...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.)

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.

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 thing — Metaphysician 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.

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.

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.

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'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.

We do not say that we were moving through time while we were asleep — Metaphysician 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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

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

Someone... mentioned how this is an example of subjectivity without identity — Darkneos

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?

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?

↪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!"

Did you check out the teleodynamics link?

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.

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.

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?

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.

The reality of free will requires that some aspects of, or even the entire physical universe, must be created anew at every passing moment of time. — Metaphysician Undercover

You're saying free choice remakes the universe?

It is not the case that the time proposed is bi-directional. — Metaphysician Undercover

Since it is the case, as I described, that the present must be dimensional, then this dimension (which I call the breadth of the present) would be a qualification to the unidirectionalness. — Metaphysician Undercover

qualification | ˌkwäləfəˈkāSH(ə)n |
noun
3 a statement or assertion that makes another less absolute
-- The Apple Dictionary

Since the present must be dimensional, and this dimensional extension does not demand a specific direction, and the true flow of time, as per the subjective point of view of your theory, flows from future to past, whereas the established view has time flowing from past to future, then it seems logical that your theory either: a) makes the flow of time bi-directional, or b) reverses the established flow of time. Is it a) or b), or do you think another possibility exists?

It is not the case that the time proposed is bi-directional. What I propose is that physical things come into existence (are recreated) at each moment of passing time. Once it is created at the present it cannot be changed, but until that moment it is not determined. The second dimension of the present allows that some types of objects move into the past (receive material existence) prior to others, at the present. This means that the present is multidimensional because some types of objects are already in the past (fixed), while other types are just beginning to materialize. Empirical evidence indicates that massive objects are created and move into the past first, that is why they have inertia, obey basic determinist laws, and it is more difficult for freely willed acts to change them. Massless things are created last, having their moment of the present later, and this provides free will the greater capacity to use them for change.

So consider the premise that anything, any state of being, which comes into existence at the present. must be predetermined (principle of sufficient reason) by something. Now imagine a number of parallel horizontal lines, as arrows of time, in the same direction, arrows pointing left. At the top of the page is the most massive type of object, and at the bottom is the least massive type. At the top line, the present is to the right, so that the entire line is in the past. At the bottom line, the present is to the left, so the entire line is in the future. "The present" refers to when each type of object gains its physical existence. Notice that at any moment, massive objects already have physical existence before massless objects do. This allows that a slight change to a massive object, through a freely will act, is capable of producing a large effect on massless objects. This effect we observe as our capacity to change things. — Metaphysician Undercover

Are you interacting with a lot of readers who find your two above paragraphs to be a clear, thorough and easy to understand narration of your ontological theory? To provide an example of how unclear the mission of your theory has been to me, let me tell you that until just now, I didn't know your theory is not only a theory of the timeline of time. That's just one component of a broadly inclusive and intricately detailed theory of physics.

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. This implies that the physical world must be recreated at each moment of passing time. Once this principle is accepted, the dynamics of how this occurs (like the proposal above) can be discussed. — Metaphysician Undercover

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. In other words, time is mathematics.

Only when some of these basic principles can be ironed out, would diagrams and mathematics be useful. — Metaphysician Undercover

If ironing out the basic principles and making diagrams explained by math isn't your job, then whose job is it?

Aside from slogging around in the verbiage you’ve been presenting, how are we to understand “discontinuity at the present, such that the world can ‘change’ at any moment of the present, according to a freely chosen act.”? Since this is what is already taking place, then how is your theory adding anything to the world? If, on the other hand, you could say “I can calculate when the human individual is present in the present at such time when the scope of freedom of choice is at maximum,” then, if true, your calculation would be adding something to the world.

If any mathematician, physicist, or cosmologist, will take the premises seriously, I would guide them through the application of their tools. — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, if taking the premises seriously isn't enough to motivate you to do the job of working out their practical applications mathematically, then whose job is it?

Personal Note -- All of my tough talk applies to me. Our dialogue is helping me correct myself in exactly the same ways I suggest you correct yourself. Since we're alike, I'll share this: Without a firm grounding in the work of science, my philosophy will remain at its present level, unpublished. Have you been published?

I have great respect for the "perplexities", and I've worked out a few — Metaphysician Undercover

If you've got diagrams that explain visually some perplexities you've worked out, then share them here.

