Again, name one thing the language studies have proven about philosophy.. — Gregory

Love it!

"Thousands of Chinese people have corona virus!"

"Yeah? Name one."

:lol:

Where? — Gregory

You can't see it. I can't help that.

It is false that "what can be said can be said clearly". Truth doesn't work that way. Things can be implied, hinted at, because they so far hidden, so far. The greatest joy in life, for me, is seeing a truth on the horizon. One you have it you want more. Only the absolute experience of Truth which Hegel wrote of will satisfy me. I don't know what Wittgenstein's goal in life was but to travel the roads of this world

Actually, McTaggart's landmark 1908 paper did not say anything about the A/B/C theories, only the A/B/C series — aletheist

Fair, A-theory and B-theory are strictly Richard Gale's coinage. But Gregory here is talking about something he is calling "B-theory" and attributing it to Einstein. In Richard Gale's coinage, McTaggart's name is literally in the title; A-theory is just a view of time like the A-series, and B-theory like the B-series.

Einstein posited a "block universe" in which time is the fourth dimension of spacetime, such that all "positions" in time are fixed along with all positions in space--consistent with McTaggart's B series (and C series). — aletheist

Not quite. In Einstein's theory, time is not "the" fourth dimension; it is "a" fourth dimension. The future direction of time depends on your reference frame (SR) and on how spacetime (which is a single entity) is shaped (GR; e.g. in black holes, the shape of spacetime is distorted so extremely that the time coordinate points towards the center).

To fit relativity onto this, you need some interpretation:

The B series is "[t]he series of positions which runs from earlier to later." — aletheist

That ordering is not always defined; in particular, space-like events have no time ordering requisite to call events "earlier and later" ala B-series or having a well defined order ala C-series. Time-like events, mind you, can be ordered, so they can fit. But it's also easy to have events X, Y, and Z such that X,Z is space-like, Y-Z is space-like, but X-Y is timelike. That's the biggest distinction; relativity basically gets rid of "moments". You only wind up with partial ordering; specifically, local ordering.

But for the third time I want to point out... nobody is discussing this, and Gregory's off and running calling B-theory Einstein's theory. Why? Because he wants to use the big guy's name?

Gregory's off and running calling B-theory Einstein's theory. Why? Because he wants to use the big guy's name? — InPitzotl

It's the same theory with another name

Heidegger would agree with space-time being the fourth dimension. This way there is not three dimensions spatially, but infinite directions going spherically in every direction. The most profound thing someone has said to me on this forum was that there is no difference bewteen infinity and finitude. That idea takes a lot of work. Positivist are ok with that task because it's about bland numbers. More colorful ideas scare them. They call them spiritual. But you can never know exactly what someone else is experiencing, as Wittgenstein even said. You can't know how smart someone is. What is smart for Einstein is different from what is smart for a silver back gorilla. Kant says understand the representations of life with morality, knowing in a sense you are alone but in a very real sense in a world populated with beings. What your opponent truly thinks may be closer to your own than you realize

It's the same theory with another name — Gregory

"The same theory with another name" implies a two way lexicon. Mapping from B-series to Einstein's conception of time requires a revision.

The most profound thing someone has said to me on this forum was that there is no difference bewteen infinity and finitude. — Gregory

That's another fun thing; relativity has this. The measure of time is a metric; and there are "horizons". From a theoretical POV one person can measure an infinite amount of time to a horizon, and another a finite amount of time (the black hole scenario is one example). Just slipping this in whilst I disagree w you about the other thing.

You seem to be flapping in the wind.

Anyhow, been while now since I proved time exists. How's that sitting?

From a theoretical POV one person can measure an infinite amount of time to a horizon, and another a finite amount of time (the black hole scenario is one example). — InPitzotl

That's very interesting

How's that sitting? — Banno

What has passed since you posted that? What is it? What substance does it have? Is it an entity? Is it pure potential?

I think time is best understood with intuition, not reason. Children have keen intuition in learning language. They start with no knowledge of words. I've thought much about how you get from knowing not a single word to knowing a language. If I pick up a rag and say "rag", how does the child know he is talking about the rag and not the act of picking up? This kind of logic goes wild in all directions. We can communicate because of intuition, expressed through language

To give another example, suppose a mother and child are cuddling and both feeling love. The mother says "love", but how does the child know it refers to the feeling and doesn't mean "this will pass"?

I think time is best understood with intuition, not reason. — Gregory

Almost...

There's a way of understanding time that is not set out in a bunch of statements, but lived through.

That's not something special about time. It's the same with many things.

Not an intuition, though. It's understood in the doing, the use.

It's understood in the doing, the use. — Banno

A world religion book I have said the African religions are like that. Very Heidegarrian. I like the world of ideas though also. There is a box in my garage that says "this box is happy to see you too". A medieval scholar would say it's a joke or a "nice sentiment". A modern philosopher would take it much more seriously. I think that's cool