We can look at time in two distinct ways. One is as an undivided continuity, in which any insertion of "a moment" as a point of division between one period of time and another, is purely artificial, conceptual, carried out for the purpose of dividing one period of time from another. Or, we can assume that there is a real present moment, and the appearance of continuity is produced by our perception of a continuous series of moments, like a series of still frames produces, in perception, a continuous movie.

In the latter case we have a series of moments as real objects, each being a moment of the present, and this series is being perceived as the continuous passing of time. Each moment would have no temporal extension (outside of time, or eternal), and the passage of time would occur between moments. As a describable object, we can treat the present moment as a subject for predication.

In the latter case we have a series of moments as real objects — Metaphysician Undercover

So you're saying that time is discontinuous? If so, what separates the past from the present?

I hope I'm not butting in here(you did by the way steal my OP"the eternal moment". No worries, it's great to get back onto this subject).

My angle was that eternity is in the now, and it is our limited awareness and experience of time as a series of moments bleeding into each other, like a strobe light, that makes us think of time passing.
I see the past as a bit of eternity we are familiar with, because we were there, we experienced it, we knew it. So with the help of physical matter etc, it is retained for us. Given a bit of permanence in our memories and old haunts that we can visit.

So you're saying that time is discontinuous? If so, what separates the past from the present? — Mongrel

We have two distinct ways of understanding the world,1) in terms of what is, and what is not, 2)in terms of becoming. Being and not being refer to what is at any particular moment. Becoming refers to what happens between moments. Becoming is what separates the past from the future. "The present moment" is a way of speaking which refers to the most recent moment, but we also refer to future moments in anticipation. We can refer to "the present" in terms of our own presence, and this is distinct from the moments of the past, as one's subjective experience of becoming, while the latter is objective. The statement "I am" already separates the subject from the experience of becoming, placing it into the objective moments of being. To properly refer to my subjective presence, I would say I am becoming.

My angle was that eternity is in the now, and it is our limited awareness and experience of time as a series of moments bleeding into each other, like a strobe light, that makes us think of time passing. — Punshhh

I am talking about a proper separation between moments, so there is no "bleeding into each other", they are truly individual objects.

Yes, what I was thinking of is that we experience a flow of time, with some width to it in our impression and interpretation of our experience of being. This is not to say that this is what is going on in the real world, but rather it is what is going on in the constructed(projected) world, constructed by our body, brain, mind.

What you describe reminds me of what the Buddhists say, that the world ends and is remade from moment to moment, as you say, like a movie.

I think Augustine explains the issue...the distension of the present:

For what is time? Who can easily and briefly explain it? Who even in thought can comprehend it, even to the pronouncing of a word concerning it? But what in speaking do we refer to more familiarly and knowingly than time? And certainly we understand when we speak of it; we understand also when we hear it spoken of by another. What, then, is time? If no one ask of me, I know; if I wish to explain to him who asks, I know not. Yet I say with confidence, that I know that if nothing passed away, there would not be past time; and if nothing were coming, there would not be future time; and if nothing were, there would not be present time. Those two times, therefore, past and future, how are they, when even the past now is not; and the future is not as yet? But should the present be always present, and should it not pass into time past, time truly it could not be, but eternity. If, then, time present — if it be time — only comes into existence because it passes into time past, how do we say that even this is, whose cause of being is that it shall not be — namely, so that we cannot truly say that time is, unless because it tends not to be?

–Augustine of Hippo, Confessiones lib xi, cap xiv, sec 17 (ca. 400 CE)

According to quantum mechanics the passage of time is discrete and can never be shorter than 10^-27s and if there is such a thing as a present moment it can't get any shorter than that and supersymmetry implies this could be the actual moment of the Big Bang.