You're still in the hunt for an understanding of the present_natural not yet supplied by your theory. — ucarr

That's right. What we've termed "present_natural" is extremely difficult. I think the best understanding of any human being barely qualifies as a start to this subject. — Metaphysician Undercover

Since you acknowledge your goal is unachieved and its manifestation extremely challenging to comprehension, I return to my previous advice:

I see clearly your need to develop your math literacy. It will facilitate the clarity and precision of the complicated details of your theory. It will empower you to provide diagrams, charts and tables that effectively communicate your ideas, analyses and conclusions. — ucarr

You need visual aides that will sharpen the clarity of what you're envisioning.

Question - Does the future_past continuum of this theory assert a unidirectional arrow of time from future to past? — ucarr

Since it is the case, as I described, that the present must be dimensional, then this dimension (which I call the breadth of the present) would be a qualification to the unidirectionalness. — Metaphysician Undercover

Your conceptualization of the present as dimensionally extended and bi-directional entails radical changes to establishment physics’ conventional view of time:

• If the present has duration due to dimensional extension, then I ask if you’re nesting a tripartite past_present_future within the present? This is a big escalation of the complexity of the picture of time.

• If the present is bi-directional,* then I ask if you’re nesting a tripartite past_present_future within the present that includes reversal of entropy. Since establishment physics’ conventional view of entropy is that it, like time, is unidirectional and only moves towards increasing disorder, then your “breadth of the present… would be a qualification to the unidirectionalness,” suggests your belief in a contrarian physics entailing a stupendous increase of complexity of the timeline of time.

*You’re saying that when you drop an egg onto the floor, given your conceptualization of the present as bi-directional, the shattered egg will reassemble itself and fly backwards up and into your hand once again whole. To substantiate your theory, you must show yourself experiencing this reversal of the increase of entropy. Can you do this?

Your stupendously complexified timeline of time figures to be the centerpiece of your theory of time. If you persist in your claim the clarifying visualizations of math graphics is bad procedure for explicating the physics of time, I’ll start leaning heavily towards the conclusion you’re proceeding with a word-salad laden approach thoroughly benighted.

We now know, from the application of relativity theory, that "the flow of time" must also be understood as being perceived as relative, and this forces unintuitive conclusions about "the natural present", produced from our perceptions which make time relative. This is demonstrated by the principle called the relativity of simultaneity. — Metaphysician Undercover

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.

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

Regarding your three paragraphs above, try to walk a mile in the shoes of one of your readers. You're describing a complex timeline nested within the present. The interweave of the three temporal phases (past, present, future) plus parallel lines featuring particles both massive and massless presents a very complicated concept. Visuals depicting the interactions of the parts is the right way to go.

Having to think your way through the visuals will usefully confront you with perplexities you're unlikely to see from the point of view of a verbal narrative.

The confusion-adjacent complexity of your narrative exemplifies the reason establishment physics employs two languages: verbal, mathematical.

The main premise of the theory says: a) the truth resides within the present_natural; b) the present_natural supplies the true picture of reality to the observer. — ucarr

I'd clarify this by saying that an understanding of the present_natural would supply a true picture of reality, but we do not have that required understanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

You're still in the hunt for an understanding of the present_natural not yet supplied by your theory.

The principles which invalidate the determinist representation, essentially the contingency factor, leave the past and future as completely distinct, with a mere appearance of incompatibility. That produces a very difficult problem. — Metaphysician Undercover

It looks like a major goal of your theory is to promote freedom of choice over and above determinism.

...we really don't know where we are in time because we do not apprehend the breadth of the present, — Metaphysician Undercover

It looks like another major goal of your theory is to develop a concept of the present that includes dimensional extensions of spacetime.

Furthermore, you want to knit together a coherent timeline of past_present_future that properly constrains determinism whilst protecting freedom of choice.

In overview I see you're working to revise the cosmic timeline with structural changes to the present at the center of your focus.

If you've ever read a murder mystery, then you know the timeline of events lies at the center of the analysis made by the homicide detective. You also know, from watching the work of a detective who's a competent logician, that oftentimes the timeline of events, upon close inspection, balloons into a circuitous continuity of complicated, multi-tiered perspectives. In the courtroom, a clever defendant articulates a counter-narrative that is a word salad able to confuse all but the most clear-headed and focused thinkers. The scalpel that cuts the fat and exposes the meat is math and the precision of its logic.

