The question is, does this make any difference in one's (genitive) "objective" time? This analysis of time, Bergson (haven't read), Deleuze, Husserl (The Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time) , does invite a violation, if you will, of objective familiarity, such that time as sequential events yields to the more basic analysis. — Astrophel

You are correct. For example, Deleuze's analyses of time do involve a violation. His syntheses of time operate as a framework in which subjective time is passively synthesized with objective time. These syntheses are passive because they occur beneath active conscious thought. The first synthesis shows how subjective time incorporates the objective succession of moments, transforming it into a continuous subjective experience. The second synthesis demonstrates how subjective time contracts or dilates objective time through memory—not only retaining the immediate past but encompassing the entirety of the past, with all its layers and interrelations. The third synthesis refers to the creation of the new, the unfolding of the unknown future.
Deleuze’s three syntheses reveal that time is neither purely objective nor purely subjective. Instead, it is constituted by a dynamic interaction of different facets of time. Particularly interesting is Deleuze’s third synthesis, where he elaborates on a contemporary, objectified mode of existence, showing how time and being become externalized beyond the self. This third synthesis is based on an interpretation of Nietzsche's concept of eternal return. It functions by fracturing the subjective unity of the Self and the I, creating a space for a dynamic multiplicity without fixed identity.

I don't understand Deleuze's explanation of "synthesis". On the one hand, the present alone exists. On the other hand, within this present there is a "temporal flow".

How can there be a flow of time within a single moment in time? — RussellA

As @Asthrophel noted, there are different perspectives on the nature of the present moment. For Deleuze, the present moment is the result of a synthesis of time. This present indeed corresponds to an instant in objective time—the “now” that can be measured. Yet, this present is not simply that isolated instant. It is formed through the passive synthesis of past and future moments, which are contracted and integrated into it. The synthesis constitutes a continuous temporal flow within the present; it is making it not just a single point but a dynamic duration where moments are interconnected and experienced as a unified flow of time.

Then the world is turned upside down as one encounters Kant's Copernican Revolution. — Astrophel

The question as to how the subjective duration of time in the mind relates to objective moments of time in the world has been around since at least Kant's Copernican Revolution, and his concept of the Transcendental Unity of Apperception.

Kant presented the Transcendental Unity of Apperception as a fact in his Critique of Pure Reason without explanation, and the problem is still awaiting an explanation more than two hundred years later.

In the Transcendental Unity of Apperception there is a unity of consciousness resulting from the coherent synthesis of a succession of different contents. This act of synthesis is not experienced. Only the consequence of this acts of synthesis is experienced, the unity of different contents.

Kant in his Transcendental Unity of Apperception is finding a necessary connection between different contents, whereas Hume only found a contingent connection through a constant conjunction of different events.

The problem is in part discovering necessary connections between different contents.

1) This present indeed corresponds to an instant in objective time—the “now” that can be measured.
2) Yet, this present is not simply that isolated instant. It is formed through the passive synthesis of past and future moments, which are contracted and integrated into it. The synthesis constitutes a continuous temporal flow within the present; it is making it not just a single point but a dynamic duration where moments are interconnected and experienced as a unified flow of time. — Number2018

From 1), the present is an instant. From 2), the present is a duration.

Many words have more than one meaning. For example, "bank" may mean a) a financial institution b) a raised area of land alongside a body of water. "Train" may mean a) a series of connected cars or carriages b) to teach or prepare someone for a specific task or skill.

Linguistically, I agree that in different contexts, the same world may have more than one meaning. In one context, that of the world, "present" may mean an instant. In a different context, that of the mind, "present" may mean a duration.

However, this is a different problem to the metaphysical problem as to how a duration can exist in an instant.

The problem is in part discovering necessary connections between different contents. — RussellA

You might want to read the Transcendental Deduction in the Critique of Pure Reason for a close look at the way Kant thinks. It has to be understood that whatever one can say about objective time presupposes subjective time. The former is always already the latter, at a more basic level of analysis. Not unlike, on the one hand, observing an object fall to the ground, and on the other, giving a quantitative equation in physics for such a thing. Does this mean the object no longer falls? Of course not, but the account by the physicist is taken to be integral to this and more foundational. The phenomenologist's Time does not say normal talk about time is wrong; it just says there is a more foundational account, something that goes all the way down to the essential givenness of the world, and thus is presupposed even by physics.

