes. That the rock in a holistic sense implants itself directly in our brain. I don't know how this is reconciled with the fact that some people will have a different idea of what the rock looks like. Perhaps someone sees it as blurry. My 'eye theory' of seeing can explain this; I call it 'short-sightedness' and link this to the mechanics of the eye. How would you explain it? If my mental picture of the rock is without blurs, but yours is blurry, must they be different rocks?

There is some interesting philosophy that arises from this, but I doubt if you have read this far. Instead you will again respond 'Your argument is...' ignoring what I have actually said.
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