"The present" is defined by human experience. This implies human judgement. The distinct judgements of distinct human beings varies on this matter. — Metaphysician Undercover

Firstly, how do you know that judgements vary on this matter? Secondly, I don't believe that it does vary; at least, not to any significant degree. There is general consensus and conventional agreement over the present time, down to the microsecond, thanks to GPS satellites. Almost anyone with a working mobile phone or computer can verify the present time.

The goal is to understand the nature of time. I was defining "the present". If "present" refers to something completely different in every different situation then we cannot have any definition, Nor will we ever be able to understand the nature of time, because we will not be able to make any true propositions about the present in order to proceed logically. Instead, we look for general, true propositions which we can make, such as the following. The present separates past from future. It is itself a duration of time. Depending on one's point of view, past and future must extend into this duration which is called the present. — Metaphysician Undercover

But if we acknowledge and account for relativity, where people travelling in different inertial frames may each experience a different "present time", then what further disputes or disagreements over "the present time" remain, such that we still require this idea of an "overlap" of past and/or future with the present time?

"The present" does not refer to something different in every situation. We, at least, agree that "the present" time is defined in terms of conscious experience. People travelling in different inertial frames can still agree what the meaning of "the present time" means, even though they might each be experiencing a different "present time".

You are attempting to change the conventional meaning of the concept of "the present" to account for all potentially different "present times". There is no conventional definition of "the present" which states that it consists of parts of the past and/or the future.

This is clear evidence of the overlap I described. The fact that "the present" has duration, and there are no real points which mark the beginning and ending of that duration, nor is there a standard length of that duration, implies that there must be some overlap between past, present, and future. — Metaphysician Undercover

Presumably, this "overlap" is due to the fact that the duration of one person's "present" is different from the duration of another person's "present". But if "there are no real points which mark the beginning and ending of that duration, nor is there a standard length of that duration", then how do you know that they must have a different duration? Maybe they have the same duration. It does not necessarily follow that the durations are different or that there must be some overlap. So how do you know that different people must have a different duration of "the present" in the first place?

I think the major difference in ideas here is, is "the present" a global state? (Perhaps universal would be more clear than global) Or is it a "local" or perhaps even "personal" state?

People often intuitively think of the universe as this big 3d grid, and the universe, as a whole, moves forward one moment at a time, and the grid moves to its next state in unison. That's a really convenient and easy to digest way of looking at how we "move into the future". I'm not sure that relativity necessarily proves that view categorically wrong, per se, but it does at least bring it into question.

I think the major difference in ideas here is, is "the present" a global state? (Perhaps universal would be more clear than global) Or is it a "local" or perhaps even "personal" state?

People often intuitively think of the universe as this big 3d grid, and the universe, as a whole, moves forward one moment at a time, and the grid moves to its next state in unison. That's a really convenient and easy to digest way of looking at how we "move into the future". I'm not sure that relativity necessarily proves that view categorically wrong, per se, but it does at least bring it into question. — flannel jesus

I'm far from an expert in physics, in case it wasn't already apparent, but I tend to think of there as being a global progression with local differences. The expansion of the universe would seem to support global progression, I think, and relativity indicates that there would be local differences within that.

unfortunately I haven't figured out how to quote people appropriately, so bear with me lmao.

If we want to think of the world as having a "global clock" so to speak that always ticks forward, the problem relativity presents us is: which one? In relativity, different reference frames have explicit disagreements about which events happened simultaneously, and yet all reference frames are internally consistent and they're isomorphic with respect to each other (you can translate between reference frames, you can derive what the other reference frames see given what you see).

So if they're all mathematically equivalent and consistent with the physics, but yet they disagree on which events happened simultaneously, then how do you figure out which events ACTUALLY happened simultaneously in this "global now"? Well... you can't. As far as physicists know, there's no experiment that can tell us that this reference frame is the universal one that decides the universal now.

I'm not sure if relativity explicitly outlaws a universal now, or if it just means we could in principle never figure out which reference frame decides the universal now. That's something I'd like to hear an expert's opinion on tbh. It's a question I've had for a long time.

As a complete aside, this is why Einstein was so concerned with "spooky action at a distance". Relativity of simultaneity creates some serious head scratchers in regards to the question of wavefunction collapse.

You might be interested in this similar line of thought:

One might think that philosophy ought to begin with the concept of “beginning” itself. Yet for Hegel such a concept is, paradoxically, too complex to serve as the real beginning of thought. The concept of “beginning” (Anfang) is that of “a nothing from which something is to proceed” (SL 73/1: 73 [181]). It thus takes for granted from the start that what is being thought is the beginning of something yet to emerge...

Hegel’s account of being begins not with a full sentence but with a sentence fragment: “being, pure being, without any further determination” (SL 82/1: 82 [193]). In this way, Hegel indicates through his language that what we are to focus on is not a determinate subject of discourse or “thing” nor a predicate of some assumed thing (such as the “Absolute”) but rather utterly indeterminate being. Such being is to be thought of not as existence or nature but as sheer being as such—what Hegel calls "indeterminate immediacy.”

Such being is abstract, but it is not a mere illusion for Hegel... At this point, Hegel confronts us with the first of many surprising paradoxes: for he maintains that by virtue of its utter indeterminacy pure being is actually no different from nothing at all: “being, the indeterminate immediate, is in fact nothing (Nichts), and neither more nor less than nothing” (SL 82/1: 83 [195]). Of all Hegel’s statements in the Logic, this is the one that has perhaps invited the most ridicule and elicited the greatest misunderstanding. In Hegel’s view, however, it is trivially true: pure being is utterly indeterminate and vacuous and as such is completely indistinguishable from sheer and utter nothingness. This is not to say that we are wrong to talk of pure being in the first place. There is being; it is all around us and is, minimally, pure and simple being, whatever else it may prove to be. Insofar as it is pure being, however, it is so utterly indeterminate that logically it vanishes into nothing. Presuppositionless philosophy is thus led by being itself to the thought of its very opposite.

