Here is my proof that gravity is instant: — Jonathan AB

Well, I'm not a mathematician, so I do not fully understand the general theory of relativity, but isn't this why space-time is "curved", to account for the problems you've demonstrated?

Of course. I think we went through this, "evolution" refers to a description of the result, the effect of the actions of living things. Evolution is not an acting agent itself, it is the result of the activity of agents. So we cannot ascribe intention directly to evolution, just like we cannot ascribe intention to directly to my computer, which is the result of the intentional acts of agents.. We ascribe intent to the agents which are responsible for evolution, the individual living organism which act with intent.

Let's say that there is a compilation of activities carried out by living beings, and the result of all these activities, the effect, is what we call evolution. If you agree that these activities are purposeful, then why wouldn't you agree that the result, evolution, is also purposeful? My computer is purposeful despite the fact that we wouldn't assign intent to it. It is something which came about from intent.

(Ask me to back this up) — Jonathan AB

OK Jonathan, I'm asking, back this up.

My view is that he's a bona fide triple-barreled wackdoodle who throws his boat off course. — tim wood

Perhaps those acts which appear as throwing the boat off course are actually well thought out intelligently designed acts of a genius. Who would have thought that appearing as a numbskull is the act of a genius? No, looks don't deceive and the acts are as they appear, the acts of a numbskull?

Sorry, "campaign managers" cannot do that - they just know how to do standard campaigns. — Agustino

Paul Manafort and Kellyanne Conway ran a "standard campaign"? Isn't Manafort a prime suspect for "nonstandard" campaign?

What we experience is that the instruments "do some stuff" (pardon the imprecise language) and we interpret it an "observation". However it is an assumption, albeit a "very reasonable" one. We do not oberve what the satellite are observing but only how the satellite is "behaving". — boundless

This is exactly the issue. That is the nature of an experiment, we do something, and note what happens. We interact with the world and make observations of the interactions. In experimentation it is very important that we know precisely, what we are "doing", so we can separate cause from effect, in the observation. That's why we follow a very specific procedure. So for instance, if you were doing experiments in biology, raising cultures in a sterile environment, and you inadvertently introduced a foreign bacteria with some unsterilized equipment, that would be a problem because you wouldn't know where the bacteria came from. You might "observe" that its existence somehow got caused by your experiment. And if you repeated the experiment numerous times, making the same mistake, because this tiny little mistake slipped the grasp of the preparations for your procedure, then you'd confirm your inaccurate observations.

Now, let's look at the nature of observation itself, at the most fundamental level. We sense the world, and take notice. Sensing is doing something. So we must respect this fact, that the human being is an agent, acting in the world, sensing. The materialist, determinist perspective, positions the human being as reacting to the world, sensation is caused by the external world. But this is unacceptable because we really need to respect the fact that the human being is doing something when it is producing sensations, and unless we can adequately account for what it is doing, and separate the procedure, from the observation, our observations will be inaccurate.

There is an age-old argument for the immaterial soul, the tinted glass analogy. It's simple, and self-evident that unless you determine that the glass you are looking through is tinted, then all your observations will be tainted. So the argument is, that if we want to understand all of material existence, then we must give the soul a purely immaterial perspective. This is why dualism is unavoidable if our goal is to understand all of material existence. It is required to accept dualism in principle, to get there, to assume the immaterial perspective, and if it is wrong, i.e. the immaterial perspective is impossible, then we will just never get there. But we will not know until we try. Therefore we need to assume the immaterial perspective if our goal is to understand all of material existence.

But even if we accept that there is still a layer of interpretation, i.e. we need to use some assumptions in order to interpret the "results" of the observations. — boundless

The basic assumption which is required then, is that we need to find the immaterial perspective. That is why I suggested time as the 0th dimension. We take the division between past and future, which forms the passing of time, as the immaterial perspective of the soul. This boundary has been assumed, in the past, to have no temporal extension, therefore it provided for the location of the soul, because no material existence is possible at this point in time, which has no temporal extension. To exist is to have temporal extension.

Now, we find with modern physics, that this immaterial perspective may be illusory. Perhaps, the "change" from future to past is not absolutely instantaneous. Perhaps some types of objects move from future to past before other types of objects. If this is the case, then we need to determine the soul's immaterial perspective. So we need to refine our position, find out exactly what it means to move from future to past, to restore our hope of understanding all material existence.

According to what we have said, yes. But still I think that our present theories are so successful that we can say that it "observes" such a small temporal duration! But in principle you are righ, I think. And in fact this objection is even more justified for smaller scales — boundless

Here's the problem I apprehend with the differential in time scales. For the sake of argument, let's assume the soul's immaterial perspective, at the point of division between future and past. Let's assume that when an object goes past this point it becomes observable to the soul. Going into the past is what constitutes observability. For a spatial analogy, consider a plane. Objects are crossing the plane and you see them only when they emerge on one side. This is what constitutes the object's existence from the perspective of the soul, its being in the past, across that line of division. Now let's assume some very large objects, and some very small objects. Suppose that a very large object, due to its size, takes a little longer to get into the past than a very small object which crosses the plane instantaneously. We can make a time scale by watching large objects go into the past, and, we can make a time scale by watching very small objects go into the past. But since the amount of time that it takes for a large object to go into the past has been assumed to be different from the amount of time that it takes for a small object to go into the past, then we need to determine this difference in order to properly relate these time scales.

