Comments

  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    Do you believe time is immaterial?

    Do you believe the passing of time causes the material world to exist?

    Do you believe physics rides piggyback on passing time, the reality clock?

    Do you believe the principles connecting immaterial cause with physics populate metaphysics?

    Do you believe passing time is the fundamental reality, that it cannot be broken down into components?

    With respect to passing time, the ultimate fundamental, logic, math and science cannot discover constituent inner workings?

    Passing time, aside from itself, remains unresponsive to all other things?
    ucarr

    Pretty much "yes" to everything here, but some of the questions aren't really clear enough to answer with confidence.Metaphysician Undercover

    This question and response shows our work so far has been good: a) You've done a good job of communicating your system of beliefs to me; b) I've done a good job of listening and learning about your understanding of metaphysics.

    Here's the most important confirmation:
    • Do you believe the principles connecting immaterial cause with physics populate metaphysics?
    • Pretty much "yes" to everything here...
    Edit: I say that passing time is broken down into components, dimensions.Metaphysician Undercover

    Edit: I say that passing time is broken down into components, dimensions.Metaphysician Undercover

    Do these dimensions include line, area and cube?

    I have bolded the part of your statement that appears to contradict your other statement above it. I need an explanation of your apparent self-contradiction.ucarr

    I don't see the contradiction. I think you must be misunderstanding. There is an illusion of continuity between state A and state B so continuity is assumed based on that illusion. But there is not a real continuity as there is a gap between T1 and T2 which physics cannot explain. Instead of explaining the gap, continuity is assumed.Metaphysician Undercover

    The illusion of continuity is related to the assumption of necessity, not in relation to the probability distribution, which does not make a prediction of necessity.Metaphysician Undercover

    The prediction however is not one of necessity, but one of probability, as explained by Hume. Therefore, we have something in that duration of time, between t-1 and t-2, which produces the illusion of continuity, but since it provides a relation of probability between state A and state B, rather than a relation of necessity, it is not a true continuity.ucarr

    Considering your two above quotes, as I understand you, in the first quote you absolve probability from responsibility for producing the illusion of continuity. In your second quote, you indict probability for producing the illusion of continuity.

    I have bolded what I take to be your attack on the validity of what you call "past_future determinism." You're mixing apples with oranges. Logical relations are atemporal. is a bi-conditional logical relation between P and Q. It says the two are bi-conditional - each is a necessary condition for the existence of the other - if and only if the two terms are equal. This is identity logic.ucarr

    The succession of temporal events, by definition, stands as a temporal phenomenon. Everybody knows, "Life is what happens to you /While you're busy making other plans..." - John Lennonucarr

    Sorry, I don't see your point. Determinism assumes a necessary, and bi-conditional, relation between cause and effect, as described by Newton's first law of motion. A force will change the motion of a body. If the motion of a body changes, it has been acted on by a force. How is that not bi-conditional?Metaphysician Undercover

    With my two above quotes, I establish that: a) causal relations exemplify bi-conditional logic; b) temporal sequences of events can be regarded as being causal, but interruptions in their continuity says nothing contradictory about the bi-conditional logic of causation.

    Suppose we establish that: iron pipes, when dipped in liquid vinyl, don't rust. Logically, we can represent this relationship as: P=Non-rust state and Q=Vinyl-dipped iron pipe, so .
    This is a logical relationship with the terms established: iron pipes don't rust when they're dipped in vinyl. This logical relationship inhabits the abstract mind, and it is atemporal.

    In the real world, we have an iron pipe scheduled for vinyl dipping by a certain date. It's part of an outdoor support structure for the roof covering a veranda. On that date, the shipment of liquid vinyl to be used for the dipping fails to arrive due to bad weather interrupting and delaying shipping of the liquid vinyl. So, on that date, it rains and the iron pipe rusts.

    From this event we don't declare that the bi-conditional logic is faulty because the pipe is rusty. Real life is temporal, and thus causal relationships are subject to interruptions. Logical relationships are atemporal, and the change of circumstances of life interrupting real and causal chains of events have no bearing upon the truth content of atemporal, logical relationships.

    ...in that time period, between T1 and T2, between when the photon is at PX and PY respectively, a physical force cannot act on that photon, because the time period is too short for a physical event to occur. Therefore if anything acts on that photon in this time, it must be nonphysical.Metaphysician Undercover

    You're repeating your mistake of confusing: a) the Planck length is currently the shortest time interval science can measure with; b) the Planck length is the shortest time interval in which physics can happen.

    Statement b), which your argument assumes, is false.

    Don't you see that it is impossible for that photon to be acted on by another photon, in that time period? The photon moving from PX to PY is the shortest possible period of time in which a physical event can take place. The photon being acted upon by another photon is another physical event. It is impossible that the photon can be acted upon in this time, because the event of moving from X to Y has already taken all that time, so there is no time to add another physical event within that duration.

    The rest of your paragraph seems to just demonstrate that you still have not understood this.
    Metaphysician Undercover


    I have lined through your above statements because they repeat an argument based upon a false premise. Again, the singularity assumes the persistence of physics all the way down to the infinitely small interval of time. Were this not the case, the Big Bang couldn't happen.

    It's not precisely correct to say science is limited to empirical observation for verification. Math interpretation of evidence plays an important role.ucarr

    Sure, but what is evidence but observational data? The math has to be applied to something.Metaphysician Undercover

    For example, at Cern the math is applied to the spectral imaging of particle behavior.

    Describe some details of non-physical activity.ucarr

    What are you asking for, a physical description of the nonphysical? Haha, nice try.Metaphysician Undercover

    Your question reveals your belief the immaterial realm cannot be active, cannot do anything without converting into the material realm.

    Since you think the spectral imaging of particles at Cern examples a lack of empirical verificationucarr

    Why do you say this, that I think like that? That is obviously not what I've been saying.Metaphysician Undercover

    Here's what you've been saying.

    What happens between T! and T2 is not a "physical change" because it cannot be empirically verified...Metaphysician Undercover

    You're falsely claiming the math interpretation of the ATLAS and CMS detection of particles at Cern is not empirical verification of physical phenomena. Can you present a math interpretation that contradicts the Cern math interpretation?

    Note - From now on, lets post everything in this thread.
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    What is at issue, is that the photon does not, rigorously speaking, "cover the distance". What happens between T! and T2 is not a "physical change" because it cannot be empirically verified, observed.Metaphysician Undercover

    Is this your argument for adding immaterial causation into the mix?

    So, by adhering to determinist causation, it is assumed that there is temporal continuity of the photon between T1 and T2, and by Newton's first law, nothing can have an effect on it in the meantime, because that is outside the limits of physical possibility.Metaphysician Undercover

    Read Newton again. His first law says, "...an object will not change its motion unless a force acts on it."

    ...some physicists say that the photon must take every possible path between X and Y. Therefore, we cannot even conclude, from observable evidence, that the photon exists in the meantime.Metaphysician Undercover

    Overall, this is an argument that supports my position: "...an object will not change its motion unless a force acts on it." So, as I said, the photon covers the Planck length. If its path is altered by another photon, then, from start to finish, we're looking at the physical activity you're trying to deny. Likewise, this applies to a photon having several possible paths. You admit a probability distribution is not afflicted with the identity problem you have brought up. You talk of possibility pairing with realization. So QM probability confirms rather than denies physics. Your conclusion of "no physical change," as based upon lack of empirical verification, stands invalid. Read up on the work conducted at Cern. All of this QM activity refutes your denial of physics at the Planck length.

    The shortest length science can currently measure is one Planck length. This is a very different statement than the statement that says, “On Planck length is the shortest possible length in which physics can occur.”ucarr

    The issue is that "physics" is limited by the scientific method, which relies on empirical observation for verification. Therefore the science of physics is restricted by the natural limitations of observability. Remember, we agreed that what is "observed" is always in the past. However, we also agreed that there is some part of the future, which coexists with the past, at the present. This aspect of "the present" which is really "the future", in the same way that what is observed at the present is really "the past", is an unobservable part of the present. This is what can be called the nonphysical, due to its inability to be observed. And the nature of free will demonstrates to us that the nonphysical is active and causal at the present.Metaphysician Undercover

    It's not precisely correct to say science is limited to empirical observation for verification. Math interpretation of evidence plays an important role.

    I continue to claim humans experience the empirical present, with abstract thoughts about the relative past and relative future.

    Being unobservable to the senses is not proof something is non-physical; the EM waves feeding your tv are unobservable.

    Describe some details of non-physical activity. Your example of info transfer was presented without details exposing the transferral process.

    What happens between T! and T2 is not a "physical change" because it cannot be empirically verified...Metaphysician Undercover

    Since you think the spectral imaging of particles at Cern examples a lack of empirical verification, I think you should learn more about the scientific method before attempting to criticize it.
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    In the model of time I described, it is necessary to assume real points in time, real moments when the world materializes as time passes. These moments ought to be observable, and from these real moments, the principles for relating the non-physical activity can be established.Metaphysician Undercover

    Do you believe time is immaterial?

    Do you believe the passing of time causes the material world to exist?

    Do you believe physics rides piggyback on passing time, the reality clock?

    Do you believe the principles connecting immaterial cause with physics populate metaphysics?

    Do you believe passing time is the fundamental reality, that it cannot be broken down into components?

    With respect to passing time, the ultimate fundamental, logic, math and science cannot discover constituent inner workings?

    Passing time, aside from itself, remains unresponsive to all other things?

    Probability stands as a necessary condition for a distribution of options, instead of for a single option.ucarr

    How is this an illusion of continuity?ucarr

    The illusion of continuity is related to the assumption of necessity, not in relation to the probability distribution, which does not make a prediction of necessity.Metaphysician Undercover

    The issue is the lack of continuity between state A (quark), and state B (anti-quark). Without continuity we lose the principle of identity. At t-1 is state A, at t-2 is state B, and there is time between these two. In this time between, we cannot say whether there is state A, state B, neither, nor both. However, there must be something which links the two, because if we consider a succession of states prior to state A, state B can be successfully predicted. The prediction however is not one of necessity, but one of probability, as explained by Hume. Therefore, we have something in that duration of time, between t-1 and t-2, which produces the illusion of continuity, but since it provides a relation of probability between state A and state B, rather than a relation of necessity, it is not a true continuity. — Metaphysician Undercover

    I have bolded the part of your statement that appears to contradict your other statement above it. I need an explanation of your apparent self-contradiction.

    The break in continuity is between past and future. So when we say that because the last ten minutes have occurred in a certain, determined way, the next minute will necessarily be in a determinable way, based on what already happened. That is the assumed necessity of the cause/effect relationship which supports determinism, such that we say that if X occurs, Y necessarily will occur, when Y is understood to be the necessary effect of X. That necessity implies a continuity between past and future, such that nothing could interfere, or come between X (past) and Y (future), at the present, to make something other than Y occur. Do you see how the assumed necessity of the relation between cause and effect is based in a presumed continuity, the premise of continuity supports the believed necessity of that relation?Metaphysician Undercover

    I have bolded what I take to be your attack on the validity of what you call "past_future determinism." You're mixing apples with oranges. Logical relations are atemporal. is a bi-conditional logical relation between P and Q. It says the two are bi-conditional - each is a necessary condition for the existence of the other - if and only if the two terms are equal. This is identity logic.

    The succession of temporal events, by definition, stands as a temporal phenomenon. Everybody knows, "Life is what happens to you /While you're busy making other plans..." - John Lennon
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    The presence of State A, and the presence of State B are included in the time duration defined as T1-T2. This is stipulated, or otherwise determined from empirical evidence, to be the shortest period of time during which a physical change can occur. Therefore no physical event can occur between T1 and T2, whether this event takes a quarter of that time, a half of that time, three quarters, or .999... percent of that time.

    Firstly, I've lined through your statement because I believe it generally invalid, as I've explained in my previous post.

    Secondly, for curiosity, I've bolded two of your statements that contradict each other. Given this contradiction, your argument is nonsense.

    So, in your example, If T-1 marks the presence of a quark, and T-2 marks the presence of a quark, anti-quark pair, it is impossible that a collision of two quarks occurred in between, because this is a physical event, and it has already been determined that this period of time is too short for the occurrence of a physical event.
    Metaphysician Undercover

    Firstly, again I've lined through your statement because I believe it generally invalid, as I've explained in my previous post.

    Secondly, for curiosity, I've bolded part of your statement because, as I understand you, you're saying all of the time is consumed in the transformation from T1 to T2. This transformation cannot happen without a catalyst; in this case its the collision of the two quarks.
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    Here's what I agree to: T1 = State A: a quark; T2 = State B: a quark_anti-quark pair. This transformation occurs in one Planck length, the shortest duration allowing physical change.

    For example, another quark has collided with the quark of T1, thus producing the quark_anti-quark pair at T2.
    ucarr

    How could two quarks collide in the time between T1 and T2 because the change form quark to quark, anti-quark pair, already takes up all that time, and nothing physical can happen in a shorter time?Metaphysician Undercover

    How could two quarks collide in the time between T1 and T2 because the change form quark to quark, anti-quark pair, already takes up all that time, and nothing physical can happen in a shorter time?

    Do you see what I mean? The physical change observed is the change from State A to state B. Nothing physical can happen in a shorter time. Therefore it is impossible that anything physical happened between the state of quark, and the state of quark, anti-quark. Therefore it is impossible that another quark collided with the quark during this time.
    Metaphysician Undercover

    Since we're doing a thought experiment, we're stipulating terms. Up front, we can stipulate scientific rigor, or not. If not, then I can stipulate: at T1 two quarks collide such that T2 has a pairing of one quark with one anti-quark.

    If yes, then we have to do calculations based on the time for light to travel 1 Planck length in vacuum, which is a time interval of approximately . Light being the greatest possible velocity of our world, this is a measure of the longest time possible for a physical event to occur within the boundary of one Planck length.

    Since all other physical events are sub-light speed, and thus would have time durations greater than , we know that, per scientific rigor, the only example of a physical event occurring within one Planck length is light traveling in vacuum.

    So, per scientific rigor, I stipulate at T1 a photon emits, and at T2 the photon covers the distance matching one Planck length. So the change of state of our thought experiment is the change of position of a photon across one Planck length.

    The shortest length science can currently measure is one Planck length. This is a very different statement than the statement that says, “On Planck length is the shortest possible length in which physics can occur.

    So, thanks to your demand for scientific rigor, it appears that our contemplation of its requirements has imploded your project to establish a spacetime wherein no physical event can occur yet wherein a supposed non-physical exchange of info is possible.

    For clarity, it should be stated that the Planck length is currently the smallest spacetime unit we can measure. Smaller spacetime units, such as those occurring at the time of the Big Bang, are not currently measurable.

    The Big Bang theory makes it clear that some scientists believe physics persists all the way down to the singularity, which is infinitely small. So, by this reasoning, there is no pre-singularity point at which physics stops.
  • What Does Consciousness Do?
    In your example, are you establishing the shortest duration of time allowing physical change to occur? — ucarr

    In your example, there is a quark at one moment, state A, then an anti quark at the next moment, state B, and you have proposed that nothing can be observed in the time between, hence the shortest duration allowing for physical change. So state B is different from state A, and there is time between these two. We can conclude that the change from state A to state B occurred during this time [one Planck length]. Do you agree with me, that something must have happened during this time, which constitutes, or substantiates "the change" from quark to anti-quark? — Metaphysician Undercover

    I have lined through what is unclear to me.

