the facts about the past (and future) exist (in some way). — darthbarracuda

The are no facts about the past. Just what is remembered and shared in individual memories.

They are certainly no facts or memory or anything else about the future. There are only possibilities that we imagine.

Somewhere, deep in the past, victims of the Holocaust are still "hurting". — darthbarracuda

Only in memory of memory is persistent through multiple physical lives.

The present cannot be negated or undone. We cannot ever alter the past or the future, only create new and/or different moments-- this mission to kill Hitler is literally pointless by these terms. It will not change anything about our past.

In this respect, concern for a present is all ethics require, for any past or future, any possible world with a (im)moral outcome, is defined in a present event. To care for any past or future, is to be concerned about a present. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I will agree that ethics presides in the present. It is difficult to put into words but I think you and I might be touching on the same thing.

Basically, say the world is a four-dimensional worm, and God resides outside of it peering over approvingly for whatever bad reason. He sees the Holocaust, and turns his gaze slightly to the right and sees a few 22nd century time travelers going back to the Holocaust. They shoot Hitler and stop the Holocaust from happening, that is, the Holocaust disappears from the four-dimensional worm.

But now it seems like, even though they removed the Holocaust from history, it still had to go somewhere. Things can't just disappear without a trace, that's magic (of course, time travel is also magic). What happened to all that pain, suffering, violence?, did it just suddenly POOF! disappear?

The are no facts about the past. Just what is remembered in individual memory. — Rich

Then how can we say anything true about the past?

Then how can we say anything true about the past? — darthbarracuda

We can't. We explore, compare and interpret notes and come up with something based upon all the of assumptions and biases. History is basically the study of the past as is archeology. It is always changing. A never-ending process of change.

One cannot find certainty anywhere because everything is in constant flux.

But historians go about business with the assumption that there is, actually, a fact of the matter as to what happened. Things can't be evidence if there aren't any facts.

But historians go about business with the assumption that there is, actually, a fact of the matter as to what happened. Things can't be evidence if there aren't any facts. — darthbarracuda

I think most historians will say in their preface that they are presenting the situation as they understand it. They will footnote and refer to conflicting information. Historians are forever in disagreement about almost everything.

But they disagree about what they think actually happened in the past, implying they assume there is actually a fact about what happened. It's not just a game where they pretend there's facts just so they can have a job.

But they disagree about what they think actually happened in the past, implying they assume there is actually a fact about what happened. It's not just a game where they pretend there's facts just so they can have a job. — darthbarracuda

In a way it is a game and in a way it isn't. They are doing what historians do.

As a simple experiment, trying putting together what happened in your life yesterday, or maybe an hour ago. Memory is a funny thing.

I still contend, however, that the phenomenology surrounding the ethics of past events is that these past events are still "real" in some sense, and aren't only a transcendent fact. Somewhere, deep in the past, victims of the Holocaust are still "hurting". — darthbarracuda

Well, they are certainly more "real" than say, Santa Claus or Harry Potter. This is what I meant when I said that they are more than fictional. We still treat past facts seriously despite them no longer being material unlike works of fiction.

That said, I don't think I see the ethical issues the same way you do. If we were to punish a former Nazi for their crimes in WWII, it was because of the acts they committed, not because they are currently committing them. The way I see it, you want to treat the Holocaust as a present atrocity that needs to be stopped, rather than as an event that already occurred, but that isn't how most of us would look at the issue.

Whether this is actually true is another matter but it would seem to have some plausibility when we consider the B-theory of time, or eternalism. Facts, by themselves, do not "hurt".

Well, if the purpose of punishing former Nazis is to stop the Jews from WWII which are currently still "hurting" from continuing to be "hurt", then I don't think eternalism helps much in that regard. The eternalist theory is a static theory, meaning there is no such thing as a flow of time and thus the events of WWII cannot be changed.

Excuse me ladies and gentlemen, may I ask what you mean when you say that something like time or the present exists and the past and future does not? It seems absurd to me to think of something as ontologically fundamental as time as existing. Perhaps you are all using exist in a different way to myself? To me, to say that something exists means that it is temporally determined in some way. And to say that some aspect of time exists or doesn't seems ontologically confused. Is temporality not primordial in your view?

