Time does not exist.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Hobbes'Choice wrote:





I gather that you think that fantasy stories have no trace of truth.

Not at all. Literature contains much truth. But you cannot use a fantasy empirically.

Faith sometimes supports where belief fails. Belief must be subject to doubt. Faith however unreasoning does not have to be frustrated by doubt. Faith can be subjected to facticity and when facts indicate that a life situation is hopeless faith can restore order.

Personally I reject the distinction between faith and belief. Neither is any good for anything. It does not matter what you believe, as that does not change what is real.

To get back to the topic of time , if we hold that time is change then we can understand how transience which is often sad is nothing to be afraid of.The problem of transience becomes one of adapting one's urge to live so that it's happier.

Time is not the same as change. We express these two things using two words for very good reason.
And if you mean DEATH when you say transience, then it is the cessation of al urge. What is 'happier'?

I wasn't using a fantasy as evidence of my senses I was using it to show me how interpretation of facts varies the nature of the facts according to the interpreter, and how a fantastic or even in some cases a mad interpretation conduces to life where pedestrian interpretation is too bad to contemplate.

Hobbes' you say "does not change what is real". But are you a naive realist?

I didn't mean only death when I said transience. I meant loss and I referred to the apprehension of loss.Transience is real for us, and transience is our awareness of the passage of time. It's good to put a name to it and it's good to read stories that deal with it as that helps us to accept it with some equanimity.

I am as far from a naive realist as it is possible to be. But that does not mean that I can think things into existence.
There is no practical difference between transcience and the passage of time. You think that changing a word from one thing to another gives you an explanation.
This is not uncommon.

[SpheresOfBalance]

Hobbes'choice wrote:

Change is an idea. Even that can perish when there is no one to reproduce that idea.

Surely you must believe that something exists?

Of course but 'change' is a mental concept, not a materially real thing. You cannot pretend to assert that for all time things will change. In fact there is a body of theory "the heat death of the universe" which holds that when complex energy has all finally turned to heat, all change will have ceased.

We only know the universe though our senses. And whilst I say I can only know, say, a cup, through my perception of it, I still accept that it has an independent existence. But a thing like "change" is a descriptor with value laden connotations of human interest. "IT" does not have the same quality of existence as a cup.

Bull Shit, moron:

change [cheynj]
noun
19. the act or fact of changing; fact of being changed: They are pleased by the change in their son's behavior.
20. a transformation or modification; alteration: They noticed the change in his facial expression.
21. a variation or deviation: a change in the daily routine.
22. the substitution of one thing for another: We finally made the change to an oil-burning furnace.
23. variety or novelty: Let's try a new restaurant for a change.
24. the passing from one place, state, form, or phase to another: a change of seasons; social change.
25. Jazz. harmonic progression from one tonality to another; modulation.

Change would only cease if relative movement ceased, every particle: electron, neutron, proton, quark, boson; or planet, asteroid, dust, etc. Change is all about relativity; relativity is all about change.

[Londoner]

Change would only cease if relative movement ceased, every particle: electron, neutron, proton, quark, boson; or planet, asteroid, dust, etc. Change is all about relativity; relativity is all about change.

'Change' arises if we divide the universe into parts, as you do here - not only into types of things but into individual examples. Then these things stand in relationship to each other, relationships which (as you say) can change.

However, if we divided the universe in different ways, then so would what we called changes. When we identify a particular thing, we define it, such that when it no longer fits that definition we can say 'it has changed'. But we could have chosen to identify and define that thing differently.

For example, if we freeze water (which we have defined as a liquid) then it changes to ice. But if we had identified the same substance as 'H2O' then no change has taken place, ice remains H20. Neither view is better, more correct, than the other.

Similarly, one might observe that the parts of an engine may change position relative to each other, but viewed holistically the engine remains the same engine. Again, both are true; which is preferable in any instance depends on us, whether we are repairing the engine or just using it.