    Here's what I agree to: T1 = State A: a quark; T2 = State B: a quark_anti-quark pair. This transformation occurs in one Planck length, the shortest duration allowing physical change.

    For example, another quark has collided with the quark of T1, thus producing the quark_anti-quark pair at T2.

    Is it true that first you establish the shortest duration of time allowing a physical change from state A to state B, and then, in the following paragraph, you continue talking about this same duration of time until you jump to establishing a non-physical change based on info instead of on physics? — ucarr

    There is no "jump", only a sound logical conclusion. We have an observation at t-1, and an observation at t-2. The two states are different. Therefore we can conclude that change occurred during the duration of time which is between t-1 and t-2. "Change" requires that "something happened" which would account for the difference between state A and state B. We have determined that this "something" which happened cannot be a physical change because it would be in a duration of time shorter than the one defined by state A then state B, which has been determined as the shortest possible period of time for physical change. This duration is between state A and state B, therefore shorter, and so it is too short for physical change, therefore it is non-physical activity. — Metaphysician Undercover

    I have made bold the letters where the jump appears to occur. You inexplicably claim we've established that physical change cannot happen. Apparently, you're jumping from the interval between T1 and T2 being one Planck length to being one half of one Planck length.

    If you're agreeing physical change can happen in one Planck length, but stipulating physical change cannot happen in one half Planck length, then I'll agree.

    We are no [sic] talking about the shorter period of time, between t-1 and t-2, so we must conclude that the change which occurs in this time is non physical. — Metaphysician Undercover

    If “no” equals “now,” then okay.

    Here's how I see the setup: There is a quark at T1; There is a quark_anti-quark pair at T2. The distance linking T1 to T2 is established as the shortest distance possible between a transformation of a physical system, such as a quark to a quark_anti-quark pair. Let's establish that the distance between the two physical systems measures as one Planck length: .

    Since it's conjectured space-time itself - the environment that affords parameters for physics - breaks down into sub-units below Planck length, it's impossible to define space-time distances smaller than one Planck length.

    Now, let's imagine a theoretical distance between T1' and T2' measuring as 0.5 Planck length. T1' and T2' are theoretically linked by a distance of 0.5 Planck length: . As it's established no physical system can transform from one state to another in this distance, any state transformation therein would have to be non-physical.

    Now the question arises, "How are non-physical things measured?" Measurement itself implies physicality. What does a non-physical measurement of a non-physical thing entail? Assuming such measurements exist, how are they translated into something practically verifiable and useful?

    If “no” equals “now,” then okay.

    "Information" is the name which I gave to the non-physical, as I explained at the beginning why information is non-physical. So what happens between t-1 and t-2, by the use of this term, is a change in information. — Metaphysician Undercover

    I assume you're talking about what happens over the duration of one half of one Planck length.

    The issue is the lack of continuity between state A (quark), and state B (anti-quark). Without continuity we lose the principle of identity. At t-1 is state A, at t-2 is state B, and there is time between these two. In this time between, we cannot say whether there is state A, state B, neither, nor both. However, there must be something which links the two, because if we consider a succession of states prior to state A, state B can be successfully predicted. The prediction however is not one of necessity, but one of probability, as explained by Hume. Therefore, we have something in that duration of time, between t-1 and t-2, which produces the illusion of continuity, but since it provides a relation of probability between state A and state B, rather than a relation of necessity, it is not a true continuity. — Metaphysician Undercover

    Consider: In an election, at the national convention, the superdelegates for Party A are composed of some individuals committed to vote for Candidate A, and some not committed to vote for any particular candidate.

    Let’s call the uncommitted superdelegates the free will superdelegates. Since we can only know what their vote will be in terms of the probability math that calculates the odds according to the total number of candidates, we conclude their vote is a probability. Each of five total candidates has a twenty per cent chance of being selected by a free will superdelegate.

    Probability stands as a necessary condition for a distribution of options, instead of for a single option.

    How is this an illusion of continuity?
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    From the experience of experimental verification, we know that possibilities don't become realities, i.e., don't become realized, until at the time of verification via realization, not before this realization.ucarr

    That is an incorrect description. Possibilities must be a reality prior to being actualized, or else they could not be act on. Therefore they have a place in reality which is other than "actual".Metaphysician Undercover

    I underlined the key sentence in your statement. If a possibility is a reality before being realized, then a possibility is always a reality, so how is it a possibility, i.e., how is it's reality conditional? We transform possibilities into realities via experimental confirmation. After transformation, we know the former possibility will actualize, so possibility becomes abstract reality. As an example, consider: The demolition charges will vertically drop the condemned building. We know that dynamite explodes and we know buildings implode vertically. Before the demolition charges are ignited, we know in abstraction what will happen. As another example, consider: We're looking for the Higgs-Boson particle at Cern prior to its discovery. At this time, the particle is a possibility, not an abstract reality. That changes if and when it's experimentally verified.

    Now for the tricky part: Before discovery of the particle, although we cannot know it, the possibility of the particle and its realizationability are contemporary. They are contemporary because the possibility of its discovery can only exist if it can be realized, even before actual realization by experimental verification. There’s no such thing as a possibility not being realizable before its realization. Were that the case, a magic trick would be required to change what’s not realizable into what is realizable prior to realization.

    Are you uncoupling space and time?ucarr

    Of course, as I explained, this is necessary for a proper understanding.Metaphysician Undercover

    I think I've already addressed all this.Metaphysician Undercover

    Can you briefly recap your answers to the two questions below?

    Can time pass without causing things to change?ucarr

    Since time passes, does its passing imply is physicality? If not, what is non-physical passing?ucarr

    When things change how they're changing, doesn't time follow suit by changing how it's changing?

    Example: I'm driving my car at thirty-five miles per hour. I decide to accelerate my speed to forty-five miles per hour. Relativity tells me that by accelerating, I slow down the rate at which times passes for me. Is that an example of me having a causal effect upon time passing?

    Let's reconfigure the thought experiment as follows: passing time is making me change. First I name my present day as Friday. Passing time changes me so that I next name my present day as Saturday, and so on. This is an ordinal series which has passing time changing me through a sequence of present days, right?ucarr

    Not quite. The passing of time causes changes. You notice these changes, and name the days according to the way you were taught and understand, "Friday", "Saturday", etc.. To make things easier, imagine that the clock says 1:00, so you say "it is one o'clock". The passing of time causes changes, and you notice that the clock says 2:00, so you say "it's two o'clock".Metaphysician Undercover

    If you're saying time changes me and not I change myself in time, then that difference seems to have zero effect on the changes we're discussing. In both situations, an hour of time passes and the earth changes its position in relation to the sun. The motion of the earth in its orbit around the sun is not uniform; at some points in its orbit, the earth is closer to the sun than at other points. At the closer points the time on earth passes more slowly because, as with the example of my acceleration of my car, time passing changes in reaction to acceleration and gravity. Aren't these examples of physical phenomena having a causal effect on time?

    In continuation of this reasoning, when time changes the earth through its orbital by a measure of twenty-four hours, aren't I always in my present? I'm never in my past, or in my future, am I?
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    Determinism and causation in our context here are much the same, and they are fundamental to humans with intentions regardless of their view of the arrow of time. Whether an individual is suffering from cause and effect thinking or thriving on it is more a psychological question than a physics question, isn't it?ucarr

    You ask me a psychological question, concerning the difference between believing in freewill, and believing in determinism, and how this might affect one's life. I answered accordingly.Metaphysician Undercover

    I didn't ask you a psychological question. We've established a context within our dialogue. We're examining the role of time in the physics of our world. Our focus has been on the facts of time passing within physics. Our standard of judgment has been whether our claims, respectively, have been verified logically and empirically. You've been claiming the arrow of time, one way, supports free will, and the other way blocks it. We've agreed that members of both groups make plans and realize them.
    So, our topics have been physics and philosophy, not psychology.

    But determinism and causation are not the same, and this is the central issue of our discussion. Determinism reduces causation to one type of cause, known in philosophy as efficient cause. The concept of freewill allows for the reality of what is known in philosophy as "final cause". This type of causation is completely distinct from "efficient cause". "Final cause" is only intelligible when we allow that the force from the future is causal.Metaphysician Undercover

    Since determination and efficient causation overlap, we conclude the former is a component of the latter. This being the case, we know embrace of determination does not necessarily exclude embracing the other three types of causation. This peaceful coexistence of the two things can operate within the free will advocate. We know this because everyone with intentions acts so as to determine outcomes.

    No, I don't think that follows logically. First, any specific possibility must have a temporal extension, what might be called colloquially as "the window of opportunity". Realization must occur within that period of time, so to say that the two are "contemporary" would be misleading. Also possibility is required for the actualization, and it is highly improbable that the actualization would occur at the exact moment that the possibility arises.Metaphysician Undercover

    Furthermore, the moment that the actualization occurs, the possibility is gone, because "possibility" implies more than one option, and when actualization occurs, other options are rendered impossible by the fact of actualization. Therefore it would be contradictory to say that the possibility and the actualization occur at the same time. So we must conclude that the possibility is temporally prior to the actualization.Metaphysician Undercover

    By saying a possibility has a window of opportunity, you're saying: On Thursday, P → A (possibility = P; actualization = A; and Thursday = the window of opportunity, so P implies A during a twenty-four time period). Why do you think P has temporal priority to A? Why do you think the P → A relationship ends when a specific P is actualized as a specific A?
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    So, the difference between the two POVs comes down to perception and understanding, not down to a literal choice between having free will or not having it, right? If it were true the past_future POV literally prevents a person from ever getting what they choose, no one would commit to that POV, would they?ucarr

    I think the issue is a bit more complex than this. People give all sorts of reasons for believing in determinism. And, a belief in determinism can produce a defeatist attitude, fatalism etc.. This attitude may be very detrimental to one's life, and prevent a person from getting a happiness which they might otherwise obtain.Metaphysician Undercover

    Determinism and causation in our context here are much the same, and they are fundamental to humans with intentions regardless of their view of the arrow of time. Whether an individual is suffering from cause and effect thinking or thriving on it is more a psychological question than a scientific question, isn't it?

    I don't follow your logic. The phrase "possible for me to lift my arm" does not imply actually lifting an arm. So a person could repeat this phrase over and over, without ever lifting the arm, and it could be true. I do not understand the relation you are describing.Metaphysician Undercover

    If possibility is logically connected to realization of possibility, and logical continuity is atemporal, then the reality of the realization of possibility must be contemporary with the reality of the possibility. This doesn't, however, mean that possibility demands it be enacted; it just means the reality of its realizationability is simultaneous with the reality of its possibility. So possibility is not prior to realization, right?

    *If my words don't accurately signify a possibility, then I'm just indulging my fancy, right?ucarr

    Sure, but the possibility to lift the arm is not the same thing as actually lifting the arm. The relation of necessity is only one way. After the arm is lifted, we can say that the possibility to lift the arm was necessarily prior contemporary to with the actual lifting. However, when the possibility is real, and no arm is yet lifted, this does not imply that the arm will ever necessarily be lifted.Metaphysician Undercover

    The key point is that the words do not connect to "the dynamism of the event", as you say. The words connect to the possibility of that dynamism being activated, so this is something which is prior to that event. The words do not connect to the event, but something prior to the event, which could be actualized, and cause that event.Metaphysician Undercover

    From the experience of experimental verification, we know that possibilities don't become realities, i.e., don't become realized, until at the time of verification via realization, not before this realization. Moreover, this verification must continue to occur simultaneous to the possibility; this is known as ongoing experimental verification of a theory that can never be proven, only repeatedly, experimentally verified. This is furthermore known as a verification that is public and repeatable, so possibility is always simultaneous with realization.

    Does this suggest passing time is not prior to physics?

    Do you agree that any movement in time is from one present to another present?ucarr

    As I said, I do not agree with "movement in time". We move in space, as time passes. Therefore time moves, we do not move in time.Metaphysician Undercover

    Are you uncoupling space and time?

    If we move in space as time passes, is this how we're experiencing time, i.e., as movement through space? If so, how is movement through space, and the time elapsing in sync with that movement, different from things moving in time?

    Does this posit time as necessary to our movement through space, i.e., time is necessary to physics?

    Does time have physics as either a dimension, or as a multiplex of dimensions?

    Since time moves, does its motion imply its physicality? If not, what is non-physical motion?

    Can time move without causing things to change?

    Can time move without causing things to move?

    When I get into my time machine now, in 2025, I intend to time travel backwards 100 years to 1925. Upon arrival there, however, 1925 is now my present, right? If this is true, then it examples my having traveled from one present, 2025, to another present, 1925. When I return to 2025, again that's traveling from one present to another present, right?ucarr

    I'll reply to this with your own words:Metaphysician Undercover

    "If my words don't accurately signify a possibility, then I'm just indulging my fancy, right?"ucarr

    Talking about time travel is fantasy. Unless you can somehow show that it is real, it provides no evidence toward your claim that we move through time. Are you using fiction as evidence of the truth of what you say? How could that make sense to you?Metaphysician Undercover

    My thought experiment draws its rationale from some interpretations of Relativity and QM that allow time travel. In the realm of science, time travel has not been denounced wholesale.

    Let's reconfigure the thought experiment as follows: passing time is making me change. First I name my present day as Friday. Passing time changes me so that I next name my present day as Saturday, and so on. This is an ordinal series which has passing time changing me through a sequence of present days, right?
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    Both allow for determinist causation. However, the past-to-future direction renders determinist causation as necessary due to the fixedness of the past. The future-to-past direction recognizes that the past is fixed, but since the flow is not from the past, but from the future, and the future consists of possibility, this causation is not necessary.Metaphysician Undercover

    The flow of future-to-past direction has the future tense flowing toward the past tense?ucarr

    I don't understand your use of "tense" here. so I can't answer this.Metaphysician Undercover

    Just ignore "tense." So, it's the future flowing toward the past.

    To what subject does the consciousness of the future-to-past direction belong?ucarr

    Ontology, I would say.Metaphysician Undercover

    We're examining a complicated arrangement of relative points of view (POV):

    With the past_future POV, decisions of the past are completed and thus choices are excluded. With the future_past POV, decisions are not finalized and thus choices are available.

    Does this correctly describe the important difference between the two POVs?

    It's true, isn't it, that given: Man A with the past_future POV and Man B with the future_past POV, both make choices that come to pass, right?

    If this is right, does it follow that Man A and Man B have an equal chance of realizing their choices? The difference, then, is that Man B has a more correct understanding about how his temporal path from choice to realization is organized in time?

    So, the difference between the two POVs comes down to perception and understanding, not down to a literal choice between having free will or not having it, right? If it were true the past_future POV literally prevents a person from ever getting what they choose, no one would commit to that POV, would they?