However, this is a different problem to the metaphysical problem as to how a duration can exist in an instant. — RussellA

This is an issue that phenomenologists take seriously, as to analytic philosophers. Stanley Fish wrote "Is There a Text in this Class, the essential idea of which is the ambiguity of the term 'text': is it a book? A concept assumed? This paper weight holds down paper, but it can be a weapon, a doorstop. Language is throughout, like this, and to try and pin it down is futile: everything is context, or as Derrida put it, there is nothing outside the text. So yes, duration, instant, have only "regional" meanings, and so in one context the instant's analysis is ignored, this, the "vulgar" (Heidegger) everydayness of the term's usage; in another, Derrida's post modern analysis of language, 'instant' becomes variable, without any final context (final vocabulary, as Rorty put it). Quine said the same thing, essentially, in his Indeterminacy of Translation. And Heidegger, who is by my thinking that greatest philosopher, resolved this ambiguity in hermeneutics. His analysis of Time in Being and Time is just an extraordinary read.

Anyway, in the everyday sense of the terms, things are taken differently in different contexts, but Heidegger does ontology, which is meant to be the analytic context where things are understood in their "equiprimordiality" He holds that there is no finality is language's taking up the world, but this does not mean there is no, if you will, equiprimordial ontological analysis, that is, where inquiry leads to the foundational issues, where empirical science cannot go, because it cares nothing for this.

You might want to read the Transcendental Deduction in the Critique of Pure Reason for a close look at the way Kant thinks. It has to be understood that whatever one can say about objective time presupposes subjective time. — Astrophel

There is the metaphysical problem of the possibility of subjective duration in the mind within an objective moment in time in the world. In Kant's terms, the transcendental unity of perception, a unified and simultaneous consciousness derived from different and successive experiences.

There is the necessity to clarify the meanings of objective and subjective time.

As regards what I call objective time, this is time external to any observer, and therefore not subjective time. This is the time referred to by Kant in B276 The Refutation of Idealism

I am conscious of my existence as determined in time. All time-determination presupposes something persistent in perception. This persistent thing, however, cannot be something in me, since my own existence in time can first be determined only through this persistent thing. Thus the perception of this persistent thing is possible only through a thing outside me and not through the mere representation of a thing outside me.

As regards what I call subjective time, this is time internal to an observer, and therefore not objective time. This is the time referred to by Kant in B140 of the CPR.

However, when he refers to the objective unity of consciousness, he is intending the a priori within the mind, the pure form of intuition in time and the pure synthesis of the understanding. When he refers to the subjective unity of consciousness, he is intending the a posteriori representations and appearances, also within the mind, the empirical synthesis and the inner sense.

One problem with the CPR is that Kant states what is the case, but not how it is the case. We may agree that it the case that we do have a transcendental unity of apperception, but we also want to know how this is the case.

Anyway, in the everyday sense of the terms, things are taken differently in different contexts, but Heidegger does ontology, which is meant to be the analytic context where things are understood in their "equiprimordiality" — Astrophel

There is the metaphysical problem as to how a subjective duration can exist in an objective instant.
Equiprimordial means that two or more different equal phenomena can only be understood in relation to each other, and are not based on another common fundamental phenomena.

It is true that duration and instant are different phenomena that can be understood in relation to each other, in that duration and instant are mutually contradictory, and that a temporal event cannot be both a duration and an instant.

But they do have something in common and that is they are both temporal events, so in this sense are not equiprimordial.

However, what is more important is the law of non contradiction. By this law, a temporal event cannot be both a duration and an instant. It follows that it is logically impossible for a subjective duration to exist in an objective instant

Then how to explain Kant's Transcendental Unity of Apperception?

All time-determination presupposes something persistent in perception. This persistent thing, however, cannot be something in me, since my own existence in time can first be determined only through this persistent thing.

I would question the truth of this proposition. What is perceived is change, not persistence, and the supposed "persistent thing" which is required for time-determination, could very well be something within the perceiver. The "thing outside me" represents the persistence which is supposed to be perceived. But it may be the case that this persistence is only within me, and projected onto the outside, creating the illusion of a thing outside me.

What is perceived is change, not persistence..................................But it may be the case that this persistence is only within me, and projected onto the outside, creating the illusion of a thing outside me. — Metaphysician Undercover

It depends what is meant by perceive. It can mean to see something, such as "I perceive a tree in the distance". It can mean to know something, such as "I perceive that you are curious." Kant in B276 of the CPR talks about perceiving a thing outside me that is persistent, inferring by perceiving he means seeing rather than knowing.

It is not the case that I see a tree and a moment later I see the same tree, but rather I see a tree persisting through time.

The tree doesn't need to change in order to be persistent through time.

But I only exist at one moment in time, meaning that I can only be conscious of my present, my "now". It follows that it would therefore be impossible to project my consciousness of the persistence of objects onto the world outside me.

Therefore, the consciousness of my existence in time is possible only by the persistence through time of actual things outside me, thereby proving the existence of objects in space outside me.

It is not the case that I see a tree and a moment later I see the same tree, but rather I see a tree persisting through time. — RussellA

That is what I dispute. We can only see at the moment of the present, so that there is something there which persists through time, a tree in your example, is a conclusion drawn with the aid of memory.