This nothing that pure, indeterminate being itself proves to be is not just the nothingness to which we frequently refer in everyday discourse. We often say that there is “nothing” in the bag or “nothing” on television when what we mean is that the specific things we desire are not to be found and what there is is not what we are interested in... .By contrast, the nothingness Hegel has in mind in the Logic is the absolute “lack” or “absence” of anything at all, or sheer and utter nothing. It is not even the pure void of space or the empty form of time, but is nothing whatsoever... as the sheer “not.”

Being and nothing are utterly different from one another but collapse logically into one another because of the indeterminate immediacy of their difference.

From this, we get the dialectical move where the initial posit, being, sublates (negates, while incorporating parts of) its opposite (which emerges from the original concept itself). So, we get becoming the process through which whatever has being continually passes into non-being. The being of the present, forever passing on into non-being of the past, while the future has yet to become.

Being and nothing thus both prove to be absolutely necessary and to be endlessly generated by one another. Yet neither has a separate stable identity apart from its vanishing since logically each vanishes straight away into the other.

What Hegel’s philosophy shows... is that logically, purely by virtue of being “being,” being turns out to be “becoming.” Becoming is thus what being is in truth: immediacy as the restless vanishing and reemergence of itself.

Thus, we are always in the one place, that of becoming, the same "now." There is another progression that comes to define how we are always in the same "here," and so always in the same "here and now."

https://phil880.colinmclear.net/materials/readings/houlgate-being-commentary.pdf

I can totally understand why people don't like this sort of thing, and the Logic is a beast, but I find it pretty neat. Houlgate's full commentary on the first bit of the logic is also fairly accessible given it is a commentary on perhaps the most inaccessible thing ever written.

I'm not sure if relativity explicitly outlaws a universal now, or if it just means we could in principle never figure out which reference frame decides the universal now. That's something I'd like to hear an expert's opinion on tbh. It's a question I've had for a long time.

It's generally taken that a universal now cannot exist, although this to some extent depends on how one defines their terms. In the context of SR and GR and how time is defined there, we do not have an absolute "now." Rather, it is generally argued that either becoming/simultaneity occurs locally or that all times exist within a "block universe." There is also a "growing block universe" where the past exists but the future does not, such that the four dimensional universe "grows." Such growth occurs locally however, with a "many fingered time." There is also the "crystalizing block universe," where multiple quantum possibilities grow outwards from any local "now" and only "crystalize" when there is wave function collapse. At this point, what a quantum system appears to do is "retroactively decide" which past it actually had, although there is considerable debate on how to interpret this appearance. You can look up the "quantum eraser" experiments" for that sort of thing.



Or the crystalizing block:



Not to confuse you, but we can still talk about "time-like slices," but these aren't Euclidian planes but hyperplanes that may have a curved surface. Basically, we can talk about a global slice, but not about global simultaneity. Simultaneity is defined locally. But GR/SR are also classical theories, so things get even dicer when you talk about quantum phenomena like entanglement or tunneling.

Anyhow, below is a good quote I already had pulled out, although it is a bit dense. The Great Courses has a good class on relativity as well if you're interested.

We have seen that SR rules out the idea of a unique, absolute present: if the set of events that is simultaneous with a given event O depends upon the inertial reference frame chosen, and in fact is a completely different set of events (save for the given event O) for each choice of reference frame in inertial motion relative to the original, then there clearly is no such thing as the set of events happening at the same time as O. As Paul Davies writes (in a variant of the example given by Penrose above), if I stand up and walk across my room, the events happening “now” on some planet in the Andromeda Galaxy would differ by a whole day from those that would be happening “now” if I had stayed seated (Davies 1995, 70).


From these considerations Gödel concludes that time lapse loses all objective meaning. But from the same considerations Davies concludes, along with other modern philosophers of science, that it is not time lapse that should be abandoned, but the idea that events have to “become” in order to be real. "Unless you are a solipsist."

As I argued in Chap. 3 above, events “exist all at once” in a spacetime manifold only in the sense that we represent them all at once as belonging to the same manifold. But we represent them precisely as occurring at different times, or different spacetime locations, and if we did not, we would have denied temporal succession...


...in each case we are presented with an argument that begins with a premise that all events existing simultaneously with a given event exist (are real or are deter- mined), and concludes that consequently all events in the manifold exist (are real or determined). But the conclusion only has the appearance of sustainability because of the equivocation analysed above in Chap. 3.If a point-event exists in the sense of occurring at the spacetime location at which it occurs, it cannot also have occurred earlier. But if the event only exists in the sense of existing in the manifold, then the conclusion that it already exists earlier—that such a future event is “every bit as real as events in the present” (Davies), or “already real” (Putnam)—cannot be sustained. Thus, far from undermining the notion of becoming, their argument should be taken rather to undermine their starting premise, that events simultaneous with another event are already real or already exist for it in a temporal sense. For to suppose that this is so, on the above analysis of their argument, inexorably leads to a conclusion that denies temporal succession.