And suppose we don't divide the universe at all. Then we would have no 'change', because whatever happens 'the universe' must still remain 'the universe'.

[Belinda]

Change over time is one sort of differentation between events, entities and ideas and differentiation is necesary for existence. If there were no material or mental differentiation no event, entity or idea could exist. Hobbes' Choice's immaterialist contention that because time and change are ideas they lack material existence is illogical.

Time and change are ideas; it does not follow that time and change lack material existence.

[Hobbes' Choice]

. Hobbes' Choice's immaterialist contention that because time and change are ideas they lack material existence is illogical.

Time and change are ideas; it does not follow that time and change lack material existence.

It's not in the slightest bit illogical. These are idea that describe material succession of event. You are failing to draw appropriate distinctions.

[Belinda]

. Hobbes' Choice's immaterialist contention that because time and change are ideas they lack material existence is illogical.

Time and change are ideas; it does not follow that time and change lack material existence.

It's not in the slightest bit illogical. These are idea that describe material succession of event. You are failing to draw appropriate distinctions.

Hobbes'Choice, it's a case of not only but also
. I can distinguish between ideas and the referents of ideas. Not only are time and sad transience ideas, they are also materially real. Sad transience is not only a cognitive idea it's also a feeling tone. Awareness of feeling tones is mental and subjective, and each feeling tone has its counterpart in verifiable and objective bodily events.

As for time and change those are "material succession of events", and are also how events are differentiated one from another. Please tell me, Hobbes'Choice, if you agree that if every event was indistinguishable from every other event we could not live.

[Londoner]

As for time and change those are "material succession of events", and are also how events are differentiated one from another. Please tell me, Hobbes'Choice, if you agree that if every event was indistinguishable from every other event we could not live.

But if we only differentiated between events in one way, the 'real way', we could not live either. We need to be able to grasp that, looked at one way then things change, but in another way they stay the same. Belinda moves from one room to another but remains Belinda. We are not fixed to any particular idea of what counts as 'change'.

Time and change are ideas; it does not follow that time and change lack material existence.

Which changes, or lack of them, would we endorse as having 'material existence'? For example, my understanding of how Belinda came to be in her current location involves me remembering a past when she was elsewhere, but I do not claim that this past has a material existence. The sort of evidence that I would use to justify my saying Belinda has a material existence at this moment cannot be used to to justify past-Belinda.

[Hobbes' Choice]

. Hobbes' Choice's immaterialist contention that because time and change are ideas they lack material existence is illogical.

Time and change are ideas; it does not follow that time and change lack material existence.

It's not in the slightest bit illogical. These are idea that describe material succession of event. You are failing to draw appropriate distinctions.

Hobbes'Choice, it's a case of not only but also
. I can distinguish between ideas and the referents of ideas. Not only are time and sad transience ideas, they are also materially real. Sad transience is not only a cognitive idea it's also a feeling tone. Awareness of feeling tones is mental and subjective, and each feeling tone has its counterpart in verifiable and objective bodily events.

As for time and change those are "material succession of events", and are also how events are differentiated one from another. Please tell me, Hobbes'Choice, if you agree that if every event was indistinguishable from every other event we could not live.

You cannot know a rock except by the idea of it. The distinction to draw is the temporary reality and the transience of the rock. In the same same way I'd not deny the existence of a real rock, the distinction is between the rock and what we are interested about the rock. The rock is moving in a bewildering number of ways*, even before we can detect it. A rock "at rest", unchanging to our perception, is changing and moving in ways we are not aware of. And that is why when we break it or throw it the changes are minimal and only of interest to us as observers, yet the changes and movement of a rock at rest; changeless to our view is in a continual state of chaos. That is why I think it important to insist that what we see as change and movement is a human interested descriptor and not significant to the existence of the rock as it ignores more than we perceive.

* A rock at rest: ... is on a rotating earth, circling the sun, which is rushing through the universe, spirialing through the neighbouring star systems and hurtling through the galaxy. It's molecules are in a state of vibration due to heat energy, warmed by an ever changing sun, changing with each draft and breeze; the surface teeming with viruses, bacteria, and funghi. Against this our parochial description of change is minimal and only personally descriptive.

