What do you think of Schopenhauer when he says the world IS our Will? — Gregory

This is my brief understanding on Schopenhauer. The only way we can access and interact with the world is via our Will.  Our will is supported by intelligence, thoughts and reasoning, as well as bodily desire for pleasure, reproduction and survival..

And have you ever listened to Jim Newman the non-dualist? He's got lots of stuff on youtube. He's ideas are fascinating in light of Schopenhauer — Gregory

I am not familiar with the name afraid.

Where do we empirically find the prime mover of caused events? — Gregory

The world don't care about us, and it goes its own ways. But we do what we can.

What's the difference? — Gregory

Materialism is a way to interpret the world. Realism is also an interpretation suppose, but it includes and emphasizes on the direct action, and interaction with the world. Not just interpretation.

That's the perspective of materialism yes — Gregory

No. It is called realism.

Yes i think all religions point to faith. There are times when i believe faith can literally move mountains, but my mind is never strong enough to endure the confusion. OCD addiction to thinking i suppose — Gregory

Faith itself doesn't do anything, It is just beliefs on something. To move mountains, you must hire some cranes and bulldozers, and dig them out with your own labor.

There is no ontology of time, simply because time as an independent entity simply does not exist.
Time is a concept derived from the change, the flux, the process and becoming of nature.
In a universe where there was no activity, no flux, the concept of time or the word time would simply become meaningless. Much the same could be said of the concept of empty space (no such thing). — prothero

Nonexistence is also existence.

So the point is that the ability to recognize a piece of music as at a speed other than the norm, is not an innate ability. It requires the criteria of the example which serves as the norm, and this example is not provided innately. — Metaphysician Undercover

Listening is an empirical sensation, but the judgement on the listened music as normal or not normal is a mental operation from the innate capacity.

The general capacity is not demonstrated here, because that capacity is the ability to compare, and there is nothing being compared in this example. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not sure what you mean. There are 2x piece of guitar solos given above in the recording. The top one is 30% slowed down in speed, and the bottom one is the normal one. Anyone can have a listen to both recordings and make comparisons.

I don't because I didn't participate in that topic, and this one isn't about time specifically, especially when 'exists' has not been defined when asking if any particular thing exists or not. This topic is about the necessity of doing that, and the justifications or lack of them for the various definitions. — noAxioms

Fair enough. Existence seems to be an ambiguous concept. X exists, can mean many different things. X doesn't exist, doesn't mean X is denied.

Time doesn't exist, doesn't mean time is denied. It could mean we don't perceive time, or time could be a priori condition for our perception of external world ... etc. Present exists, but it disappears before we notice it. Past exists in our memories only. There were some folks who confuse the archive of events or objects as pasts, and some words denoting future as future itself. That's daft.

Time flows to the future. In this statement, time is an existence, flows is a copula and future is the predicate. This is an example statement of EPP.

Why would he mention that explicitly? — noAxioms

Why not? Even the ancient Greek folks mentioned on the existence of time.

even you don't know which kind of time you're denying despite not having that excuse. — noAxioms

When did I say I denied anything? I have been just asking questions to various folks for their opinions and ideas, so I could compare them in order to learn more about it.

There are lots of you-tubes claiming time doesn't exist, but I don't watch links whose arguments are not summarized by the posters, so I don't know what they're denying or how they go about it. — noAxioms

Well, you need to have listens to, think and learn about them rather than just be narrowminded and trying to twist everything said.

You are comparing it to the norm. — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course all comparison needs criteria for what is norm. If not, how can you compare anything?

The general capacity to compare something to a norm. You don't seem to be paying attention to my post. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, if you played the above 2x recordings to someone (a indigenous tribe man in a jungle or someone who doesn't like western classic rock music) who never listened the song in his life or a tone deaf, then he won't be able to tell the difference. In that case, where is the general capacity?

You don't seem to be paying attention to my post. — Metaphysician Undercover

I do. But when I see vague points or ambiguities in the post, I will point them out. :)

Well usually faith is motive for actions for some practices aiming to achieve something or know something. But some folks don't have that for their beliefs in something, and just have faith with no reason or sense. We call the faith in that case as "blind faith".

I still don't know what kind of time is asserted to not exist. — noAxioms

What does Meinong say about the existence of time?

