Change, something's wrong. Suppose I say "The apple was green, now it's red, it's changed". Nothing amiss in this some might say but it gives me petitio principii vibes. I dunno! How do I know change has occurred? It depends on whether green is different from red but is it? The one who says it is is begging the friggin' question.

I don't understand your point. The argument I provided was seductively valid, so you have to dispute a premise. Which one are you disputing?

It's circular. Becoming different and changing are synonymous. It's like saying 'cheese is fromage'. Yes, but I want to know what cheese is, in and of itself, and that's just another way of saying cheese.

Circular. You are simply describing when we have a change, but not saying what change itself is.
If I ask what yellow is, providing me with a list of things that are yellow is not an answer to my question.
You have mentioned time. But though no particular temporal property essentially involves change, the instant one appeals to a 'change' in temporal properties to explicate what change itself is, one has gone in a circle.
So it seems that time is time and change is change, and we can't reduce one to the other.

@Bartricks, according to the russellian conception, change is possessing different properties at different times. Read carefully and you'll see that there is no mention of "becoming". The circularity you claim to see is due to your misunderstanding of this definition.

↪Cheshire I don't understand your point. The argument I provided was seductively valid, so you have to dispute a premise. Which one are you disputing? — Bartricks

My point is the conclusion is a non-sequitur in a modified sense. Premise 2 appears to be deliberate nonsense. So, anything could technically follow without a violation of logic, but in this context the objection should maintain. If premise 2 can't be stated clearly without misc. notation then I'm afraid the matter will remain illusive to any remedy. Thanks for the reply, as always.

You're the one talking nonsense. The claim that sensations can only resemble other sensations is not nonsensical in any way.

A sensation cannot 'tell' us anything - sensations do not have little mouths or little notepads on which they might write things. Insofar as our sensations give us some awareness of something other than themselves, they do so by resemblance: that is, our reason tells us that there is a world out there that our sensations (some of them) are resembling.

Now, there is nothing like a sensation except another sensation. Thus, if we have a sensation of change, then change itself must be a sensation. That just follows.

For the umpteenth time, it is circular. You haven't bothered actually engaging with the point - you just keep insisting that it is not circular. A change in temporal properties is.....wait for it......a 'change'. Why can't you get this painfully simple point? If you invoke the notion of change in your analysis of change, then you haven't analyzed change at all.

Now, there is nothing like a sensation except another sensation. Thus, if we have a sensation of change, then change itself must be a sensation. — Bartricks

But sensations detect change (something in the environment must activate them beyond a threshold). Change is implicit in the function of the sensation. If you block the ability of the sensation to change (if you keep the the sensory machinery in a dynamic equilibrium) it will be unable to report changes in the environment - the sensory machinery still changes (due to random motion), but if the rate of change does not reach threshold, the sensory machinery will not report what we consider to be a change in the environment. In this sense, sensations are change, but change is not a sensation (or not only a sensation). I guess the sensation of change comes from putting together the respective environmental changes each of our senses is able to capture, an action carried by our minds. Change is ubiquitous and not only a sensation, in my opinion.

A sensation cannot 'tell' us anything - sensations do not have little mouths or little notepads on which they might write things. Insofar as our sensations give us some awareness of something other than themselves, they do so by resemblance: that is, our reason tells us that there is a world out there that our sensations (some of them) are resembling. — Bartricks

I disagree. I think you can sense something new correctly the first time. Even if it's novel. Otherwise, there's no basis for constructing this reference for resemblance.

Now, there is nothing like a sensation except another sensation. Thus, if we have a sensation of change, then change itself must be a sensation. — Bartricks

It is a bit clearer when isolated from the annotations.

Change by itself does not exist. It's a relational property. Irreversible processes constitute change because a process constitutes change. Cyclic, reversable changes constitute a means to assign time to the irreversible changes, which by themselves are timeless changes. A process doesn't involve time. That's what we assign to it later.

