Yes. — javi2541997

Quality response.

Well, it is a big debate on what we consider "quality" on this site when the subjective interferes and depends (a lot) on who is the author of each thread. — javi2541997

And do you consider having that debate in each individual thread to be a better quality approach than conducting it in its own thread?

Can't believe that an OP of just two phrases is not put in The Lounge. — javi2541997

Just as you can have quantity without quality, you can have quality without quantity.

I think that "reality" is best characterized as the definiens rather the definiendum, as an attribute or universal. So it is the intension that applies to the extension, which is the set of "the real."

Because you do know stuff. Like which draw your socks are in and what your phone number is and occasionally even where your keys are. It takes training in philosophy to deny this. And even more philosophy to learn otherwise — Banno

Absolutely. Why do we have to know absolutely? I personally start from the (pretty obvious) assumption that 'everybody knows something.' That people know things is evident. The complications arise when we try to systematize what we know in an attempt thereby to know more. Sometimes it works, improved theoretical knowledge can lead to improved practical knowledge. The best example of this is the periodic table of the elements.

The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms: Volume 4: The Metaphysics of Symbolic Forms
by Ernst Cassirer

The Trumpet-Major
by Thomas Hardy

Cassirer considers the differences between Newton and Leibniz inasmuch as Newton's fluxional calculus remains essentially mechanical in its orientation, whereas Leibniz's infinitesimal calculus is more purely abstract. FWIW.

Yes. Good response, saving me the necessity of responding. — T Clark

:up:

If you are a consequentialist, the best outcome is the one which can be most reliably produced, the one over which you have the most control. It is unrealistic to apply something like an objective standard - the best outcome - when any kind of non-trivial activity invariably results in unforseen outcomes.

to help us explain, describe and measure change and movement. — Alkis Piskas

TIme is certainly flux

One question that is occurring to me - given that time is passing more slowly now at the surface of the sun than for us, does this mean that there is in some real sense an ever-increasing temporal gradient between here and there? Relativistic time-dilation has an "event manifestation" if you visualize an astronaut leaving and returning to earth, which acts as an "anchor time frame." But gravitational time-dilation is ongoing. So it seems more akin to an increasing "temporal stress."

For, in that case, it's obvious that what we designate by "time" refers only to "the awareness of time," since, by your own admission, it can't even be considered & designated in any other way than that (& so you've answered your own question)." — ItIsWhatItIs

It's a question that is likewise asked of objective reality in general. Perhaps the experience of time offers avenues of conceptualizing this overlapping of the subjective and objective, in the context of the varying depths of consciousness of the "now" for example. There are material events that can be seen as consciousness-like in the sense of likewise being "temporally-inflated." Complex adaptive systems that rely on cyclical mechanisms, for example. The ontology of such systems is seemingly more trans-temporal than that of basic objects. Although, at the atomic level, cyclicality and resonance are also in evidence.

Yes. The universe appears to us as fractured into many different-discrete relativistic frames. Trying to correlate between those frames gives rise to apparent contradictions or aporias. Undoubtedly different mechanisms dominated in the very early universe. Probably beyond our ability to simulate, since they involved very large scale gravity wells.

That the concept of time only makes sense in the context of awareness.

I agree consciousness has what you would call OTE. re. OSE and MSE, an object has dimensions, and it moves through space, yes.

I'm just not seeing the utility of the distinction. Nothing anywhere stands still. An object in a quantum instant of time has a quantifiable momentum, which is a function of its motion, even if that motion cannot be represented in a zero duration moment.

If it does, it would mean that some of our "memories" are actually the past contained within the manifold of consciousness, and thus, are as real and direct as other percepts. This would mean such memories are not representational, and thus not subject to the skepticism regarding any potential representational corruption. — Ø implies everything

Ok. I understand your usages. I'm not sure I fully agree. To the extent that nothing is every truly at rest, the distinction between OSE and MSE breaks down. However, I agree the concept is a useful analogy for consciousness as presenting actual temporal extension (versus a vector motion through time, which is what your MSE characterizes, vector motion through space). Since historical pastness is literally embedded in the now (as the shape of the now) it seems to me that past temporal dimension effectively collapses into the now for objects (retrievable as information, depending on knowledge of both particular details and governing laws).

More that time can't be construed as entirely or merely objective. That consciousness is an essentially temporal being, versus merely a being in time.

Are you saying the past is imminent in the present through influence — Ø implies everything

I think "influence" is misleading. For an ongoing process, the present is more like the face of the past, I'd say. Michael Leyton's book, Symmetry, Causality, and Mind looks at how the present is the "shape" of the past, how we extract time from shape.

I'm not so clear on your concept of object versus motion temporal extension.

So, does consciousness have a temporal dimension, or does it merely move through time? — Ø implies everything

Yes, this was the sense in which I was differentiating it from matter, which only moves through time, has a temporal vector. The objective past, for me, is embedded within the objective present and, insofar as it consisted of cyclical events or processes, is ongoing. I think there are a variety of neuro-cognitive mechanisms for memory that are viable explanations, but being if consciousness is "temporally inflated" then its lived experience encompasses something of the past and the future in the moment. Which seems to just describe awareness. Possibly knowledge of the causes of things can give some form of memory, as deducing the state of the past from the present.