    Regarding "Because possibilities are in the future," If I say, "It's now possible for me to lift my left arm." am I speaking in the present or in the future?ucarr

    You are speaking about the future, because by saying it is "possible" to lift your arm you are referring to something which would occur in the future. Anytime you say that such and such action is possible, you are saying that it may occur in the future. Your act of speaking is in the past though, by the time I hear it.Metaphysician Undercover

    Again, we're examining a complicated arrangement of relative points of view, and it's one of the devils confronting us in our dialogue. On this note, let me ask,

    When I say, "It's now possible for me to lift my left arm." am I connecting* my words to the dynamism of the event of my arm going upwards in the air? If so, does it follow that the words and the dynamism of my arm are synchronous? In other words, when one is true, the other must also be simultaneously true? Does it follow that if they are not synchronous, then my words are not true and thus the possibility does not exist? So, going the other way, when I verbalize a possibility, the words are synchronous with the possible physical event?

    *If my words don't accurately signify a possibility, then I'm just indulging my fancy, right?

    Regarding "and actualities are in the past," The dictionary defines one of the senses of "actual" as "existing now; current." Is it wrong?ucarr

    No, I would not say that the dictionary is wrong, it represents the way we speak. But I'd characterize "existing now" as an inductive conclusion. If I observe a chair in my room, in front of me for a duration of time, I will conclude "the chair exists now", or "is actual", meaning that I believe the chair will continue to be as it has been observed to be. That is correct by our conventions, and the dictionary indicates this. But it doesn't take into account the fact that the true nature of "now" consists equally of future as it does past. So by the time that I finish speaking that sentence, or by the time you hear it, the chair might cease to exist. That's why i would say that "actual" represents the past part of now, but not the future part.Metaphysician Undercover

    We appear to agree that the present contains past and future parts.

    Do you agree that any movement in time is from one present to another present? This is what I think, and I justify my thinking thus: When I get into my time machine now, in 2025, I intend to time travel backwards 100 years to 1925. Upon arrival there, however, 1925 is now my present, right? If this is true, then it examples my having traveled from one present, 2025, to another present, 1925. When I return to 2025, again that's traveling from one present to another present, right?

    Do you agree with the following generalization from the above: in our experience of passing time, all we ever do is travel from one present to another present? This true though we say, "Tomorrow I shall do such and such." However, when we're actually doing such and such, it's today. In the reverse direction, I talk about what I did yesterday, but when I was actually doing it, it was today.

    Can we say, then, past_present_future or, if you prefer, future_present_past, form a triad that can never be broken into parts?
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    There's a logical problem in your statement. In the situation of "time without a past," how can the "future" be prior to something that doesn't exist?ucarr

    In the case of all contingent things, the possibility of the thing is prior to the thing's actual existence.Metaphysician Undercover

    Does logical priority imply causation?

    Does causation imply temporal priority?

    Can a cause exist before it's paired with its effect? For example: Can Cause A exist if Effect B doesn't simultaneously exist?

    "time without a past", i.e. only a future, is necessarily prior to there being a past, if we rule out eternal or infinite time.Metaphysician Undercover

    If there is a start to time, then it is necessary to conclude that at the start there is no past.Metaphysician Undercover

    As is indicated by the nature of "possibility", when there is only the first, and the first provides the possibility for a second, the second is not necessary. So you're correct to say that if there is only a first it makes no sense to say that the first is prior to the second, because there is no second.Metaphysician Undercover

    ...we're looking back, after the second has come into existence, and realizing that the first was necessarily prior to the second.Metaphysician Undercover

    When there is only the first, and thus it makes no sense to say that the first is prior to the second, because there is no second, does it also follow that it makes no sense to posit the possibility of time without a past and only a future because such a possibility has neither present nor past, but only future. Given this setup, the temporal future tense has no present and thus no presence and therefore cannot exist and therefore cannot look backwards to a past that follows the future?

    Given this train of logic, does it follow that the arrow of time, logically speaking, must move from one empirical present to another empirical present, with each empirical present possessing the past and future tenses as mental abstractions relative to the phenomenal_empirical present?

    We seem to have a fundamental disagreement concerning "the empirical present". I deny that there is such a thing, because "empirical" requires "observation", or "experience", and anything observed or experienced is past.Metaphysician Undercover

    Does it make sense to always pair both the future tense and the past tense with the present tense because the present tense is necessary for the other two, relative tenses to exist, i.e., to possess presence?
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    The arrow of time outside of the boundaries of the empirical present is an abstraction.ucarr

    We seem to have a fundamental disagreement concerning "the empirical present". I deny that there is such a thing, because "empirical" requires "observation", or "experience", and anything observed or experienced is past. Therefore I find "empirical present" to be self-contradicting. So I incorporate both, empirical (past), and anticipatory (future) elements into my conception of "present". You refuse to relinquish your idea of an empirical present, and this makes it impossible for you to understand my explanations.Metaphysician Undercover

    Time passing in the future is prior to observing the changes in things time passing causes, which is in the past? This is why you say, "anything observed or experienced is past"?

    I can ask why the future-to-past arrow and the past-to-future arrow don't both possess determinist causation?ucarr

    Both allow for determinist causation. However, the past-to-future direction renders determinist causation as necessary due to the fixedness of the past. The future-to-past direction recognizes that the past is fixed, but since the flow is not from the past, but from the future, and the future consists of possibility, this causation is not necessary.Metaphysician Undercover

    The flow of future-to-past direction has the future tense flowing toward the past tense?

    Since the flow of future-to-past direction recognizes that the past is fixed, does that tell us it is conscious?

    To what subject does the consciousness of the future-to-past direction belong?

    Because possibilities are in the future, and actualities are in the past, the flow must be future-to-past to allow that possibilities can get selected and actualized at the present.Metaphysician Undercover

    Regarding "Because possibilities are in the future," If I say, "It's now possible for me to lift my left arm." am I speaking in the present or in the future?

    Regarding "and actualities are in the past," The dictionary defines one of the senses of "actual" as "existing now; current." Is it wrong?

    ...time is not a dimension, it has dimensions.Metaphysician Undercover

    Dimensions are a part of time.

    How are dimensions connected to time?

    Does time have other kinds of parts?

    If there is a start to time, then it is necessary to conclude that at the start there is no past.Metaphysician Undercover

    In your example, does time start in the present?
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    Can I ask, what immaterialist premise gets through to you?Metaphysician Undercover

    Five of Your Key Talking Points

    • Spacetime is an immaterial concept

    • The independent system of passing time is the immaterial first cause, and it is logically prior to
      dynamism

    • The future-to-past arrow of time establishes mind over matter

    • Free will resides within the mind-over-matter hierarchy

    • If time is immaterial, then time passing with nothing happening stems from immateriality conceived
      as nothing material happening
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    Now, do you agree that a measurement requires an act of measuring. There is no measurement without that act of measuring. However, the thing to be measured exists as the thing to be measured, regardless of whether it has been measured or not. Because I am discussing the thing to be measured, and an approach toward the means for making accurate measurements, your request for measurements is unwarranted.Metaphysician Undercover

    This is your argument supporting the separation of activity from event? Thinking about doing something is not equal to the actual doing of the something thought about. In order to support your claim non-physical activity is prior - both logically and existentially - to events, you must show that priority, both logically and existentially. Show me, with mathematical inference, how non-physical time passes inside the Cern particle accelerator in such manner as to cause the animation of the material things that populate events.ucarr

    I've told you many times now, it's taken as a logical possibility, not as a proof. However, when we accept this logical possibility as reality, it makes freewill very intelligible. And, you can deny free will if you so choose, but then we'll have nothing more to talk about.Metaphysician Undercover

    With activity, you refer to time imagined in total isolation acting as a transitive verb with events as its object. The transitive action of time is to move events into the past. The objects of time are events. We see a distinction between time as transitive verb and events as objects of time's activity. Time moves and events get moved. The distinction in this particular situation becomes a false generalization when applied to all actions involving time and objects. Its false because the objects moved can act as transitive verbs acting on time. Since time as a dimension has duration, an argument can be made for the actions of moving things acting as movers of time, with time getting moved because its duration increases.

    Don't you think about your travel by car as passing through the interval of time required to arrive at your destination?ucarr

    No, I think of passing through the space between A and B when I travel, and I think that this takes time, i.e. time passes while I traverse this space.Metaphysician Undercover

    Passing through an hour of space and passing through the hour of time elapsed in passing through that space are two aspects of the same experience. We know this because we do both simultaneously. You cannot cite me one example wherein you pass through space without simultaneously passing through time. Being able to do that would mean being able to travel distance in zero time. Flipping this around, we know time doesn't pass without passing through space because that would mean being able to do the temporal expansion of numerical tracking as a dimension with zero dimension.

    Time is conventionally conceived as being a dimension.ucarr

    I know, and that's what I am arguing is a faulty conception. You can explain it to me all you want, but unless you justify it, your explanations do nothing for me.Metaphysician Undercover

    How about I let Einstein justify it?

    Time dilation caused by gravity or acceleration
    Time dilation explains why two working clocks will report different times after different accelerations. For example, time goes slower at the ISS, lagging approximately 0.01 seconds for every 12 Earth months passed. - Wikipedia

    Note the above is not a thought experiment. It is scientific verification with real evidence supporting a prediction of Relativity.
    ucarr

    I don't see how this proves anything.Metaphysician Undercover

    If you don't see how time expanding temporally under influence of gravity or acceleration examples it as a relative, dimension of variable measurements experimentally verified, then it's probably because you don't see what you don't want to see.

    If a natural thing resembles an artificial system, it's piss poor logic to conclude that it is a system.Metaphysician Undercover

    A tree has a system of roots that feed into it. A switchboard has a system of cables that feed into it.

    I am in no way trying to "establish what is factual". I am discussing logical possibilities.Metaphysician Undercover

    If a supposed state of reality is, in fact, real, then a valid argument that such a state is possible is factual. Any supposition not concerned with culminating in verification as being factual is whimsy.

    Look, "entropy" is a feature of a system, it accounts for the energy of a system which is no longer useful to that system...Metaphysician Undercover

    With heat death, motion stops, time becomes meaningless. This describes your situation where nothing is happening, not even the passing of time. Time still exists, but I'm guessing it's collapsed to a point of zero dimension. That's a meaningless existence for a dimension.

    My model is a model of possibility. You think time is the measurement, so all you are doing is modeling the model.Metaphysician Undercover

    Show me a measurement of any kind with no duration of time attached to it.

    So "energy" is the product of measurements and applied mathematics, it is not a real force in the world, like the passing of time is.Metaphysician Undercover

    I'm assuming that when a person dies of electrocution, you think it's due to time passing and not the presence of enough electromotive force to cook the person alive like a piece of meat in a hot skillet.

    Where there's mass, there's time. This tells me time doesn't pass apart from events populated by animated things.ucarr

    This is an invalid conclusion. Like I explained, "where there's mass, there's time", implies that mass cannot exist without time, but it does not imply that time cannot exist without mass.Metaphysician Undercover

    Read again what I said and you'll see I said time cannot pass apart from mass; I didn't say it cannot exist without mass.

    You need to learn how to understand "logical priority".Metaphysician Undercover

    Logical priority exists when one category, being more broadly inclusive that another lesser category, logically contains the lesser category. If A is logically prior to B, then A is a necessary condition of B; A is the ground of B.

    Logic works with proofs. How does logic, short of a proof, support a proposition?ucarr

    Clearly you take one way in which logic is used, and assume that this is all that logic does.Metaphysician Undercover

    Do you think logical priority can stand on mere possibility absent proof?

    You imply my demand that logic prove something in order to have value is short sighted. The laws of physics don't forbid time moving in both directions. It doesn't. This means the logical analysis of the direction of time is incomplete. Hence, it's unsound reasoning to propound a theory that reverses the arrow of time from the one established by consensus. You don't think it does. I believe it does because the direction of time from future to past has the arrow of entropy moving from birth into old age to death in pre-fertilization.

    You're not interested in continuing your dialogue with a physicalist; I've benefitted greatly from dialoguing with you, an immaterialist.

    From you I've learned time can exist apart from matter and energy.

    I don't believe in your central premise: time passes in isolation from matter, energy and space.

    We're both dug into our positions across the aisle from each other.

    I agree with doing what you've been suggesting you want us to do: go our separate ways (for now), agreeing to disagree.
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    In claiming free will as a self-evident truth, you're ignoring a perennial debate stretching across millennia. The continuing doubt about the existence of free will renders your following argument undecided WRT free will.ucarr

    Since the determinist perspective, and the freewill perspective produce incompatible models of time, we need to choose on or the other. I am not interested in discussing time with anyone who makes the self-contradicting choice, i.e. choosing that choice is not possible.Metaphysician Undercover

    You're saying the past_present_future arrow of time is self-contradicting because it cancels the free-will option?

    There's a question whether time, or any other dimension, is causal.ucarr

    You continue to misrepresent "time" as a dimension, in the incompatible determinist way. I mean that's acceptable to that model of time, but if you want to understand "time" in this model you need to rid yourself of those incompatible premises. "Time" here is not a dimension of something, it is something with dimensions.Metaphysician Undercover

    You're saying time stands independent of space?

    Regarding compatibility between the paradigm of judgment and the work judged, I'm mainly using Relativity as my paradigm, now that I'm clear on your positioning immaterial time at the center of your theory. Surely you're not surprised that examiners of your theory turn to Relativity as their paradigm. I struggle to see how it's legit to brush off Relativity as incompatible and irrelevant. Since you're the one trying to overthrow it, aren't you responsible for meeting it head on with cogent arguments? Waving the flag of incompatibility plays like a dodge.

    Since time, per Relativity, is physical, in order for your conclusion to be true, you must overturn Relativity.ucarr

    Overturning relativity is not what is required, only to demonstrate it's deficiencies, like the one mentioned above. Another one which I've been arguing is that it wrongly renders the logical possibility of time without physical events as impossible. When a theory renders a logical possibility as impossible, through stipulation rather than through empirical observation, that theory must be held suspect.Metaphysician Undercover

    Okay, you hold that time is not physical.

    Also, you hold that time passes with no events happening.

    Since you fault Relativity for dismissing time-passing-without-events without empirical observation, you plan on supporting your claim of immaterial time with empirical observation.

    Since time is a physical dimension...ucarr

    Bad premise!Metaphysician Undercover

    You haven't shown contact between the non-physical and the physical.ucarr

    You haven't dropped your bad premise. Once you drop that premise that time is physical, what you ask for is accomplished.Metaphysician Undercover

    Perhaps time isn't physical, but Relativity's belief in same connects it with our lives, which are, at least in part, physical. Why should I drop my belief in the connection linking physical me with physical time? If It's something unreal - as according to your understanding - shouldn't you show me that immaterial time is somehow connecting with my physical life using cogent logic that overturns my belief. In the boxing ring, the challenger, in order to win, must knock out the champ. This is another kind of boxing ring.
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    The correction to the cosmological contradiction of a pure origin - there are no pure origins - embodies as the theoretical point with zero dimensions as the limit of the present. As we move in time, we make an approach to the numerical present - that's the theoretical point with zero dimensions as the limit - without arrival. This asymptotic progression toward the numerical present is evidence of QM properties being present within the Newtonian scale of physics. This is a way of saying we humans, like the elementary particles, have only a probable location in spacetime. At the Newtonian scale of physics, this seems not to be the case, and that's why Newton himself didn't include it within his physicsucarr

    Again, this is a terrible model. Why exclude "origins"? Having a model which excludes origins as unintelligible renders real origins as unintelligible. That origins appear to be unintelligible is the fault of the model, not because real origins are actually unintelligible. Origins are modeled as unintelligible, so whenever there is an origin it appears to be unintelligible. That's a faulty model.Metaphysician Undercover

    If you've ever tackled the question: "Why is There Not Nothing?" or, stated differently: "Why Existence?" or read up on approaches made by others, then you know why this question, still unsolved, predates Socrates. There is a gnarly cosmological question, specifically invoked by this question: What's the Origin of the Totality of Existence? The question, "What predates the singularity of the Big Bang" is a stumper event the great thinkers still succumb to.