You can have a sensation of this change if you become aware of the process. The process is projected into your brain and leaves memory trails. The new projection is felt to be different from that before. You have a sensation of change.

So calling change a sensation is circular. In the very concept of sensation, change (an irreversible process without time) is involved. Sensations are based on change. You can have a sensation of change. The sensation involves change but by itself it is not a change.

@Bartricks For the umpteenth time, read carefully before commenting. You wrote: "A change in temporal properties is.....wait for it......a 'change'" , this definition of yours is indeed circular, bravo! But as far as I can tell no known philosopher dealing with the ontology of time has provided such a definition. But feel free to provide textual evidences to the contrary, then I will agree with you with no further hesitation. The only definition that resounds like yours is the russellian definition of time which is: possessing different properties at different times. Read carefully: possessing - different - properties - at - different - times. In this russellian definition there is no mention of "change" or "becoming". So either you misunderstood what a russellian definition is or you just concocted a circular definition of change to prove how smart you are at detecting circular definitions. In any case, you should still prove you can deal with a non-circular definition of change as the russellian definition is.

So, you think if a change in temporal properties is not a change? Explain.

Temporal properties don't change, because if you haven't applied time to the different states of the same collection of particles, it aren't yet temporal properties. The particles can have different distances between and it's after comparing these difference that a change can be established. The difference is the change. Keep the change.

@Bartricks I don't get your question. Until you rephrase, I limit myself to stress that the russellian definition I was referring to does not talk about change of temporal properties. Simply it states that change is possessing different properties at different times, period. Of course if one believes in the existence of temporal properties (e.g. being past, being present and being future as properties), then the russellian definition of change can be applied as follow: temporal change is when one and the same thing possesses the property of being future at time t1, present at time t2 and past at time t3.

Temporal properties don't change, because if you haven't applied time to the different states of the same collection of particles, it aren't yet temporal properties. — Cartuna

I appreciate that you’re focusing on time as it has been treated within empirical accounts. I just wanted to mention that phenomenological philosophical models
of time are quite different from this.

Even animals experience time. My dog can get very impatient if I let her wait to long. What do philosophers consider as time? Experienced time? Modern science has literally objectivized time. Time is nowadays nailed to the zillionth second, and the big bang approximated to 10exp-36 seconds. Time is the clock. A funny cyclic process we appear give high value. We have such a process on our wrist, it can be seen on thousands of places, and you can fight, save, find, or loose it. What is time as a phenomenon? As used in life?

Somewhere outside Tokyo
Invented time
Someone in a factory
Invented time
If people wanted proof to carry on
They'd like to buy one
Fifth million watches
With a strap to sell
If they should ever sell out
That would be the end of time

Modern science has literally objectivized time. Time is nowadays nailed to the zillionth second, and the big bang approximated to 10exp-36 seconds. Time is the clock. A funny cyclic process we appear give high value. We have such a process on our wrist, it can be seen on thousands of places, and you can fight, save, find, or loose it. W — Cartuna

It began as objectivized with Aristotle and his equating of time with the motion of objects. Modern science hasn’t abandoned that view, merely complicated it.

What is time as a phenomenon? As used in life? — Cartuna

Phenomenologists realized that in order to get past time as motion and magnitude it was necessary to dig beneath the concept of the object as res extensa.

Phenomenologists realized that in order to get past time as motion and magnitude it was necessary to dig beneath the concept of the object as res extensa. — Joshs

Sò the experience of time? As apposed to t as a magnitude on a clock or moving objects? What lies beneath objects changing, where they the phenomenologists dig?

Sò the experience of time? As apposed to t as a magnitude on a clock or moving objects? What lies beneath objects changing, where they the phenomenologists dig? — Cartuna

Yes, it would have to begin with experience, because the phenomenologists believe a subject-independent world
is an incoherent notion.

What does it imply to make a time measurement, to state that it takes certain amount of time for some process to unfold? A time calculation counts identical instances of a meaning whose sense is kept fixed during the counting . To count is to count continuously changing instances OF something that holds itself as self-identical through a duration or extension.