This, in fact, was Gödel’s point. As mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, he had already anticipated the objection that the relativity of time lapse “does not exclude that it is something objective”. To this he countered that the lapse of time connotes “a change in the existing”, and “the concept of existence cannot be relativized without destroying its meaning completely” (Gödel 1949, 558, n. 5).To this he countered that the lapse of time connotes “a change in the existing”, and “the concept of existence cannot be relativized without destroying its meaning completely” (Gödel 1949, 558, n. 5).As we saw in Chap. 3, however, the sense in which events and temporal relations “exist” in spacetime is not a temporal sense. This would amount to a denial of the reality of temporal succession.20

So the root of the trouble with the “layer of now’” conception of time lapse is a failure to take into account the bifurcation of the classical time concept into two distinct time concepts in relativity theory. The time elapsed for each twin—the time during which they will have aged differently—is measured by the proper time along each path. The difference in the proper times for their journeys is not the same as the difference in the time co-ordinates of the two points in some inertial reference frame, since they each set off at some time t1 and meet up at a time t2 in any one ...

We may call this the Principle of Chronological Precedence, or CP. As can be seen, it presupposes the Principle of Retarded Action discussed in Chap. 4, according to which every physical process takes a finite quantity of time to be completed.Note that so long as CP holds for the propagation of any physical influence, it will not matter whether light or anything else actually travels with the limiting velocity.41


As Robb showed in 1914, this means that—restricting temporal relations to these absolute relations only—a given event can be related in order of succession to any event in its future or past light cones, but cannot be so related to any event outside these cones (in what came to be called the event’s “Elsewhere”).There are therefore pairs of events that are not ordered with respect to (absolute) before and after, such as the events happening at the instants A and B on Robb’s “Fig. 6.1" The event B, being too far away from A for any influence to travel between them, is neither before nor after A.



For example, B could be the event on some planet in the Andromeda Galaxy that Paul Davies asked us to imagine, in the Elsewhere of me at the instant A when I am considering it. It is true that by walking this way and that I could describe that event as being in the past or in the future according to the time coordinate associated with the frame of reference in which I am at rest. But that event is not present to me in the sense of being a possible part of my experience. It bears no absolute temporal relation to my considering it...

All the events I experience, on the other hand, will be either before or after one another, and therefore distinct. In fact, they will occur in a linear order.They will lie on what Minkowski called my worldline.


There is nothing unique about my worldline, however. On pain of solipsism, what goes for me goes for any other possible observer (this is the counterpart in his theory to Putnam’s “No Privileged Observers”).42 Thus if we regard time as constituted by these absolute relations, time as a whole does not have a linear order: not all events can be ordered on a line proceeding from past to future, even though two events that are in each other’s elsewhere (i.e. lying outside each other’s cones) will be in the past of some event that is suitably far in the future of both of them. In this way, all events can be temporally ordered, even if not every pair of events is such that one is in the past or future of the other. This is Robb's "conical order." In the language of the theory of relations, it is a strict partial order, rather than a serial order.

In a paper of 1967 the Russian mathematician Alexandrov showed how the topology of Minkowski spacetime is uniquely determined “by the propagation of light or, in the language of geometry, by the system of the light cones”, noting the equivalence of this derivation to Robb’s derivation on the assumption of chronological precedence.

The Reality of Time Flow: Local Becoming in Modern Physics

Firstly, how do you know that judgements vary on this matter? — Luke

To begin with, yours and mine vary, obviously. And, I've had numerous similar discussions on this forum which indicate variance among others. Also the google search you cited indicates a range between "a couple of hundred milliseconds to a couple of seconds"

Secondly, I don't believe that it does vary; at least, not to any significant degree. There is general consensus and conventional agreement over the present time, down to the microsecond, thanks to GPS satellites. Almost anyone with a working mobile phone or computer can verify the present time. — Luke

Obviously we disagree on what constitutes "significant". Engineers today are working in timescales of nanoseconds and shorter, so clearly the difference you derived from google, of over a second is very significant

We, at least, agree that "the present" time is defined in terms of conscious experience. — Luke

You assert this, but display otherwise with your expressions, insisting that the difference between various subjective experiences in this matter is insignificant.

You've also been insisting that there is no overlap between past and present, or present and future. This implies that there are two points in time, dimensionless boundaries, one which separates past from present, and one which separates future from present. But you agree that such dimensionless points are not consistent with the subjective experience of time You don't seem to grasp the fact that assuming that there is no overlap between such segments of time implies dimensionless boundaries, points within the experience of time, to provide these separations, and this is completely inconsistent with the subjective experience of time.

Can you honestly tell me that your experience of time provides a boundary between past and present so that there is no overlap? How do you identify this boundary? Do you see it, or otherwise sense it? Or, is it the case that this is just an ideal which you impose on your experience, insisting that your experience must be like this in order that your experience be consistent with your definition of "present", even though you do not really experience any such boundary between present and past, whatsoever? You just think that there must be a boundary because that's what your conception tells you, but you do not experience any such boundary.

Furthermore, many people assume the "present moment" to be a simple point in time, which separates past from future. This reduces your assumed two points, one separating past from present, the other separating present from future, to one point separating past from future. That point is the present. This is a significant simplification in comparison to your proposal, and one which has agreement amongst many different people. But it signifies a radical difference from your conception. Now "the present moment" has no duration at all. But this, though it is more agreeable than any stipulated length of time as "the present" because it is a simplification, requiring one point in time rather than two, and creating the illusion that measurements are precise, is not at all consistent with subjective experience of time.

ou are attempting to change the conventional meaning of the concept of "the present" to account for all potentially different "present times" — Luke

I am proposing a definition which is not conventional. This is because there is no conventional definition of "the present" which is consistent with the empirical evidence, the human experience of being present. Conventional definitions are outdated, coming from a time when we had less understanding of what being present meant.

There is no conventional definition of "the present" which states that it consists of parts of the past and/or the future. — Luke

That is exactly the problem with conventional definitions of "the present". None of these proposed definitions are consistent with the reality of the present according to human experience. This has created a significant problem, which is that many people have been led to deny the reality of the present. So, what is most basic, and fundamental to human experience, being at the present, is now completely denied by many people who insist that "the present" is not something real.