    Look, the following makes no sense:Metaphysician Undercover

    As we move in time, we make an approach to the numerical present - that's the theoretical point with zero dimensions as the limit - without arrival.ucarr

    Earlier, you said we are in the "empirical present". Now you say we're moving in time, but never reaching the present. What does this mean, that we are always in the past, yet empirically in the present? Well how do we ever make freewill acts to change things then? The past is already fixed as unchangeable, if we never reach the present we never have the capacity to make a freewill act.Metaphysician Undercover

    We're in the empirical present - how we consciously perceive the world around us, moment to moment - which time lags behind the theoretical numerical present. Speaking in terms of the relative positions, the nearly present, our empirical present, chases closely behind what to us relatively speaking is the near future. This is a way of saying we're some tiny fraction of a second behind the numerical present. Now, to be sure, perception of the numerical present gets gnarly when we home in on its details in high resolution. We can only approach the numerical present as a changing variable traveling the highway of an infinite series. We're always approaching and never arriving at a relative future we're trying to make present here and now. Since these discrepancies at the Newtonian scale are minute, we ignore them. However, if we wish to talk scientifically, we say our position is spacetime is probable, not certain. So, now you see why the present is represented as a theoretical point of zero dimensions.

    The infinite series of the calculus and it's limit work very well. They aren't deficiencies.ucarr

    Yes, infinite series' are deficiencies, because as you yourself show, they make origins unintelligible, requiring that there is an infinite series to be traversed between now and then. And, the appearance of infinite time here provides an avoidance of the argument which demonstrates that the future is necessarily prior to the past. Only if time was infinite, could this argument be avoided, and the calculus which works with the infinite series produces that illusion of infinity.Metaphysician Undercover

    Yes, infinite series' are deficiencies, because as you yourself show, they make origins unintelligible, requiring that there is an infinite series to be traversed between now and then. And, the appearance of infinite time here provides an avoidance of the argument which demonstrates that the future is necessarily prior to the past. Only if time was infinite, could this argument be avoided, and the calculus which works with the infinite series produces that illusion of infinity.

    Now we have a contradictory scenario, there is supposed to be an origin on the other side of that infinite series, but the infinite series denies the reality of the origin. Then arguments like mine which actually address the origin, can be dismissed, because the infinite series makes a real origin impossible. So all we have is 'waffle-land', deny discussions which take an origin as a premise, because the infinite series doesn't allow the origin to be real, yet also deny that there is an infinite regress by claiming that there is an origin behind the infinite series.
    Metaphysician Undercover

    Since you're complaining about a never-ending present, maybe you should ask yourself, "Have I ever been bodily present within either the past or the future?" We both know you know the answer is "no." Have you ever awakened from sleep and discovered you're either in the past or in the future? No, you haven't. Even if you could get into a time machine and travel to either one million years past, or one million years future, upon your arrival, wouldn't you be in what for you is the present? Yes, you would. If you find enjoyment in life, and you wish to continue going forward in it, then clearly you have no legitimate reason for complaining about your never-ending experience of being in the present. After all, those not in the present are dead.

    This is further evidence we cannot travel to the future; if we could, that would mean we never had a present, and thus we never existed. What prevents this is the fact any time travel is always from the present to another present. Well, that's the infinite present. For clarity, let's look at this from the opposite direction.

    If you tried to go from the future backwards of the arrow of time that goes forward, you'd discover you cannot go to the past, because, being of the future and going directly to the past, you'd have no present and thus no presence and thus no existence. Again, going this way, your non-existence is prevented by the fact you can only go from one present to another present.

    Now we see why the arrow of time goes in the same direction as the arrow of entropy: past_present_future, with an infinite present, means going in either direction is just a temporal journey from one present to another. Without the arrow of entropy, the past_present_future skein is equal in both directions; temporal travel, either way, is a journey from one present to another present. What gives the arrow of time its unidirectionality is its pairing with the arrow of entropy.

    We know we're following the arrow of time only going forward because we know from our life experience we are born young and die older; we understand this as the present going forward to the future. In this sequence, youth, which we look back upon from old age, comes first at birth, old age at death, comes second. We also understand that the reverse of that direction is going from being older to being younger. Since we never see ourselves or anyone else growing younger, we know going forward in time is the only way we're moving in time.
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    ...how can our lives not be memories of what hasn't yet happened? You're the one frequently claiming the future jumps into the past.ucarr

    Sorry, I really can't decipher what you are asking here.Metaphysician Undercover

    I'm asking you why you think it's empirically true that we remember what happens before our present tense experience? You say there's a jump from future to past, with time being the force pushing us into the past.ucarr

    No wonder I couldn't understand. I don't think that.Metaphysician Undercover

    I never said anything about a jump. In fact i was implying that the future and past overlap, with my description of the dimensionality of the present. How is that a jump?Metaphysician Undercover

    You have written about the arrow of time as moving from future to past, with the force of the future pushing the past into the more distant past, so I've been reading that as an arrow of time that skips over the present.

    Now it seems you're telling me the future moves to the present, and then the present mediates an overlap of the future and the past. So far, I can't picture the empirical experience of the merger of two temporal tenses: future and past in this example. Since you believe this to be happening, you should be able to provide a description of what it's like for a person to experience being simultaneously in the future and the past.

    Possibility is a logical understanding, whether ontological or not. In either case, the sentient experiences this awareness in the empirical present tense whereas both the past and the future are abstractions of the empirically present tense mind.ucarr

    Really, we are aware of the past, through memory. And, we are also aware of the future, through our anticipations and intentions. The "present" is just an abstraction. That's what I discussed concerning the faulty idea that "the present" is a nondimensional point which divides future from past.Metaphysician Undercover

    This statement from you needs unpacking. I think we're aware of all three temporal tenses within the empirical present. We can neither go to the future nor to the past. Even if we could time travel, arrival at either past or future would be, for us, more experience of the empirical present. The arrow of time outside of the boundaries of the empirical present is an abstraction. Neither the past nor the future are for us existentially real; only the empirical present is existentially real for us. I, like you, postulate an extended present, but my version contains neither future nor past.

    Check around and you'll see, if you haven't already, that the arrow of time and the arrow of entropy point in the same direction.ucarr

    I can't see an arrow of time, nor an arrow of entropy. These are abstractions, part of a (faulty in my belief) conceptual structure.Metaphysician Undercover

    You're saying you don't believe the two arrows represent dynamical things existentially real, or you're saying you think they're understood in terms of a distorted perception that needs to be corrected?

    The problem is, that you have this idea that the past is before the future, and this works as a model for determinist causation.Metaphysician Undercover

    What we have here is a complicated interplay of different frames of reference. I keep my perception oriented by confining myself to the present tense view of all three tenses, with the understanding only the present tense is, for me, pragmatically real beyond the neuronal activity of my brain.

    Keeping this in mind, I can ask why the future-to-past arrow and the past-to-future arrow don't both possess determinist causation?

    When I tell you that it is necessary to understand the future as prior to the past, in order to understand the freewill perspective, you simply reverse the flow of time, and present that as my perspective.Metaphysician Undercover

    But I keep telling you that is not the case, the flow of time is exactly the same, whether it's modeled with past before the future, or future before the past. What is changed is the way that one understands the floe of time.Metaphysician Undercover

    ...it is necessary to understand the future as prior to the past, in order to understand the freewill perspective...Metaphysician Undercover

    If, as you claim, the arrow of time is the same for both directions, then how could one be any less causal than the other? I ask this question bearing in mind your talk of free will. Even if we somehow inhabit the future pragmatically and thus also paradoxically, and therein exercise our free will such that the past events following this future free will decision making are caused by it, how is that an example of the future-to-past arrow of time being any less determinist that the past-to-future arrow of time?

    The role of time within gravity does not match its role within QM.ucarr

    That's good evidence that Einstein's spacetime is a faulty theory of time.Metaphysician Undercover

    You acknowledge that time is a dimension, as it is claimed by Relativity. Is your understanding of time as a dimension different from Einstein's understanding? If this is why your theory of dimensional time is correct while Einstein's isn't; can you list the ramifications of each theory of dimensional time side by side for comparison and contrast? Moreover, can you then present an analysis that shows your version of dimensional time prevailing over his regarding the truth content of their respective ramifications?

    If there is a start to time, then it is necessary to conclude that at the start there is no past.Metaphysician Undercover

    I infer from this statement that time without a past cannot be dimensionally extended because this state of the system presupposes the system being a proper subset of itself, a cosmic contradiction.ucarr

    The "time without a past" is not dimensionless though. That's the point. It still has a future, which is a dimension of time. And, the further point is that this condition you mention, "time without a past", i.e. only a future, is necessarily prior to there being a past, if we rule out eternal or infinite time. Therefore if the extension of time is not infinite, future is necessarily prior to past.Metaphysician Undercover

    There's a logical problem in your statement. In the situation of "time without a past," how can the "future" be prior to something that doesn't exist? Obviously, priority depends upon a relativity of position of first to second. That can't be the case in a situation with only a first and no second.

    Continuing our reasoning, imagine in this situation the present in relation to the future becomes the past. Okay, there’s the missing second in the form of the past. Now, however, another problem arises: this is a situation with no present. It follows logically that a situation with no present has no presence, i.e., doesn’t exist. (By the way, this is the reason why neither past or future have any presence beyond the abstract mind; it’s not possible for future or past to exist outside their connection to their relatives; that is a connection only possible in the abstract thinking of the mind.)
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    I'm having a great time. MU has been patient with my blunders, and he's been generous with his time. I can't lose overall because I'm having an enriching experience.
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    This is the "logical possibility" I demonstrated to you, which you refuse to accept.Metaphysician Undercover

    Logical validity doesn’t necessarily establish what is factual.

    If a valid conclusion is necessarily based upon a false premise, then that conclusion, being always counter-factual, is not logically possible.

    Conversely, in order for something to be logically possible, it must always be possible to use true premises towards its arrival as a valid conclusion.

    If it is possible that during one period of time some things can be stationary relative to each other, then it is also possible that at a period of time all things might be stationary relative to each other.Metaphysician Undercover

    Again, your argument, even if valid, doesn't necessarily establish what is factual.

    What conditions would describe the heat death of the universe?
    The heat death of the universe is a postulated end to the universe as we know it. It is when a state of maximum disorder, or entropy, is reached; where no thermodynamic processes occur and time itself becomes meaningless. - tcd.ie

    Will the universe reach absolute zero?
    Long after the last star in the Universe has [+] burned out, the final black hole will decay away. Even after that happens, however, and even after waiting arbitrarily long amounts of time for the Universe to dilute and the radiation to redshift, the temperature still will not drop to absolute zero. - Forbes

    In the first example, time, instead of passing in isolation, becomes meaningless. In the second example, the temperature never drops to zero, which signifies energy and motion.

    ...now you seem very reluctant to leave the comfort of your convention, and so you fall back on "conventional wisdom" insisting that we adhere to it, despite the fact that you seemed to agree with the demonstration which showed that the conventional wisdom is faulty.Metaphysician Undercover

    My understanding of an evaluation of a paper says its premises and conclusions get referenced to established facts about the true nature of things. Conventional wisdom, if true and pertinent, stands up as good, not bad. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

    Sound thinking in physics says spacetime can exist without matter_energy. If it’s the source of matter_energy systems, then we ask whether time alone is a system. If so, what kind of system, how does it work, and how does it ground matter_energy systems? I think these major concepts should be put into the first paragraph of your theory.ucarr

    As I explained, systems are artificial, made by human beings, and time existed before there was human beings. So this "systems" perspective is a non-starter.Metaphysician Undercover

    Let me remind you, a "system" is always artificial. In one sense of "system" we construct a physical system, according to a design. In another sense of "system" we model a natural thing according to system theory. The thing itself is not taken to be a system, it is modeled according to a system theory.Metaphysician Undercover

    You also explained how "we model a natural thing according to system theory." No doubt your understanding of time is based upon the artifice of human-centered system theory. So your view of time is no less artificial than mine.

    When you model an object as fundamentally static, yet being changed by the flow of time, does the modeled object remain static and only appear to be animated on the basis of relative motion?ucarr

    No, it means that without the passage of time, the object would not change. It, the object in itself, is fundamentally static, and the passing of time is what causes it to be active.Metaphysician Undercover

    Your vague language leaves it unclear whether time imparts to fundamentally static things the relativity of motion. I ask this because the relativity of motion - apart from that relativity - leaves material things intact, i.e., fundamentally static. If relativity of motion changed you in any way besides relativistically, your appearance would keep changing. It doesn't. This sounds like what you're saying is that time, rather than motion, imparts relativistic motion to things. The problem with having it be time instead of energy is the fact time is not a force and thus cannot impart relativistic motion to material things.

    It's impossible that the passing of time could itself be an event, for much the same reason that it is impossible for a set to be a member of itself.Metaphysician Undercover

    Incorrect

    Some sets are members of themselves and others are not: for example, the set of all sets is a member of itself, because it is a set, whereas the set of all penguins is not, because it is not a penguin. - Oxford Reference.com

    It is impossible that the basis for that category is itself a red thingMetaphysician Undercover

    Without getting into set theory, I can say that passing time, being part of a 4-manifold, involves the energy of animated things to which it is attached. Therefore, like Roger Penrose says, "Where there's mass, there's time. This tells me time doesn't pass apart from events populated by animated things.

    Time is not physical, and that's a big reason why "conventional wisdom" is so faulty.Metaphysician Undercover

    Time, a physical dimension, and being part of the 4-manifold, together with three spatial dimensions, forms a container of events.

    Anything dimensionally extended - something you want to do to the present tense - has a variable state of motion depending upon its frame of reference. So your dimensionally extended present tense is part of the phenomenon of relative motion.ucarr

    This argument is irrelevant because you are talking about spatial dimensions, and I am talking about temporal dimensions, so the principles do not apply. You are comparing apples and oranges. And only through the incompatible premise which makes time a spatial dimension, could the comparison be made.Metaphysician Undercover

    Time is relative. Through acceleration or gravity, time speeds up or slows down. Obviously, acceleration and gravity are both part of space, so their effect on time shows that time and space are connected, and thus your apples and oranges defense is what's irrelevant here.