I see clearly your need to develop your math literacy. It will facilitate the clarity and precision of the complicated details of your theory. It will empower you to provide diagrams, charts and tables that effectively communicate your ideas, analyses and conclusions.

As it stands now, your verbal narrative shows deep thought and thoroughness. However, making theory clear to the reader requires lucid prose and, in your case, mathematical precision as a bolster. Too often your statements make a close pass to the border of obscurity.

...the zero dimension point of the model, is artificial, a theoretical point and the "interposing" you refer to must be understood as a theoretical act of inserting the the theoretical point into the future-past continuum in various places, for the purpose of temporal measurements, discrete temporal units. — Metaphysician Undercover

The present_theoretical is a math tactic, but its scope of influence needs to be contained lest it distort clear perception of the present_natural.

However, we must still respect the reality of "the present", the true, "natural present" which serves as the perspective of the living subject. — Metaphysician Undercover

The main premise of the theory says: a) the truth resides within the present_natural; b) the present_natural supplies the true picture of reality to the observer.

The "theoretical present", in its traditional form, as a zero dimension point served us well for hundreds, even thousands of years, in its service of measuring temporal duration. However, though it is useful, it is not acceptable as an accurate representation of the "natural present". — Metaphysician Undercover

The distortion of the present_theoretical is what MU's theory seeks to expose and correct.

The "natural present" is the perspective of the human mind, the human being, in relation to the future-past continuum. This is the natural perspective, how we actually exist, observe and act, at the present in time, rather than the model which makes the present a point in time. — Metaphysician Undercover

Question - Does the future_past continuum of this theory assert a unidirectional arrow of time from future to past? This is a reversal of the conventional conception of the unidirectional arrow of time from present_theoretical to future. Moreover, the flow of time from future to past feels strange and counter-intuitive. In terms of human history, this reversal suggests human progress is going backwards from sophisticated to primitive. What would be reason for that?

The traditional representation of the theoretical present puts the human soul as "outside of time", as discussed, and this, as you say, renders it "by definition, devoid of animation". This is a representation of the classical "interaction problem" of dualism. The properties of the immaterial soul, ideas etc., being eternal, and outside of time (because they exist at the zero dimension present), have not the capacity to interact with the future-past continuum. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is the problem - the distortion of the truth - MU's theory intends to solve.

What this indicates is that the conceptualization of time employed, with a zero dimension point that can be inserted as the present, for the purpose of measurement, is faulty. It's not a true representation of the "natural present". — Metaphysician Undercover

This is the problem stated more specifically. What's needed is a representation more faithful to the existential reality of the present_natural.

To understand the natura present, we need to review the human perspective. What I glean from such a review, is that the natural present consists of both, the past, as sensory perception (what is perceived is in the past by the time it is perceived), and the future, as what is anticipated. — Metaphysician Undercover

The statement in bold is MU's definition of the present_natural.

Question - If what is perceived is in the past at the time of its perception, then there's only perception of the past. So there's only perception of the past (as if the present) in MU's description of present_natural.

Question - Is there not a difference between the actual future and the anticipation of the future, a mere speculation about what the future might be? If so, then we see the present is just whatever is happening presently, including speculations about the future. So, again, there's only perception of the past (as if the present) in MU's description of present_natural.

The two above questions point to the possibility MU's language, in both instances, circles back around to a theoretical point both dimensionless and timeless as the representation of the present.

Therefore to provide a true modal of time we need an overlap of past and future at the present, instead of a zero dimension point which separates the two. — Metaphysician Undercover

The statement in bold is MU's call for what s/he believes is required for correction of the problem.

This implies that future-past is improperly modeled, if modeled as a continuum. We need overlap of future and past, at the present, to allow for the real interaction of the living subject. This implies a dimensional present. — Metaphysician Undercover

MU's conception of the correct representation of present_natural entails a confluence of past/present/future into one unified whole. As an example, consider: the combination of red, green and blue to form gray.