Yeah, I think I can agree. Direct experience is after in some sense "pre-conceptual" and "beyond concepts" (Very "zen" X-) ). We use our constructs as a map (this is not to say that they are "false" or a "misconception"...). For example a "chair" is concept we "impose" on our experience. But our experience does not tell us that there is a "chair". Yet conventionally/practically it is very useful to use those concepts. As I also said about the "world outside our experience" we can be agnostic and make some "reasonable guesses". (That's why I am very interested in many "eastern" philosophies which are interested in the "direct/non-conceptual" experience!). — boundless

With dualism we can extend this way of looking at things to include the entire human body. Not only does the soul create concepts which are the constructed map, the way of looking at the world, but the soul has created the entire human body first, as its way of looking at the world, its map. The map, the body, is the medium through which we are looking at the world. We need to account for all the elements of the medium, giving the soul the purely immaterial perspective, in order to avoid the tinted glass problem.

I think that our language developed an approach to action based around our own agency, and finds itself unable to easily present the undirected agency of evolution.

Have you any reason to think it more than a bad translation? — Banno

No, it's not a matter of translation, it's a matter of understanding. That we understand ourselves to act with purpose, and we compare the purposeful activities of other beings, to our own purposeful acts, is not a "bad translation". The study of biology and evolutionary theory tells us that we are fundamentally, not much different from other animals. So, the purposeful acts within ourselves, are probably very similar, fundamentally, to the purposeful acts in other animals.

If our purposeful acts can be attributed to "agency", then why wouldn't we attribute the purposeful acts of other animals to "agency". What would support such a boundary between humans and others?

Yeah, it's necessary to assume something like that as the "agent", but no one really understands it. That's just the facts of life.

What do you mean? What is the soul?

Always. Without an agent there is no activity.

Does the presence of a purpose imply the presence of an agent? — Banno

I think that would depend on how you define "agent". I believe that anything which is active, an active cause, is an agent.

In the case of a human being, we say that the person acts with intent (has a purpose in mind), and is an agent. In the case of other living beings, I would say that each one of them is an agent as well, as they each act with purpose. However, the agency associated with "purpose" need not be within the object which acts with a purpose. For instance, each component in my computer has a purpose, so it is not necessary for a thing to be animate in order for it to act for a purpose. But in this case, the object was created with intention, such that the parts are directed toward their purpose by the intent of the creator. The agent who acts to give each of the parts its purpose, is the one who builds the object. I do not see how anything could act with purpose without some sort of agency.

Rather, we observe that living things act with purpose, but this does not provide us with what we need to conclude that evolution acts with purpose. — Banno

Evolution is not an acting thing, so to suggest that it acts with purpose would be a category mistake in the first place. Evolution is not an agent in any way, rather it is a description that we have, of a process carried out by life on earth. Life is the agent.

The thing which "evolution" refers to, is the result of the actions of living beings. So if living actions are purposeful, then we cannot divorce evolution from purpose unless we propose that some living actions, the ones that result in evolution, are not purposeful. This would be ridiculous though, because it would mean that reproductive acts are not purposeful acts, when they clearly are. Therefore we cannot separate evolution from purpose.

Actually if by sensible we include also what can be "observed" by the instruments (i.e. the definition of "observable" in physics) of the lab Heisenberg and other Copenaghists would say that there is no difference. Others, like the Bohmians disagree. — boundless

I think this is exactly the point I was making. I wouldn't say that being observed by instruments is being observed, in any unqualified sense. That is because the instruments gather information, and the information must be interpreted according to theories. So there is an extra layer of interpretation there which is dependent on the validity of the theories employed. Take your map analogy. Suppose we have instruments, satellites for example, which are observing the earth, gathering information. Then, with the use of theories, the instruments produce a map of what a human being would see on the earth. You might say that the satellites allow us to observe the earth, but the observations are only as accurate as the theories which are used to interpret the information.

Mmm, interesting view (I hope to have understand what you mean...). Ok, it seems a strict empiricism. In this case, however all our scientific pictures do not refer to observation but to a "construct" of it (apart of course theories that predict only perceivable results by our senses). — boundless

Yes, I think that all observations are ultimately reducible to constructs, and the accuracy of the construct is dependent on the theories employed. So even if you sit at your window, and describe what you are seeing outside, your description is limited by your language capacity. Your language represents the theories you employ in describing the situation.

Let me ask a question. Suppose you have an atomic clock. Why do you think that they do not "observe" such small durations (femtoseconds for instance)? — boundless

I think that the standard caesium clock measures a time period much longer than a femtosecond. Regardless, I think that the clock doesn't "observe" the time duration, for the reasons discussed above. The clock gathers information which is interpreted according to theory and this produces an "observation"..

