This is an ancient and important question in philosophy because the passage of time is something which we sense from within rather than observe from without. What we observe is that physical reality is in a continuous state of change and that effects are always preceded by causes in an orderly and self-generative fashion. Therefore it is more than merely an intuition that the arrow of time passes from the past into the future via the nexus of the present. This same conclusion can be arrived at through simple human reason because without the universal doctrine of causality physical reality could have no structure or order, which contradicts the evidence.skakos wrote:On what "sense" does the existence of time rely on?
Earth at the center of the Universe?
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Re: Earth at the center of the Universe?
Re: Earth at the center of the Universe?
But we see that the senses are subjective. So why trust them?Hobbes' Choice wrote:What's your point - its not like you have anything else upon which to rationalise.skakos wrote: Relying on the senses has never been the best way to do philosophy. Yes, I see your point but the greatest philosophers of all time would disagree with what the senses tell us. But let's for the sake of the discussion accept our senses: On what "sense" does the existence of time rely on? On what senses does the things you believe you know about death rely on? On what senses does the choosing of Sun (i.e. a point DIFFERENT than the point from where your senses see the planets revolve around you) as the center is based upon?
Unless we accept the idea (I personally like this idea) that reality is subjective as well...
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Re: Earth at the center of the Universe?
I'm not you know what you mean by subjective.skakos wrote:But we see that the senses are subjective. So why trust them?Hobbes' Choice wrote:What's your point - its not like you have anything else upon which to rationalise.skakos wrote: Relying on the senses has never been the best way to do philosophy. Yes, I see your point but the greatest philosophers of all time would disagree with what the senses tell us. But let's for the sake of the discussion accept our senses: On what "sense" does the existence of time rely on? On what senses does the things you believe you know about death rely on? On what senses does the choosing of Sun (i.e. a point DIFFERENT than the point from where your senses see the planets revolve around you) as the center is based upon?
Unless we accept the idea (I personally like this idea) that reality is subjective as well...
Obviously senses are subjective; that's all we got. When we agree with other human subjects is when we start to built objectivity.
Reality is neither subjective nor objective. It is a concept in the minds of men, which posit a world beyond our perception.
Re: Earth at the center of the Universe?
Many important (and difficult) topics of discussion here...Obvious Leo wrote:This is an ancient and important question in philosophy because the passage of time is something which we sense from within rather than observe from without. What we observe is that physical reality is in a continuous state of change and that effects are always preceded by causes in an orderly and self-generative fashion. Therefore it is more than merely an intuition that the arrow of time passes from the past into the future via the nexus of the present. This same conclusion can be arrived at through simple human reason because without the universal doctrine of causality physical reality could have no structure or order, which contradicts the evidence.skakos wrote:On what "sense" does the existence of time rely on?
The notion of change is indeed the source of our illusion of time. But Parmenides and many others said that "change" is also an illusion. Causality is again the "child" of time and change, but again there are philosophical theories where only the One exists and all other phenomena we see are just... phenomena. (i.e. not "real").
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Re: Earth at the center of the Universe?
In this respect Parmenides was an outlier amongst the pre-Socratics but his is nevertheless the stance taken by modern physics, which is the reason why modern physics makes no sense. On balance one would have to say that the eternalist paradigm which makes no metaphysical distinction between past present and future hasn't been working out very well for science over the past century. It was all Minkowski's fault for modelling time as a spatial dimension because spatial dimensions are bi-directional whereas time is patently not.
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Re: Earth at the center of the Universe?
Obvious Leo wrote:More or less. What I'm saying is that physics models the universe as if it were a sequence of events occurring in a "place" but I deny that that this notion of place has any ontological status.Greta wrote: My understanding of his main point is that reality is all one thing rather than "things and space".
Of course one can deny what they want to, humans are notorious for it! I prefer "container" instead of "place." I believe it to convey a much more accurate initial truth.
The background on which the observer maps his perceptions of reality are simply other events which have previously occurred in his own past.
And things that one's been "taught," that they take for granted, as if it's then actually probable, that they could absolutely know them, certainly. These concepts of others, that cannot necessarily be known, except in ones approximation, they often depend upon, to formulate their "then" approximations, often further removed, from the absolute truth of things.
It simply makes no sense to assume that a physical space can exist between an observer and an event which exists no longer because what the observer is observing is quite literally a hologram.