My own view is that we perceive everything as changing because both a fated unchanging universe and an utterly random one are not only physically impossible, but humanly inconceivable. Certainly we can all imagine higher spatial dimensions might exist or that our universe could be static and fated in some sort of abstract sense, but only a few mathematicians can even begin to conceptualize what the simplest four dimensional objects might actually look like, while the random remains unimaginable by definition. The arrow of time we perceive can also be attributed to the fact that the human mind doesn't work backwards. Thus, the simple observation that a context without significant content, and any content without a greater context, are a contradiction in terms provides a simple explanation for the passage of time.

It also means that nature abhorring a vacuum is just as good an explanation as any other for why crap seems to randomly fall from the sky, yet, inexorably roll downhill. Rather than an utterly random universe, as quantum mechanics suggests, or an unchanging fated mono-block universe, as Relativity strongly implies, a context without any content and vice versa being an impossible contradiction means space without time and the random without the orderly are unimaginable contradictions just like having an up without a down or a front without a back.

Look at post. It nails ten ways from Sunday what I would say about calling "the moment" a recurring object. Observation of time is inextricably linked to change. Where there is no observable change, per Leibniz's Law, there is no change and therefore, the context is eternity. Time is a relation between events, not an event itself.

But I have spent a fair amount of time considering time as discontinuous. It appears to me that the consequences are that All arises from nothing and returns to nothing. Why exactly the whole thing appears to repeat over and over... I don't know. Maybe it's just how our consciousness is wired (sts). Thoughts?

sts=so to speak

What you describe reminds me of what the Buddhists say, that the world ends and is remade from moment to moment, as you say, like a movie. — Punshhh

Buddhists say that? That's weird.

According to quantum mechanics the passage of time is discrete — wuliheron

Could be. I can't do anything with info on quantum mechanics because the fundamentals of it are word salad to me.

Could be. I can't do anything with info on quantum mechanics because the fundamentals of it are word salad to me. — Mongrel

Its contextual meaning quanta express greater context dependence than we're used to observing and, for example, a particle's position and momentum, spin and charge, etc. all effect one another more. However, quantum mechanics are currently formulated in six dimensions using classical causal mathematics which limits their expression to those of discrete integrals. We just don't have the analog logic yet to formulate how nature expresses both integrals and differentials.

That's what I thought when I came across it. Someone who knows Buddhism better might be able to explain I'm no expert.

The past is only a memory, the future a dream. Pale Buddha

Lao Tzu came close to saying the same thing, but what it means is the present moment is where the greater context of the future meets the contents of the past. It provides an explanation for why time appears to slow to a crawl during an ecstatic moment and such phenomena as the Quantum Zeno Effect as simply due to the greater context and its contents appearing to exchange identities.

You can think of it as the future normalizing the past and the past synergistically producing the future. Both synergy and normalization increase along with their content with Russian nesting dolls providing an analogy of their context dependent synergy and normalization. As the number of parts increase their synergy diminishes their individual impact until the two exchange identities and vice versa. The largest Russian nesting doll can be considered content until you open it, at which point, it becomes the greater context for the smaller doll inside with each successive doll having a less distinctive image painted on it and less distinctive shape. The smaller the dolls become the harder it becomes to distinguish between what is content and what is the greater context and if you were to continue that progression they would eventually become entirely indistinguishable with quanta, black holes, and an ecstatic moment providing extreme examples.

Peace man, nice poetry.

But I have spent a fair amount of time considering time as discontinuous. It appears to me that the consequences are that All arises from nothing and returns to nothing. Why exactly the whole thing appears to repeat over and over... I don't know. Maybe it's just how our consciousness is wired.

I do largely agree, but it occurs to me that I tend to think of our world as an artificial construct (including spacetime, matter etc) and reality is on another level, like a world of the soul, perhaps in an eternity, or a manifest world, more real than this world.

This may allow me to consider that the progression of moments and the emergence and return to nothing are artificial perspectives caused by our finding ourselves in this artificial world and experiencing only that appearance.

Sounds familiar, but have you ever played around with imagining that this world really is all there is...

Consider the knight on the chessboard. He can't leave the chess game because what he is is bound up in the playing of the game.