Phenomenologists analyze how we construct objects as idealizations from constantly changing sense data.
These sense data can’t be said to have duration or extension, even instantaneous. This primordial time does not measure or count instances of anything.

I don't understand you. If something goes from being future to being present, it has changed, yes? It's changed from being future to being present.

So, once more, if you try and explain what change is by saying that it is when something has a property at one time that it does not have at another, then you've gone in a circle, as one would be invoking change to explain change.

Now, I presented an argument that appears to demonstrate that change is a sensation. When someone does that, one has to challenge the argument, not simply assert an alternative (and in your case, circular) analysis.

For an analogy: if I say "Tom murdered Susan and here is my evidence that he did so....." you are not engaging with my argument if you say "The murderer of Susan murdered Susan, not Tom".

@Cheshire

I don't understand your point. The argument I provided was seductively valid — Bartricks

:lol:

Change begs the question

A familiar example of "change": An (unripe) green banana becomes a (ripe) yellow banana.

Unripe/green banana has changed to a ripe/yellow banana.

Ripe/yellow (banana) is different from an unripe yellow (banana).

In other words, Difference$\leftrightarrow$ Change.

If I now say that change has occurred, I must demonstrate that there's a difference but a/any difference is change and ergo, my argument is:

1. Change [premise (difference)]
Ergo,
2. Change

Begging the question.

Wasn't lost on me. Is it a premise; is it a amuse-bouche? Hard to tell from the menu.

@Bartricks you keep putting your wording in my mouth. I never wrote that "something goes from being future to being present". There is no "going". According to the russellian definition, change is strictly and literally speaking: possessing different properties at different times. Period. There are no "going", "becoming", "change" terms involved. And this definition is definitely not circular no matter how hard you try. Besides I never talked about temporal properties in the first place, but since you keep talking about them, I limited myself to give you an example on how the russellian definition of change can be applied also to temporal properties. And also in this case the definition wouldn't be circular. Finally I myself do not believe that the russellian definition of change is satisfactory, but not because it's circular which indeed is not. I think we stalled and it's clear that you are unfamiliar with the main philosophical literature on the subject.

I said of those who try to analyze change in terms of time, that their analysis will either be circular or no analysis of change at all.

If you are subscribing to a static view of time, then you are providing no analysis of change at all. That is, if a thing does not 'go from' having a property at one time to not having one at another, then you're not talking about change at all. The circular account at least has the merit of being true - even though it tells us nothing about what change itself is - but if you think time does not pass, then your view does not even have that merit.

But anyway, you persist in just ignoring the case I made for change being a sensation. Until or unless you can refute my case for change being a sensation, we do not need to worry about whether a temporal analysis will be circular or not.

I don't know what you are talking about. If an event was future and is now present, then it has changed - changed in its temporal properties. It has a property - now-ness - that it did not have.

Now, it is hopeless to analyse change itself in terms of such a change, for it is a change and thus one will have said no more than change is when change happens (which is true, but uninformative).

I have presented a case - an apparent proof, if you will - that change is a sensation. You need to refute that case by challenging a premise.

A sensation cannot 'tell' us anything - sensations do not have little mouths or little notepads on which they might write things. Insofar as our sensations give us some awareness of something other than themselves, they do so by resemblance: that is, our reason tells us that there is a world out there that our sensations (some of them) are resembling.
— Bartricks

I disagree. I think you can sense something new correctly the first time. Even if it's novel. Otherwise, there's no basis for constructing this reference for resemblance. — Cheshire

That doesn't engage with my point. A sensation cannot literally 'tell us' something, for then it'd have to be a little person, yes?

Sensations are either just sensations and tell us nothing at all, or they resemble something and we can be told, by our reason, that they are doing so and thus in this way can learn about a world that is not itself made of our sensations.

If the latter is true - and it is, of course, for the sensible world just is the place that our sensations resemble - then change is a sensation if, that is, there is a sensation of change.