Now we're confronted with wrapping our minds around a temporal amalgam simultaneously past/present/future. What the heck might that be like? I contemplate with horror a temporal complex of undecidability, e.g. an inhabitant of such a realm could not know where s/he was in time.

On the other hand, is temporal undecidability just another way of saying "timeless." Does MU's theory circle back around to the inanimate, immortal soul it seeks to rebel against?

On the other hand yet again, might a temporal complex of undecidability be a jumping off point into... uh, maybe time travel?

If my previous two points example my sci-fi imagination run amok, then they're evidence MU needs to elaborate details of a multi-dimensional present_natural easily relatable to the normal person.

Imagine standing still, and watching something pass you from right to left. You, in your perspective, or point of view, are "outside" that motion, being not a part of it. You can, however, choose to act with your body, and interfere with that motion. Or, you can simply observe. — Metaphysician Undercover

There's some difficulty of communication of your theory because verbal language, being about actions and actors and thus being rooted in animation, does a poor job of representing non-temporal phenomena, which are, by definition, devoid of animation.

In our everyday context of interpretation, standing still and watching something pass from right to left is a phenomenon no less animated - and no less temporal - than the object passing from right to left.

I think I understand, however, that in the context of your theory, the observer is "outside" the motion of the passing object in the sense that the present is an abstract concept of the mind. In the abstract context of this thought experiment, the mind can imaginatively stipulate "no motion or time."

If this is a mis-reading of your theory, then I'm still fundamentally unclear about the structure and logic of the continuum of past_present_future within your theoretical context.

Firstly, it's a mental challenge to wrap my head around the introduction of a timeless present into the continuity. Timeless present introduces a discontinuity into the continuity. I now think understanding in detail the ramifications of this inserted discontinuity holds the key to understanding your theory in general.

I'm now inclined to think your theory can be rendered with greater clarity through mathematical language. For example, by interposing a timeless present between a temporal past and future, it makes sense to think of a timeless present as a theoretical point of zero dimensions.

The present is then a vanishing point of reference for the unidirectional arrow of time to move forward, with both future and past existing as relativistic constructions of the mind. From here I can see the measurement of time in terms of Schrödinger's partial differential equation that governs the wave function of a QM system.

Conceptually, the Schrödinger equation is the quantum counterpart of Newton's second law in classical mechanics. Given a set of known initial conditions, Newton's second law makes a mathematical prediction as to what path a given physical system will take over time. The Schrödinger equation gives the evolution over time of the wave function, the quantum-mechanical characterization of an isolated physical system. Schrödinger Equation

Your theory, when viewed through the lens of Schrödinger, suggests all physical systems, at whatever scale, express probable not certain outcomes.

So, time -- if it exists, and it may not -- can only approach the present from the past, or from the future, without arriving. You say the present is outside of time. — ucarr

Being outside of time, the present would be categorically distinct from the future and past which are the components of time. So neither can be said to "approach the present". "The present" refers to a perspective from which time is observed. Think of right and left as an analogy, where "here" is similar to "the present". Right and left are determined relative to the perspective which is "here". — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm trying to picture what it means for temporal experience to be distinct from a world timeless. If the present is outside of time, how can observations, which take time to be made, be carried out from its perspective? Do I misread you? Are you saying, indirectly, that the present is a void? Is it like the abstract concept of a point on the number line? Does the present, like the point, "occupy" a zero dimensional "space?" If this is the case, does that mean you're saying the present exists only as a non-physical, abstract concept of the mind?

Since neither past nor future can approach the present, how does past become present, and how does present become future? It seems common sense to think the past and the future somehow connect with the present. Is this not the case?

The first sentence here is good. You, as the observer, and the free willing agent, exist in the present. But the next part appears to be confused. "The present" is an abstract concept, we use it to substantiate our existence. But so is "future and past" an abstract concept. The future and past are what we attribute to the external world, what is independent from us. But since it is the way we understand the world, it is still conceptual. — Metaphysician Undercover

Do I exist in the past_present_future, abstract concepts, outside of time? If past_present_future all exist as abstract concepts, where does my physical life occur?

And since the future and past are time, this is what makes us outside of time. But we are "outside" time in a strange way, because we understand time as external to us, and this makes us "outside time" to the inside. Our position at "the present", from which we observe and act with free will, is beyond the internal boundary, This makes us outside of time to the inside, beyond the internal boundary. — Metaphysician Undercover

You're saying we observe and act with free will within a timeless realm called "the present?"