By definition, not a hologram at all! Do you have any family photos? Look at one when you were a child, on vacation in another place. You are distanced from that event by both time and space. The event happened long ago in time, yet you see that it did in the photo and in your memory, both recorders just like the light traveling through space is, still traveling from a now dead star, a recording that travels ad infinitum through space. Without distance over speed, the recording would be lost forever. So actually your argument proves space, it's why you can speak of dead stars in the first place, if not for space we'd not know of, 'now dead stars'. There is space between that beach, you were standing on in that photo, on vacation, and where you are sitting now. You can travel though space and time to again be standing on that very same beach, even though the grains of sand shall be different ones. Without space there would be no "geosynchronous" satellites to map the fact that you would be standing in the exact same relative spot you did all those years ago. Of course all things change relative to space, just like time.
I say there is no time, it's only a means to make sense of relative movement, change! The universe is constantly changing, if not we would not exist, but unfortunately it also causes us to die.
It's relative movement in space that causes change, and you call it time, go figure! But then you have to account for it some way don't you? So you conceptualize time, when it's just relative movement, change, in space, that has you bothered.
Because the speed of light is so bloody fast this makes very little difference in our everyday lives but on the cosmological scale this makes all the difference in the world.
Speed can only ever exist as a ratio of time and space. Therefore your argument defeats itself. A race car travels through space at an ever varying speed relative to the surface of the earth, it moves relative, thus it's position changes, so you call it traveling through time, when it only ever traveled through space, simply because of relative size, that small things can't be everywhere, you invent time as the measure, when relative size, thus relative position, in space is the actual answer, giving way to the human concept of time so as to measure the relative change in space. Without space there could be no concept of time.
You could be looking at a star in the night sky which quite literally no longer exists and even if it does it certainly no longer exists at the location at which you're observing it.
And distance in space is the reason. Electromagnetic energy transmission is a constant stream of a constant speed barring any reflection, scattering or absorption. At major distances in "space" it's beginning and end are not seen until they arrive. Great distances in "space," the reason for that very, very, very long time of yours. Without any distance in space there would be no such thing as time!
How could the space which you're observing between you and this star possibly be real when the star itself may not even be?
Silly question! Your mixing apples and oranges, and don't even know it! It's like asking how could your dead grandfather be real, if he doesn't exist now. He "once" did is the answer, there's your time. Time only serves to delineate change in space!
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Re: Earth at the center of the Universe?
SOB. You've already declared yourself unqualified to comment on matters relating to the philosophy of science and then gone on to ably demonstrate the accuracy of this self-evaluation. A further illustration is quite unnecessary.
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Re: Earth at the center of the Universe?
SpheresOfBalance wrote:Coming from you, in this particular instance, this particular subject, I consider your words to be a compliment. Thanks!Obvious Leo wrote:SOB. You've already declared yourself unqualified to comment on matters relating to the philosophy of science and then gone on to ably demonstrate the accuracy of this self-evaluation. A further illustration is quite unnecessary.
"Ignorance knows not, what it does!"
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Re: Earth at the center of the Universe?
Trolls who join philosophy forums to point out what a crock of shit philosophy is are ten a penny, SOB. I've seen it all before.
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Re: Earth at the center of the Universe?
Seriously Leo, I'm no troll, I care about Philosophy probably more than you do. The differences between us, simply that which we choose to believe!Obvious Leo wrote:Trolls who join philosophy forums to point out what a crock of shit philosophy is are ten a penny, SOB. I've seen it all before.
"There is no good guy, there is no bad guy;
There's only you and me, and we just disagree."
--Dave Mason--
Re: Earth at the center of the Universe?
I believe that time does not exist. And if indeed is something like another dimension then you can surely travel into any direction you might want. Modern physics accept the possibility of time travel and Godel had proved that time does not exist. All these notions are greatly in sync with the "Only One exists" theory of Parmenides if you ask me.Obvious Leo wrote:In this respect Parmenides was an outlier amongst the pre-Socratics but his is nevertheless the stance taken by modern physics, which is the reason why modern physics makes no sense. On balance one would have to say that the eternalist paradigm which makes no metaphysical distinction between past present and future hasn't been working out very well for science over the past century. It was all Minkowski's fault for modelling time as a spatial dimension because spatial dimensions are bi-directional whereas time is patently not.
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Re: Earth at the center of the Universe?
