Time does not exist.

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Hobbes' Choice
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Re: Time does not exist.

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Belinda wrote:Hobbes'Choice wrote:
There is no change 'itself', there is not 'becoming'. becoming implies a telos, yet the universe is unfolding unconscious of any aim, and we are motes in the draft, grains of sand worn by time.
I think it's false that becoming implies a telos.This is the same basic fallacy as that the proof of the existence of God from design implies a Designer.

Your argument that I am anthropocentric, although true it applies to all seekers in every discipline.It would be tedious to keep saying " this proposition is not an absolute claim but is the best heuristic".
You cannot 'become' unless you have a direction and goal. What is it that you are becoming, without a telos. SO the implication is a strong one.
As for the god as designer; there is no design.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Time does not exist.

Post by Terrapin Station »

Londoner wrote:To put it another way, if events 'occur' and we just passively noticed them, then there would be one way of describing them. But in fact individuals both experience and describe events differently.
You'd be implicitly adding some additional claims here, including that:

(1) Events as we experience them (colored as they may be on your view by representational perception) are identical somehow with our descriptions of them ("somehow" because we'd be glossing over how events would be identical to linguistic utterances)

(2) Ontological relativism isn't true, so that the same thing experienced by two different people would have to be objectively identical in your view from reference point A and B, where A does not equal B.

I do not buy either (1) or (2).
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Time does not exist.

Post by Terrapin Station »

Londoner wrote:I would say, not in the sense that what we choose to call an event corresponds to any particular state of affairs.
Also, I wasn't asking anything like "Do events occur exactly as we believe they do, where we're not missing a single detail of them" (where we're pretending that a "complete detailing" of them makes sense in the first place, and where we're pretending that people believe something along the lines of events occurring in vacuums with respect to all other phenomena).

I was simply asking if they occur on his view, period.
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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:
What is the 'that' of the 'that' you speak of, exactly?
Dude, follow the conversation.

You said, "The objective is not evident. We have only access to the subject."

I said, "What do you take to support that claim? (Evidentially or logically)" (Or in other words, "What do you take to evidentially or logically support that claim?"--I was looking for the specific thing(s) you take to be a good reason to believe the claim in question.)

You said, "Demonstrably empirically, obviously, definitively."

So I asked, "How would you demonstrate that empirically?"

What is "that"? Well, it's the claim we've been discussing, obviously. Namely this claim: "The objective is not evident. We have only access to the subject."
Dude, I am following the conversation. So tell me what I asked, and stop obfuscating.

The subject is given; what do you mean by the object?
I did tell you what you asked. You asked "What is 'that'?" I told you exactly what 'that' was referring to, as well as explaining why it was ridiculous that you had to ask.

"What do I mean by the object?"

I didn't say anything about any object. You said something about the objective and the subject. I asked you what you take to empirically and/or logically support the claim you made. You still haven't told me.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Time does not exist.

Post by Terrapin Station »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Belinda wrote:Hobbes'Choice wrote:
There is no change 'itself', there is not 'becoming'. becoming implies a telos, yet the universe is unfolding unconscious of any aim, and we are motes in the draft, grains of sand worn by time.
I think it's false that becoming implies a telos.This is the same basic fallacy as that the proof of the existence of God from design implies a Designer.

Your argument that I am anthropocentric, although true it applies to all seekers in every discipline.It would be tedious to keep saying " this proposition is not an absolute claim but is the best heuristic".
You cannot 'become' unless you have a direction and goal. What is it that you are becoming, without a telos. SO the implication is a strong one.
As for the god as designer; there is no design.
So molten lava can not become hardened basalt on your view?
Londoner
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Re: Time does not exist.

Post by Londoner »

Terrapin Station wrote:You'd be implicitly adding some additional claims here, including that:

(1) Events as we experience them (colored as they may be on your view by representational perception) are identical somehow with our descriptions of them ("somehow" because we'd be glossing over how events would be identical to linguistic utterances)

(2) Ontological relativism isn't true, so that the same thing experienced by two different people would have to be objectively identical in your view from reference point A and B, where A does not equal B.

I do not buy either (1) or (2).
Regarding (1), it is nothing to do with the language, although that would add another layer.

Regarding (2), I do not think that two different people ever experience 'the same thing' precisely because they are two different people. We do not just passively experience; each experiencer is part of their own experience. Not just because they are in a different location, but because they have different organs of perceptions, different interpretations of the world, different mental tools etc.

It may be that there is some 'thing' out there that is in some sense the originator of those two people's experiences, but if so we can never know it. We only ever have our experiences, and we can never differentiate within our experiences, such that we can say 'this bit of my experience is 'the thing' and this bit comes from me'.

You add:
Also, I wasn't asking anything like "Do events occur exactly as we believe they do, where we're not missing a single detail of them" (where we're pretending that a "complete detailing" of them makes sense in the first place, and where we're pretending that people believe something along the lines of events occurring in vacuums with respect to all other phenomena).

I was simply asking if they occur on his view, period.
I do not understand what 'this view' refers to.

Regarding 'events', I think these are ways we talk about our experiences. If I call something 'an event' I am telling you something about it, perhaps that it had a significance for me personally. Or perhaps I am drawing attention to a particular relationship of cause-and-effect.

For example, I might say that ''The Battle of Waterloo' was an event in the Napoleonic Wars'. But if somebody asked me 'Were there any other events on that day in 1815?' I would have to include a complete description of the entire universe. But since everything in the universe will qualify as 'an event' then to pick out any one part and call it 'an event' is not to say anything.