If the present contains no time elapsed, then must I conclude my perception of time elapsing occurs in response to my existential presence in either the past or in the future? — ucarr

Imagine your perspective, at the present, to be a static point, and everything is moving around you. It is this movement around you which provides the perception of time passing. But your point is not necessarily completely static in an absolute way, because you can act, by free will. This act comes from outside of time, to the inside. — Metaphysician Undercover

You're saying that when I act with free will, I'm doing things outside of time, but somehow my actions crossover from the outside of time to the inside of time?

I am saying... that we are at the present. This is our perspective. But this puts us outside of time (to the inside). — Metaphysician Undercover

Explain "...outside of time (to the inside)."

f the present is timeless, how does it maintain the separation of past/future? Maintaining the separation implies an indefinite duration of time for the maintenance of the separation. Also, separation implies both a spatial and temporal duration keeping past/future apart, but spatial and temporal durations are not timeless, are they? — ucarr

There must be no duration of time in the point of separation. — Metaphysician Undercover

By what means is a point of separation established and maintained?

How does a material thing sustain its dimensional expansion, a physical phenomenon, outside of time? — ucarr

It is the immaterial (nondimensional) aspect, deep within us, what is responsible for free will and intellection, that is outside of time, not our physical bodies. — Metaphysician Undercover

Since the immaterial aspect is non-dimensional, how do you go about ascertaining its position "deep within us"?

Does our free will and intellection connect to our brain? Are you talking about our everyday thoughts and decisions?

The question of whether time exists or not is not relevant here, it's just a distraction. What is relevant is that all of time is either in the past or in the future, and the moment of "the present" separates these two and contains no time itself. This make the present outside of time. — Metaphysician Undercover

So, time -- if it exists, and it may not -- can only approach the present from the past, or from the future, without arriving. You say the present is outside of time. According to my understanding, I exist in the present and not in either the past or the future. By this understanding, the past and the future are abstract concepts that occupy my mindscape as relativistic things; I know mentally, but not existentially, both the past and the future in relation to my existential presence within the present.

If the present contains no time elapsed, then must I conclude my perception of time elapsing occurs in response to my existential presence in either the past or in the future?

What does it mean to say we live in the past or in the future only? It suggests we aren't present anywhere. The pun is intended because presence denotes the present, but I don't immediately see how there can be presence of a thing in the past as the past, or in the future as future. Is it not so that wherever we are, we are there in the present? Where are you now? How can you be present in your own past?

What kind of existence does the present have in total separation from elapsing time?

If the present is timeless, how does it maintain the separation of past/future? Maintaining the separation implies an indefinite duration of time for the maintenance of the separation. Also, separation implies both a spatial and temporal duration keeping past/future apart, but spatial and temporal durations are not timeless, are they?

How does a material thing sustain its dimensional expansion, a physical phenomenon, outside of time? Consider a twelve-inch ruler. Its twelve inches of extension continuously consume time. Relativity tells us the physical dimensions of a material thing change with acceleration of velocity accompanied by time dilation, so we know from this that physical dimensions consume time.

The present, "now" exists outside of time. All existent time consists of past time and future time, whereas the present, now, is a point or moment, which separates the past from the future. So all of time has either gone by (past) or not yet gone by (future), and the present is what it goes past. This means that the present is "outside of time" by being neither past nor future. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm mulling over the idea that time as you describe it above doesn't exist at any time: the present exists outside of time; the past, once the non-existent present, continues to be non-existent as time gone by; the future derived from the non-existent present, does not yet exist until it becomes the non-existent present and then continues its non-existence as the past.

It doesn't make sense to speak of that which is outside of time, as pre-dating everything, because that is to give it a temporal context, prior in time to everything else. So "first cause" is not a good term to use here. This is why it is better to think of the present as that which is outside of time, rather than a first cause as being outside of time. The latter becomes self-contradicting. — Metaphysician Undercover

I glean from the above you think a first cause exists outside of time. I understand your desire to steer clear of a first cause because of some problems it introduces. I will observe that it's strange to think of a first cause outside of time because causation seems by definition to entail a sequence of time such that one thing precedes another.