But I only exist at one moment in time, meaning that I can only be conscious of my present, my "now". — RussellA

That's not true, because we have memory. So we are conscious of the past. Also, we anticipate the future, so we are conscious of the future too.

That is what I dispute (ie, I see a tree persisting through time). We can only see at the moment of the present, so that there is something there which persists through time, a tree in your example, is a conclusion drawn with the aid of memory.....................That's not true (ie, I can only be conscious of my present), because we have memory. So we are conscious of the past. Also, we anticipate the future, so we are conscious of the future too. — Metaphysician Undercover

The question is, whilst there is probably general agreement that we can perceive (see) a tree at one moment in time, can we perceive (see) a tree persisting through time, what Bergson calls "duration"?

Is what Kant calls the Transcendental Unity of Apperception a valid concept, where we can have a unity of consciousness about successive moments in time.

At this moment in time in the present I see a tree and a clock showing 2pm, and I have the memory of seeing the tree in the past when the clock showed 1pm.

I agree that at this moment in time I can be conscious of my memory of the tree in the past, but this is not to agree that at this moment in time I can be conscious of the tree in the past

It seems to me that we exist at one moment in time, including our mind and brain, as well as everything else in the world, including trees, tables and chairs.

That being said, I also feel that I am conscious of the persistence and duration of time. This raises the mysterious metaphysical problem of how a duration of time can exist at a moment in time. Kant thought it could, and he called it the Transcendental Unity of Apperception.

The Transcendental Unity of Apperception does not mean that at the moment in time in the present I can be conscious of the tree in the past. It still means that at the moment in time in the present I can be conscious of the memory of the tree in the past. But it does mean that at this moment in time I perceive that time persists and has a duration.

Suppose you are correct and we can only see a moment of the present. Let us say that in this present moment we see a tree and a clock showing 2pm and we have the memory of a tree and a clock showing 1pm.

How do we know that the tree we see at 2pm is the same tree we saw at 1pm?

It is a general problem. How do you know that the chair in your memory is the same chair you are now looking at. Only by inference, and if only by inference your inference could be wrong.

This is Hume's problem where we have to infer they are the same tree because of constant conjunction.

Kant's solution is we know that they are the same tree because we are conscious of the persistence of time, what Bergson calls the duration. Kant called it the Transcendental unity of Apperception.

You say that we can only see a moment in the present, which I agree with, but even so, even in this moment in the present, don't you feel the persistence of time?

A clock shows 2pm and then the clock shows 3pm. There is a physical change in what the clock shows.

You say that physical change requires subjective time, and subjective time is caused by the Mind.

In what sense is the physical change in the clock first showing 2pm and then showing 3pm caused by the Mind? — RussellA

The mind not only causes subjective time but also causes the physical (this is discussed in my other thread here), so it is no surprise that there is synchrony between the passage of subjective time and changes in physical.

The mind not only causes subjective time but also causes the physical (this is discussed in my other thread here), so it is no surprise that there is synchrony between the passage of subjective time and changes in physical. — MoK

P1) Physical and experience exist and they are subject to change
P2) Experience is due to the existence of physical and the change in the state of physical is due to the existence of an experience.

I agree with P1)

As regards P2), "experience is due to the existence of physical", I can understand that I may experience happiness because of the physical existence of my dog.

I can understand the existence of an experience is due to the change in state of physical, in that the existence of my experience of sorrow is due to the change in the physical state of my dog from living to dead.

But as regards P2) "the change in the state of physical is due to the existence of an experience", I don't understand how the change in the physical state of my dog from living to dead is due to my experience of sorrow.

Time has been infinite from the start.

And now, it always will be. Infinite time.

Since the moment we first clocked the first moment,
We touched infinitely in all directions, before and forever after, all at that first instant of time.

Once we timed something.

Once we set a limit in the prehistoric limitlessness.

Once we minded the time that humankind first minded.

Since the moment we first clocked the first moment,
We touched infinitely in all directions, before and forever after, all at that first instant of time. — Fire Ologist

Doesn't this lead to a logical contradiction? In an instant of time, by definition, there is no before or after. That is why it is an instant of time.

I’m just glad you saw the point, because that question means you saw infinity where I did.

What’s a better word for a duration?

It was more like a poem, and a “duration” just sounded wrong for it.

A moment of time, since it is “of time” must have some duration, and once you have a duration you see the infinite.

Would “instant” work ant better than”moment”? I didn’t think so. Maybe “second” because that certainly has a duration.

A moment of time, since it is “of time” must have some duration, and once you have a duration you see the infinite. — Fire Ologist

Suppose a stationary snooker ball on a snooker table is hit by a snooker cue at position zero and travels 1 metre in 2 seconds.

