They don't require a period of time--they are what time is in the first place. Time isn't something separate from changes/motion. — Terrapin Station
The "morphing" is the present. — Terrapin Station
There is no category mistake here. The claim has ben made that we cannot be mistaken concerning our present experiences. But if fundamental physics demonstrates to us that "the present" is just an illusion, then "present experience" is itself a mistaken concept. — Metaphysician Undercover
But if fundamental physics demonstrates to us that "the present" is just an illusion, then . . . — Metaphysician Undercover
My argument is simply that any instance of a present occurrence which we refer to, can, upon analysis, be determined to be a combination of part past and part future. This is also the case when we refer to a present experience, what we refer to is part past and part future. — Metaphysician Undercover
It’s interesting to me that when taken verbatim, the same can be upheld for a metaphysics of presentism. I’m not confusing your metaphysics with that of any presentism. It’s just that for presentism to be consistent, the present will logically contain both past and future. — javra
In simple terms, for example, when two or more sentient beings in any way interact, their frame of spatiotemporal reference will synchronize, and this may be further argued to result in the past being fixed, the present being a reality of active interaction, and the future being a realm of possibilities contingent on the fixedness of the past in conjunction with the interactions of the present. — javra
The "morphing" is the present. — Terrapin Station
That you'd see this as suggesting that there's no present rather than saying "per this way of systematically thinking about things, it suggests there's no present, therefore we must have royally fucked up somehow with this approach to systematic thinking" is ridiculous. That's the worst sort of theory worship. — Terrapin Station
A new trend in presentism is to give the present a separate temporal dimension, I call it breadth. [...] What happens is that the present is now not a dimensionless point, but a point with its own dimension. — Metaphysician Undercover
There is no instantaneous non-motion within a continuous motion. — Rich
Again, the present is the changes that are occurring from a particular reference "point" or situatedness. — Terrapin Station
There is no instanteous but a movement that represents all that has happened and where it is flowing into. — Rich
Hence if everything is particular, including time, then there is no "present" at which changes "are occurring," just discrete instants before and after each change. — aletheist
The present is the changes that are occurring. — Terrapin Station
States can be considered the condition of something at a particular time. — Rich
If everything is particular, — aletheist
Again, particular is the opposite of there being something that's identically instantiated in numerically distinct entities. Are we clear on that? — Terrapin Station
And another again, no one is talking about point-like "constants"--are we clear on that, too? — Terrapin Station
Sure, but what does that have to do with my objection? — aletheist
everything is always - i.e., at all times - either P or not-P, where P is some particular property? — aletheist
If something changes from P to not-P, then there is a time T1 at which it is P and a time T2 at which it is not-P, with no time in between during which it "is changing" from P to not-P. — aletheist
I think you will have to think it through — Rich
you want to distinguish a Present (a particular state) from a past — Rich
the Present would be used to describe an instantaneous — Rich
It's not a want. It's what the world is like. There are changes that are occurring versus changes that occurred. — Terrapin Station
I cannot find the line between the two different states, but apparently you have. — Rich
I don't see any difference between the supposedly two things you're proposing. You've got P, then a change or motion, and we've got not-P. — Terrapin Station
It's that relative fuzziness that sinks the ship. — Rich
The occurrence of the change itself is how you define time, so there is no "present" during which the change "is occurring." — aletheist
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