Therefore we have the very significant problem which is the denial of the reality of the human experience. Some insist for example, that we live in a simulation. This denial of the reality of human experience is the result of there being not a single conventional definition of "the present" which is consistent with reality. There are only false representations of "the present", like what you propose, ones which utilize arbitrary points in time. Since the subjective experience is inconsistent with the conventional definitions of "the present", instead of rejecting the definitions, as I do, people accept these representations of "the present" as true representations of the present, and reject the human experience of "the present" as not real.

Presumably, this "overlap" is due to the fact that the duration of one person's "present" is different from the duration of another person's "present". — Luke

No, this is a bit of a misunderstanding of what I've argued. The overlap is not due to the fact that one person's present is different from another. The overlap is the true nature of what the present is, and what time is. We do not know why time exists like this, so we cannot say what the overlap is due to. The fact that the duration of one person's present is different from the duration of another person's present, is evidence that this overlap is the real, or true nature of the present.

So you need to reverse the order of implied causation in your statement. The overlap is not caused by one person's present being different from another's, the overlap causes one person's present to be different from another's. That's why we can say that the difference between one person's present and another's, is evidence of overlap.

Maybe they have the same duration. It does not necessarily follow that the durations are different or that there must be some overlap. So how do you know that different people must have a different duration of "the present" in the first place? — Luke

As I explained already, the standard convention is to represent the present as "a moment", or "an instant", and this is a zero duration. It is the convention because it is an ideal which is agreeable, acceptable. But when it is seen by philosophers that this ideal is not consistent with the reality of time, then durations are proposed, such as infinitesimals. The fact that we cannot agree on the precise length of the infinitesimal which represents "the present" indicates that we do not all experience the same length of duration for the present. If we all experienced the same length of present, we could agree on the length of present, just like we agree on colours and things like that. We do not agree on the length of the present though, because we do not experience it the same as one another,. Therefore we've adopted a durationless, dimensionless, "present moment" instead, as something which is agreeable, and avoids the problem of having to find some means for determining the actual length of the present.

, neat illustrations. The evolving universe might be the most intuitive, except if "evolving" already presupposes time.

To begin with, yours and mine vary, obviously. And, I've had numerous similar discussions on this forum which indicate variance among others. Also the google search you cited indicates a range between "a couple of hundred milliseconds to a couple of seconds" — Metaphysician Undercover

Right, but as an empirical matter, have you done any measurements of anyone's duration of the present? Even on yourself? If not, then how do you know that judgements vary?

Obviously we disagree on what constitutes "significant". Engineers today are working in timescales of nanoseconds and shorter, so clearly the difference you derived from google, of over a second is very significant — Metaphysician Undercover

If you accept the Google results, then where's the dispute?

We, at least, agree that "the present" time is defined in terms of conscious experience.
— Luke

You assert this, but display otherwise with your expressions, insisting that the difference between various subjective experiences in this matter is insignificant. — Metaphysician Undercover

My "insistence" (I've only said it once) that the difference between various subjective experiences in this matter are insignificant does not affect, and is completely unrelated to, our agreement that the "present" time is defined in terms of conscious experience.

You've also been insisting that there is no overlap between past and present, or present and future. This implies that there are two points in time, dimensionless boundaries, one which separates past from present, and one which separates future from present. But you agree that such dimensionless points are not consistent with the subjective experience of time — Metaphysician Undercover

I do not agree that "dimensionless points are not consistent with the subjective experience of time". Dimensionless points may be inconsistent with your view of the subjective experience of time, but they are not inconsistent with my view. Earlier in the discussion, I suggested an improvement to your argument that the present consists of a duration rather than a dimensionless point. However, even if I were to agree that the present consists of a duration rather than a dimensionless point, then I would only agree that the duration of the present itself is not a dimensionless point; that the present has a duration, and that that duration is bounded by definite end-points which separate it from the past and the future. I have maintained this position regarding definite distinctions between past, present and future throughout the discussion.

You don't seem to grasp the fact that assuming that there is no overlap between such segments of time implies dimensionless boundaries, points within the experience of time, to provide these separations, — Metaphysician Undercover

Obviously, I grasp it; I've maintained that there is a definite distinction between past, present and future throughout the discussion.

Can you honestly tell me that your experience of time provides a boundary between past and present so that there is no overlap? How do you identify this boundary? Do you see it, or otherwise sense it? Or, is it the case that this is just an ideal which you impose on your experience, insisting that your experience must be like this in order that your experience be consistent with your definition of "present", even though you do not really experience any such boundary between present and past, whatsoever? You just think that there must be a boundary because that's what your conception tells you, but you do not experience any such boundary. — Metaphysician Undercover

Can you honestly tell me that your experience of time provides an overlap between past and present so that there is no boundary? How do you identify this overlap? Do you see it, or otherwise sense it? Or, is it the case that this is just an ideal which you impose on your experience, insisting that your experience must be like this in order that your experience be consistent with your definition of "present", even though you do not really experience any such overlap between present and past, whatsoever? You just think that there must be an overlap because that's what your conception tells you, but you do not experience any such overlap.

Conventional definitions are outdated, coming from a time when we had less understanding of what being present meant. — Metaphysician Undercover

What updated "understanding of what being present" means leads you to believe that there is an overlap of past/present and present/future? I thought your knowledge of this "overlap" was derived from your own personal experience, rather than from scientific knowledge?

There is no conventional definition of "the present" which states that it consists of parts of the past and/or the future.
— Luke

That is exactly the problem with conventional definitions of "the present". None of these proposed definitions are consistent with the reality of the present according to human experience. This has created a significant problem, which is that many people have been led to deny the reality of the present. So, what is most basic, and fundamental to human experience, being at the present, is now completely denied by many people who insist that "the present" is not something real.