When the snooker ball passes through a location exactly 50cm from where it was hit, the time will be exactly 1 second.

As the ball can be exactly at 50cm, the time can be exactly 1 second.

There is no duration of time the moment, the instant, the ball is at 50cm.

I would not argue with anything you are saying.

I don’t think there is a poetic way of saying what I said, and I was trying to be poetic. Basically, I am a bad poet. Also, basically, I don’t mean “moment” or “instant” literally.

Because we both seem to recognize that if a single instant in time has absolutely no duration, it is like a point in geometry, and does not exist absent its conceptual existence as a marker, not as naming a physical duration that takes time.

So, taking for granted that it takes a few brief moments to say the word “instant”, then the moment “instant” is said, we have a duration long enough to find infinity.

So, taking for granted that it takes a few brief moments to say the word “instant”, then the moment “instant” is said, we have a duration long enough to find infinity. — Fire Ologist

Yes, it is hard to imagine that if time exists there would be any reason for it to end.

Except as abstract mathematical concepts it is hard to see "dimensionless points" or "duration less instants" as being "real" in any material or physical sense.
I cannot envision the meaning of "time" in a changeless or frozen world.
Time it seems to me is a concept derived from change, from the process of the universe.
I suspect both time and space are quantum in their true naturre and the notion of time without change and space as infinitely divisible are both mere abstractions of thought.

I can understand the existence of an experience is due to the change in state of physical, in that the existence of my experience of sorrow is due to the change in the physical state of my dog from living to dead. — RussellA

By P2 I mean that your experience is due to neural processes in your brain.

8 - 45!

I really disagree that time is eternal and infinite, the arguments against infinite time are fairly solid on all fronts- cosmological, mathematical, metaphysical etc.

No matter how you slice it, infinite time has a contradictory, ghostly sort of pseudo-being without any substantial existence.

Non-being masquerading as process.

I would argue that perhaps you have this backwards. I think of time as a unit of measurement for change. If nothing changes, there is no way to tell time.

I would argue that perhaps you have this backwards. I think of time as a unit of measurement for change. If nothing changes, there is no way to tell time. — MrLiminal

:up:

Change, process is primary. Time is a derived abstracted concept.

I would argue that perhaps you have this backwards. I think of time as a unit of measurement for change. — MrLiminal

What do you mean by time being a unit of measurement for change?

If nothing changes, there is no way to tell time. — MrLiminal

If nothing changes, then you perceive time!

What I mean is that even things that seems still are still moving on a sub-atomic level. Degenerating into baser elements, electrons moving in the body, etc., We see these changes happening in our reality and use time as a socially constructed metric for comparing what we perceive as the "original state" to the "current state."

If everything in the universe were to suddenly and completely stop moving down to the sub-atomic level, all of reality would grind to a halt, and time as we know it would cease to exist. Not only would we be unable to tell that time is passing, there would be no state change to indicate time has passed at all. And a world where time cannot be measured is arguably a world without time. Ere go, time is a way to measure change.

Empty (don't know how to delete comment)

Time exists only for as long as things move. It's an emergent abstract property that we detect. It's what follows from movement intensity. So if everything keeps moving and has moved in some form somewhere then time is eternal. And if at some point nothing moved or stops moving time stops existing.

So things just exist and move and the velocity changes we recognize which we call the adjustment of time. Is really just matter and forces interacting on the capacity to move. Just like matter affects matter with gravity. So does matter affect matter by changing it's capacity to move. Movement creates time. Time need not and doesn't exist separately without movement. Unlike matter or space. Hence I don't think that time is part of the fabric of space. I think matter just affects things such as matter and space which then affect their ability to move through gravity or other means

It seems to me that we exist at one moment in time, including our mind and brain, as well as everything else in the world, including trees, tables and chairs.

That being said, I also feel that I am conscious of the persistence and duration of time. This raises the mysterious metaphysical problem of how a duration of time can exist at a moment in time. Kant thought it could, and he called it the Transcendental Unity of Apperception. — RussellA

I believe we actually perceive motion, activity, and this requires temporal duration, therefore we do perceive duration. I think that the "moment in time" is an artificial construct.

I believe we actually perceive motion, activity, and this requires temporal duration, therefore we do perceive duration. I think that the "moment in time" is an artificial construct. — Metaphysician Undercover

If there is no moment in time, then I cannot exist at any particular moment in time

If there is a duration of time, then I can only exist within this duration of time.

If I exist within a duration of time, this would explain how I am able to perceive a duration of time.

But how long would this duration of time be?

For example, I have the awareness of an event happening now, the memory of an event that happened 1 second ago and the memory of an event that happened 10 years ago.

Would the duration of time be quite short, such as 1 second, or limitless, which would presuppose there is no time at all.

How can we find out how long this duration of time is?