This provides a perspective from which the passing of time is observed and measured, "now" or the present. Then also, the cause which is outside of time, the free will act, is understood as derived from the present. But, you should be able to see why it is incorrect to call this cause a "first cause", or a cause which "pre-dates everything else". It is better known as a final cause. — Metaphysician Undercover

Does time pass within the present? This is an issue because if it doesn't, the question arises: How does the present become the future?; coming at this same issue from the opposite direction: If time doesn't pass within the present, how does the present become the past?

...the cause of those actions, the free will act itself, may occur at the moment of the present, and this need not involve any elapsing time; the moment of the present being outside of time as described above. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is a description of causation outside of time? Consider: The accumulation of falling snow on the roof caused it to cave in. Is this an example of timeless causation?

Do I remember correctly you telling me that, according to your understanding, time holds place as the first cause? — ucarr

I don't know, you'd have to put that into context. Anyway, "time", and "cons-creative" are not at all the same thing, so I don't see how that would be relevant here. — Metaphysician Undercover

So, it's a maybe on you thinking time is a first cause.

Time is a universal context, unless you can think of something that exists outside of time. The Big Bang believers are signed on to it being able to happen in the context of no context as in nothing exists; I'm skeptical about the rapid expansion of the Big Bang being possible in such a situation.

The upshot of what I'm saying is that time is relevant to everything, even the supposedly totally self-sufficient first cause. If first cause pre-dates everything else, doesn't that put first cause into a temporal relationship with what follows from it? Even when we consider first cause alone, assuming there can be a time before first cause causes anything other than itself, the existence of first cause alone involves some elapsed time in the process of its self-creation happening; it involves some elapsed time in its possible duration alone before causing anything contingent; it involves some elapsed time in its relative temporal priority to its contingents.

Finally, I'm saying the practice of cons of any type involves elapsing time, so that includes cons_creative.

Cons-creative, itself, must have a cause, and therefore is not the first cause. — Metaphysician Undercover

Do I remember correctly you telling me that, according to your understanding, time holds place as the first cause?

Are you positing cons_creative as the first cause? — ucarr

No, like I said, it's the cause of cons-reactive, not necessarily the first cause. — Metaphysician Undercover

Your inclusion of the adverb reads like a hedge on your commitment to denial of cons_creative as the first cause. Why don't you share with me the fine print on the status of cons_creative in the role of first cause?

I know you reject: "existence precedes essence," so if, as you conditionally claim, cons-creative is not the first cause, then please elucidate important details of the cons_creative origin story.

Re: the relevance of my argument in my previous post, it intends to show - via the first law of thermodynamics - that cons_creative is neither the cause of itself nor of cons_reactive.

When you talk about the conflict between cons_creative and cons_reactive, you invoke an implication there is something that cons distorts when one of the modes is embedded in the other mode. This distortion implies something causal to cons that cons, in its effort to perceive it, distorts. This causal something seems to be Kant's noumenal realm. — ucarr

The "something causal" is cons-creative itself, and attempting to understand cons-creative as embedded within cons-reactive is ...a misunderstanding because it fails to recognize the priority of cons-creative, and the fact that cons-reactive is a creation of con-creative. — Metaphysician Undercover

Okay. So, cons_creative precedes cons_reactive, which is to say, cons_creative causes cons_reactive. Is this a correct reading of what you intend to communicate?

Are you positing cons_creative as the first cause?

It only produces the conclusion of "panpsychism" through equivocation between less-restrictive definitions, and more-restrictive definitions. — Metaphysician Undercover

Is your pronoun "It" referring to the premise: Cons_creative is the first cause? If you reject panpsychism, then you must believe cons is a construction that lies somewhere within the evolving material complexity we observe on earth, but this, however, contradicts cons_creative as first cause.

My main premise in our dialogue says that Russell's Paradox shows how logically there can be no unified and local totality. — ucarr

Apropos of this, a first cause, by definition must cause, or create itself. This means that it must be simultaneous itself, and something greater than itself. A self cannot create something identical to itself. It therefore must be distinct from what it creates. In the instance of self-creation, how can the self be distinct from itself? The only approach to this entails the self being greater that itself, which is a convoluted way of saying the self must contain itself plus something more, otherwise you merely have an identity.* In the case of an identity, the self is eternal, with no creation or demise. This is Kant’s noumenal realm. Consider Sartre’s response to the noumenal realm: “existence precedes essence.”