Therefore the only principle that I can (at least for now) propose is the "causal" argument: the "external reality" is somehow the cause of our experience (to avoid solipsism). However we can only make reasonable assumptions and inferences about it (and even for its existence). Note that since the Copenaghen interpretation became the "standard" one, physics now is seen as dealing with what is "observable" by physical instruments (and therefore claims about what "there is behind it" are seen as either speculations or fictions). — boundless

I look at "the cause of our experience" in a different way. I think of the biological systems of the human organism as the cause of our experience. Our bodies take information from our environment, interpreting it, and constructing something which is presented to the conscious mind, which interprets this, and constructs something again. So the causation is really within, in the act of constructing.

But why do you think it is necessay to posit it in the first place? In other words why the "causal chain of happenings" is not sufficient to understand reality, but need a "cause to exist"? :)
Personally I cannot see how such an "additional" cause might be required. — boundless

It is necessary because the nature of free will, creativity, and all that "construction" which occurs within us, that I just described, which indicates that we need to assume something more than the "causal chain of happenings" to understand reality. As a free willing being, I see possibilities in the future. I can influence the future with my decisions, such that I can start a causal chain of happenings intended to bring about what I want. This ability to start a causal chain of happenings, at any moment of the present, needs to be understood.

Here's the point Hanover. Look at what "survive" means. It means little more than to subsist, to remain in existence, and this is what the most simple life forms are best at doing. To subsist, to survive, is the most fundamental, basic capacity of a living organism.

Now move to evolution, and see what it has given to living organisms. Plants grow, which is much more than surviving. Animal have the capacity to move themselves, which gives them something more than growth. Animals also sense, and have a power of creativity. Human beings have intellection, which gives them an even higher power of creativity, and understanding.

So it seems highly unlikely that the purpose of all these higher levels of activity, which living organisms engage in, is survival, which the most basic, primitive organisms already have.

It's purpose is survival, which is the purpose of all living things, and is the basis for evolution theories. — Hanover

I'll repeat what I said. It is highly doubtful that survival is the purpose of living things:

One might argue that "survival" is the ultimate end, but the reality of death, reproduction, evolution, and the endeavours of the conscious mind, make it highly unlikely that survival is the ultimate end of the biological organism. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yeah to give some "support" to your view, maybe the Planck time is a limit for our "ability" to measure duration, i.e. it is the smallest observable duration. But again, even if it is so short to be unobservable, maybe we can still imagine that the same can be said for physical changes. I mean we can imagine some phenomena might have a duration which is inacessible to our measurements. — boundless

The Planck time is the limit which is imposed by the accepted physical theories. It is the boundary between observable and unobservable which is the manifestation of the theories in use. The point to consider is that the real boundary between observable and unobservable is produced by the physical disposition of the observer. We extend this boundary through theories, down to the Planck time, but this is an artificial boundary, created by the practical application of the theories. So it isn't a real boundary between observable and unobservable at all, it is a theoretical projection.

As an example, imagine if we make a complete description of what is occurring right now, then use logic and theories, to deduce what must have been occurring five, ten, or twenty years ago. We cannot say that these past occurrences are actually observable. We do this with geology, various morphologies, to project way back in time, and with cosmology we go right back to the big bang. We know that we do not actually observe the big bang, it is a product of the theories. But for some reason, when we take theories in the other direction, to look at shorter and shorter periods of time, instead of longer and longer periods, we tend to fall for the illusion that we are actually observing these short periods of time.

So there is a need to distinguish physical existence as it is actually observable, and verified by the senses of the human being, and physical existence which is not observable, but is demonstrated to be real by the validity of theories. The question is, at what point do we say that the object in question, is no longer a sensible (material) object, observable by the senses, and is really an intelligible (immaterial) object, apprehended only by the mind?

The reasoning is somewhat similar to the idea behind the "hidden variables". According to these theories we do not observe "reality as it is" but we can still understand quantum phenomena as the "result" of unobservable phenomena (i.e. the movement of the particles etc). In the same way even when we will (possibly) arrive to a quantum theory of gravity, IMO we can still think that there is a "subquantum" world. — boundless

In my mind "unobservable phenomena" is a self-contradictory statement. If we observe physical activity, and apply logic, to conclude that it is necessary to assume that there is something unobservable going on to account for this activity, then we cannot refer to this as phenomena because that implies something perceivable by the senses. If we allow that "phenomena" refers to things apprehended by the mind, as well as by the senses, then we would need to adopt some other principles to distinguish between what has real material existence, and what is a product of the mind.

By the way the problem of your hypothesis (at a scientific level) is that such a time would be a sort of "unnecessry" since it is a sort of "stage" where phenomena happen. So it is not to say that it is wrong, but for a scientific POV it is "unnecessary". — boundless

If the goal is to understand, then we cannot say that this is "unnecessary". Since the goal of scientists is often to predict, rather than to understand, then so long as the mathematical equations are set so as to adequately predict, understanding is "unnecessary". But as we found out with the discovery of the heliocentricity of the solar system, real understanding opens up vast new opportunities which cannot be accessed by mere mathematical predictions.

Regarding a metaphysical level, I think that time IS the "flow of change". This does not mean that it is "reducible" to the "events" themeselves. It simply means that as there is no flow in a river without water, there is no "time passing" without change. However the "flow" does not of course coincide without water. — boundless

The flow of the river is not explained by the water. The water is one element, there is also gravity, and the form of the solid ground. So if change is related to time, like flow is related to the water in the river, we still have the background existence (the riverbed), and the cause of change (gravity) to identify. The cause of change, is more properly associated with time, than change itself, just like gravity is more properly associated with the flow than the water itself.

