Now is a point and points are imaginary.

Now is a point and points are imaginary. — 180 Proof

Oh, OK, so there is no now. Are the past and future imaginary?

Are the past and future imaginary? — bert1

Psychologically, not thermodynamically.

Is the present real or imaginary, psychologically?

What, thermodynamically, separates the past from the future?

What, thermodynamically, separates the past from the future — bert1

Lower (past / before) and higher (future / after) entropy state (e.g. a hot cup of coffee is the past / before entropy state of a cold cup of coffee).

Entropy states from low to high:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Which ones are in the past and which ones are in the future?

Entropy-states are relative to one another (re: before / after). A lower degree of disorder relative to a higher degree of disorder.

That's exactly the reason why we cannot trust our understanding. The very concept of "understanding" is undermined by the fact that we try to understand what we are part of. — Angelo Cannata

But by that logic we can never understand society - because we a part of it. We can’t understand natural selection because we aren’t removed from it. Nor could we understand genetics, medicine, psychology etc because it all applies intrinsically to our being.

Yet we do have a good understanding of these things as they have lead to a knowledge database that reflects what seems to occur in each case.
I think it’s a fallacy to assume we cannot trust our comprehension of something simply because we are a part of its system.

I think it’s a fallacy to assume we cannot trust our comprehension of something simply because we are a part of its system. — Benj96

Agree. What else is the understanding than trying to make sense of the world.

EDIT: Whenever you are conscious, it's now — bert1

Of course.

Entropy-states are relative to one another (re: before / after). A lower degree of disorder relative to a higher degree of disorder. — 180 Proof

So we have to specify a reference point, then, no? Without that there is no past or future as 6 is in the past of 7 but the future of 5. So we need to set a reference point of 5 or 7 before we can tell what 6 is. We need a now before the concept of past and future make sense, even thermodynamically, no?

But by that logic we can never understand society - because we are a part of it. We can’t understand natural selection because we aren’t removed from it. Nor could we understand genetics, medicine, psychology etc because it all applies intrinsically to our being.

Yet we do have a good understanding of these things as they have lead to a knowledge database that reflects what seems to occur in each case. — Benj96

Recent approaches in cognitive psychology base knowledge on biological models of niche construction. According to this thinking, scientific and other kinds of knowledge are not representations of the world, they are constructed interactions. To know is to change one’s schematized interactions with one’s environment in accord with one’s needs and purposes. What we call
consciousness is merely a more complexly integrated form of organism-environment interactions that enact biological niches. So in knowing the world we are not ‘capturing’ or mirroring something pre-existing, we are changing it in complex ways. The role of memory in human conceptualization is not that of access to an unaltered past. Memory is always a reconstruction of the past.

Memory doest retrieve a pristine past , but it reveals a continuity between the past. and the present. My larger point is that the general functions of human conscious knowledge creation are only elaborations of the normative sense-making that all organisms achieve in the form of niche construction. Even for the simplest creatures , the world appears and matters to
them in a certain way relative to their needs and aims. The fact that cosmological history evinces a development from simple particles and interactions to more andmore complex relationships allows us to link human cogntive and organismic niche construction back to self-organizing processes characterizing pre-life history also. The evolution of the inorganic realm thus presupposes a kind of memory. In order to speak of regions of a universe that become more complex over time, we have to assume that something remains to be referred back to as development takes place.

Once we abandon the idea that knowledge is a representing or capturing of the world , we can begin to dissolve the gap we have created between what a natural world does and what human conceptualization does.

Once we abandon the idea that knowledge is a representing or capturing of the world , we can begin to dissolve the gap we have created between what a natural world does and what human conceptualization does. — Joshs

Humans are part of nature. Never understood why this was disputed. Goes back to the Christian mistake of privileging subjectivity.

Nope. Unlike abstract objects "6 & 7", lower entropy is relative to higher entropy. There is no "absolute reference point". Thus, relativity of simultaneity.

Nope. Unlike abstract objects "6 & 7", lower entropy is relative to higher entropy. There is no "absolute reference point". Thus, relativity of simultaneity. — 180 Proof

I never said nor implied there was an absolute reference point

Entropy doesn't care about the direction of time. That's a misconception. See here:

I never said nor implied there was an absolute reference point — bert1

Yoi may not have intended this but it is an implication

So we have to specify a reference point, then, no? — bert1

in the context of my post about relative states (which are used as "reference points" to one another). You're asking for a "reference point" other than the relative reference points (entropic states).

Entropy doesn't care about the direction of time. That's a misconception. See here: — Tate

Oh, no doubt. I have no idea. 180 was the one saying that future is more entropy and past is less entropy.

You're asking for a "reference point" other than the relative reference points (entropic states). — 180 Proof

No I'm not

Oh, no doubt. I have no idea. 180 was the one saying that future is more entropy and past is less entropy. — bert1

O'Dowd says physics just describes entropy fluctuations, so 180 is incorrect.

180 is incorrect — Tate

So, without further heating, a hot cup of coffee does not become a cold cup of coffee?

Okay. I misunderstood. You already had the answer before you asked.

So, without further heating, a hot cup of coffee does not become a cold cup of coffee? — 180 Proof

Watch the video.

Answer my question first and I'll consider watching your video.

Answer my question first and I'll consider watching your video. — 180 Proof

The coffee gets cold. Physics only describes entropy fluctuations. It does not dictate an arrow of time. So my perception grounds my answer, not science.

Okay. I misunderstood. You already had the answer before you asked. — 180 Proof

Nay, I wasn't sufficiently clear. We do have to specify a reference point, but one of the entropic states will do as a reference. I guess the question then becomes, if everything after that state is the future, and everything before it is the past, then is not the entropic state itself the present state?

You are mixing scientific understanding and philosophical understanding. Science is based on experimental evidence and is never ultimate, philosophical understanding is based on systems of ideas and is aimed at ultimate understanding and, in this sense, coincides with metaphysics. The philosophical one is impossible for the reasons you said: we are immersed and involved in whatever we try to know. A philosophical understanding is possible if we try to conceive it as provisional, limited, conditioned, imperfect, rather than ultimate.

A philosophical understanding is possible if we try to conceive it as provisional, limited, conditioned, imperfect, rather than ultimate. — Angelo Cannata

I think most philosophers believe that.

A philosophical understanding is possible if we try to conceive it as provisional, limited, conditioned, imperfect, rather than ultimate.
— Angelo Cannata

I think most philosophers believe that. — Jackson

Yep.

I'd say state-Y is after state-X and before state-Z.

The coffee gets cold. — Tate

Yes ("gets" = becomes), the state after the coffee was hot (i.e. the future state of the hot coffee). You've misread my posts, Tate. Just as a clock does not determine that "afternoon follows morning", I''ve not claimed that entropy determines "the arrow of time" because entropy is a physical measure of the (from minimum disorder to maximum disorder) development of a dynamic system – the fundamental metric of irreversible complexity in nature.

Per O'Dowd, physics doesn't care whether the system goes from greater entropy to lower entropy or the reverse.