*This paradox is expressed in set theory thus: no set can be a proper subset of itself; a proper subset is not equal to the superset to which it belongs. Without this restriction, a subset being a proper subset of itself means it is unequal to itself. Russell's Paradox shows this is what happens when you try to unify everything into one locality.

...Russel's paradox, equivocation of "set". In one sense, "set" means a collection of objects, in another sense, "set" means a defined type. The latter sense allows for an empty set, the former sense does not. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think I can cite a counter-narrative to your first definition of set: a collection of objects... that does not include an empty set. According to one standard of set theory, the empty set is a member of every set. The comprehension of the axiom: "the empty set is a member of every set" applies to both senses of "set."

Regarding the premise: Cons_creative is the first cause; this would have to entail the set of all heterogenous things linked thematically by: the type that is not-type. This, again, examples Russell's Paradox exploding a unified and local whole via paradox.

I invited you to... explain how it is possible to apprehend free will as an illusion. I'm still waiting for that. — Metaphysician Undercover

As I've been arguing from Russell's Paradox above, because there is no unified and local whole, there is no first cause. This leaves us with permutation of the already existing things. As it is said by thermodynamics: matter and energy are neither created nor destroyed (but instead merely rearranged).

Can you refute this premise? For example: can you show that permutation examples free will?

Who said anything about "something created from nothing"? — Metaphysician Undercover

You're argument is rooted in a series:

I said that the rule, for using the symbol, is prior in time to the symbol's existence, as the reason for its existence. — Metaphysician Undercover

What's the reason for the rule's existence?

Consider that in our dialogue, as dialogue, there is nothing prior to consciousness. Can there be something prior to consciousness? — ucarr

How does this make sense to you? You are asking me to take as a premise, that there is nothing prior to consciousness, and then asking me if there can be something prior to consciousness. That would be blatant contradiction. — Metaphysician Undercover

Can you provide an example of a dialog that occurs outside of consciousness?

If creativity means something from nothing, that's the paradox of nothingness being an existing thing. If creativity means re-arranging pre-existent things, that's equating creativity with permutation, a false equivalence. Matter is neither created nor destroyed. — ucarr

I think the problems that you have with this issue are due to the conditions which you set up for yourself. Why do yo see the need to set out conditions such as these? — Metaphysician Undercover

Why do you insist on "something from nothing" as a condition? — Metaphysician Undercover

How do you define creativity?

Distinct and incompatible are non-equivalent. — ucarr

Sure, but I am explaining them as incompatible. — Metaphysician Undercover

I = Incompatibility, A = Material Thing, so {$∞≠I$} and {$A≠I$}. The set containing A is a sub-set of the set containing $∞$. Since, by definition, every material thing is incompatible with incompatibility, declaring that a specific material thing, such as A, is incompatible with incompatibility is a trivial and useless declaration.

Reverse engineering has no problem recreating the creation of the apparatus from the opposite direction: final state $→$ initial state. — ucarr

Perhaps, but that doesn't address the point, which is to get to the reason behind the existence of the thing, what is prior to the initial state. Consider the title of the thread, "what does consciousness do". I answer that it is an act which produces "the initial state". If reverse engineering looks at "states", it does not apprehend the activity which produces the states. — Metaphysician Undercover

A timeline of events seems not to be relevant to the existence of an artifact. The substance, structure, construction and purpose of the artifact are contemporaneous. Regarding natural material objects, they have no substance, structure, construction and purpose outside of sentient interpretation of the signs supporting the intelligibility of the sentient's agent intellect.

The will to create pre-supposes a sentient. The existence of a sentient in turn pre-supposes an environment from which the sentient is emergent. — ucarr

...you are just employing contradictory conditions. — Metaphysician Undercover

The will to create is always immersed in the ecology of self and its environment.

The issue here pertains to accessing Kant's noumenal realm of things in themselves, i.e., "being" without encountering the problem of the perceptual distortion you describe. — ucarr

I never said anything about "Kant's noumenal realm" — Metaphysician Undercover

When you talk about the conflict between cons_creative and cons_reactive, you invoke an implication there is something that cons distorts when one of the modes is embedded in the other mode. This distortion implies something causal to cons that cons, in its effort to perceive it, distorts. This causal something seems to be Kant's noumenal realm.