No, I do not agree with this. If the music is sped up or slowed down only a miniscule amount, I cannot tell the difference without comparison to a designated "normal". If given two different samples, of the same piece, one altered slightly, I would not be able to tell which one, I would be guessing. — Metaphysician Undercover

I wonder if you are familiar with Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven song. If you are, then the above recordings will demonstrate that they sound totally different from the top (30% slowed down) and bottom (normal) guitar solo in the song. And one can tell which one is the normal speed. and which one is slowed down in speed.

If you still cannot tell the difference, either you have never listened to Led Zepps in your life, or you are a tone deaf. :D

but it is a general capacity, — Metaphysician Undercover

A general capacity for what? It sounds vague and unclear.

Try this: imagine you're in the 60's and you are tripping on acid. You have thoughts of a round triangle. When you sober up the idea lingers. Now reason may say such a thing is impossible, but something opened that got you "out of the box". I propose this as chemically induced faith. — Gregory

That sounds like hallucination rather than faith. Faith is also underlying motive for the actions aiming at certain achievements or enlightenment. Faith is not purposeless.

Hold on, we shouldn' jump to conclusions if there is any doubt. There is knowledge. It is always contingent, — Gregory

Knowledge requires verification and evidence for its validity. When the object or existence under investigation is lacking such requirements, but still folks think or believe in the truths or existence of such objects, then they have faith rather than knowledge. No?

beliefs that may transcend reason perhaps are not irrational but maybe a-rational. — Gregory

What do you mean by "may transcend"? a-rational? Isn't it just another way of saying irrational?

Of course we're going to notice the difference, it changes the pitch. It's like Alvin and The Chipmunks. They take a recording and speed it up. It's noticeably not normal. — Metaphysician Undercover

How do you know slowed or fastened reproduction of the music is not normal? I was pointing out, it is a priori concept of temporality in our minds which can tell they are not normal, rather than the music itself.
Hence human mind has innate temporal knowledge of time? Would you agree?

1) is faith an emotion or a thought? What if it is neither — Gregory

Could faith be irrational and unjustified beliefs? Rational and justified beliefs are knowledge.

This is because increasing the speed at which you play an instrument does not change the way that the notes are created so it does not effect the frequency of the individual notes — Metaphysician Undercover

I wasn't talking about difference in perception of live music performance and reproduction of the music from the records. I was only talking about the perceptual differences and the judgement of the listener on the same music reproduced in different speeds. Please listen to the recordings of the same music played in different speeds.

A person listening to an artist playing an instrument rapidly (decreased time between particular notes), will hear something completely different from a person listening to a recording which is speeded up. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, I agree. But still I was talking about how the different speed of the same music reproduced via the recordings will be noticed by the listener as incorrect and correct just by listening to them. That judgement comes from a priori concept of temporality or musical aesthetics in human minds rather than the music itself.

So changing the speed of a recording is a completely different thing from changing the speed at which a person plays the particular notes. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sure. Good point. However, what you are talking about seems to be the reproduction of music theory. My point was more on the perceptual aspects of the music listeners.

Compare that with the normal speed version.

Yes. Music makes a good laboratory to examine some of our intuitions here, because (most?) acousticians accept the idea that the "movement of sound" is an illusion. — J

Music played faster or slower speed than the original version will sound not right. Nothing is different than the speed of the playing in the music implies that human mind has perceptual ability to detect the correct speed of music just by listening to them?

You mean the "ontology of time" topic. I didn't post to that since time was not defined clearly. — noAxioms

The OP started with little assumption and open mindedness on the definitions, because it is known to be historically abstract and contentious topic. It was looking for good arguments from different angles for exploration, which could offer us better understanding on the concept of time, and possible solid definitions and conclusions.

Professor Donald Hoffman and Rupert Spira discussions above were really clear and good explanations on the topic. I was totally enthralled by the clarity and lucidity of their ideas and explications, which I agreed on every points.

The second video on their discussion put down the final nail on the coffin of the time realists shallow and misled slogans where their misunderstandings come from.

Youtube is not perfect. It gets bad names for the commercialism and mindless ads sometimes, but there are also excellent academic discussions videos like these ones. One just has to look for the rare diamonds in the muds. Saying all Youtube videos are ads are from the shallow minded folks with no genuine effort to search for the gems in the platform.