Are you suggesting that the fact that physical reality is in a constant state of change is illusory?skakos wrote:I believe that time does not exist. And if indeed is something like another dimension then you can surely travel into any direction you might want. Modern physics accept the possibility of time travel and Godel had proved that time does not exist. All these notions are greatly in sync with the "Only One exists" theory of Parmenides if you ask me.Obvious Leo wrote:In this respect Parmenides was an outlier amongst the pre-Socratics but his is nevertheless the stance taken by modern physics, which is the reason why modern physics makes no sense. On balance one would have to say that the eternalist paradigm which makes no metaphysical distinction between past present and future hasn't been working out very well for science over the past century. It was all Minkowski's fault for modelling time as a spatial dimension because spatial dimensions are bi-directional whereas time is patently not.
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Re: Earth at the center of the Universe?
Change does not necessitate time! Time is simply a ruler. A means to keep track of the sequence of change. The speed at which things change is not constant. The speed of change varies depending upon the constituents in proximity.Obvious Leo wrote:Are you suggesting that the fact that physical reality is in a constant state of change is illusory?skakos wrote:I believe that time does not exist. And if indeed is something like another dimension then you can surely travel into any direction you might want. Modern physics accept the possibility of time travel and Godel had proved that time does not exist. All these notions are greatly in sync with the "Only One exists" theory of Parmenides if you ask me.Obvious Leo wrote:In this respect Parmenides was an outlier amongst the pre-Socratics but his is nevertheless the stance taken by modern physics, which is the reason why modern physics makes no sense. On balance one would have to say that the eternalist paradigm which makes no metaphysical distinction between past present and future hasn't been working out very well for science over the past century. It was all Minkowski's fault for modelling time as a spatial dimension because spatial dimensions are bi-directional whereas time is patently not.
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Re: Earth at the center of the Universe?
This is what I'm saying.SpheresOfBalance wrote:Change does not necessitate time! Time is simply a ruler. A means to keep track of the sequence of change. The speed at which things change is not constant. The speed of change varies depending upon the constituents in proximity.
"Time is what clocks measure"....Albert Einstein.
Specifically Einstein was referring to time as a convenient metric for the rate of change in a physical process and this is universally how time is regarded in physics today. Incidentally gravity is also a metric for the rate of change in a physical process because it bears a precise mathematical relationship to time which is inversely logarithmic in its nature all the way down to the Planck scale. At this scale ALL physical processes occur at the speed of light, so the speed of light and the speed at which time passes are both definable as the speed of causality, a proposition proven by Einstein in GR.
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Re: Earth at the center of the Universe?
Not proven, as you dropped a word. No doubt to suit your need, you're good that way. It's not "General Relativity" it's in fact the: "Theory of General Relativity, or General Theory of Relativity."Obvious Leo wrote:This is what I'm saying.SpheresOfBalance wrote:Change does not necessitate time! Time is simply a ruler. A means to keep track of the sequence of change. The speed at which things change is not constant. The speed of change varies depending upon the constituents in proximity.
"Time is what clocks measure"....Albert Einstein.
Specifically Einstein was referring to time as a convenient metric for the rate of change in a physical process and this is universally how time is regarded in physics today. Incidentally gravity is also a metric for the rate of change in a physical process because it bears a precise mathematical relationship to time which is inversely logarithmic in its nature all the way down to the Planck scale. At this scale ALL physical processes occur at the speed of light, so the speed of light and the speed at which time passes are both definable as the speed of causality, a proposition proven by Einstein in GR.
GTR Current status
"General relativity has emerged as a highly successful model of gravitation and cosmology, which has so far passed many unambiguous observational and experimental tests. However, there are strong indications the theory is incomplete.[194] The problem of quantum gravity and the question of the reality of spacetime singularities remain open.[195] Observational data that is taken as evidence for dark energy and dark matter could indicate the need for new physics.[196] Even taken as is, general relativity is rich with possibilities for further exploration. Mathematical relativists seek to understand the nature of singularities and the fundamental properties of Einstein's equations,[197] and increasingly powerful computer simulations (such as those describing merging black holes) are run.[198] In February 2016, it was announced that the existence of gravitational waves was directly detected by the Advanced LIGO team on September 14, 2015.[70][199][200] A century after its publication, general relativity remains a highly active area of research.[201]"
--Wikipedia--