I think that anticipation has a greater effect on my overall psyche than memory does, hence I tend to be an anxious person. — Metaphysician Undercover
So how does semantic information tell us that the past is different from the future? — Metaphysician Undercover
I would be interested in knowing more about Ayer's rejection of memory as a means of distinguishing between past and future. Could you elaborate, or cite a reference?
It seems to me that experience (which happens in the present) is more than capable of distinguishing between before and after (e.g., cause and effect), and designating the measurable change: time (per Aristotle). — Galuchat
Any question of what 'really' is must have within it your means by which you propose to establish how we'd know such a thing. — Isaac
But what could you anticipate without memory? — unenlightened
But once we reject this as a mistake, as did Ayer, we realize we are then unable to provide an experiential distinction between past and future, even while we continue to insist on it. — sime
There is of course, a big difference between an eaten Hamburger and a Hamburger sitting in front of us; if an object is called 'destroyed', then there does not exist a direct and local reference to the object that we can point at. There is instead a potentially infinite and interlinked fabric of facts called "the evidence of the destroyed object" together with our investigatory sense of anticipation. Hence an empiricist might be able to equate the past with our current sense of inferential expectation together with today's appearances taken holistically as an inseparably entangled whole. But this of course is too vague to constitute an empirical "theory" of any description. — sime
It seems to me that experience (which happens in the present) is more than capable of distinguishing between before and after (e.g., cause and effect), and designating the measurable change: time (per Aristotle). — Galuchat
Is it logically consistent to be an empiricist who accepts a hard ontological distinction between past and future? — sime
Actually that's what I'm asking, the means by which we'd establish what really is. So it would be kind of silly to include a proposal of that within the question, unless the question was rhetorical. — Metaphysician Undercover
That's why I rejected Janus' description of knowing the difference between future and past as a matter of orientation. Either we're oriented toward the past, or toward the future, but we cannot be oriented in two opposing ways at the same time. — Metaphysician Undercover
Human consciousness, when it pays attention, experiences that its present is always transitioning into its past at exactly the same rate as its future is always transitioning into its present. All is movement, nothing lasts!
The distinction between past and future does not appear to be the present. Instead, human consciousness, when it pays attention, appears to be that which constantly distinguishes between the three (past, present, and future) phenomenologically, as described. — charles ferraro
If what you mean to ask is "by what measure can we know if some knowledge indeed corresponds with 'reality'?" then why make this about past and future, that just confuses things. — Isaac
In a way, I think the whole question is misguided. How can I tell the difference between the posts that come before this one, and the posts that come after it? Well I can read the ones that come before. and the ones that come after are blank. In terms of orientation, one faces the past and walks backwards into the future, anxious that the next post will be unkind or make one look foolish, or worst of all, that there will be none. Spatially, one can look where one is going, but temporally one sees only where one has been, so I think one is oriented one way and travels the opposite way. — unenlightened
it appears extremely obvious that past is different from future, — Metaphysician Undercover
No, I think it is clearly not consistent. But the distinction between past and future is obviously "the present" — Metaphysician Undercover
My consciousness can function just through its temporality, whichit might be only my consciousness, which comprises a very small part of my overall being, which is oriented toward the past. — Metaphysician Undercover
Well, there you go. Your intuition tells you they are different. The fact that we can't measure that difference is unproblematic for you because you already believe that not all knowledge is measurable. I'm not seeing the problem you're trying to resolve. — Isaac
Supposing that each of us always carried a mobile phone and that we agreed to eliminate "the present", "now", " currently" etc. from public discourse by replacing each of their uses with the exact current reading of the International Atomic Time supplemented with the Gregorian calendar. Likewise, we respectively do the same for "the past" and "the future" by replacing their use with time-intervals that are before or after the exact current TAI time.
Doesn't this elimination of temporal indexicals also eliminate all talk of change, and therefore reduce MacTaggart's A series to his B series? — sime
The only possible method by which to study temporality is to approach it as a totality, as an original synthesis, which dominates its secondary structures and which confers on them their meaning. — Number2018
Do you think that intuition qualifies as knowledge? Why is it so often wrong if it's knowledge? — Metaphysician Undercover
Sensations, incongruous feelings, memory, anticipation, planning, the observed passage of cause and effect... These are all what past and future 'really' are because they are all what we use the terms 'past' and 'future' to describe. — Isaac
Past and future are just words. We can use them to describe whatever phenomenon we like, so long as we're understood. — Isaac
How are you going to demonstrate that anyone has the answer right? — Isaac
... what type of knowledge allows us to say that there is a difference between future and past ...? — Metaphysician Undercover
Surely it is self-evident that there is a difference between future and past. However, we cannot really claim to experience the future, and though we say we've experienced the past, it is not as the past that we've experienced it. So the question is what type of knowledge allows us to say that there is a difference between future and past, or is there really no difference between them and what appears as extremely self-evident is just a deep delusion? — Metaphysician Undercover
Experientially speaking, the past is composed of memories, both long-term and short term. The future is composed of both expectations (anticipations) and intentions. The present is where we use our memories to a) construct expectations of what will be so as to b) best appraise how to optimally satisfy our wants via intentions. — javra
Therefore we can say that the advanced nations represent the future of the developing and underdeveloped world. In other words the three divisions of time (past, present, and future) exist simultaneously on earth, visible through the differences in the stage of development of the world's nations. — TheMadFool
Also, more precisely, the empirical / computational concept of Entropy ... :death: — 180 Proof
A very simple technique would be memory. We don't have memories of the future but we can remember what has happened. The part of reality that is now in the past imprints itself onto our memory and we can recall certain events with varying degrees of clarity. The future, being unexperienced, hasn't had a chance to imprint itself on our memory and so can't be remembered. This would be a simple method of distinguishing the past from the future. — TheMadFool
The past as memory is grounded in coherency between all memories. This is applicable both intra-self and between selves. When memories result in logical contradictions, something is amiss and we infer that something about our specified set of memories is wrong. Its only when all recalled memories flow effortlessly into themselves that we hold confidence in them. This applies just as well when we interact with each other. Our history is, experientially, composed of intersubjective memory. To the same extent that our memories, both personal and interpersonal, are found to be fluidly coherent and, thus, devoid of logical contradictions, our past is then determinate for us – unchangable. — javra
Intentions are all goal driven. In Aristotelian terms, telos guided. Add the premise of limited freedom of will to a) choose between different alternatives toward that goal(s) aimed for and b) to choose between different goals and the intention facet of the future becomes to the same extent (semi-)indeterminate. Add the fact that the future is partly created by the intentions of multiple selves, and this same indeterminate aspect of the future becomes even more so. — javra
This produces the distinction between determinate and semi-determinate which you referred to. But why do you think that the future is semi-determinate, not completely indeterminate? Doesn't this confuse the distinction, making it unclear? What produces the idea that the future is in some way determinate? — Metaphysician Undercover
(emphasis mine)Indeterminism is the idea that events (or certain events, or events of certain types) are not caused, or not caused deterministically.
So the determinateness of the future is distinct from the determinateness of the past, because it relies on the condition of continuity, whereas the determinateness of the past is based in a corroboration of memories. — Metaphysician Undercover
We touched on this briefly already. It's true that we remember past things, yet we might imagine future things. How do you think we distinguish, within our minds, remembered past things from imagined future things? — Metaphysician Undercover
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