But, then, I cannot escape the objection that there is no state of mind, however simple, which does not change every moment, since there is no consciousness without memory, and no continuation of a state without the addition, to the present feeling, of the memory of past moments. It is this which constitutes duration. Inner duration is the continuous life of a memory which prolongs the past into the present, the present either containing within it in a distinct form the ceaselessly growing image of the past, or, more profoundly, showing by its continual change of quality the heavier and still heavier load we drag behind us as we grow older. Without this survival of the past into the present there would be no duration, but only instantaneity. — Bergson

It is interesting that Bergson does not give us an approach to the existence of the future here. He relates present to past, and speaks as if things come into existence, at the present, in the act of creation. But we all know that it is nonsense to speak about something coming from nothing. The eternalist determinist, would have all the things which come into existence at the present, (are created), already existing somehow in the future, prior to being observed at the present, as time passes. But the free willist allows that things which are created as time passes, actually "come into existence" from possibility, in some very real way.

So if we take the free willist ontology, then when things are created at the present, as time passes, they come into existence from the real existence of possibility. "Possibility" here substitutes for "nothing", because it is irrational to believe that something could come from nothing. The ontology is radically different from the eternalist determinist ontology which assumes that what will be, already is, in some substantial way, because "possibility" negates the reality of this substantial future, assuming rather a "nothing" in relation to substantial existence. This is difficult for people to grasp, that substantial existence comes from nothing (mere possibility), at the moment of the present.

This leaves us with the question of where do the creations really come from. If the past consists of what is determined, in the sense of having real substantial existence, and the future consists of possibilities for creativity at the present, then the decisions as to what exactly is created at the present, from the possibilities which are proper to the future, must come from somewhere else. What exactly is a "decision"?

Banno first said "The point of evolution is its lack of purpose". Now the subject has switched to "intent", and "agency", rather than "purpose". I suppose the question is whether "purpose" implies "intent".

You suggest that it does not, that a plant's growth has purpose, but no intent. I find that difficult to accept, as I see no other meaning to "purpose", except as an object to be attained. The object to be attained is what the thing intends. We could however, assume that "intent" refers to a special type of purpose, a type of purpose specific to conscious agents, so that "intent" implies "purpose", but "purpose" does not imply "intent".

But then we still have to account for all the rest of the "purpose" which we observe in the biological realm, "purpose" which is not properly intentional. How is it that plants act as if survival is an object to be attained? Why do they grow? So we cannot remove "purpose" from evolution, as Banno suggested. And the problem, with teleology, as Aristotle demonstrated, is that when we ask "that for the sake of which" (why?) in this way, we can always ask that again of the answer. Either we get an infinite regress or we hit the ultimate end. One might argue that "survival" is the ultimate end, but the reality of death, reproduction, evolution, and the endeavours of the conscious mind, make it highly unlikely that survival is the ultimate end of the biological organism.

On this, I agree; but I would like you to answer the further question: does this imply the presence of an agent? — Banno

Let me see if I understand your claim. We observe that living things act with purpose, but this does not provide us with what we need to conclude that living things act with purpose. Commonly called "the problem of induction".

The point of evolution is its lack of purpose. — Banno

Do you not see that there is purpose in each act of every living thing? If every living thing acts with purpose, and evolution is a result of those acts, how can you conclude that there is a lack of purpose in evolution?

Thank you. You might be interested in reading https://phys.org/news/2012-04-physicists-abolish-fourth-dimension-space.html and Smolin's thoughts (he wrote a book called "Time Reborn"). — boundless

I've read that book by Smolin. It's very interesting in the sense that it exposes the problems with the approach to time of physics, but lacking in the sense that he doesn't really get to the point of any serious speculations about the real nature of time.

However I have some difficulty accepting that time passes without "any change". — boundless

Here's a way to imagine time without physical change. Imagine that we can divide time into shorter and shorter lengths of duration. Each length would be defined by some physical activity, a motion or some other activity. The physical activity which serves to measure the period of time must be "observable" in order that it can serve to measure the period of time. At some point we get to a period of time which is so short that there is no longer any observable physical activity in this short period of time, this is commonly supposed to be at the Planck time. However, we can still imagine a shorter period of time. In this shorter period of time, we cannot say that any physical activity occurs, yet time must still be passing. This is evident in the uncertainty principle which is exposed by the Fourier transform. The shorter the time period, the more uncertain the information, until the uncertainty approaches an infinite magnitude at an extremely short period of time.

am rather curious to know your understanding of the concept of "time". What do you mean by time as the "0th" dimension? — boundless

There are a number of different ways to look at it. First, we might consider that the passage of time is necessary for physical change to occur. But physical change is not necessary for time to be passing. It is just necessary for physical change to be occurring in order for us to measure time passing. This allows for the possibility that time could be passing with no change occurring. Are you comfortable with this possibility?

If we take this logical possibility as a hypothetical premise, then we need to turn to something other than spatial existence to describe the passing of time. This is why time becomes the 0th dimension, because it gets described in terms other than the terms of 3d spatial existence. Further, the passing of time becomes the necessary condition for spatial existence. Philosophers have been discussing immaterial (non-spatial) reality for thousands of years and these ideas are compatible with the concept of time being the 0th dimension.