    ...the logical possibility is not presented as proof. However it does support the proposition, as evidence.Metaphysician Undercover

    Logic works with proofs. How does logic, short of a proof, support a proposition? You don't have any evidence because there's no experimental verification of a half-Planck scale.
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    Perhaps we don't say it, but we think it, don't we? I mean, if someone asked you, "Does time continue passing while you're asleep," you'd answer, "yes" wouldn't you?ucarr

    Of course, but I think that time passes. You, on the other hand think that the present moves through time instead of time passing. That's the issue, do you really think that you're moving through time while you're sleeping, or do you think that time is passing while you're sleeping?Metaphysician Undercover

    Regarding passing through time, time is the dimension of duration, so is it false to think of my temporal experience as passing through a duration? Consider that it takes one hour to travel from point A to point B. Don't you think about your travel by car as passing through the interval of time required to arrive at your destination? I think it less intuitive to picture time as a separate thing passing away from me as I remain stationary.

    Time is conventionally conceived as being a dimension.ucarr

    I know, and that's what I am arguing is a faulty conception. You can explain it to me all you want, but unless you justify it, your explanations do nothing for me.Metaphysician Undercover

    How about I let Einstein justify it?

    Time dilation caused by gravity or acceleration
    Time dilation explains why two working clocks will report different times after different accelerations. For example, time goes slower at the ISS, lagging approximately 0.01 seconds for every 12 Earth months passed. - Wikipedia

    Note the above is not a thought experiment. It is scientific verification with real evidence supporting a prediction of Relativity.

    I now suspect you're theory posits time, not as a dimension emergent from matter_energy transfer systems, but as another dynamical system in itself.ucarr

    That's right, but for the reason explained, "system" is the wrong word.Metaphysician Undercover

    Let me remind you, a "system" is always artificial. In one sense of "system" we construct a physical system, according to a design. In another sense of "system" we model a natural thing according to system theory. The thing itself is not taken to be a system, it is modeled according to a system theory.Metaphysician Undercover

    If you're trying to reject system as a label for dynamic patterns organized logically, then you'll need to do more than the reasoning posted above. For example, you say, "...we model a natural thing according to system theory. The thing itself is not taken to be as a system..." Must be a piss poor model if it in no way resembles systemically the systemization of the natural thing it models. I say this because your denial of the systemization of natural things does not apply to living organisms.

    Even if it is, cast in this role, it exemplifies the animation of matter, and is therefore not apart from it.ucarr

    This is backward. The animation of matter exemplifies time, not vice versa. The animation of matter is the example. This means that the animation of matter is not separate from time, but time is separate from the animation of matter. The relationship of necessity is in one direction, but not the other.Metaphysician Undercover

    I haven't forgotten your claim time causes the animation of events. If time is animated with passing time in isolation, it's a dynamic system. This being the case even if the passing of time is the only animation present. Well, this is just the same as what other dynamic systems do, so time is another example of thermo-dynamics and therefore it cannot be apart from or prior to other events given it being itself an event.

    ..."time" is separate from the animation of matter because there is no logical necessity which implies that if time is passing there must be animated matter.Metaphysician Undercover

    Relativity says something different.

    In the context of special relativity, time cannot be separated from the three dimensions of space, because the observed rate at which time passes for an object depends on the object's velocity relative to the observer. - Wikipedia

    Can space and time exist separately?
    In the theory of general relativity, spacetime is described as a unified concept where space and time cannot be considered separately. Spacetime is a framework in which events occur and objects move and interact. - MIT.edu

    If space and time are inseparable, then time is also inseparable from animate matter because space is equal to the warpage of gravitation, and that is an event.
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    There is the ever-closer approach to a start and to an end, but no arrival.ucarr

    I'm not interesting in discussing the deficiencies of mathematics.Metaphysician Undercover

    The infinite series of the calculus and it's limit work very well. They aren't deficiencies. Moreover, they are centrally pertinent to our discussion because you're attacking the theoretical point with zero dimensions. In its role as the numerical present tense, it stands as the limit of an infinite series.

    As I said, this is not proven, That time might pass without physical events, is offered as a logical possibility which needs to be considered, instead of simply rejected as impossible.Metaphysician Undercover

    This is an important acknowledgement on your part. I will keep it in mind. I've already been evaluating the factual content of this conjecture.

    I think all occurrences of events happen in time.ucarr

    I agree, and we can conclude that time is required for events. This means that time is logically prior to events, but not vise versa.Metaphysician Undercover

    I don't read your statement as a self-evident truth.ucarr

    What is offered as self-evident truth is free will. And, when something other than a physical event (a free will), selects a possibility, and causes a physical event, this implies an activity (cause) which is not a physical event. Do you understand this basic principle? The physical event which is caused by a free will, is not caused by a physical event, it is caused by a free will. This implies a cause which is not a physical event. As a cause, it is necessarily an activity. And, activity requires time. Therefore we have time and activity without a physical event. There is an event which is caused by that activity but such an event is posterior to that activity.Metaphysician Undercover

    In claiming free will as a self-evident truth, you're ignoring a perennial debate stretching across millennia. The continuing doubt about the existence of free will renders your following argument undecided WRT free will.

    Since you identify free will with non-physical and also with activity, that puts your supposition of a non-physical reality and your definition of non-physical activity within the same category of undecided.

    The physical event, which is caused by a free will, is not caused by a physical event, it is caused by a free will. This implies a cause which is not a physical event. As a cause, it is necessarily an activity. And, activity requires time. Therefore we have time and activity without a physical event.

    So, time, acting as a function of causation, animates events. There's a question whether time, or any other dimension, is causal. However, your premise thus far, might be worth propounding. Everything changes when you reach the point where you claim activity is non-physical. Since time, per Relativity, is physical, in order for your conclusion to be true, you must overturn Relativity.

    Moreover, you haven't described any action time performs apart from material things.ucarr

    This is not true. I described the activity of time, as the future becoming the past.Metaphysician Undercover

    Since time is a physical dimension, but not dynamic, its status as a cause of things that are dynamic is doubtful. Time and events are paired as physical things. So, time as one of the three tenses pushing the past further into the past, if it happens, examples a physical-to-physical relationship. The problem, again, is that time, although physical, is not dynamic. You haven't shown contact between the non-physical and the physical.

    Let me remind you, a "system" is always artificial. In one sense of "system" we construct a physical system, according to a design. In another sense of "system" we model a natural thing according to system theory. The thing itself is not taken to be a system, it is modeled according to a system theory.Metaphysician Undercover

    You say, "we construct a physical system, according to a design." Why isn't the physical thing a system?

    So show me your measurements of time passing without events passing concurrently.ucarr

    We discussed the difference between the measurement and the thing which is measured, way back.

    Now, do you agree that a measurement requires an act of measuring. There is no measurement without that act of measuring. However, the thing to be measured exists as the thing to be measured, regardless of whether it has been measured or not. Because I am discussing the thing to be measured, and an approach toward the means for making accurate measurements, your request for measurements is unwarranted.
    Metaphysician Undercover

    This is your argument supporting the separation of activity from event? Thinking about doing something is not equal to the actual doing of the something thought about. In order to support your claim non-physical activity is prior - both logically and existentially - to events, you must show that priority, both logically and existentially. Show me, with mathematical inference, how non-physical time passes inside the Cern particle accelerator in such manner as to cause the animation of the material things that populate events.
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    I know your narrative overall is very complicated, but for the moment, I ask how can memories of the future not be what humans experience, given your claim time is prior to events? Since human lives consist of moments strung together, and time, as you say, is prior to all of these moments, how can our lives not be memories of what hasn't yet happened? You're the one frequently claiming the future jumps into the past.ucarr

    Sorry, I really can't decipher what you are asking here.Metaphysician Undercover

    I'm asking you why you think it's empirically true that we remember what happens before our present tense experience? You say there's a jump from future to past, with time being the force pushing us into the past. Since you want to extend the present dimensionally - I think it already dimensionally extended as theoretic numerical present tense closely followed by empirical present tense - that means the jump from future to past is now a jump from theoretic numerical present to empirical present tense. You see, there's no empirical experience of either the future tense nor the past tense - we only experience the tempirical present tense minutely time-lagged behind the theoretic numerical present.

    Firstly, understanding that the possibility for an event must always precede the actual occurrence of that event is an awareness that happens in the empirical now, not in the future. So, the possibility of an event, an abstraction of the mind, does not reside in the mind in the future, but rather in the empirical now.ucarr

    I'm not talking about "possibility" here, as an abstraction in the mind. I am talking about ontological possibility.Metaphysician Undercover

    Possibility is a logical understanding, whether ontological or not. In either case, the sentient experiences this awareness in the empirical present tense whereas both the past and the future are abstractions of the empirically present tense mind.

    Secondly, in what direction does the arrow of time for the conscious human individual move? If we say it moves from the future toward the past, then we’re also saying the conscious human individual grows younger with the passing of time.ucarr

    That's a false conclusion for the reasons I've already explained.Metaphysician Undercover

    Check around and you'll see, if you haven't already, that the arrow of time and the arrow of entropy point in the same direction. This is due to the obvious fact that entropy changes in time. I don't expect you to deny this given your claim time changes all things. This means that if the arrow of time points from future to past, then the arrow of entropy also points from future to past. This means, then, that living things are born at their greatest age and progressively grow younger.

    Since the present moves in time, it's not static.ucarr

    Your preferred model of time might have the present moving in time, mine does not. And, I explained to you why mine does not. If you want to understand mine, then you have to drop this idea, because the two are incompatible. If you insist that time must be modeled as having the present moving in time, then we might as well end the discussion right now, because I'm not interested in that model, I think it is obviously false.Metaphysician Undercover

    Note - You've been very patient and very generous with your time, as I've needed a lot of repetition from you as I have corrected my misreadings of your intended meanings. Only recently have I realized immaterial time is the central part of your theory. Now knowing this, I have a better grasp of your point of view. I'm grateful to you for giving me ample chance to understand you. Also, I'm grateful for the extensive workout; I like to believe it has strengthened my ability to reason.

    I've been understanding you've decided to extend the present tense in a way that sometimes allows it to overlap with past or future. I see now that even given this, your concept of the present tense does not move in time. Have you written a paper that organizes all of the components of your theory?

    Time is not a system, but a part of a system in the role of a dimension.ucarr

    OK then, what is "the system" which time is a dimension of? You do realize that all systems are artificial don't you? There is physical systems, and theoretical systems, but they are all produced by human beings. Are you saying that time is simply theoretical, part of a theoretical system? I think this is what you said earlier, when you defined time as a mathematical measurement.Metaphysician Undercover

    Einstein has described time as a temporal dimension attached to three spatial dimensions. This complex of four dimensions, the four-manifold, goes by the name spacetime. It is examined in terms of
    a local frame of reference determining the relativity of time. Also, it is examined in terms of gravity which is space as the four-manifold. The role of time within gravity does not match its role within QM. Some QM physicists question whether time exists within QM. All or most physicists agree that time within QM is a separate and passive background that doesn't impact upon quantum events. This view parallels Newton's view of space as a separate and passive background that doesn't impact upon human scale events.

    The human mind organizes natural events into logical patterns. Whether logic and numbers are discovered in nature or imposed upon it by the rational mind is a perennial debate I don't think it prudent for us to embark upon here.

    I explained why you have to get beyond that idea of time if you want to develop a true understanding of time. As I said, you need to drop these preconceived ideas, if you want to discuss time with me, because I am not interested in discussing time with someone who will relentlessly insist on false premises.Metaphysician Undercover

    Are asking me to set aside my physicalist concept of time in order to examine your non-physicalist concept of time? Yes, I want to examine your non-physicalist concept of time. I want to compare and contrast it with my physicalist concept of time. If you have a paper that organizes everything within your theory, I’ll read it.

    If there is a start to time, then it is necessary to conclude that at the start there is no past.Metaphysician Undercover

    With this claim you validate the theoretical point with zero dimensions as the limit of the present.ucarr

    Again, you are applying incompatible premises in an effort to make what I say look contradictory.. The start time does not have to be "the present". It's not, that's the point of the example. As the example clearly shows, the start time is "the future". The future is first. If time started then it is necessary that there was a future before there was a past or a present. The only way to avoid this is to say that time is eternal, but that has problems.Metaphysician Undercover

    There is a question whether my statements spotlight the incompatibility of your axiomatic system with another, or if they spotlight inconsistencies and contradictions internal to your system. If I correctly infer a statement from your text that examples a contradiction in your logic, it not being written there explicitly does not allow you to jump to the conclusion I'm applying an external standard of measure incompatible with your premises.

    If there is a start to time, then it is necessary to conclude that at the start there is no past.Metaphysician Undercover

    I infer from this statement that time without a past cannot be dimensionally extended because this state of the system presupposes the system being a proper subset of itself, a cosmic contradiction. The contradiction is established within the literature of logic. Within set theory, a set being a proper subset of itself, a situation positing the subset as its own superset and vice-versa, examples an obvious contradiction simultaneously equating things and anti-equating the same things. It's not established in the physicalist cosmology. This extension from the abstraction of logic to the existential cosmology is my doing.

    The correction to the cosmological contradiction of a pure origin - there are no pure origins - embodies as the theoretical point with zero dimensions as the limit of the present. As we move in time, we make an approach to the numerical present - that's the theoretical point with zero dimensions as the limit - without arrival. This asymptotic progression toward the numerical present is evidence of QM properties being present within the Newtonian scale of physics. This is a way of saying we humans, like the elementary particles, have only a probable location in spacetime. At the Newtonian scale of physics, this seems not to be the case, and that's why Newton himself didn't include it within his physics.
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    What's the value of an "example" that's merely whimsy about how the world might be?ucarr

    I told you the value of the example. It's a logical possibility. You refuse things based on your claim of "contradictory". But it only appears contradictory to you because you refuse to accept a valid logical possibility. When you accept it as a valid possibility, then your claim of contradiction disappears. It is logically possible that time can pass without any physical change occurring. You refuse and deny this logical possibility, and that's what creates problems for you. You frame it as a problem for my theory of time, but it's not. It's just a problem with your attitude.Metaphysician Undercover

    Imagine that there is a shortest period of time which provides for observation of the physical world, a Planck time duration. Now imagine half a Planck time. That is a duration of time during which an object changing its place in space is impossible.Metaphysician Undercover

    There remains the chance your logical possibility is based upon valid reasoning to a false conclusion. This can happen if your valid reasoning includes a false premise. Suppose: a) 0.5 Planck time is inside a gluon; b) the gluon is inside a quark; c) the 0.5 Planck time is inside the quark. This is a valid argument. However, if premise a) is false because 0.5 Planck time is proven impossible, then 0.5 Planck time is not inside the quark, so the valid argument does not, in this case, lead to a true conclusion. This shows logical possibility is not always proof of facts. So, a logically valid argument does not necessarily support a given proposition, such as time can pass in a duration closed to events.
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    We do not say that we were moving through time while we were asleepMetaphysician Undercover

    Perhaps we don't say it, but we think it, don't we? I mean, if someone asked you, "Does time continue passing while you're asleep," you'd answer, "yes" wouldn't you?

    Activity is the condition of being active, an event is a thing which happens. I see no contradiction in saying that the passing of time is an activity which is not an event.Metaphysician Undercover

    Does an activity, including the passing of time, happen?

    I see that you have problems imagining the possibility of time passing without anything happening, and you are inclined to refuse this conception, but that's simply your refusal, your denial, having an effect on your ability to understand what I am saying.Metaphysician Undercover

    Time is conventionally conceived as being a dimension. It is part of a dynamic system of matter_energy transfer. We observe it as attached to the animation of material things. As time emerges from the animation of matter, so to speak, we mark its passing with a progression of numbers. In turn, time helps us gain a sense of duration with temporal parameters.