Therefore we have the very significant problem which is the denial of the reality of the human experience. Some insist for example, that we live in a simulation. This denial of the reality of human experience is the result of there being not a single conventional definition of "the present" which is consistent with reality. There are only false representations of "the present", like what you propose, ones which utilize arbitrary points in time. Since the subjective experience is inconsistent with the conventional definitions of "the present", instead of rejecting the definitions, as I do, people accept these representations of "the present" as true representations of the present, and reject the human experience of "the present" as not real. — Metaphysician Undercover

Putting aside the question of how the lack of a singular defintion of "the present" causes the idea that we live in a simulation... What does any of this have to do with your proposed "overlap" between past/present and present/future?

Presumably, this "overlap" is due to the fact that the duration of one person's "present" is different from the duration of another person's "present".
— Luke

No, this is a bit of a misunderstanding of what I've argued. The overlap is not due to the fact that one person's present is different from another. The overlap is the true nature of what the present is, and what time is. We do not know why time exists like this, so we cannot say what the overlap is due to. The fact that the duration of one person's present is different from the duration of another person's present, is evidence that this overlap is the real, or true nature of the present.

So you need to reverse the order of implied causation in your statement. The overlap is not caused by one person's present being different from another's, the overlap causes one person's present to be different from another's. That's why we can say that the difference between one person's present and another's, is evidence of overlap. — Metaphysician Undercover

This brings us back to my earlier criticism. If there is no distinction between past, present and future, then the duration of the present must be infinite, right? Past, present and future are all one and without distinction, so there is no present time, really. Otherwise, what is the duration of your personal present time? How do you know if something is still present or if it is now in the past? Likewise, how do you know if something is still in the future or if it is now present? If there is no distinction between them, then past, present and future just blur into one single time period. But, in that case, there cannot be any differences between the duration of the "present" for different people because there really is no present time distinct from past and future times, and therefore there cannot there be any overlap of past/present and present/future. Just out of curiosity, what is the duration of the proposed overlap?

Presupposing time doesn't seem like an issue for empirical science. After all, we observe time and use it to define all sorts of phenomena. The unfortunately common claim that "physics shows that time is illusory," is quite misleading. A more appropriate restatement would be "physics shows that the passage of time relevant to some present moment is illusory." That is, virtually no one denies the existence of a relevant time dimension re: Minkowski Space-Time (time is right in the name).

But even the restatement goes too far. It'd be more accurate to say that "many physicists agree with philosophical interpretations of empirical findings in physics that suggest that the passage of time is illusory." Obviously there aren't empircal findings from some experiment where time has been stopped or run in reverse for us to observe. I am of the opinion that the evidence for these philosophical interpretations is far too weak to justify a blanket denial of any relevant present. I don't even think this is a majority opinion in physics writ large, but it seems like it is a majority opinion for those who work in cosmology and publish works of popular science and for philosophers of time.

I would imagine that, just as in philosophy, where you specialize changes how you see the issue. I'd be willing to bet that a survey would find that people who specialize in statistical mechanics are far less likely to believe in eternalist interpretations than those who work in cosmology.

The unfortunately common claim that "physics shows that time is illusory," is quite misleading. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It'd be more accurate to say that "many physicists agree with philosophical interpretations of empirical findings in physics that suggest that the passage of time is illusory." — Count Timothy von Icarus

It's my current (and very subject to change) belief that "illusory" is not the right word to use, and what they really mean is "emergent".

I hear more and more that time, and even space time, isn't a fundamental feature of our reality. People take that and go straight to "illusory", but there are plenty of non fundamental things we don't consider to be illusions. They're just emergent.

Time isn't an illusion, time is emergent, and the experience we have of time isn't an illusion so much as it is an inevitable part of what it feels like to be a being occupying space time in the way that we do.

I think.

As an aside, is the only alternative to "time is fundamentally real" some kind of block universe? It seems that way to me.

Sure, time is emergent in that it's the dimension in which change occurs in three dimensional space. Aristotle noted this when rebutting Zeno's Paradox of the Arrow as a fallacy of composition. Sure, if we consider any frozen moment in the path of an arrow, from when it leaves the bow string to when it hits the ground, the arrow isn't isn't moving in any of the frozen moments. However, that doesn't imply motion doesn't exist. Rather, time is the dimension through which changes in location take place. A universe with no change has no (observable) time dimension.

Now, there is an argument that, ontologically, a toy universe, or our real universe, either has three dimensions or four, regardless of if change exists. You can imagine a four dimensional universe where nothing changes, it's just that it would observably indistinguishable from a three dimensional for anyone who inside said universe (ignoring that we arguably can't imagine an observer who doesn't experience time). Some formulations of cosmology for our universe add an extra dimension for the very early phase that "disappears," shortly after the Big Bang.

Right, but as an empirical matter, have you done any measurements of anyone's duration of the present? Even on yourself? If not, then how do you know that judgements vary? — Luke

Measurements of time rely on the determination of points which mark the moments which begin and end the measured period. Such points are not real, but arbitrary. In practise, we mark a point with the occurrence of an event, (the numbers on a clock for example). There are no such events which mark the beginning and ending of one's present, unless of course we make arbitrary ones. Therefore any such measurement of one's present would be completely arbitrary, and that is not a measurement at all. Without such points it is impossible to measure one's present.