No surprise there.

What I am at pains to point out is that neither you nor I make the rules governing all mental ongoings. — creativesoul

I believe in free will. Therefore I assert that there is no such thing as the rules governing mental ongoings. Until you prove determinism, your pain is in vain. So go ahead, dismiss reality as semantic twaddle and suffer alone.

The premise that belief consists of mental ongoings does not validate your conclusion that mental ongoings consist of belief.

Can I just say, MU, that while this thread has not been challenging for me, it has certainly been great having a conversation with someone who actually understands and the fact that I have not had to filter through silly emotions and irrational suggestions (that is what the subject of love does), well, it has been really satisfying to say the least, especially for the opportunity to articulate my opinions on this subject with greater clarity. — TimeLine

The feeling is mutual, it's nice to be engaged in a discussion which motivates constructive thought, and expands one's own ideas.

This is problematic; intoxication and criminal liability questions intent different to other crimes (mens rea). There is basic intent, but when someone is not conscious like they are intoxicated, how do we measure intent? While the law would not offer an acquittal for a crime committed during intoxication, the effect of the intoxication does 'direct' the individual to behave immorally that could reduce the sentence. If a person is mindlessly following and unable to ascertain the quality of his own mental state - while still guilty - if he does what everyone else is doing and if they do not see such behaviour as wrong, is it immoral? — TimeLine

The legal system has a rather unique way of defining intention, and it's pragmatic, in the sense that it serves their purposes. But I don't think we want to take the discussion in that direction, because we'll approach the problem which Agustino already brought up. Agustino insisted that thoughts, and actions, which are not consciously chosen by the agent are in some important way, not thoughts and actions of the agent. But that's contradictory nonsense, and leads into a weird dualism where some of your thoughts and actions are your own, and some are not your own. The legal system distinguishes based on responsibility. So even if one is not legally responsible, this does not mean that the person's thoughts and actions are in some way not that person's.

It is because of issues like this, as well as the ones I mentioned already, that I extend "intention" all the way to the unconscious levels of the living being. The motivation for living acts is intention at all levels. Living acts are in general, carried out for a purpose, and this implies intention, regardless of whether the act is freely chosen by a conscious mind.

What we need to prove there is some unity between action and intention, but if intention is a mental state there needs to be some awareness or consciousness that motivates action because you are doing it for a reason or with a purpose. It is therefore causally teleological. Reason itself is a mental state or a quality - a free choice - and the reason why so many people want to escape into determinism is to safeguard them from the frightening gloom of free-will and making bad choices. The intention therefore needs to be unified and in some way epistemically articulated. Psychologically, however, the quality of these choices can be formed through beliefs - think of ultranationalist political ideology - and determining the quality of such beliefs is even more complex. — TimeLine

What I have defined is not a unity between the conscious mind and intention, but a division. All the activity of a living being is intentional, meaning it is carried out with purpose. The conscious mind has the capacity to prevent activity, through willpower. This defines the division between the conscious mind and the intentional acts of the living being. By preventing actions the conscious mind provides the conditions required to consider options. Therefore "intention" as the motivator of action, and seated deep in the unconscious level, is actually opposed, and therefore distinct from, conscious willpower which is the preventer of action.

Our instinctual drives are natural - a man wants to have sex with a woman - but these drives are unconscious. Like your comparative on plants or other biological organisms, our instinctual drives are a natural part of our biological system and the motivation it assigns is entirely propelled for the pleasure it offers like food to a hungry animal or pollen to a bee. It is evolutionary and beyond reason. This motivation is pleasure; if a man desires a woman because of such instinctual drives, he could try and justify it by forming a 'belief' that somehow his desire for pleasure is 'love' but the unity here is not real. Conformism or blindly following is automaton and the reason why people have this pathology of normalcy is due to the pleasure it gives having people accept you and appreciate you. — TimeLine

Under the model I just outlined, the instinctual, natural drives, are all intentional, in the sense of the actions being carried out for a purpose. You claim the "motivation is pleasure". But that cannot be correct in this model. The real motivator is the real intent, the real purpose behind the act, at the natural, biological level. The purpose behind the sexual act is reproduction, and this is the real motivator. The conscious mind however, apprehends the sexual act as pleasurable, and therefore sees it as a desirable option.

Notice, that I have separated the way that the conscious mind apprehends the act, from the way that the act naturally comes into occurrence from within the being. There are all sorts of biological processes going on within the living being, and this is where I have located intention. Each process is carried out for a reason, a purpose, and therefore it is intentional. The conscious mind has developed the capacity to observe the actions of the organism as a whole, as well as the organism's inclinations toward action. It has the capacity to prevent actions, willpower. Certain actions, like eating, sex, etc., appear pleasurable to the conscious mind, as a result of the biological processes within the organism. There is intention, a reason, purpose, behind these biological processes, which make these acts appear pleasurable to the conscious mind. So there are biological processes within the being, whose purpose is to make these acts appear pleasurable to the conscious mind. I can conclude that the reason why these acts appear pleasurable to the conscious mind, the purpose for this, is so that the conscious mind will not use its willpower to prevent these acts.