So, when I do pick out one thing and call it 'an event', I am saying something not about the universe but about me, about how I experience or interpret it.
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attofishpi
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Re: Time does not exist.

Post by attofishpi »

Terrapin Station wrote:
attofishpi wrote:
Terrapin Station wrote:How could there be events if time doesn't exist?
Time can only exist when an event occurs. If there is not an electron spinning, a photon emitting, then there is NO time.
I agree with that, actually. But then so how do you go from that view to agreeing that time doesn't exist? You do not believe that events occur?
Ok you have a good point. I guess what i mean by 'time' doesnt exist is that it is not a dimension in the sense of the three others we can easily comprehend - we can move up down along the three dimensions - they are there easily identifiable and traversable. People make the mistake of thinking that because we state 'time' is a dimension that we can do the same.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Time does not exist.

Post by Terrapin Station »

Londoner wrote:It may be that there is some 'thing' out there that is in some sense the originator of those two people's experiences, but if so we can never know it.
As I asked Hobbes, what do you take to be empirical evidence or a logical argument for this view? In other words, how can you know that you're only experiencing your own mental-mediated representations of things?
I do not understand what 'this view' refers to.
Unless I'm missing what you're referring to, "HIS view" I wrote. In other words, the individual I was asking the question to, attofishpi.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Time does not exist.

Post by Terrapin Station »

attofishpi wrote:
Terrapin Station wrote:
attofishpi wrote:
Time can only exist when an event occurs. If there is not an electron spinning, a photon emitting, then there is NO time.
I agree with that, actually. But then so how do you go from that view to agreeing that time doesn't exist? You do not believe that events occur?
Ok you have a good point. I guess what i mean by 'time' doesnt exist is that it is not a dimension in the sense of the three others we can easily comprehend - we can move up down along the three dimensions - they are there easily identifiable and traversable. People make the mistake of thinking that because we state 'time' is a dimension that we can do the same.
Well, as I mentioned in another post, all that's meant by "dimension" in physics is a measurement required to specify something's (relative) position. We can't just specify your car, say, by relative length, width (say, in terms of very precise latitude/longitude measurements) and height. We need to specify it temporally, too, because at some times, your car won't be in some positions that we specify by length, width and height. It has a temporal position, too.
Londoner
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Re: Time does not exist.

Post by Londoner »

Terrapin Station wrote:Me: It may be that there is some 'thing' out there that is in some sense the originator of those two people's experiences, but if so we can never know it.

As I asked Hobbes, what do you take to be empirical evidence or a logical argument for this view? In other words, how can you know that you're only experiencing your own mental-mediated representations of things?
First, because different people report experiences differently. If your empirical experiences are different to my empirical experiences, then how do we know which one truly represents the 'thing'? Or, indeed, whether either of them do. We could not know unless we could stand outside ourselves and have an objective God-like view, which we can't.

Secondly, because all my experience consists of are things like photons impacting on my retina, or electrical impulses in my nerves. I might then posit that these events are caused by 'things' but they are not themselves that thing. Again, God might be able to experience the world without having to do so via bodily organs, but I cannot.
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Hobbes' Choice
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Re: Time does not exist.

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Terrapin Station wrote:.

"What do I mean by the object?"

I didn't say anything about any object. You said something about the objective and the subject. I asked you what you take to empirically and/or logically support the claim you made. You still haven't told me.

Since your brain seems to have died over the last few days I repeat what I said in the beginning: the post whose first line you took out of context, and we can start again.

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'.


Something wrong with this, or do you think the 'object' is something different?
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Time does not exist.

Post by Terrapin Station »

Londoner wrote:First, because different people report experiences differently.
Which is exactly what I expected your initial answer to be, which sets me up perfectly for this question: Given your views, how in the world can you know that there are other people in the first place, in order to know that they report experiences differently?
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Time does not exist.

Post by Terrapin Station »

Hobbes' Choice wrote: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'.
That is all a further explanation of, or a further fleshing out of, this claim:
The objective is not evident. We have only access to the subject.
What I'm asking for is whatever you take to be an empirical or logical support or justification of the claim, "The objective is not evident. We have only access to the subject." Empirical or logical support is different than further explanation of just what the claim is.
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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: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'.
That is all a further explanation of, or a further fleshing out of, this claim:
The objective is not evident. We have only access to the subject.
What I'm asking for is whatever you take to be an empirical or logical support or justification of the claim, "The objective is not evident. We have only access to the subject." Empirical or logical support is different than further explanation of just what the claim is.
Duh its an empirical claim. If you don't like it, then show me where the object is evident without a subject observing it. You are asking me to prove a negative.

I have no idea what your problem is.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Time does not exist.

Post by Terrapin Station »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:Duh its an empirical claim. If you don't like it, then show me where the object is evident without a subject observing it.
I have no idea what your problem is.
Haha--I know it's an empirical claim.

This would be an empirical claim, too:

(B) "The object is evident. We do not only have access to the subject."

You wouldn't assert (B) just because it's an empirical claim, right? Wouldn't you require some sort of empirical or logical support in order to assert (B)?

Likewise, I'm presuming that you require some sort of empirical or logical support in order to assert (A);

(A) "The objective is not evident. We have only access to the subject."

So I'm asking you for the empirical or logical support that you take to be sufficient to assert (A) rather than (B).
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