What you describe reminds me of what the Buddhists say, that the world ends and is remade from moment to moment, as you say, like a movie. — Punshhh

The Buddhist perspective is very interesting. If we consider that anything in the world can be changed at any moment of the present, as time passes, the we must accept the logical conclusion that the entire world is remade at each moment of the present. Anything which can be changed at any moment of the present has no necessity for its existence at any moment as time passes. If its existence at each moment is contingent, then it requires a cause of existence at each moment.

Observation of time is inextricably linked to change. — Mongrel

That's true, but what is change other than that we notice things to be in a different state, at a different time. That's the thing, we describe the world in terms of states, and assume that change necessarily occurred between two consecutive, but differing states, so we conclude that time has passed between these states. We deal with change by applying mathematics, and this creates the illusion that the mathematics is actually describing change. But that is not the case, the descriptions still describe states, and the mathematics simply establishes the relationships between these described states.

Yes, well I view this world of the soul as in this world, such that this world is all there is(locally at least), as it is the world of the soul which is this world, with the physical world as a crust, or husk on the surface, including all its spatiotemporal states and phenomena. For example I consider light to be a pale reflection of the light of the soul, which is in a sense a transcendent(multidimensional) emanation.

Peace man, nice poetry. — Punshhh

Its Rainbow Warrior poetry that's a mixture of Socratic wisdom and Taoism. Beauty and humor are viewed as indivisible complimentary opposites. That same poetic imagery can also be interpreted humorously. For example, what Lao Tzu said was, "Habits are the end of honesty and compassion, the beginning of total confusion!" Frank Zappa said something along the same lines when he said, "You are what you is, and that's all it tis!" The eternal moment is when we no longer make distinctions between who we are and what we are doing.

According to quantum mechanics the passage of time is discrete and can never be shorter than 10^-27s and if there is such a thing as a present moment it can't get any shorter than that and supersymmetry implies this could be the actual moment of the Big Bang. — wuliheron

Assuming that the passage of time is discrete, as you say, let's say that there is a moment, which consists of a very short period of time. That's the inverse of what I said, that there's a moment which consists of no time, then a short time passes between moments. The difference, is that from my perspective change occurs between moments and from your perspective change occurs within the moment. If it is as you say, what do you think separates one moment from the next, in order that the passage of time can be discrete?

I thought that quantum physics thinks that physical time is in principle otiose, encapsulated in the mathematics of space.

Assuming that the passage of time is discrete, as you say, let's say that there is a moment, which consists of a very short period of time. That's the inverse of what I said, that there's a moment which consists of no time, then a short time passes between moments. The difference, is that from my perspective change occurs between moments and from your perspective change occurs within the moment. If it is as you say, what do you think separates one moment from the next, in order that the passage of time can be discrete? — Metaphysician Undercover

A moment that consists of no time is a contradiction in terms and there's no way to tell what you might mean by that other than to guess you are possibly suggesting that time is illusory and everything is fated.

Its quantum mechanics that says time is discrete, while my own view is everything is context dependent. That means there is no way to ultimately distinguish between one moment and the next and indeterminacy applies to everything because its a universal recursion in the law of identity. Hence, the reason even the causal theory of Relativity has established that space and time are indivisible and the theory contains the Simultaneity Paradox where two observers can witness the same events occurring at different times.

We perceive moments as separate and discrete, yet also flowing and indivisible, because a context without significant content is a physical and conceptual impossibility along the lines of insisting you can have an up without a down or a back without a front.

A moment that consists of no time is a contradiction in terms and there's no way to tell what you might mean by that other than to guess you are possibly suggesting that time is illusory and everything is fated. — wuliheron

I don't see why you say this. "Moment" is used in a number of different ways. 1) it is used to signify a brief period of time, as you say, 2) it is used to signify a point in time. Under the second way, it is a point in time, just like a point in space. The point in space is dimensionless, free from spatial extension, just like the "moment", as a point in time is free from temporal extension.

