Yeah. Let's talk about the thing-in-itself ... without actually talking. I will enjoy your silence.

Yeah. Let's talk about the thing-in-itself ... without actually talking. I will enjoy your silence. — apokrisis

That's just it, we are trying to talk. You don't want to listen, because you go back to said predictions and verification models via math and say this is the REAL because of its usefulness to human understanding in prediction models. But then of course this is just reifying the models and not the actual occasions themselves. So we can talk about the events, but this would then start resembling the poetic "nonsense" that you discard out of the gate, and so the circularity in argument continues.. What informs the human as useful predictions becomes what IS, and you don't look passed your nose. But, you will say, that is all we can do. If you will go no further, than metaphysics will always be a closed door, and there is nothing more to discuss other than science. Fine and dandy, but don't complain about those who use speculative realism, speculative idealism, or speculative metaphysics. At the least, it is not mixing the usefulness-to-humans-as-predictive-models as the thing itself. A key mistake, that has been explicated at least since Kant in the 18th century.

speculative realism, speculative idealism, or speculative metaphysics. — schopenhauer1

Speculate away.

Speculate away. — apokrisis

Which is all we can do when discussing what IS while still being a subject-for-an-object.

Groovy.

Time is more fundamental than motion. Time is simply one of the properties of objects of experience. Time does not imply motion. Just because there is time does not mean there is motion. You need change, i.e. difference between points in time, in order to speak of motion. And not any kind of change but change in position. — Magnus Anderson

“Points” in time imply things/events separate from ongoing and unfolding motion.

Everything is always moving.

Nothing is still.

“Points”, in time, can only really be aspects of experience highlighted in memory. It would be like travelling down a road that one has nearly everyday and on one particular day you run over a cat.

That cat event gets remembered and becomes a “point in time”, while most of the rest of the journey becomes vague due to familiarity.

A 6-month-later followup to this thread, the answer to which might require familiarity with Buddhism. Is this accurate:

Buddhists say true existents have an unchanging essence.
Processists say true existents do NOT have an unchanging essence.

Though apparently opposed, they're actually pointing to the same thing:
Stuff doesn't have an unchanging essence. One just calls this stuff
non-existent and the other calls it existent, a matter of semantics.

A 6-month-later followup to this thread, the answer to which might require familiarity with Buddhism. Is this accurate:

Buddhists say true existents have an unchanging essence.
Processists say true existents do NOT have an unchanging essence.

Though apparently opposed, they're actually pointing to the same thing:
Stuff doesn't have an unchanging essence. One just calls this stuff
non-existent and the other calls it existent, a matter of semantics. — rachMiel

I am not sure where you are getting this but the impermanence of worldly things or emptiness in Buddhism and the flux, flow and change of process have some similarities. You might want to look at the notion of "eternal objects" in Whiteheads version of process philosophy for notions of form or essence.

Thanks, prothero. I have been doing just that, reading Elizabeth Kraus's book The Metaphysics of Experience and focusing in on Whitehead's take on persistence, eternal and enduring objects. Here's a quote from Process and Reality you might find interesting:

“In the inescapable flux, there is something that abides; in the overwhelming permanence, there is an element that escapes into flux. Permanence can be snatched only out of flux; and the passing moment can find its adequate intensity only by its submission to permanence. Those who would disjoin the two elements can find no interpretation of patent facts.”

To me this sounds similar to the Buddhist notion of a middle way between the extremes of eternalism and nihilism. But instead of saying No! to both eternalism and nihilism, it says a qualified Yes to both in a kind of yin-yang'y way where they interpenetrate each other.

I have been doing just that, reading Elizabeth Kraus's book The Metaphysics of Experience and focusing in on Whitehead's take on persistence, eternal and enduring objects. Here's a quote from Process and Reality — rachMiel

See the short dissertation by Shaviro (who is much more lucid than most writers on Whitehead and much better at explanation than me)
On eternal objects.
http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/?p=578

As I understand it "eternal objects" are the "patterns and forms preferred by nature". We cannot discern them (as pure potentials or possibilities) until they have ingressed into or been substantiated as actualities in nature. They ingress in during the formation of events, when the developing event prehends elements of the past and possibilities of the future. They play a similar role to Platonic forms but have much less "actuality" to them.

Thanks, prothero. I ran into the article you linked to yesterday, always thought it was well written. :-)

Thanks, prothero. I ran into the article you linked to yesterday, always thought it was well written. :-) — rachMiel

He is a really good lucid writer, I have a couple of his books. Lots of philosophy writing just seems dense and arcane to me, but his writing is fun to read and informative at least for me.

How can the Processist use words to refer to things, like "tree" or "grandmother", if those things are constantly changing? Using language takes time and by the time the message is relayed the thing has changed and is longer what the Processist would be referring to. Also, what is it that changes?

I think the ideas of relativity and feedback loops come to mind when it comes to thinking about how we perceive the world with its both stable and changing features.