In this way we see that the pleasure which the conscious mind apprehends, is only at the surface of the act. It is not the case that the act is desired by the conscious mind, because of the perceived pleasure. And it is not the case that the conscious mind is the intentional "cause" of the act because it apprehends pleasure. What is really the case, is that there are all sorts of biological activities going on within the organism, which are all being carried out for various purposes. Some of these activities are being carried out for the purpose of making the sex act appear pleasurable to the conscious mind. This inclines the conscious mind to allow the organism to proceed with the activities perceived as necessary to bring about the apprehended pleasure.

That is why I argue that it is not the case that loving acts of the individual are motivated by an apprehended pleasure, making the loving acts consciously chosen acts of the autonomous agent. What I think is really the case, is that some of the biological processes of the unconscious are naturally inclining the agent to act in a loving way, while some are inclining the agent to act in a selfish way. There is an incompatibility here which makes anxiety a completely natural occurrence. The autonomous agent must learn how to maximize one's conscious willpower, and use it in a balanced way

In this way, we cannot say that pleasure is a motivator. All the motivators are the biological processes going on within the organism. Some of these processes make certain actions of the organism appear pleasurable to the conscious mind. The conscious mind thus chooses to allow these actions to proceed from the underlying motivators, relinquishing the willpower that it has over these motivators. Sometimes the conscious mind doesn't even have control and we call this losing control of oneself. But the pleasure which the conscious mind apprehends, doesn't really motivate the action, it simply overpowers the conscious mind's willpower to resist.

So how would one have a memory of something which is a possibility?

The future possibilities manifests as memory just like all our thoughts. They are different in kind, but still all memory. As we take action, the new memory presses into the old and new possibilities arise - in memory. — Rich

I don't see how future possibilities could be memories. How could something which hasn't occurred yet exist as a memory? That makes no sense.

All I agreed to, is that you have been using the word "believe" in a way which is different from what I would like. I see your usage as ambiguous and counter-productive. So it's completely consistent and coherent for me to object to the way that you use the word. And of course, you have objected to my requests to restrict your usage. Therefore no progress has been made.

Yes, we feel ourselves, our memory pressing into the present. The future is possibilities that we are moving towards. This is the experience of life in duration. There are no divisions anywhere. — Rich

Of course there is a division, the past is substantially different from the future. Therefore there must be a division between the two.

This is duration the time of life. The duration in which mind evolves by learning, experiment, and creating. The future is a virtual action of possible movement, of new creation. — Rich

You really haven't explained how "learning", "experiment", "creating", "the future is possibilities" translates into "duration".

If duration is an illusion, then life is an Illusion, — Rich

I don't see any logic here. Life is now, at the present, the division between past and future. Duration is only relevant if one wants to relate past events to future events, etc.. But this is not necessary to life, it is just the human enterprise of applying rules.

If a non-linguistic agent draws a meaningful correlation(the attribution/recognition of causality) between some event or other and what happens afterwards, it could very well be a fallacy of thought(post hoc ergo prompter hoc), but there's no justificatory ground for denying that the agent believed. — creativesoul

Right, and as I explained, there is no justificatory grounds for denying that an agent believes everything which is happening in one's dreams. It's just a matter of how one uses the word "believe".

I think that for the sake of an epistemological investigation we need to place some restrictions on how we use the word "believe", we need to find a definition to agree on.

We're not even close. You think that belief consists of making mental correlations. I think that belief consists in maintaining the same thought for an extended period of time. Banno thinks that belief is something completely different. There are chasms between each of our opinions.

Easily,. "That play seemed to drag". "Funny, time seems to fly for me." "I thought that would never end". "That vacation went by so fast". 'It seems just as if happened yesterday". But more importantly than communicating the feeling of duration, is the experiencing of duration. How does duration change between awake, day dreaming, dreaming, asleep without dreaming, waking up? There is a qualitative feeling that is personal and defines ones life. — Rich

There really is no feeling of duration. What we feel is the division between past and future. We have memories of the past, and we anticipate the future. We do not feel duration.

This is what makes you think that we all feel duration differently, because we don't even feel duration at all. There really is no such thing as duration, we just make it up. We produce some arbitrary standards, some "rules", and by obeying the rules we can talk about duration. But there is no real thing which is referred to by "duration", duration is artificial, it has been created by the "rules".

The "rules", and this talk of "duration", produce a big illusion, making us think that duration is something real. But it's really just a distraction, drawing our attention away from the reality of time, and that is the division between past and future.

Everything is about our will or motivations; our ego, reason and rational thought, knowledge, personality, all of what we are is dependent on our will. The problem is not the ego or the mind, neither is it society, but how our will motivates the ego or mind to act or think. We do not need to remove them completely in order to obtain some purity in our motivations, no annihilation of an ego - the 'self' - will make any difference. All we have is a healthy ego (moral consciousness) or a toxic one (i.e. narcissism) and our motives depend on this transcendence. — TimeLine

What the will is, is not an easy question. There is much disagreement between people. We tend to tie "will" to "intention", such that if an act is willful, it is intentional, and vise versa. And intention is tied to purpose. But then people want to tie intention to consciousness as well, such that non-conscious things cannot have intention. However, we observe intention and purpose throughout biological organism, we see that even plants act with purpose, therefore intention. So if intention is tied to consciousness, this would incline some people to assign consciousness to plants. I like to break the connection between will and consciousness, such that will, as the motivation for action, is property of the subconscious. There is however, a from of willing which may be more proper to the conscious mind itself, and this is the will to refrain from acting, what is called willpower. It is through willpower that we resist temptations, and break habits which the conscious mind determines as bad. Willpower, the power to resist, is what I tie to the conscious mind.