So I know that the judgements of anyone's duration of the present vary because it is impossible to measure one's present, and through my experience with common usage I have noticed variance. People usually mark "the present" with reference to an event, "the moment when X is occurring, or occurred. But different types of events take different amounts of time, so the length of the person's present is dependent on the type of event that the person is concerned with at the time. Right now my present is marked by writing this post, and that might be an hour or so. When I'm pouring a coffee, that's a present of less than a minute. Since "the present" is arbitrary, without any real points, it's defined by whatever event one is paying attention to. So it is very clear to me that my own present varies in length.

If you accept the Google results, then where's the dispute? — Luke

What you presented from Google shows a very significant variance, between a couple hundred milliseconds and a couple seconds. Yet you claim this is not significant.

My "insistence" (I've only said it once) that the difference between various subjective experiences in this matter are insignificant does not affect, and is completely unrelated to, our agreement that the "present" time is defined in terms of conscious experience. — Luke

The principal disagreement between us is your insistence that no part of the past or future overlaps into the present. This would require points which separate past from present and future from present. Such a separation is inconsistent with subjective experience. It is an ideal which you hold, and you impose, yet you insist that your conception of the present is based on subjective experience. My reference to the differences between various subjective experiences is just provided as evidence that there is no such points of separation between past/present and future/present, because you refuse to find this in your own subjective experience, being in a state of denial.

I do not agree that "dimensionless points are not consistent with the subjective experience of time". Dimensionless points may be inconsistent with your view of the subjective experience of time, but they are not inconsistent with my view. Earlier in the discussion, I suggested an improvement to your argument that the present consists of a duration rather than a dimensionless point. However, even if I were to agree that the present consists of a duration rather than a dimensionless point, then I would only agree that the duration of the present itself is not a dimensionless point; that the present has a duration, and that that duration is bounded by definite end-points which separate it from the past and the future. I have maintained this position regarding definite distinctions between past, present and future throughout the discussion. — Luke

OK, so now it's your turn. Analyze your own subjective experience, find those points which separate past/present and future/present, and describe them to me. Justify your claim that there is no overlap in your own subjective experience.

Can you honestly tell me that your experience of time provides an overlap between past and present so that there is no boundary? How do you identify this overlap? — Luke

That's simple. I know there is past because of memories. I know there is future because anticipation. I can identify nothing which marks "the present" in my experience. Analysis of sensation indicates that everything sensed is in the past, therefore memories, and analysis of anticipations indicates that these relate to things in the future. Therefore I can conclude that my entire experience of "the present" is just an overlap of memories and anticipations, as the Venn diagram example I mentioned earlier.

What updated "understanding of what being present" means leads you to believe that there is an overlap of past/present and present/future? I thought your knowledge of this "overlap" was derived from your own personal experience, rather than from scientific knowledge? — Luke

Personal experience needs to be subjected to relevant knowledge in order to understand it. A being looking at one's own experience without any knowledge at the outset would come away with very little. Modern science, physics and engineering, which deals with extremely short periods of time indicates very clearly that what we thought was the present experience, sensations, are really in the past by the time they are apprehended by the mind. So the mind is "ahead of", or in the future, relative to the information it gets from the senses. That information is delayed through electrical processes. This implies that if the human being itself is said to be at the present, some parts of the human being, the mind, are in the future, while other parts, the senses are in the past. This means that the whole act of sensing and apprehending what is sensed, being eventual, and requiring an extended period of time, is part past, and part future.

What does any of this have to do with your proposed "overlap" between past/present and present/future? — Luke

It describe how other conceptions of the present, like yours, have been found to be incompatible with experience, and that we ought to change our conception of the present rather than blindly insist on compatibility.

If there is no distinction between past, present and future, then the duration of the present must be infinite, right? — Luke

It is not that there is no distinction, it is that they are not "distinct" in the sense of not overlapping. I already addressed this, you equivocate between "distinct" as in the way you use it to mean mutually exclusive, and "distinction" as in the way I use it to determine different features. So I say that there is a distinction between past and future, meaning that these are different predications of the same subject "time" but they are not necessarily opposing predications, therefore there is no contradiction in the subject, time, having both these predication at the same time, the present. You make them opposing predications so that there can be no overlap without contradiction.

If you take some time to consider the difference between past and future, you will see that these are not opposite to each other in the sense required in order that one would necessarily negate the other. Yes, they are completely different, but in no way is the past the opposite of the future, in the sense required for one to negate the other, as contraries.

Otherwise, what is the duration of your personal present time? How do you know if something is still present or if it is now in the past? Likewise, how do you know if something is still in the future or if it is now present? — Luke

These are difficult questions because time is a difficult subject. There is no reason to expect that anyone ought to know the answers to this sort of questioning.

If there is no distinction between them, then past, present and future just blur into one single time period. — Luke

Clearly there is a distinction between past and future. I never denied this. I only deny that it is the type of distinction we know as opposition, where the presence of one would deny the possibility of the presence of the other, by the law of non-contradiction. So the distinction is more like a distinction of category, like the difference between light and sound for example. There is a distinction to be made between light and sound, but the presence of sound in no way implies that the presence of light is impossible, nor vise versa. That is the type of distinction I am talking about, a difference in category.

But, in that case, there cannot be any differences between the duration of the "present" for different people because there really is no present time distinct from past and future times, and therefore there cannot there be any overlap of past/present and present/future. — Luke

You misunderstand this. There really is no present time distinct from past and future time. What I said is that the present is the perspective. So it is not a part of time at all, but the perspective from which time is observed. Time consists of the two aspects, past and future, and where these two are observed as overlapping is known as the present. Refer back to my Venn diagram explanation. There are two overlapping categories, past and future, and where these two overlap is called the present.

The reason why there is difference in the duration of the present, for different people, is that we all understand and interpret the overlap differently. Most, like yourself, don't even recognize the overlap, claiming "the present" to be something completely different from this, like you do. Obviously, if you do not even recognize that the overlap of past and future is real, then for you, any claimed duration of this overlap would be completely arbitrary. Therefore, since most people do not even recognize the reality of this overlap, if they were asked to state the duration of the present, it would be something arbitrary. So the duration would be different for different people.