    I now suspect you're theory posits time, not as a dimension emergent from matter_energy transfer systems, but as another dynamical system in itself. Even if it is, cast in this role, it exemplifies the animation of matter, and is therefore not apart from it. Check around and you’ll see that time has no mass. If you already know this, then you need to immediately tell your reader you’re rejecting the conventional wisdom and embarking on a radically different path to discovery about the identity of time.

    Sound thinking in physics says spacetime can exist without matter_energy. If it’s the source of matter_energy systems, then we ask whether time alone is a system. If so, what kind of system, how does it work, and how does it ground matter_energy systems? I think these major concepts should be put into the first paragraph of your theory.

    When you model an object as moving through time, you model it as moving from past to future, but if you model it as fundamentally static, yet being changed by the flow of time, then change and movement are caused, by the passing of time.Metaphysician Undercover

    Now you tell us material objects are not animated, yet they are being changed by the flow of time. So, a material object doesn't move.ucarr

    No, I did not say this, and this is not what I am proposing at all. As I said movement is the change of position of an object relative to another. What I said is that movement is caused by the passing of time.Metaphysician Undercover

    When you model an object as fundamentally static, yet being changed by the flow of time, does the modeled object remain static and only appear to be animated on the basis of relative motion?

    You make a pronouncement that flies in the face of everyday experience, then give us no explanation why it isn't blatant nonsense.ucarr

    I think what I say is very consistent with everyday experience, and saying things like "we move through time" "the present moves through time", is what is not consistent with our experience. Really, when people say that we are moving through time, this only makes sense as a metaphor. Where is this medium called "time" which we would be traveling through? Obviously, anyone who considers the reality of the situation recognizes that time is passing, and we are not passing through time.Metaphysician Undercover

    Is time passing without anything happening an activity of time? I ask this question because if time makes itself pass, then to my understanding that's time being active, and thus it's an activity of time. To me these seem to be correct readings of what the language signifies.

    Is the activity of time passing without anything happening an event? I ask this question because it seems to me that time passing without anything happening is something happening and I know events happen, so this too must be something happening, even though it's time passing without anything happening.

    I described the future becoming the past as a force.Metaphysician Undercover

    This contradicts: "Time passing is not the events, nor is it an event, but it is the cause of events."ucarr

    It appears contradictory to you, because in your condition of denial, you refuse to allow the possibility of what I demonstrated as a valid logical possibility, that time could be passing without any physical event occurring. Therefore you refuse to accept the distinction between being active, and being an event.Metaphysician Undercover

    Here you're keeping activity and event distinct? Also, since time is physical, please explain how time passes without any physical event occurring.

    The term "event" is restricted to a physical happening, but "active" is not restricted in this way. Therefore whatever it is which is active, is not necessarily a physical event. A physicalist would deny this difference, disallowing that there is anything more to reality than physical things and events. But anyone who recognizes the reality of what is known as "the immaterial", will allow for the reality of activity which is other than physical.Metaphysician Undercover

    When time in isolation causes itself to pass, this is an example of immaterial time involved in an activity where no physical system is present? So, "Time passing is not the events, nor is it an event, but it is the cause of events"?

    This is why I warned you that it would be pointless to proceed into this discussion without accepting the reality of freewill. The concept of "freewill" allows for the reality of a cause which is not a physical event. If you cling to physicalist/determinist principles, you will simply deny and refuse the principles which make this thesis intelligible, and claim contradiction, as you are doing. So, if you refuse to relinquish this attitude, further discussion would be pointless.Metaphysician Undercover

    So, time, being immaterial, causes material things to change by passing. This, then, exemplifies the concept of "freewill" that allows for the reality of a cause which is not a physical event?

    You say that motion is relative, and you say that the present is dimensionally extended. Since relative motion requires dimensional extension, you must explain why a dimensionally extended present is not a part of the phenomenon of relative motion. This explanation is especially important given the role of the present as a separator of future and past that moves in relation to them. How else could it separate them?ucarr

    I really do not understand what you are asking, but it appears like you are saying that any separator between future and past must be moving. I explained to you why this is false, and provided an example, the substance being forced through a membrane.Metaphysician Undercover

    The argument is simple. Inside a spaceship, the substance being forced through a membrane establishes a frame of reference wherein it's stationary relative to the substance being forced through it. Outside the spaceship, we realize the membrane, like the substance being forced through it, exists in a state of motion. Anything dimensionally extended - something you want to do to the present tense - has a variable state of motion depending upon its frame of reference. So your dimensionally extended present tense is part of the phenomenon of relative motion. How does this agree with your claim the present, dimensionally extended, is static, and thus future moves directly to past, skipping over present?
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    Since the start of time takes time, there is no extant time without a past.ucarr

    If there is a start to time, then it is necessary to conclude that at the start there is no past.Metaphysician Undercover

    With this claim you validate the theoretical point with zero dimensions as the limit of the present. You also validate the phenomenal system which consists of the numerical present at the front end, i.e. the point with zero dimensions, and the empirical present, the minutely time-lagged approach to the numerical present at the back end.

    Practically speaking, with the theoretical point in place up front, the temporal timeline is never without its past_present_future triad. More precisely, the cosmic timeline has no start, nor has it a finish. There is the ever-closer approach to a start and to an end, but no arrival. This asymptotic approach is consistent with the phenomenal system of the dynamical present.

    Your claim that "the start of time takes time" is contradictory, implying that there is time prior to the start of time implying that time is already required for time to start. This is clearly wrong, all that is required is a future, and along with that the impetus which causes it to become past.Metaphysician Undercover

    When does the start of time start? We can't say exactly. As you have acknowledged, there is a time lag between the numerical start of something and the perception of that start, which is the empirical start. Math allows us to forever approach the starts and endings of things; we don't actually arrive. QM tells something similar with its demand we accept super-position. Well, this connects with the understanding we can't say precisely where we are. At the Newtonian scale, we've got a functionally accurate measure of where we are, but, in point of fact, exactly where we are at any given moment is, per Heisenberg, uncertain. So, in summation, the start of time is a high probability accurate measurement of the left side of the dynamical present, but it, being uncertain, maintains a sloppy border with the prior iterations of the dynamical present.

    I think all occurrences of events happen in time.ucarr

    I agree, and we can conclude that time is required for events. This means that time is logically prior to events, but not vise versa.Metaphysician Undercover

    No one disputes time being required for events. How does the temporal extension of events prove time is logically prior to them? I don't read your statement as a self-evident truth. You still haven't described what action time performs alone that is a necessary prelude to the occurrence of events. Moreover, you haven't described any action time performs apart from material things.

    You claim time, acting in isolation, causes events, but you have not described any functions of solitary time that effect that causation.

    Time is a dimension that platforms the animation of material things and their associated forces in terms of temporal parameters. You imply time possesses parameters in isolation. Well, those parameters should be measurable. What are those measurements?

    If it's true time in isolation has no measurable parameters, then we can sensibly ask whether time exists in isolation.

    I think all occurrences of events happen in time. Following this line of reasoning that keeps time paired with events, separating an event from the date of its occurrence in time is a false separation we don't experience.ucarr

    I agree, and we can conclude that time is required for events.Metaphysician Undercover

    This is faulty logic. That all events happen in time implies that time is required for events, but it does not imply that events are required for time.Metaphysician Undercover

    I don't exactly agree time is required for events. Events and time are parts of a dynamical system, with time supplying the temporal parameters of the system. Is time the cause of something it's a part of? This question spotlights the likely fact time under your theory's causal hiearchy is a proper subset of the dynamics of physics. If it's a cause of its own superset, then that's saying it is its own superset. The comprehension restriction of set theory prohibits a set from being the proper subset of itself.

    Now if we look at "Jan 9" as an event, instead of as a date, we will say that this event occurs after Jan 8 occurs, and we will represent this with a number line of sorts, showing that order. But according to my explanation, that number line represents the occurrence of events, it does not represent the passing of time.Metaphysician Undercover

    Here you say the present-towards-the-future timeline represents the occurrence of events, it does not represent the passing of time. So you are separating events from time.

    If your argument is predicated upon the premise events occur outside of time (which includes dates) - and that appears to be the case - then it is obviously false.ucarr

    Why would you think this, when I've been arguing the exact opposite? I have been saying that time can pass without an event occurring. You did not like my example, saying that it doesn't prove this claim. It was not meant to prove the claim, only to support it by showing that it is logically possible for there to be time passing with no events occurring.Metaphysician Undercover

    Now I get it. You're saying time can pass without events occurring, but events cannot occur without time passing. So, the present-towards-the-future timeline is wrong because time is prior to events.

    Okay. So show me your measurements of time passing without events passing concurrently.

    Bear in mind, the act of measuring time passing entails the event of the measurement happening concurrently.
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    Since time, being itself a phenomenon, is not prior to other phenomena, its progression is therefore contemporary with the animate phenomena it tracks numerically.ucarr

    You have provided no counter-argument, only the assertion, which I agree to, that my example is not proof. It's just an example.Metaphysician Undercover

    Do you deny time is a phenomenon? You say time is a process; that's a functional system. Time is not a system, but a part of a system in the role of a dimension. A system has mass and, as Roger Penrose says, "Mass requires time." Time doesn't require either mass or force, and you can and this may persuade you to imagine its existence apart from them. However, because time is a part of physics as a dimension, time apart from mass and force still is not apart from physics, and thus time is itself a phenomenon, and thus it is not apart from phenomena, and thus it is not prior to phenomena.

    For this reason, there is no true equilibrium devoid of motion, and there is no temperature truly zero. Time apart from phenomena, following this reasoning, entails infinite compression of dimension. Just as there is no singularity, there is no infinite compression of time, which would be the same thing as time apart from phenomena.
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    This is no progression of time in your representation, only a movement of the present to a newer present. But if the present moves this way, along the time line, or however you conceive it, something must move it, a cause, or force which propels the present along the line.Metaphysician Undercover

    The dynamical present is part of a phenomenal system of animate objects. From this system time emerges as a dimension that can function as a numerical tracker of animation. Regarding forces, it seems sensible to think the dynamism of animate objects expands time. If this is the case, then time as a dimension is tied to the dynamism of animate objects.

    But it should be obvious to you that there is no such activity as the present being propelled along a line. The real activity is the future becoming the past, and this is simply modeled as the present being propelled down a line. Of course that model is obviously wrong because the idea that there is a force in the world propelling the present down a line, is simply unintelligible, incoherent. What is really the case, is that there is a force which causes possibilities to actualize as time passes. This is very obvious, and this is the future (possibilities) becoming the past (actualities)..Metaphysician Undercover

    It is the premise of free will which makes the future to past flow of time evident, as we seek the means to avoid being swept into the past (the means to survival), by the force of the future becoming the past.Metaphysician Undercover

    You say, as time passes, possibilities actualize by the force of the future becoming the past. Time is a dimension, not a force. In order for possibilities to actualize by the force of the future becoming the past, it would require that the animate things actualize the possibilities by driving the expansion of the dimension of time. However, we know from empirical experience events comprised of material things don't run backwards from the future to the past.
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    Now, going back to how we relate to events, we understand that the possibility for an event must always precede the actual occurrence of that event. This implies that the event, exists as a possibility, in the future, prior to its actual existence. as the event moves into the past.Metaphysician Undercover

    Since it is the case, with all physical events, that the possibility of the event must be prior in time to the actual occurrence of the event, this is very clear evidence, "proof" I might say, that the future of every event, is prior in time to its past.Metaphysician Undercover

    Firstly, understanding that the possibility for an event must always precede the actual occurrence of that event is an awareness that happens in the empirical now, not in the future. So, the possibility of an event, an abstraction of the mind, does not reside in the mind in the future, but rather in the empirical now.

    Secondly, in what direction does the arrow of time for the conscious human individual move? If we say it moves from the future toward the past, then we’re also saying the conscious human individual grows younger with the passing of time.

    So, knowing we don’t grow younger with the passing of time, logically we must conclude the arrow of time is moving toward the future, not toward the past.

    Time is not on its own, i.e. not independent, for two reasons: a) time_future is an emergent property of a complex memory phenomenon; it is tied to the material animation of memory; b) time experienced empirically as the updating present is itself a physical phenomenon, and as such, it cannot be independent of itself. Relativity is a theory of physics; it is not a theory of abstract thought falsely conventionalized as immaterial.ucarr

    Human experience consists of both memory of the past, and anticipation of the future. You are focusing on "memory" while completely ignoring anticipation, so your representation is woefully inadequate.Metaphysician Undercover

    Since cognition of anticipation of the future, like cognition of memory of the past, is actually the empirical present minutely time-lagged after the theoretical point of zero dimensions, memory contains memory of anticipation no less than it contains memory of remembrance.

    Time experienced as the updating present is the empirical present ever moving forward within a physically real phenomenon. This movement from the present to a newer present posits an arrow of time from present to newer present. It also posits an arrow of entropy from the present state of order to a lesser state of order. Both arrows move toward a newer state.ucarr

    Again, you are simply representing time as static, with the present moving through time.Metaphysician Undercover

    Since the present moves in time, it's not static. My understanding of the timeline is that the ever-updating present is a dynamical system, whereas past and future are mental abstractions never experienced dynamically. As abstract thoughts, they keep us oriented within the experience of the dynamical present. In this environment, the dynamical present is our empirical experience of time. It is not static.
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    You are simply assuming that the present is something moving through a static medium, "time"Metaphysician Undercover

    No one understanding relativity thinks spacetime is static. Einstein's 4-Manifold keeps the moon in its orbit around the earth; it keeps our solar system intact.

    *The empirical present...ucarr

    As I explained, there is no such thing as the empirical present. Sensation is of the past, and anticipation is of the future. The two might be united in experience, but this does not produce an "empirical present", it produces a theoretical present. And, as I made great effort to explain to you, our theoretical present is inaccurate.Metaphysician Undercover

    I'm finding your statement contradictory and confusing. I've been understanding you to be propounding a dimensional present while refuting it as a theoretical point of zero dimensions. If the present is dimensional, how can it not be our empirical experience of things happening now, albeit with the understanding there is a minute time lag between the empirical now as perceived and the mathematical now, a math limit closely approached by the dimensional, empirical now.

    This is what your model would say, the model which puts the past empirical now as prior to the future. It would say that the past empirical now of Jan 4 progresses toward the future, Jan 5.Metaphysician Undercover

    You just asked for an example, not proof. I gave you an example, not proof. Please don't take it as an attempt at proof.Metaphysician Undercover

    Imagine that there is a shortest period of time which provides for observation of the physical world, a Planck time duration. Now imagine half a Planck time. That is a duration of time during which an object changing its place in space is impossible.Metaphysician Undercover

    The example needs to be evidence supporting your claim time stands independent of the animation of material things. What's the value of an "example" that's merely whimsy about how the world might be? An act of imagination can have value as a thought experiment that poses a counter-narrative supported by a valid argument. In your imagined Planck scale multiplied by one half, you omit to make a valid argument why this minute space can only contain time without animate things. I say this because given the wording of your thought experiment (see above), you violate: "...there is a shortest period of time which provides for observation of the physical world, a Planck time duration." Half a Planck time, your would be counter-narrative, contains no explanation why Planck time is divisible after all. Also, it contains no explanation why sub-Planck time cannot contain animate things. As such, your "example" is only a flight of fancy. It lacks the component meeting the threshold of a thought experiment: a valid argument.