It is also why people have been driven by "love" to do bad things because their conception of love is wrong and why rational thought is imperative. In this situation, love is not the wrong, just the motivation; so why do we think that our ego is bad? — TimeLine

If you accept my proposal, that the drive to act, the will as motivator, is deep in the unconscious, instinctual as you say, and also there is a conscious level of the will which gives us a restraint from acting, willpower, then you will see that the issue is very complex. Augustine, who was probably the first to discuss the nature of free will, grappled with this problem to a considerable extent. Plato demonstrated that virtue exists as the manifestation of a type of knowledge, but this exposed a deeper problem, that one can know what is good, and still do what is bad. So virtue requires more than just knowing what is good, it requires a method for preventing oneself from doing what is bad. As it turns out, this is what we call willpower, and it is necessary for the conscious mind to have willpower if it is going to have any control over the subconscious levels, because to enable morality, immorality must be prevented.

This is why Augustine describes free will as the means by which we free ourselves from the temporal existence associated with the bodily functions of the sensible world, allowing our minds to follow the true intelligible principles of the eternal realm. We do this through willpower. The important point being that we have no proper approach to the intelligible until after we restrain ourselves. Prior to restraint, the mind would be full of confusion and anxiety from the hypocrisy of always doing what one knows ought not be done. This is where Agustino made a good suggestion earlier in the thread, concerning meditation, because meditation is a practise of restraint.

The ego regulates the decisions between our instinctual drives (immoral) and our conception of what is correct behaviour (moral) that we learn through our experiences with the external world, such as our family and society. — TimeLine

If this is a function of the ego, then what the ego needs, in order to avoid anxiety and frustration, is will power. I believe willpower is something which can be cultured, encouraged, almost like we can make it a habit to restrain from habits. Meditation was one suggestion, but I'm a very active person, and I like to encourage myself toward doing a large variety of different things to avoid falling into habits. I practise willpower by doing things I otherwise wouldn't be inclined to do.

This love within that you speak of is moral consciousness. — TimeLine

So I wouldn't characterize this love within as any form of consciousness. It is right at the core of our instinctual, biological, being. We all feel a need for social relations, companionship, sexual relations, etc.. As fundamental needs, we feel selfish desires like the desire for food and the means for personal subsistence, but we also feel the desire for social relations which is derived from love. I think this love is inherent within all living beings, other animals show love, insects have social relations, and Peter Wohlleben for instance, argues in "The Hidden Life of trees" that trees have complex, and particularly loving, social relations through their roots. This is what I mean by the love within, it's inherent and fundamental to our being, as an integral part of life itself. And that's why I argue that to deny it, and turn toward hate, disrespect, and resentment toward others, in a general way, requires a deep self-deception. This would be similar to denying that being alive has any significance. However, these characteristics which I assert are the manifestations of love, (we might call this the beauty of the living world) are not easily apprehended by us as derivatives of love. So we need teaching and guidance in this direction.

Moral consciousness would be one such derivative, a manifestation of love. But consciousness takes us to another level, the level at which willpower plays a role. And willpower has the capacity, to an extent, to suppress the instinctual, biological activities, whether they are selfish acts of subsistence, or loving acts of social relations. Then the conscious mind may be influential on the basis of decisions concerning what ought and ought not be done. The conscious mind must itself be watched though, because it may be selfish, and this is evident from our tendency to rationalize things. When we find reasons for doing things which we know are bad, we rationalize, to make these things appear to be good. So as much as we might find it necessary to suppress some instinctual actions which are derived from the deep inner love, for the sake of some moral principles, we must be careful not to be falling into a situation of rationalization. If there is not a high degree of consistency between the deep instinctual love, and what the rational principles of moral consciousness dictate as loving principles, then I think there is a problem. This is why I think that ultimately the rational mind must follow the principles of love, rather than vise versa, because the rational mind can make unloving principles appear to be good. But this cannot be good because it is contrary to the fundamental nature of being alive.

This is what I meant when I said "beginning of love" and the authenticity here is that an autonomous agent chooses willingly and independently to be "good" rather than driven by society. — TimeLine

Yes, this is the point. The autonomous agent can apprehend oneself to be completely independent from society, and therefore make decisions based on one's own mind, not based on principles derived from society, what society wants of one. And, there is an inclination for that autonomous agent to choose what is good. But this is "good" in a sense completely different from the sense of "good" given by societal norms, because the autonomous agent has produced independence from the "good" of societal norms, and is free to choose one's own good. So it must be the case that the autonomous agent is guided by a sense of "good" which comes from deep within, intuitive, rather than learned from society. This is the love that is deep within. You might call it "moral consciousness" but I don't think it's a consciousness at all, because we don't really apprehend it with the conscious mind. It's an intuition, which is not molded by the conscious mind, but molds the conscious mind.