Is temporality not primordial in your view? — bloodninja

Time or more specifically duration is experienced as a flow of memory pressing into the present. That is what we feel as time. To make things a little more complicated, the sense of duration changes when unconscious, when dreaming, and when asleep (non-dreaming).

To understand time (duration), one must directly observe it.

Well that is not what I experience. I am oriented towards the future not the present. What I am doing presently only makes sense because I am primordially orientated towards the future. I never experience anything like what you described by memory pressing into the present... can you please elaberate?

I am oriented towards the future not the present. — bloodninja

Your mind perceives possible actions, but that is all happening in memory flowing into the present. The present is always in the process of becoming but never there long enough as discussed passes into memory.

I have no idea how one places oneself in the future unless one has some sort of psychic ability which I haven't experienced.

One does not place oneself in the future, one is the future existingly. It is only through being somewhat determined by the past and by projecting into the future that I can make present. In other words the present is derived from the future and past...

I think our lack of being able to understanding one another is due to different modes of temporality implicitly being used by us. You seem to be talking about an objective present-at-hand temporarity that we never really experience apart from breakdown situations where the everyday background flow of involved coping somehow ceases. Whereas I'm using temporarity in an existential sense... Sorry I think I have thrown myself into the wrong discussion here. How rude. I must leave..

one is the future existingly — bloodninja

Only as possible intent to action, but it is past as it happens.

Only as possible intent to action, but it is past as it happens. — Rich

While you were writing the above response, and you were pressing your fingers against each of the keys on the keyboard, did you experience

a flow of memory pressing into the present — Rich

I understand time as a pressing into too. "pressing into" for me signifies a forward direction. "pressing into the present" signifies for me that (you are saying) your experience of time is as the past pressing (futurally) into the present. Am I making sense? Do you agree? How is this not absurd?

However, using "pressing into" to articulate your understanding of time shows that you do think of time as primordially futural, does it not? Or perhaps it shows that you need to use a different phrase?

How is this not absurd? — bloodninja

It's memory morphing into something new but as it is happening it is already in memory. Potential actions are already in memory.

It is not absurd because it is what is happening. What would be absurd is if I claimed my memory is somehow in the future.

would the example of a musical melody suffice as an example? The present note is framed in terms of the retention of prior notes and also the anticipation of notes to come. We never hear a single note, only the note coloured through the context of the whole (retained and anticipated) melody.
Or is what you call memory morphing different to retention?

Musical notes played by an orchestra is an excellent example. In fact, it is precisely the example used by Bergson in his classic Creative Evolution.

Can you please illustrate this?

It is as you described. One note moving into the next continuously, all being perceived as music in the mind's memory.

How important is the anticipation? Or the awaiting of futural notes expectantly? To me it seems crucial to the experience.

Anticipation provides the impetus to flow forward and evolve? It is our imagination creating something new.

I mean within the context of the melody...

Each mind anticipates differently.

That strangers from different cultures might anticipate differently is completely irrelevant. The point is that anticipation, or being temporally ahead of yourself, is ontologically co-constitutive of the melody as melody. If our being was not fundamentally and temporally constituted as ahead of ourselves we would not hear a melody just random collection of notes.

Anticipation is the ground of all meaning. — bloodninja

You might want to try out mediation or Tai Chi.

This is what I'm talking about. Philosophers need to spend more time observing and experiencing, and less time reading the stories written by others (mostly for the purpose of building a career in academia).

meditation is not how we experience the world. Meditation is how we experience a deworlded world. I mean there is no experience of a world in meditation. It is an escape. What use is meditation to philosophy?

Everyone observes life differently. The more one practices observation the more skilled one becomes with it. There are no shortcuts.

This is exactly what I'm doing, phenomenology. When I gave the melody example I was using it as a phenomenological example to show the importance of anticipation. The melody would be phenomenologically unintelligible without anticipation. You haven't offered any argument to the contrary. Merely stating that

Everyone observes life differently — Rich

is a cop-out.