What do you make of Russell's Paradox as it relates to the origin boundary ontology you equate with omnipresent mind? — ucarr

...why do you even refer to set theory at all. — Metaphysician Undercover

My main premise in our dialogue says that Russell's Paradox shows how logically there can be no unified and local totality. I infer from your argument you posit cons in the position of first cause. In the context of our dialogue, this looks like a version of panpsychism, since you think cons exists at the level of elementary particles. Although this seems to be an argument for cons as first cause, Russell's Paradox, by my argument, forestalls cons (and everything else) as first cause; it shows that logically there is no first cause.

I'm wondering how a zero-mass apparatus could be built by the positive-mass agency of humans. — ucarr

You reject the terms and conditions (free will, immaterial, soul) which are specifically designed to make all the aspects of these problems you bring up intelligible, comprehensible, and solvable. — Metaphysician Undercover

A man might imagine the problem of getting through a rough mountain pass is solved by human flight over the mountain range. This act of imagination, however, will go nowhere if it's not eventually supported by facts, science and engineering. Can you show how facts, science and engineering support free will and immaterial soul?

Note - What Cons Does: Examining in Overview by Analogy

If quantum reality supports our empirical GUI, which we call reality, then, by analogy, we can understand that QM codes for our empirical GUI.

Does it follow that making a study of the QM realm leads to unlocking the QM coding of our empirical GUI?

Might this be equal to learning how to read the building blocks of cons?

Will this lead to understanding our cons at the human scale of experience in terms of it being a formatting program for the empirical reality assembled from the building blocks of cons, i.e., quantum phenomena?

Do you know there's a realm lying beyond yours and other persons perceptions that's analogous to those perceptions? — ucarr

I do. If there wasn't, we wouldn't perceive the same thing. No matter how we test or verify it, we see the same thing. The reason is because we independently perceive the same thing outside of our minds. — Patterner

You know that you perceive what you call reality in accordance with the cognitive constructions of your mind. Since the basis for what you know is your mind, how do you know what lies beyond the basis for your knowing, i.e., your mind?

You know that another person looks at what you've looked at and reports seeing something that agrees closely with your description of what you've looked at. So far, you know that your and the other persons' minds construct perceptions similar, and thus you know that your and the other persons' minds do similar things when they react to existing things that stimulate their perceptive activity.

Consider a parallel. You and your friend both have the same computer system. Also, you both run the same word processing program on your respective computers for formatting typed input into spread sheets as output. Let's say the program is MicroSoft's Excel program.

Neither of you has independently learned the DOS (Disk Operating System) language that supports the GUI (Graphical User Interface) that translates, i.e., constructs the cognitive package of animations, pictures and sounds you and your friend know as Excel.

What do you know about the underlying DOS that makes possible the GUI you and your friend depend on? For example: Do you think that, on the basis of knowing the GUI content alone, you could write DOS code for the GUI you and your friend depend on for seeing and comprehending Excel's content?

Let's assume that via parallelism you can translate from the GUI content to an analogous DOS electronic content. In this situation, you've discovered an analogous realm lying beyond what you perceive directly.

If, however, we assume the underlying system supporting the GUI is not an analog program, but rather a digital program, do you think that in this situation knowing GUI content informs you about digital content?

I don't agree with any of that. I can be blindfolded, driven somewhere I've never been, and taken into room in a building I've never even seen in a picture. There could be anything in that room. Something someone made; a plant; a meteorite; a person; anything at all.

Someone I've never heard of could be taken to the same room in the same manner, and they would see the same thing.

The thing was there, and had the characteristics it had, regardless of the other person and/or me seeing it. — Patterner

Regarding what you know, you can't transcend the scope of your consciousness. Everything you describe examples an organized perception of reality known to your personal history and its attendant point of view. Through social interaction, you've experienced verification of what you've perceived by other individuals who've described similar perceptions.

You know that other individuals have perceptual mechanisms that render perceptions similar to yours when they gaze upon similar things.

Do you know there's a realm lying beyond yours and other persons perceptions that's analogous to those perceptions?