Meta is lost. — creativesoul

I agree. You write in incoherent fragments. I'm lost.

Any definition can be stated as a claim. That two parallel lines do not meet can be said to be a claim. The so-called claim here, is derived from the relationship between different planes and this relationship is defined by angles, it is not claimed.

Edit: Planes only exist by definition.

The parallel postulate does not define parallel lines. They are defined in Book I Definition 23, as being two lines that never meet.
What the parallel postulate does is assert that two lines that cross either end of a line segment at non-right angles are not parallel. It doesn't actually say 'not parallel' but rather gives a property that is equivalent to being not parallel. — andrewk

Well it's not strictly that the angles are "non-right angles", because a parallelogram need not have right angles. What is necessary is that the angles where parallel lines cross the line segment must be equal. If the angles are not equal then the two lines are not parallel, or as you say "equivalent to being not parallel". This must be accepted "as defined", and the definition of "parallel" must be accepted "as defined", in order for the parallel postulate to hold.

So the postulate neither defines parallel lines, nor asserts that there are any. — andrewk

The parallel postulate follows logically from accepting the definitions, and accepting the law of non-contradiction. It is produced from these definitions: the definition of parallel, that two parallel lines never meet, and the definition that if two parallel lines cross a line segment, they have equal angles. If you accept the definitions, the postulate holds. If you do not accept them, it does not hold.

There are many ways to approach the nature of duration (time) and if God is the preferred approach, that is fine. — Rich

The thing is, there is a lot more to time than duration, a fact which many of us overlook. More fundamentally, it is a distinction between past and future. That we can measure the distinction between past and future, and determine duration, is another thing. But one's measurements of duration are only as accurate as one's capacity to distinguish between past and future.

That is why I mentioned the article co-authored by Stuart Kaufman (who, perhaps mistakenly, I thought was one of the theorists in your general orbit.) The key sentence in that paper is '“This new ontological picture requires that we expand our concept of ‘what is real’ to include an extra-spatio-temporal domain of quantum possibility" - which is pretty well exactly what I think is the implication of my argument. — Wayfarer

What is required is to turn around the accepted relationship between space and time, such that time becomes the 0th dimension rather than the 4th. This allows for real non-spatial existence in relation to time, and for the possibility of inverted spatial dimensions as negative dimensions on the other side of the 0th dimension.

At four years old, your friend Josh is well versed in language use, and clearly capable of holding beliefs.

The will and desire to learn language...

X-)

...before being able to conceive of "language". — creativesoul

Obviously. "Language" is not the first word learned, so the individual learns how to use language before conceiving of what "language" is.

Have you read any Plato? Socrates' most prominent enterprise was to demonstrate that people know how to do things without knowing what they are doing. This is what Socrates did. He went to all sorts of different people who claimed to have knowledge, and demonstrated that all they had was technique, method, without understanding what they were doing. They knew how to do things without knowing what they were doing. So he demonstrated that they really didn't have the knowledge they claimed to have. This is very evident with language use, children learn how to use language without knowing what they are doing.

I would like to see philosophers to gear up and get up with modern ideas and problems and stop playing around with proofs of God's existence. I consider that lazy philosophy. — Rich

The question of God is very relevant. Understanding the nature of God, fundamentally "I am that I am", provides us with a perspective of time which is deeply incompatible with the perspective of time employed by relativistic physics. Simply stated, if God is proven to be real, then the space-time perspective of time is proven to be false, because the two are incompatible.

To arrive at a true understanding of time requires that we dismiss all prejudices and address the soundness of the premises and the logic of the arguments. Arguments concerning God's existence, are good practise, and the cosmological argument for one, which delves into the distinction between "potential" and "actual", is very important toward understanding the true nature of time.

Since we do not have, and cannot have access to infinity then the premise can only work at a mundane level. Since we can never know if the universe is infinite, or tell if it might or might not coalesce into a pinprick then it might be the case that all lines, including apparently parallel ones might at some point meet. — charleton

No, the parallel lines never meet, it is impossible, because the definition indicates this. If they meet they are not parallel. The point being that we must accept the definitions and adhere to them whether or not there is any such thing as infinite lines, or parallel lines in the physical world.

What we see, sense, and even what we imagine in our minds, is completely different from what we know by the acceptance of definitions. However, we apply the things we know through acceptance of definitions, to the sense things of the physical world, by relating them, and if the definitions are useful this helps us in understanding and using the physical things in the sense world.

Let the record show that Meta is assenting to the belief that one can learn the names of things without believing that something is there. — creativesoul

Correct, the certitude "that something is there" does not qualify as belief. As I explained earlier, this certitude exists in dreams, and in the subconscious levels, plants might even possess this certitude. That certitude "that something is there" does not qualify as "belief" because "belief" is restricted to being the property of a conscious mind. Therefore I do not consider the certitude "that something is there" to be belief. This is why the skeptic's doubt of "existence" is justified.

I'd like to see the criterion that clearly sets out what language acquisition is existentially dependent upon. — creativesoul

Language acquisition is dependent on the will and desire of the human being to learn language.