That means there is no way to ultimately distinguish between one moment and the next and indeterminacy applies to everything because its a universal recursion in the law of identity. — wuliheron

Now you are the one contradicting yourself. If the moment consists of a period of time, as you say, then it consists of whatever changes are proper to that period of time. Therefore each moment is ultimately different, and so there are distinguishing features between different moments. To remove these differences from the moment itself, we have to consider the moment as a point in time.

We perceive moments as separate and discrete, yet also flowing and indivisible, because a context without significant content is a physical and conceptual impossibility along the lines of insisting you can have an up without a down or a back without a front. — wuliheron

Content and context are not ideal opposites, like up and down, which are absolutes that are defined by each other. Content, is in principle, separable from context, and that is why the same content can exist in many different contexts. Or, we can describe a context without any content, such as a fiction. But we cannot do that with ideal opposites.

I don't see why you say this. "Moment" is used in a number of different ways. 1) it is used to signify a brief period of time, as you say, 2) it is used to signify a point in time. Under the second way, it is a point in time, just like a point in space. The point in space is dimensionless, free from spatial extension, just like the "moment", as a point in time is free from temporal extension. — Metaphysician Undercover

Still don't understand how a moment can be timeless. Either it has duration or it infinitely short, which case, its difficult to see why its worth distinguishing.

Content and context are not ideal opposites, like up and down, which are absolutes that are defined by each other. Content, is in principle, separable from context, and that is why the same content can exist in many different contexts. Or, we can describe a context without any content, such as a fiction. But we cannot do that with ideal opposites. — Metaphysician Undercover

Everything being contextual makes everything much more metaphorical and obey pattern matching and self-organizing principles. That is, everything can be analyzed for both both juxtapositions and flow dynamics using the same metaphoric systems logic. Its the principle of Doctor Doolittle's push-me-pull-you and Tom and Jerry casing one another in circles so fast you can't tell what the hell is going on if anything. The more confusing a situation becomes the more important it is to pay attention to what's missing from this picture so you can retrodict and learn more about what you do not and cannot know.

Its analog logic that requires a little more swing in your hips because its more organic looking for what's missing from this picture. That's how it defeats metaphysics which is the alternative you are proposing because quantum mechanics and other observations suggests the context alone can run circles around any metaphysics because it alone can express what no single metaphysics can. In fact, a mathematical examination of causal mathematics and physics concluded you can take your pick from among any number of simple metaphors to explain everything causally from rubber bands to balls of string, bouncing springs, clockwork, or whatever. Life is just more complex than metaphysics alone can explain.

Still don't understand how a moment can be timeless. Either it has duration or it infinitely short, which case, its difficult to see why its worth distinguishing. — wuliheron

Do you understand how a point has no spatial extension in any direction? If so, then why can't you understand a point in time with no temporal extension? The point in space is not infinitely short, whatever that's supposed to mean, nor is it infinitesimal. An infinitesimal point is not a true point, and if we assume to be able to divide a line infinitely, we don't derive a point.

If it has no spatial extension then what's the point? To a physicist if you say something has no properties then it just doesn't exist. Either you can describe it in some demonstrable terms or its gibberish.

I've been thinking about this stuff again because of some reading about causality. Does a causal event precede its effect, with a time gap in between? If so how does it do its causal work? Conversely, if cause overlaps with effect, an equally muddling scenario is present (sic) in which we then have to explain what brings the causal event to an end?

Don't we perceive the effect and impute the cause. We use our reason and memory to do this, perhaps memory is inner 'space' (how we measure), then time phenomenologically is reason spanning memories of what we have experienced, imagining causes.

Or we can label x a cause and wonder what the effects will be, or claim that Pascal's Demon already knows.

But I think you're saying what I don't know if we can escape: that causality is a relation between propositions.. like between P1: The ball flew though the air, and P2: The window is busted. You know what I mean? It's not a relation between the toaster and the toast. Or maybe it is.

Depends on your ontological commitments?

I think language is the tool by which we think, it constitutes thought. Our conception of time seems, to me, to be built into the syntax of language.

Perhaps: Commas are pauses, semicolons are rolling stops, colons barriers, ellipses gaps in time and periods the terminus....?