If the latter is true - and it is, of course, for the sensible world just is the place that our sensations resemble - then change is a sensation if, that is, there is a sensation of change. — Bartricks

Supposing your model of information is true; what does it add to note change is subject to it. I could say for example; then ____is a sensation if, that is, there is a sensation of ____ . Why choose to fill the blanks with "change" as opposed to any other subject?

@Bartricks

Here my feedback:

- No I do not subscribe to a static view of time, this is why I explicitly wrote “I myself do not believe that the russellian definition of change is satisfactory, but not because it's circular which indeed is not”.

- I questioned that you understood the static definition of time, because the static definition of time doesn’t need to refer to temporal properties nor can be rendered with “going” or “becoming” terms and it offers us an analysis of change in ontological terms. But if your point is that a russellian definition of change is a static one so it misses the dynamic nature of change, fine with me however I didn’t read arguments in favour of this latter contention, while you spent lots of comments focusing only on the putative circularity of the russellian definition of change .

- Indeed I gave you several arguments against the idea that change can be a sensation which you simply ignored [1]. And I’ll add one more: if sensations “refer to” X, then they can not be identified with what they are referring to as much as a perception of a red apple doesn’t identify with the apple. So a sensation of change is not change nor what change is. Unless of course you interpret the grammar of “sensation of change” by analogy with “sensation of red” instead of by analogy with “perception of a red apple”. If so there would certainly be a case of identification however not a case of reference!

[1]
> There are different sorts of sensation, and some of them are 'of' reality and thus are capable of being accurate or inaccurate. That's not true of all of them. A sensation of pain cannot be accurate or inaccurate. However, the impression that one is in pain can be. And similarly, my visual impression that there is a mug on my desk can be accurate or inaccurate.

You believe that there are 2 types of sensations: sensations “of” reality and sensations which are not “of” anything. FYI, this does not correspond to the empiricist view where sensations do not refer. In philosophy “reference” recalls the debate over “intentionality”, and sensations are usually understood as devoid of intentionality . I’m claiming that such a distinction is a confusion. One and the same type of sensation can be understood in ontological terms or epistemological terms. In ontological terms, sensations do not “refer to“ , they are not “of” something. However if you understand them in epistemological terms, they can deliver information of something else, like a red sensation can accurately or inaccurately deliver information about the skin color of an apple. Also the sensation of “pain” can deliver information about our body and this information can be inaccurate (e.g. phantom limb pain). Aristotle, Hume, and Kant have different ideas about how sensations can deliver information about the world. None of them believes that sensations as such deliver such information. The intuitive reasons why one may want to not assume that there are sensations that refer to something as such are the following: 1. the same sensation can deliver information about 2 different objects: the external world and us (e.g. sensation of heat on our skin delivers information on the source of heat and our body part), and two completely different sensations can deliver information about one and the same object (e.g. we recognize the circular shape of an object by tactile and visual sensations ) 2. An accurate assessment about a sensation doesn’t depend on the accurate assessment about the sensation is referring to (e.g. I can see something red without understanding what is red).
The additional trouble with the notion of “sensation of change” is that sensations are actual: at time t1 you have a sensation of heat, and at time t2 you have a sensation of cold, now when would the sensation of change supposedly happen? If you say at t1, then t2 didn’t occur yet, so there was no change. While if you say at t2, then t1 doesn’t exist anymore so how can you detect the change?


> The point, though, is that the accuracy condition of a sensation is going to be another sensation. And thus, if change is something we have a sensation of, then change itself is a sensation.

As someone said: “it is an egregious mistake to confuse one's detection of something with the thing itself” so having an impression that something has changed may be understood as detection mechanism for establishing what is true, but truth conditions do not need to be understood as sensations (e.g. statements about the existence of aliens in the outer space can be true or false independently if we can ever prove it or not by direct or indirect observation, and related sensations). And “having an impression that something has changed” doesn’t necessarily amounts to “having a sensation of change” but it may simply express a weakly belief that change was detected even in the absence of any specific “sensation of change”.