[attofishpi]

Time does not exist.

I agree. Time is simply mans method of 'syncing' events into a measurable value.

[Terrapin Station]

Time does not exist.

I agree. Time is simply mans method of 'syncing' events into a measurable value.

How could there be events if time doesn't exist?

[Hobbes' Choice]

Time does not exist.

I agree. Time is simply mans method of 'syncing' events into a measurable value.

How could there be events if time doesn't exist?

You are putting the interpretive horse before the evidential cart here.
You cannot have the luxury to assume that the human devised scheme of the world is a collection of purely objective and natural categories.

[Terrapin Station]

I agree. Time is simply mans method of 'syncing' events into a measurable value.

How could there be events if time doesn't exist?

You are putting the interpretive horse before the evidential cart here.
You cannot have the luxury to assume that the human devised scheme of the world is a collection of purely objective and natural categories.

It seems to me from the way that attofishpi wrote what he did that he would believe that events are objective. If he doesn't, that's fine. He can clarify that. The aim is just to get attofishpi to respond and to think more about his views in this context.

I certainly believe that events obtain objectively, but then again I also think it's nonsense to say that time doesn't exist.

[Belinda]

Hobbes'Choice wrote:

You cannot know a rock except by the idea of it. The distinction to draw is the temporary reality and the transience of the rock. In the same same way I'd not deny the existence of a real rock, the distinction is between the rock and what we are interested about the rock. The rock is moving in a bewildering number of ways*, even before we can detect it. A rock "at rest", unchanging to our perception, is changing and moving in ways we are not aware of. And that is why when we break it or throw it the changes are minimal and only of interest to us as observers, yet the changes and movement of a rock at rest; changeless to our view is in a continual state of chaos. That is why I think it important to insist that what we see as change and movement is a human interested descriptor and not significant to the existence of the rock as it ignores more than we perceive.

True, what we perceive about a rock are the attributes of the rock, and the attributes that we can perceive are limited in number and quality by our senses and brain-minds.We also perceive the the rock is a transient entity or series of events; we know that some specific rock was once semi-fluid lava. I therefore agree with you. And I also agree that the rock is not naturally differentiated from other entities but that the differentiation which we perceive is superimposed upon the rock and its surroundings by our human special interests.I agree also the the rock ignores more than we perceive about it.

All this is however insufficient to include change itself as no more than some other, more abstract, human categorisation such as is some rock, or rocks in general. We do live in relativity and temporality however even God could not exist unless he were able to tell one event from another. For instance an eternal being would know the difference between eternity and temporality. The rock is not only "changing and moving in ways we are not aware of" it's changes and movements are limited to the causal influences of changes and movements of events other than the rock .Nature is a whole and cannot be otherwise than it is.

The wholeness of nature depends upon time and change through time, and this is because nature is in process of becoming.

[Terrapin Station]

And I also agree that the rock is not naturally differentiated from other entities but that the differentiation which we perceive is superimposed upon the rock and its surroundings by our human special interests.

Would you say that the differentiation is arbitrary?

[Hobbes' Choice]

How could there be events if time doesn't exist?

You are putting the interpretive horse before the evidential cart here.
You cannot have the luxury to assume that the human devised scheme of the world is a collection of purely objective and natural categories.

It seems to me from the way that attofishpi wrote what he did that he would believe that events are objective. If he doesn't, that's fine. He can clarify that. The aim is just to get attofishpi to respond and to think more about his views in this context.

I certainly believe that events obtain objectively, but then again I also think it's nonsense to say that time doesn't exist.

The objective is not evident. We have only access to the subject. The object is is a construct designed to even out observer bias. Objectivity is that which your language community has agreed upon is the truth devoid of the subject, but it is still far from the thing in itself.
Objectivity is about agreement between observers, though it is characterised as 'reality'.