Happened with Kant's CPR. Tried start reading the original texts, but they were hard to bite in with convoluted archaic writing styles and word meanings from different versions of translated texts, which got me nowhere.

Put down the original texts, and read several academic commentaries, articles and ChatGpt sessions on the topic. They gave me clearer understanding on the whole picture of CPR, and now I am ready to get back to original texts.

'State' shouldn't be there, especially since a universe does not have a state, but a world at a given moment in time does. One definition is that a thing is present at a moment in time. People exist, dinosaurs don't. That's a reference to state. The universe is all worlds, the entire structure, the initial state of which is what we know as the big bang. — noAxioms

If you mean by universe as some physical entity, then I am not sure where you can find space and time. You see the objects and objects in movements, changes and motions, but where is time? Isn't what you call time the durations and intervals observed and measured with the clocks and watches in some variables? Is that case, is time real? If you use some other measuring device other than the standard watches, clocks and calendar systems, you will get totally different measured time variables. In that case what is the real time? What are the nature of real space and time then?

Space and time is contained in the universe only makes sense, if you mean the universe as an entity created in your mind, not something out there in material entity. But in this case, is it correct to say space and time exist or contained in the universe? There are some physicists saying that spacetime doesn't exist. It is just an illusion derived from our imagination.

That looks like an arbitrary distinction. Faint/clear? — Metaphysician Undercover

Hume makes clear statement on the definition of ideas in his Treatise and Enquiries too. Impressions are sensations which first appear into our minds with liveliness and vivacity. Ideas are the matching copies of the impressions which are faint in vivacity and liveliness. This makes sense. When we remember past events, the images and ideas are not as lively and vivacious as the impressions from live perception.

Perception is not accurate, that's the point. We create accuracy with conception, and that is why we need proper principles to distinguish between perception and conception. — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course perception is not 100% accurate. Nothing is. But it is far more accurate than guessing or imagining.

and that is why we need proper principles to distinguish between perception and conception. This allows us to understand how conception obtains such a higher degree of accuracy. Kant for instance, proposes the a priori intuitions of space and time, as the condition for sense impressions. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't think that is a guarantee for absolute accuracy on perception. Space and time as a priori condition for perception in Kant is just the foundation his transcendental idealism is based on. What Kant was aiming at was possibility of Metaphysics as Science, not accuracy of perception.

The point being that ideas and perceptions are not properly separated or distinguished. — Metaphysician Undercover

Hume distinguishes ideas from impressions, and the rest of perceptions too.
Ideas are faint copies of the matching impressions. Only ideas work under the principle of the association i.e. contiguity, resemblance and cause and effect.

No I don't think so. The fact that some motions are too fast to sense doesn't affect the fact that we sense motions. — Metaphysician Undercover

Your saying "we sense motions" sounds like contingent acts of guessing. Not accurate perception. Your visual sensation can never capture the motion of a flying bullet. You would be just guessing it. That is not perception. What does it tell you? Continuity is an illusion created by your mind, and it is a concept. It doesn't exist in reality.

Another good video on Time.

The book "Subjective Time" arrived, and the 1st chapter starts with the excerpt from "The Principle of Psychology" by William James. James starts the chapter saying he will deal with what is sometime called internal perception, or the perception of time. So, James seems to have thought that time is an internal perception.

The question seems to ask "what location is distance?" and "when is duration?", both circular. — noAxioms

The OP is about existence prior to predicate, and existence is closely linked to space and time in some of the definitions, hence we were trying to clarify existence in space and time definition.

The question as you worded it implies that space and time are objects. They're not. They're properties, but so are objects. — noAxioms

Some folks seem to think space and time are objects, and exist as real entity. But I am not sure if that is the case. I am more into the idea that space and time is emergent quality from movements of the objects in perception, as in the other thread running at the moment.

And chatbots are notorious for wrong answers when it comes to cosmology. — noAxioms

I went to ChatGPT, and it was actually quite good. It seems to be getting better all the time. It was quite different in response since my last visit a few months ago. For getting the basics of any topics or subjects, ChatGPT seems quite capable in providing good information.

I will do some concentrated reading on the rest of your post, and will return later with my points on it. Many thanks for your reply on the question.

Good point. But when the actual text is abstruse, preliminary readings on the academic commentaries and even ChatGPT sessions do help accessing the text later?