    The time lag of experience rendered though the cognitive system has sentients experiencing the empirical present as a time-lagged older present relative to an ever-updating numerical present, an abstraction. This is evidence abstract thought is emergent from memory. Abstract thought emergent from memory is evidence the ever-updating numerical present is about time_future not yet extant. Since time_future is grounded in memory, this is evidence time_future is not an existentially independent reality standing apart from phenomena, but rather a component of a complex memory phenomenon.ucarr

    This is very wrong. "Future" cannot be grounded in memory. Memory applies only toward what has happened, the past.Metaphysician Undercover

    Although I admit the above passage could've been written with more clarity, the correct meaning is there to be read, but you have mis-interpreted it.

    Time_future not yet extant is part of the empirical now. Aboutness, my awkward-sounding neologism, expresses intentional thinking - something occurring in the present- but about the future state of things as manipulated by a rational plan for attaining that desired future state of things.

    There are no memories of the future. "Future" is grounded in our apprehension of possibilities and anticipation of things to come, not memories of things past.Metaphysician Undercover

    I know your narrative overall is very complicated, but for the moment, I ask how can memories of the future not be what humans experience, given your claim time is prior to events? Since human lives consist of moments strung together, and time, as you say, is prior to all of these moments, how can our lives not be memories of what hasn't yet happened? You're the one frequently claiming the future jumps into the past.
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    We do not travel in time, we do not move from Jan 4 to Jan 5 in this model of time.Metaphysician Undercover

    When I finished reading this sentence, I slapped my palm to my forehead and exclaimed, "Oh, man! Now he tells me!"

    Given that your theory makes radical changes to the view of time, whether it's viewed through the lens of common sense, or viewed scientifically, it's belatedly clear you have neglected your responsibility to your readers.

    In order to prevent them from wasting their time with many irrelevant questions aimed at clarification of your premises and their applications, you need to write a pamphlet, booklet or book exposing the foundational components of your theory and their ramifications.

    This is the principal difference of the model. Things, or people, do not move through time, the passing of time itself is an activity, a process, and this process has an effect on us, it causes change.Metaphysician Undercover

    Here's another fragment from your list of radical premises: Time is an activity somehow distinct from the animation of material things. I infer from this that it's related to this: Time passing is not the events, nor is it an event, but it is the cause of events.

    Immediately another gnarly issue arises: there appears to be an inconsistency between: "the passing of time itself is an activity, a process..." and "Time passing is not the events, nor is it an event, but it is the cause of events." How is it that time as an activity is not an event? Perhaps you have a cogent answer to this question. What you've written here looks like a contradiction. In your writing, you're doing a terrible job of communicating.

    So far, your rollout of your theory is a tissue of radical premises obscurely explained and embedded within a continuity containing contradictions.

    When you model an object as moving through time, you model it as moving from past to future, but if you model it as fundamentally static, yet being changed by the flow of time, then change and movement are caused, by the passing of time.Metaphysician Undercover

    Now you tell us material objects are not animated, yet they are being changed by the flow of time. So, a material object doesn't move. Is this true for, say, a mechanical clock with a winding mainspring? If so, it's not the kinetic energy stored in the mainspring, but time, a separate phenomenon that makes the clock turn? Well, you say that material things don't move, yet they are changed by the flow of time. How is it that change involves no motion?

    You make a pronouncement that flies in the face of everyday experience, then give us no explanation why it isn't blatant nonsense. Perhaps it's not nonsense, but that's not clear because your contradictory communication is terrible.

    I described the future becoming the past as a force.Metaphysician Undercover

    This contradicts: "Time passing is not the events, nor is it an event, but it is the cause of events."

    I see absolutely no reason to believe that the present moves, or changes in any way.... And, movement, motion, is an observed property of physical things, relative to each other... We do not observe any such movement with respect to the present.Metaphysician Undercover

    You say that motion is relative, and you say that the present is dimensionally extended. Since relative motion requires dimensional extension, you must explain why a dimensionally extended present is not a part of the phenomenon of relative motion. This explanation is especially important given the role of the present as a separator of future and past that moves in relation to them. How else could it separate them? Remember, when you're standing stationary on a train station platform, you're stationary relative to the stationary station, but your both are in relative motion with respect to the moving train leaving the station. You know this because you've seen a stationary person standing on the platform who appears to start moving as you, a passenger on the train, start moving away with the moving train, which to you appears stationary. All of this relative motion is supported by the dimensional extension your theory advocates!
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    I don't see what you are asking. The events of Jan 4 are the events of Jan 4, and the events of Jan 5 are the events of Jan 5. One does not become the other.Metaphysician Undercover

    I'm asking you to say what you think happens as you travel in time. As you move from Jan 4 to Jan 5, do you get younger, or do you get older? If you get older, that means you have moved from the present to the updated, newer present. So, old moves toward new, so that's old before new, not new before old. So, if a man acknowledges he moves forward in time, he validates that movement as an example of the old, which comes first, moving forward toward the new, which comes after.

    Saying the future moves toward the past and continues in this direction examples the past becoming the more distant past; this amounts to saying the future causes the past to move toward the more distant past. We know what you’re saying is backwards, as obviously the present*, as it moves forward in time, thus moving towards the updated, newer present, doesn’t move from the past to the more distant past.

    *The empirical present, though it lags minutely behind the mathematical present, acts as an empirical present moving toward an ever mathematically updating newer present. The additional complication of the time lag still maintains the older present moving toward the newer present, not the reverse.

    If we reverse our direction in time, with the newer present moving toward the older present, with the newer present first and the older present second, then that examples a man moving in time such that he’s getting younger instead of getting older. We know that’s not what’s happening in our empirical experience of time.

    However, the time marked by, or referred to as "Jan 4", itself moves from being in the future to being in the past, as does the time referred to as "Jan 5".Metaphysician Undercover

    If you're saying Jan 4 progressing in time toward Jan 5 examples progressing from the future toward the past, then let us observe a man as part of this progression from the future toward the past; In so doing, we see you're also saying progressing in time from Jan 4 toward Jan 5 examples a man growing younger. We know from our empirical experience in time this is not true. We know this is not true because we know our future self is older than our past self.

    Time passing is not the events, nor is it an event, but it is the cause of events.Metaphysician Undercover

    You haven't shown time independent of the animation of material objects because your supporting example, a thought experiment based upon imagination, is not evidence. Logical possibility necessitating corresponding physics remains unproven. This lack of proof is memorialized in Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems. There are logical statements unproven by the rules that generate them, and there are physical systems unexplained logically. The scientific picture of the world is incomplete.

    ...we order events as past events being prior to future events, due to the way that events are observed by us through sensation.Metaphysician Undercover

    The time lag of experience rendered though the cognitive system has sentients experiencing the empirical present as a time-lagged older present relative to an ever-updating numerical present, an abstraction. This is evidence abstract thought is emergent from memory. Abstract thought emergent from memory is evidence the ever-updating numerical present is about time_future not yet extant. Since time_future is grounded in memory, this is evidence time_future is not an existentially independent reality standing apart from phenomena, but rather a component of a complex memory phenomenon.

    ...when we consider time on its own, as something which can be marked with indicators such as dates, then we understand that any indicated time, is in the future before it is in the past, like the example shows.Metaphysician Undercover

    Time is not on its own, i.e. not independent, for two reasons: a) time_future is an emergent property of a complex memory phenomenon; it is tied to the material animation of memory; b) time experienced empirically as the updating present is itself a physical phenomenon, and as such, it cannot be independent of itself. Relativity is a theory of physics; it is not a theory of abstract thought falsely conventionalized as immaterial.

    ...when we consider time on its own, as something which can be marked with indicators such as dates, then we understand that any indicated time, is in the future before it is in the past, like the example shows.Metaphysician Undercover

    Time experienced as the updating present is the empirical present ever moving forward within a physically real phenomenon. This movement from the present to a newer present posits an arrow of time from present to newer present. It also posits an arrow of entropy from the present state of order to a lesser state of order. Both arrows move toward a newer state.

    Since time, being itself a phenomenon, is not prior to other phenomena, its progression is therefore contemporary with the animate phenomena it tracks numerically.

    Imagine that there was a start to time, time started, there was a beginning to time. At the point when time began, there was future, but no past, because no time had passed yet, but there was time about to pass.Metaphysician Undercover

    Since the start of time takes time, there is no extant time without a past. Moreover, the theoretical vanishing point with zero dimension, the limit of the starting point you posit and something you seek to discard, plays a fundamental role in launching your thought experiment.

    A true analysis shows that both Jan 4, and Jan 5. are in the future before they are in the past, so regardless of the order that these dates occur to us as events, the future part of time is prior to the past part of time.Metaphysician Undercover

    See above for my counter-narrative to your premise time is prior to the phenomena (events) it tracks numerically.

    Now if we look at "Jan 9" as an event, instead of as a date, we will say that this event occurs after Jan 8 occurs, and we will represent this with a number line of sorts, showing that order. But according to my explanation, that number line represents the occurrence of events, it does not represent the passing of time.Metaphysician Undercover

    You seem to be separating time from occurrence of events. I think all occurrences of events happen in time. Following this line of reasoning that keeps time paired with events, separating an event from the date of its occurrence in time is a false separation we don't experience.

    If your argument is predicated upon the premise events occur outside of time (which includes dates) - and that appears to be the case - then it is obviously false.
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    Time is unidirectional, future to past. This is an activity of the world, what we know as the future becoming the past, The day named as "tomorrow" becomes the day named as "yesterday" through this activity, this process of the future becoming the past.Metaphysician Undercover

    Jan 5 is in the future before it is in the past. The flow of time has that portion of time named as Jan 5, in the future prior to it being in the past.Metaphysician Undercover

    This process of the future becoming the past has the arrow of time moving in which direction: a) the events of Jan 5 change into the events of Jan 4; b) the events of Jan 4 change into the events of Jan 5?

    Since you say, “time is unidirectional, future to past,” and also you say, “the day named as tomorrow becomes the day named as ‘yesterday,’” logically we have to conclude the arrow of time moves from Jan 5 to Jan 4. Entailed in this is the logical necessity that you become a day younger as the arrow of time continues to move from future to past.

    Have you ever grown a day younger in your life? Speaking more dramatically, can you remember being ten years older than you are now?

    Does today become tomorrow, or yesterday? Your answer speaks to your perception of the direction of the arrow of time.
  • Teleonomic Matter and Subjectivity without Identity


    Teleonomic Matter

    The matter part is a term used by David Krakauer about the goal oriented matterDarkneos

    Someone... mentioned how this is an example of subjectivity without identityDarkneos

    Teleonomy is thought to derive from evolutionary history, adaptation for reproductive success, and/or the operation of a program. - Wikipedia

    On the abstract plane, do you think goal orientation can be separated from subjectivity? If so, should teleonomy be limited to components of living organisms?

    If iron flakes travel to a lodestone, that's the automatic action of magnetic force acting upon metal. Do the iron flakes possess a self awareness seeking to benefit itself? At this level, it's easy to surmise no self interest. At the level of autonomic components of living organisms, not so easy to surmise no self interest.

    Is teleonomic matter supposed to be proto-selfhood?

    Let's say there's a bio-chemical approach to selfhood. Does this gradient of bio-chemical interface with selfhood bolster the materialist concept of consciousness?
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    Some components of teleodynamics might be pertinent to your intended changes to the present tense of the timeline.

    Switching from the geocentric to the heliocentric model of the solar system does not change the direction that the planets move, it models the very same movement in a different way.Metaphysician Undercover

    Consider: the earth with respect to the sun and the sun with respect to the earth when the sun orbits the earth. In the limited context of this relationship, is the earth stationary and the sun mobile?

    Consider: the sun with respect to the earth and the earth with respect to the sun when the earth orbits the sun. In the limited context of this relationship, is the sun stationary and the earth mobile?

    In making a comparison of the two above considerations, do you say the two considerations model the very same movement in a different way?
  • Ontological status of ideas


    ↪ucarr This might be a good place[time?] for me to jump from this thread to THAT thread :point: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15544/what-does-consciousness-do/latest/comment

    If you're still interested in joining our discussion, then let me say, "Welcome, aboard!"
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    Did you check out the teleodynamics link?
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    Give me an example of a duration without math and without observation of a material object changing its position in space.ucarr

    Imagine that there is a shortest period of time which provides for observation of the physical world, a Planck time duration. Now imagine half a Planck time. That is a duration of time during which an object changing its place in space is impossible.Metaphysician Undercover

    If the Planck time is the shortest possible time duration, then half of that duration doesn't exist, so it can't be an example of time independent of a material object changing its position in space. Moreover, by this same argument, the Planck time duration limit cements the existing bond between a material object changing its position in space and its math measurement. Again, by this same argument, your claim time exists independent of material objects and their math measurement renders it immaterial.ucarr

    The Planck length is not the shortest possible time duration, nor did I say that it is. I said its the "shortest period of time which provides for observation of the physical world". Notice the difference. The limit here is imposed by the restrictions to empirical observation. However, it is not a logical restriction. A shorter time period is still logically possible. Just because we do not currently have the capacity to observe it, does not mean that we ought to rule it out as a logical possibility.Metaphysician Undercover

    Firstly, I asked you to give me an example of a duration without math and without observation of a material object changing its position in space. Instead, you ask me to imagine (along with you) half a Planck time. A conjecture, which has a measure of scientific and logical formalism, falls short of an example, which is evidence from the real world. The act of imagination you invite me join as proof of time's independence from measurement doesn't even have the nascent persuasiveness of a conjecture.

    Secondly, even if we grant the existence of half a Planck time, such a reality of Planck time means material objects occupying that space, so how does that show time's independence from measurement via math tracking the change of position of a material object in space? It doesn't.

    Your two closing lines indicate you are making your argument for time's independence by knowingly imagining something unreal and thus devoid of material objects. Of course, this argument also doesn't work, because, as I've said, unreal things don't count as evidence.

    Thirdly, if we assume future technology will empower observation of material reality below the Planck scale, then continuing on this path, which you argue for logically, we make an ever more close approach to the present moment as a theoretical vanishing point with zero dimensions. I think this is the third time that your attempt to argue for your theory has you instead arguing for its refutation.

    You're committing your temporal theory to a uni-directional arrow of time featuring a future that progresses to the present, and then a present that progresses to the past?ucarr

    Not really.Metaphysician Undercover

    Time is unidirectional, future to past. This is an activity of the world, what we know as the future becoming the past, The day named as "tomorrow" becomes the day named as "yesterday" through this activity, this process of the future becoming the past. And, this activity is what is known as "the present". The real activity of this, in the assumed independent world, is what we termed "present-natural"Metaphysician Undercover

    You're hedging against a firm commitment to a uni-directional flow of time from the future to a dimensionally extended present. This is evidence components of your theory are inconsistent and contrary. Therefore, as you face a variety of refutations, you waffle between different positions according whatever you think the best defense in the moment.ucarr

    Your attempt to spin away from the present as zero dimensional doesn't work because your uni-directional time, future to past is just a word game. It has no effect whatsoever upon physical spacetime. We all know this because we all know that all we ever experience in reality is our asymptotically close approach to the present moment of time, and that's the very near past chasing the very near present. When you declare that tomorrow is prior to today in time, you always make this declaration in the nearly present moment. Our thoughts are not prior to our position in time, regardless of the word games we play. Even if it's true our minds make decisions before our conscious awareness of them, the neuronal activity at the subconscious level is still the near past chasing the near present. The arrow of time for the real, physical time is the near past chasing the near present.