On the other hand, if people started to take this perspective seriously, and started looking into the reality, and objective truth of this overlap, then they could come up with principles to measure it. In this way we could develop a conventional, standardized measurement of the overlap (the present). Then instead of "the present" signifying the perspective from which the overlap is view, we could move toward "the present" signifying the overlap itself, after we develop the principles required to understand the overlap itself.

The theory is a starting point, a launch pad toward a more accurate understanding of the reality of time. — Metaphysician Undercover

I've been meaning to get back to this for awhile. I hope your statement above is an accurate description of your view. However, I can't say that I get the impression that it really is true based on what I have read of this thread since I last posted in it.

I don't see how your comment about communication is relevant. Clearly communication is a difficult task, as my attempt at discussion with Luke indicates, and the capacity to communicate is not something which ought to be taken for granted. However, I don't see how this bears on my temporal theory.

I should have connected more dots. What I was hoping you would recognize is that we are communicating via the internet.

There are implications to that, relevent to having a theory of time that is explanatory in a general way of a great many events that go on in the world. Your theory of time defines time in terms of your subjective experience. It suggests solipsism.

The way things are in reality, is that in the period of time it takes you to have a subjective recognition of PRESENT-NOW, zillions of things happen, one after the other, all around you, and within you.

You lack sufficient resolution on your metric for time, because your metric for time is part of a paradigm that doesn't really work for communicating with people about time with accuracy.

Do you see how it's a bit egocentric to base your metric of time on your subjective experience?

There's been a lot of talk in this thread about "duration of the present", has it been disambiguated anywhere what this actually refers to? I know what the concept of the present refers to, abstractly and experientially, but I don't know what it means when you add the word "duration" to it. What's the duration of the present?

There are implications to that, relevent to having a theory of time that is explanatory in a general way of a great many events that go on in the world. Your theory of time defines time in terms of your subjective experience. It suggests solipsism. — wonderer1

If you read more of my posting in the last week, you'll see this is not true at all. We can discuss our differences and work out systems of compromise. Look at the way the world is divided into time zones for example. As you look around the world, the numbers assigned to the present time are different depending on location, but we have a system which works. And as I described to Luke, "the present" in general, is reduced to a point in time because this facilitates measurement. There is no suggestion of solipsism, because we wok out our differences, but truth is sometimes sacrificed to simplicity due to pragmatic forces. That is why the present is commonly represented as a point in time.

The way things are in reality, is that in the period of time it takes you to have a subjective recognition of PRESENT-NOW, zillions of things happen, one after the other, all around you, and within you. — wonderer1

This is clear evidence that what I say is true, "PRESENT-NOW" always consists of duration, and is never actually a point in time.

You lack sufficient resolution on your metric for time, because your metric for time is part of a paradigm that doesn't really work for communicating with people about time with accuracy. — wonderer1

You have this reversed. What you call "communicating with people about time with accuracy" is really communicating with people about time without accuracy. You think that since we manage to engineer complex systems, and get things done, that this implies "accuracy" in our communications about time. However, if you look at the problems, the brick walls, which scientists have run into, quantum uncertainty, multiple worlds, loop gravity, spatial expansion, etc., you'll see that accuracy is impossible with the methods currently used.

I recognize that despite what you and Luke might say, claiming that such problems are insignificant, these are very real and significant problems which have manifested due to our inability to communicate about time with accuracy. You look at human successes as evidence of perfection in our conception of time, while I look at human failures as evidence of imperfection in our conception of time. So I propose a way to get around these failures, and you say there is no need to because we already have the best, or most accurate way of measuring time that is possible.

Do you see how it's a bit egocentric to base your metric of time on your subjective experience? — wonderer1

I see that the only possible way to have a truthful and accurate metric of time is to base it in human experience, empirical evidence. Whether this is egocentric or not is irrelevant.

There are no such events which mark the beginning and ending of one's present, unless of course we make arbitrary ones. Therefore any such measurement of one's present would be completely arbitrary, and that is not a measurement at all. Without such points it is impossible to measure one's present...

What you presented from Google shows a very significant variance, between a couple hundred milliseconds and a couple seconds. Yet you claim this is not significant. — Metaphysician Undercover

You cannot, on the one hand, claim it is impossible to measure one's present, but, on the other hand, accept the Google search results indicating that the measurement of the present is milliseconds to seconds in duration. Either one's present is impossible to measure, or else one's present can be measured but there are significant differences in those measurements. You can't say both that it's impossible to measure but then accept the ("significantly" different) measurements.

OK, so now it's your turn. Analyze your own subjective experience, find those points which separate past/present and future/present, and describe them to me. Justify your claim that there is no overlap in your own subjective experience. — Metaphysician Undercover

For example, each word of this post you are reading is read in the present; each word you have finished reading is now in the past; and each word you are yet to read is now in the future. You could also substitute "speaking" for "reading".

Why do you claim that this "separation" between past, present and future is inconsistent with subjective experience?

That's simple. I know there is past because of memories. I know there is future because anticipation. I can identify nothing which marks "the present" in my experience. — Metaphysician Undercover

All of your memories are related to your actions and conscious awareness in the present. All of your anticipations of the future are made in the present. If there is no "present" in your experience, then it sounds as though you deny the present. But, until now, the present is what you have been claiming has a duration and has an overlap with the past and the future. I thought that's what was in dispute here. Now you seem to be saying there is no "present".

Analysis of sensation indicates that everything sensed is in the past, therefore memories, and analysis of anticipations indicates that these relate to things in the future. — Metaphysician Undercover

Is this your analysis of your own sensation?