I realized that Time is essentially a way to measure the "flow" of Energy, which is what we know as "Causation" — Gnomon

Yes, this is pretty much where I was going. I like to maintain a connection with the notion of energy. Also, you can 'topologize' the idea of energy by viewing it in terms of gradients in the environment (or forming an environment).

:up:

However, I see that as different from consciousness being in the future. — wonderer1

Semantics? Whose to say, its all in the results, which are in the future.

It was just something I've been musing. Not to worry.

I'm more skeptical that consciousness 'exists in the future'. I think our brains are continually modelling and updating their modelling of the future. This is what allows us to catch a ball flying through the air, even though our sensing of a moving ball's position is continuously time delayed. So I think it makes sense that it seems that our consciousness exists in part in the future. — wonderer1

If you perceive an event unfold, like an arrow being shot at a person, if you are really fast it is possible to "intercede" in the future of that event. i.e. You can shove the person aside, if you are fast enough. And if your powers of inference are good enough, you can even better predict events. Like seeing someone walking up with a bow. Which gives you even more time to intercede. Like temporal intuition.

I mean, the concept that observations are theory-laden is pretty ubiquitous. If you reduce a sensory input to a decontextualized quale, that perhaps might be a "bare perception". But the fact is that perception (cognition) functions by and through contextualization. Your visual perceptual system essentially performs inferences (as visual illusions illustrate).

it remains that perception doesn’t do logic any more than understanding does perception. — Mww

Hmm. I think it is pretty established that our perceptions are essentially pre-formatted with and by understanding. The whole catalog of cognitive biases, for example, pertains to the way that judgement infiltrates perception. Observations are theory-laden.

Indeed. As I said earlier, definitions are important — Leontiskos

I couldn't agree more. There was another thread some time ago questioning the philosophical validity or usefulness of definitions. I couldn't get involved. Without definitions, what else is there? If nothing else, you have to define what it is you are agreeing to discuss....

The phenomenon of music or melody does indeed ideally illustrate the continuous aspect of consciousness. I keep hearkening back to the Augustine I quoted earlier though. The more you try to put your finger on the concept (of time) the slipperier it becomes....

Or…..benefit of the doubt….why would perception care about order? How would it know of it? Is ordered perception different than chaotic perception? — Mww

I think.

I'm assuming there is some inherent relationship between the genesis of the biological cognitive faculty and the transcendental conditions of consciousness. Some sort of structuration would seem to be required. I think we are only able to perceive chaos against a background of order.

It would seem to me that awareness arises in a fundamental context of meaning. So that unless there is some kind of order or regularity to the change, there wouldn't be a foundation of awareness. Perception arises out of order, order (qua change) requires causality.

I would submit the irreducible awareness, that by which every single human ever, is affected, is change. — Mww

Ok. Do you think this equates with "causality"?

I’d agree with that. But then, in order to justify the concept itself, one has to ask…..what is the irreducible awareness which limits the context, such that without it, the concept wouldn’t even occur. — Mww

:chin:

I don't know. I guess my intuition is that, an event happens in a now. But we don't perceive discrete-instantaneous nows, rather a continuous flow. So the "awareness of time" is itself fundamentally temporal in nature, that is, is "stretched out" in time.

:up:

Suppose cosmological – the Hubble volume's – expansion is, in effect, all clocks winding down, or unwinding ... — 180 Proof

Yes, I am very interested in the relationship between time and entropy, including the possible temporal implications of negentropy.

What I find interesting is the temporal differential between relativistic and gravitational time dilation. For any sufficiently massive object, there is essentially a temporally inflated zone which includes both a relative past (nearest the mass) and a relative future (distantly orbiting the mass).

Just spitballing. Conjectures about the laws of physics themselves changing? I mean, if somehow there was a divergence of relativistic frames? I don't know. I will be interested to see where it goes.

I don't really have disdain for intuition, but I don't really care for people making it out to be something like magic or transcendent when it's more just thinking fast. — Darkneos

You are oversimplifying it. Discursive knowledge didn't appear all of a sudden out of nothing. It was assembled - based on intuitive insights. No point arguing. The vast majority of the thread is from people who have a genuine interest in examining intuition.

Perhaps there was a different phase of hyperinflation that affected the temporal dimension differently in the very early universe.

Under this view, all the arrows of time are a result of our relative proximity in time to the Big Bang and the special circumstances that existed then — universeness

Do you think this might relate to the apparently anomalous extremely-early galaxies discovered by the JWT?

A more massive object isn’t more strongly attracted, if anything a less massive object is, it’s how the moon orbits the Earth along with our satellites. This intuition has no basis. — Darkneos

Yes, I kind of assumed this was the extent of your scientific understanding.

1000 tonnes attracting another 1000 tonne mass at a distance of 1 meter realizes 66.743 Newtons of force. 1000 tonnes attracting a 1 tonne mass at a distance of 1 meter realizes .066743 Newtons of force.

Granted, the partial intuition of the greater force exerted between greater masses is offset by the greater inertia, which is ultimately realized in the complete intuition (realized by Newton) that Force equals Mass times Acceleration.

So all that is really "settled" is your lack of intuitive comprehension of basic physical concepts. Hence, I suppose, your disdain for intuition.

Is it? I thought the concept of the thermodynamic arrow of time was fairly 'fundamental'.