    So, I propose that there is a true, non-arbitrary breadth of the present. So, not only do we have an arrow of time, the flow of time, but that arrow is not one-dimensional, it has a second dimension, breadth, the arrow has thickness. This is necessary to avoid the falsity of "the point of the present", and the arbitrariness of a duration of "the present".Metaphysician Undercover

    If the arrow of time has breadth, then it is an area and not a line. How does this change time's operations within the context of relativity, which shows us some of its operations in three dimensions? You also say time has thickness; that means the arrow of time has three dimensions. Does your arrow of time merge into relativity?

    It is the premise of free will which makes the future to past flow of time evident, as we seek the means to avoid being swept into the past (the means to survival), by the force of the future becoming the past.Metaphysician Undercover

    You're reaching towards a logical structure for design, which is the intentions of the self organized logically, and thus configured as an executable plan towards realization of goals. Design calls for illuminating visuals including charts, graphs, tables, etc.

    Teleodynamics. Please click the link.

    The other thing which the New Age theory doesn't provide, which is necessitated by free will, is the multi-dimensional present.Metaphysician Undercover

    This larger structure is the temporal timeline: future_present_past, including in its present, the second, nested future_present_past timeline. This multi-tiered complexity implies physical relationships whose questions about which you don't understand at all.ucarr

    You are not understanding the breadth of time at all.Metaphysician Undercover

    So this [ucarr quote immediately above] is irrelevant being based in that misunderstanding.Metaphysician Undercover

    Your desire to expand the present tense (of the timeline) positions you to explain how your reversal of the arrow of time doesn't also reverse the direction of entropy. Sticking with future_present_past weds you to: the cracked egg reassembles itself. This is a tall - but, no. It's not a tall order because you have no desire to reverse the direction of entropy. This is evidence either you know your reversal of the arrow of time is a word game that doesn't touch physical time, or you're inadvertently flipping-flopping between two glaring inconsistencies: a) time moves toward the past; b) increasing disorder, acting in time, moves toward the future. When you have these two arrows going in opposite directions, you end up saying complex nature moves towards simplicity, whereas increasing disorder moves toward complexity. The arrows of time and entropy must agree, otherwise your world is mishegoss.

    Complex time, with nested higher-orders of the timeline, might be something both possible and desirable. Putting it across to the reader won't likely happen without visual aids, and those entail a lot of hard work with the unfudgeable precision of math.
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    No, I mean that if we have to conceive of the relation between space and time in such a way as to allow that some specific objects are recreated at each moment of passing time, it wouldn't make sense to also use another conception of that relation to represent the existence of other objects. We'd have two distinct and incompatible conceptions of the relations between space and time. Imagine if someone wanted to model the earth as orbiting the sun but have the other planets and stars modeled the geocentric way. It would not work.Metaphysician Undercover

    Are there two basic premises here: a) Material existence is a continuous recreation, moment-to-moment; b) Material creation, moment-to-moment, is global, not local.

    You're committing your temporal theory to a uni-directional arrow of time featuring a future that progresses to the present, and then a present that progresses to the past?ucarr

    Not really.Metaphysician Undercover

    You're hedging against a commitment to a uni-directional flow of time from the future to a dimensionally extended present?

    Time is unidirectional, future to past. This is an activity of the world, what we know as the future becoming the past, The day named as "tomorrow" becomes the day named as "yesterday" through this activity, this process of the future becoming the past.Metaphysician Undercover

    Tomorrow becomes yesterday through the uni-directional arrow of time, future-to-past?

    And, this activity is what is known as "the present". The real activity of this, in the assumed independent world, is what we termed "present-natural".Metaphysician Undercover

    Tomorrow becomes yesterday through the uni-directional arrow of time as the present?

    What temporal structure supports the two above “Tomorrow” premises as consistent statements?

    The real activity of this, in the assumed independent world, is what we termed "present-natural".Metaphysician Undercover

    Present_natural supports the uni-directional arrow of time as future-to-past, and it also supports the uni-directional arrow of time as dimensionally-extending-present?

    Present_natural supports these two activities simultaneously?

    However, "the present" also refers to how we represent this activity, for the sake of temporal measurement. That is "present-artificial".Metaphysician Undercover

    Present_artificial, another component of "the present," supports temporal measurement?

    And these two constitute the two senses of "time", "time" as the thing measured being the former [present_natural], and "time" as a measurement being the latter [present_artificial].Metaphysician Undercover

    Present_natural supports time as a thing-in-itself, with a uni-directional arrow of time both future-to-past and dimensionally extended present?

    Present_artificial supports time as a measurement distinct from time as a thing-in-itself?

    There is no need for deconstruction. The existing things as constructed simply move into the past. Imagine a "flipbook", except each page is created at the moment of the present, instead of preexisting. The page then moves into the past.Metaphysician Undercover

    In the "flip book," each page is created at the moment of the present, and since the present is dimensionally extended as a sequence of moments, each page created at the moment of the present is recreated across the sequence of moments?

    Recreation across a sequence of moments is the same thing as persistent existence across a sequence of moments?

    Existing things created at the moment of the dimensionally extended present can also move into the past as existing things created in the dimensionally extended present? The result is a past populated with existing things created in the dimensionally extended present?

    As explained above. These two are incompatible.Metaphysician Undercover

    How are: a) Object A moves toward its future and b) the future moves toward Object A, its past, decidable given that time moves in both directions, albeit in two different senses (one relative and one true)?ucarr

    As explained above. These two are incompatible. It's like the difference between relative time and absolute time, or geocentric/heliocentric. We can model the world either way, but we cannot use both because there will be incompatibility where the two overlap. So we cannot, in one inclusive model, represent object A in both ways.Metaphysician Undercover

    In saying we can (correctly) model the world either way, you're basing your faith in the correctness of absolute time on New Age Physics? Since absolute time encompasses the entire world, then relative time, being incompatible, cannot coexist with it. So you must be proposing a multiverse containing two incompatible universes. Isn't such a multiverse a contradiction? Please click on the link below.

    New Age Physics

    Jan 5 is in the future before it is in the past. The flow of time has that portion of time named as Jan 5, in the future prior to it being in the past.Metaphysician Undercover

    If your above quote tells us, in effect (although not explicitly), that the future approaches the present, then it tells us that simultaneously the present approaches the future because the position of the two things, relative to each other, changes. Since a dimensionally extended present supports such a relativistic approach bi-directional (whereas a theoretical point of zero dimensions present doesn't), doesn't that stalemate your future-to-past arrow of time into undecidability?

    It's like the difference between relative time and absolute time, or geocentric/heliocentric. We can model the world either way, but we cannot use both because there will be incompatibility where the two overlap. So we cannot, in one inclusive model, represent object A in both ways.
    Metaphysician Undercover


    If the present is dimensionally extended, and if two different things are both in this dimensionally extended present, with one of the things overlapping this present with the past, and the other thing simply being in the present, then: a) what is the physics of the thing simultaneously in the present and the past; b) how are these two things related to each other within the present?ucarr

    I don't understand this at all.Metaphysician Undercover

    If you don't at all understand what I'm asking above, then this might be evidence you, no less than I, have a fundamental problem with the rolling out of your theory in the fullness of its detail. You, like I, appear to be struggling to achieve a clear and full comprehension of some possibly important ramifications of the details of your theory. Take another look at what you posted earlier:

    What I believe is demonstrated, is that if we model a single dimensional line, "an arrow of time", the present cannot be adequately positioned on that line, because the different types of objects moving relative to each other (massive vs massless), would require a different position on the line. We could simply make the area called "the present" wider, but the way that relativity theory deals with massless objects would require that the whole line would need to be "the present" at one boundary, and the other boundary would assumingly be a point. This allows for an infinitely wide present.Metaphysician Undercover

    Clearly this is not an acceptable representation. So, if instead, we model a number of parallel lines, each representing a different type of object, from the most massive to the most massless, then each could have its own point of "the present" which would distinguish that type of objects future from its past. Then the multitude of lines, marking the flow of time for each different type of object, would be placed in relation to each other, revealing how "the past" for some types of objects is still the future for other types, in relation to the overall flow of time. This allows for the breadth of the present, the second dimension of time, where the past and the future actually overlap because of the multitude of different types of object in the vast field of reality, each having a specific "present" at a different time, making the general "present" wide...Metaphysician Undercover

    I think a dimensionally extended present - it contains a future_present_past timeline - entails nesting a second temporal timeline within a larger structure that also has a future_present_past timeline. This larger structure is the temporal timeline: future_present_past, including in its present, the second, nested future_present_past timeline. This multi-tiered complexity implies physical relationships whose questions about which you don't understand at all.

    Give me an example of a duration without math and without observation of a material object changing its position in space.ucarr

    Imagine that there is a shortest period of time which provides for observation of the physical world, a Planck time duration. Now imagine half a Planck time. That is a duration of time during which an object changing its place in space is impossible.Metaphysician Undercover

    If the Planck time is the shortest possible time duration, then half of that duration doesn't exist, so it can't be an example of time independent of a material object changing its position in space. Moreover, by this same argument, the Planck time duration limit cements the existing bond between a material object changing its position in space and its math measurement. Again, by this same argument, your claim time exists independent of material objects and their math measurement renders it immaterial.

    What I described is not "time moving backward". That is impossible.Metaphysician Undercover

    For example, Jan 5 is in the future before it is in the past. The flow of time has that portion of time named as Jan 5, in the future prior to it being in the past. This requires a sort of reifying of time, such that the day which we know as Jan 5 (that portion of time), can have a proper place "in time".Metaphysician Undercover

    All of your language above implies an arrow of time moving backwards from the future towards the present (since it's dimensional) and then to the past. If the language is figurative, then it only refers to an abstract idea of time, and not to a physically real time.
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    It does not makes sense to think that only some specific parts of the universe are created anew at each passing moment, so we need to assume that the entire universe is.Metaphysician Undercover

    Do you speak to the deep interconnection of existing things, as in the context of the butterfly effect?

    Since it is possible to annihilate X at any moment of the present, then X cannot have any necessary existence prior to the present, i.e. in the future.Metaphysician Undercover

    You're committing your temporal theory to a uni-directional arrow of time featuring a future that progresses to the present, and then a present that progresses to the past?

    ...X must be recreated at each moment of passing time.Metaphysician Undercover

    Does this process of continuous recreation entail an oscillation between construction/deconstruction of every existing thing? If so, why is the universe unstable in this way?

    Since the process of continuous recreation necessitates the elapse of a positive interval of time, how does this time consuming cyclical structure of construction/deconstruction formally integrate into the structure of your tripartite temporal timeline: future_present_past?

    dimensional extension does not demand a specific direction,ucarr

    A specific direction is demanded. As I explained making the future prior to the past does not involve reversing the flow of time, it just involves recognizing that the future is prior to the past. For example, Jan 5 is in the future before it is in the past. The flow of time has that portion of time named as Jan 5, in the future prior to it being in the past. This requires a sort of reifying of time, such that the day which we know as Jan 5 (that portion of time), can have a proper place "in time"Metaphysician Undercover

    How are: a) Object A moves toward its future and b) the future moves toward Object A, its past, decidable given that time moves in both directions, albeit in two different senses (one relative and one true)?

    Notice, that in the second sense of "time", the one you describe, the real activity of time, the passing of time, is not even a required aspect for the measurement. It is implied that there is such a real passing of time, in the concept of "temporal extension", but it is not at all a required part of the measurement. The measurement is simply a product of comparing two different motions, through the application of principles.Metaphysician Undercover

    Give me an example of a duration without math and without observation of a material object changing its position in space.

    Again, the key point is conceptualizing and contemplating time in such a way which allows for freedom of choice. This does not require mathematics, it requires accepting a discontinuity at the present, such that the world can "change" at any moment of the present, according to a freely chosen act.Metaphysician Undercover

    When I pick up my pen and write in my notebook, is that an example of a discontinuity freely chosen at a moment in the present in such a way that the world changes? If it is then, as we all know, multitudes of humans all over the planet are doing this every day. Therefore, with this in mind,

    ...conceptualizing and contemplating time in such a way which allows for freedom of choice... such that the world can "change" at any moment of the present, according to a freely chosen act.Metaphysician Undercover

    seems to be nothing more than a description of what's already taking place.

    If this is what is already taking place, then how is your theory adding anything to the world? Suppose you could say “Through manipulation of the timeline of time, I can calculate when the human individual can access freedom of choice at its maximum." That would be an example of you adding something useful to the world.

    The bread [sic] of the present allows that some types of objects move into the past prior to other types moving into the past...Metaphysician Undercover

    If the present is dimensionally extended, and if two different things are both in this dimensionally extended present, with one of the things overlapping this present with the past, and the other thing simply being in the present, then: a) what is the physics of the thing simultaneously in the present and the past; b) how are these two things related to each other within the present?

    ...so that relatively speaking, if something were able to extend itself across the present (similar to acceleration in relativity theory), this thing could move from the past into the future...Metaphysician Undercover

    Explain "acceleration in relativity theory" in your context here.

    ....instead of the natural flow of time which has the future moving into the past.Metaphysician Undercover

    In your context here, is movement from the past into the future a reversal of movement from the future into the past?

    But this is a relative movement, which allows backward motion, across time, so time stays unidirectional in the true sense.Metaphysician Undercover

    Can you give an example of a non-relative movement?

    Is backward motion across time exemplified by the broken egg reassembling itself into a whole egg?

    Does backward motion across time cause reverse entropy, i.e. a functional system in isolation experiences diminishing disorder?

    If time can move backwards in the relative sense, and yet time stays unidirectional in the true sense, are you implying time in the relative sense is something other than true?
  • What Does Consciousness Do?


    Welcome to our conversation. Thanks for joining. I appreciate your input.

    I claim that a good definition of time says it's a method of tracking motion by means of a numerical system of calculation and measurement.ucarr

    Hmmm... do I agree with this? I'll tell you what I think. I accept Mario Bunge's definition of space and time.Arcane Sandwich

    So much for our outline of a relational theory of spacetime. Such a theory is not only relational but also compatible with relativistic physics... — (Bunge, 1977: 308)

    So, relational theory and relativistic theory are compatible but non-identical. Moreover, the former is non-essential wallpaper within the context of the latter.

    Do you characterize my definition of time as a relational theory?

    ...it (relational theory) does not include any of the special laws characterizing the various relativistic theories, such as for example the frame independence of the velocity of light, or the equations of the gravitational field. — (Bunge, 1977: 308)

    You're implying a properly current definition of time must include the above properties? If so, no argument. My general premise herein is that time is mathematical.
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