Here, my only interest in Plato's World Soul is as a rational intelligent agent that after the original divine origin, continues to create natural observable things by mixing definite finite forms with indefinite primal substantial elements. — magritte

:ok:

Found an info page on Chora (Khora) in Wiki, which looks good. I am sure you must have seen the page if your main interest is Plato's philosophy. Do you agree with the content on the page?

Aristotle is known to have rejected the idea of Khora, and came up with his own version of the idea called hyle, as in this page Hylomorphism.

Space and time are everywhere in the universe, and nowhere not in the universe, at least in the 4D spacetime model that cosmology uses. There are some naive models that have the universe contained by time, in which case things like big bang and black holes go away, to be replace by some other interpretation. There is no valid model of the universe being contained by space, which is akin to suggesting that the big bang occurred at some specific location and has been expanding into some kind of void since then. — noAxioms

It was more to hear about your own view on the point.

I cannot explain it much better than that to somebody not familiar with even the basics of cosmology. — noAxioms

That sounds a daft statement. The basics of cosmology, and the whole the other subjects are on the internet ChatGPT. We are not asking what is the basic cosmology. We are asking where in the universe, space and time contained. It should be a simple few statement explanation with a coupe of examples. We don't expect to hear on the basics of cosmology the lot here.

E4 "Is part of the objective state of this universe" — noAxioms

It just sounds vague and empty statement, hence more elaboration with detail wouldn't go amiss. What do you mean by "the objective state", "the universe", and does it include space and time? You said space and time are contained in the universe? So, a simple question was, where in the universe are they contained? In what form and nature?

Julian Barbour is an independent scholar who also argues that time doesn't exist. I haven't listened to the whole presentation, but it might be of interest to you. He also has published a book on the subject. — Wayfarer

Great video. Thank you for the info. Much appreciated. :pray: :cool:
I was really inspired to see someone who has a similar ideas to mine on the topic.

This is indicative of the problem I am talking about. Hume does not acknowledge the difference between sensing (simple observation as time passes), and the analysis of what has already been sensed. By saying that for Hume "every mental state is a perception", you confirm that Hume does not recognize the difference. — Metaphysician Undercover

Isn't sensing via impressions, and the matching ideas for thoughts, reasoning and reflective analysis in Hume? So, there is a clear division between the live sensation and knowing, thinking, reflecting, remembering in Hume. The former are via impressions, and the latter by the matching ideas.

Impressions and ideas work under the principle of association of contiguity, resemblance and cause and effect.

What I am arguing is that sensation consists of a continuous flow of change and motion, whereas the analysis consists of representing this continuity as distinct states, perceptions, impressions, or ideas. There is a fundamental difference between these two, the continuous flow of sensation, and the succession of discrete impressions. This difference implies that this type of analysis is fundamentally flawed. It's based in the false premise, or assumption, that a continuous activity can be truthfully represented as a succession of discrete states. — Metaphysician Undercover

Doesn't it depend on how fast the movement was? When you are observing a fast movement of an object, let's say, firing a gun at a long distance target. You will not see the bullet flying due to the high speed it travels towards the target. All you will perceive would be loud banging, and see the smoke, and instant bullet holes on the target. You haven't seen anything, but the movement still happened from the bullet movement starting point i.e. the barrel, to the end of the movement, the target. With the high speed of the object movement, the continuity was not visible but it was still there.

Now think of a movement of a Chinese man doing Tai Chi. His arms and legs move as he performs the Tai Chi practice. The movement is well visible, and even stoppable while the movement is being made. The speed of the movement of the arms and legs are so slow, the impression coming into the perceiver appears smooth and continuous. The impression of the movement is not deceiving anyone, but it just appears as continuous, and that is just the way perception works.

that we know of a vast period of time before we existed. — Wayfarer

We can guess about anything before we existed. But it neither can be proved nor disapproved.

Yes, we are aware of that. That period is measured in durations of years, which are based on the period of time it takes for the Earth to complete an orbit of the Sun. — Wayfarer

:up:

Which supports my view, that time is meaningless without there being an awareness of duration. In that sense the expression ‘the world before time began’ is not entirely metaphorical. — Wayfarer

Many important philosophers in history and the contemporary physics folks view time as emergent properties from human mind.