Therefore I can conclude that my entire experience of "the present" is just an overlap of memories and anticipations, as the Venn diagram example I mentioned earlier. — Metaphysician Undercover

Until now, you had asserted that there were no distinct points marking the beginning and end of the present. For example:

"the present" has duration, and there are no real points which mark the beginning and ending of that duration — Metaphysician Undercover

You had implied, if not stated, that there were two overlaps: one between the past and present, and another between the present and future, thus creating the indistinct boundary around the present. Now you appear to have changed your argument to claim that there is only one overlap, and that the present is an overlapping area between the past and future. In that case, there are very "real points which mark the beginning and ending of that [present] duration", which are where the past and future (circles) intersect.

If the present is the area within the overlap of the past and future (circles) in your Venn diagram, then the present has two distinct boundary lines, which are simply the arcs of the past and future that form the boundaries of the overlapping area (i.e. the present). Those two arcs are distinct, single lines.

Personal experience needs to be subjected to relevant knowledge in order to understand it. A being looking at one's own experience without any knowledge at the outset would come away with very little. Modern science, physics and engineering, which deals with extremely short periods of time indicates very clearly that what we thought was the present experience, sensations, are really in the past by the time they are apprehended by the mind. So the mind is "ahead of", or in the future, relative to the information it gets from the senses. That information is delayed through electrical processes. This implies that if the human being itself is said to be at the present, some parts of the human being, the mind, are in the future, while other parts, the senses are in the past. This means that the whole act of sensing and apprehending what is sensed, being eventual, and requiring an extended period of time, is part past, and part future. — Metaphysician Undercover

If all the things we thought were in the present are not in the present, then what is left in the present? Most of what you have mentioned here is not consciously experienced or else has been found to be not in the present. However, you said that the present was defined in terms of conscious experience. Therefore, I don't see how this is an updated "understanding of what being present" means.

It is not that there is no distinction, it is that they are not "distinct" in the sense of not overlapping. — Metaphysician Undercover

There is no distinction between past, present and future in "the present" area of your Venn diagram, or in the overlapping area of past and future which creates/defines the present. That section contains all three time periods and there is no distinction between them.

Furthermore, the present is distinct in terms of its boundary, which is formed by the non-overlapping sections of the past and future (times/circles) that lie outside the present. The boundary created by the overlap distinctly defines the beginning and end points of the present that you earlier claimed were not distinct.

There really is no present time distinct from past and future time. What I said is that the present is the perspective. So it is not a part of time at all... — Metaphysician Undercover

Once again, you appear to deny that the present is a part of time. In that case, what have we been discussing? What is it that has a duration? How can a duration exist outside of time?

You cannot, on the one hand, claim it is impossible to measure one's present, but, on the other hand, accept the Google search results indicating that the measurement of the present is milliseconds to seconds in duration. — Luke

I don't think I said it's impossible to measure one's present, only that such a measurement would be quite arbitrary. Your Google search supports this.

For example, each word of this post you are reading is read in the present; each word you have finished reading is now in the past; and each word you are yet to read is now in the future. You could also substitute "speaking" for "reading". — Luke

What are you saying, that the present is as long as it takes to read a word? That supports what I said, that the present is as long as the event which has one's attention. If doing something else was your example, the duration of the present would be defined by that activity.

Why do you claim that this "separation" between past, present and future is inconsistent with subjective experience? — Luke

I explained that already, it has to do with the "point" in time which separates past from present, and the point in time which separates present from future. Why do you keep asking me this? Are you having difficulty understanding that such a separation requires a point? Or do you find points in time in your subjective experience of time? I even asked you to explain your experience of these points which separate these parts of time?

For example, when you are reading, do you find that there is temporal points of separation between each word you read? I do not. In fact, I don't find that reading is anywhere near like how you described it. I have to understand the words in context, so I'm always reading a bunch of words at a time. Proper understanding requires that the entire sentence is present to my mind, so I often reread. I don't find these points of separation anywhere.

All of your memories are related to your actions and conscious awareness in the present. All of your anticipations of the future are made in the present. If there is no "present" in your experience, then it sounds as though you deny the present. But, until now, the present is what you have been claiming has a duration and has an overlap with the past and the future. I thought that's what was in dispute here. Now you seem to be saying there is no "present". — Luke

What's in dispute is my understanding of "the present" vs. your understanding of "the present". You have a habit of saying things like 'then there is no present for you' when what I describe as the present is contrary to your description.

Is this your analysis of your own sensation? — Luke

Yes.

Now you appear to have changed your argument to claim that there is only one overlap, and that the present is an overlapping area between the past and future. — Luke

I haven't changed my mind, I mentioned the Venn diagram example, past overlapping future, as the present, a long time ago. You are just so consumed by your intent to look for things i say which are contrary to how you understand "the present", that you didn't even try to understand my examples.

In that case, there are very "real points which mark the beginning and ending of that [present] duration", which are where the past and future (circles) intersect. — Luke

This is incorrect, because time is not static. If past and future were static, then there would by specific points of overlap. However, the relation between past and future is not static, as we know, the future slips into the past. Therefore there are no points of overlap, as the overlap is constantly changing continuously, as time is passing.

If the present is the area within the overlap of the past and future (circles) in your Venn diagram, then the present has two distinct boundary lines, which are simply the arcs of the past and future that form the boundaries of the overlapping area (i.e. the present). Those two arcs are distinct, single lines. — Luke

The Venn diagram is not a perfect example. As you can see, it consists of two static circles with an overlap, while time is not static. So what is required for a better illustration is a moving overlap. The time of the future (tomorrow for example) has to move through the period of overlap (today), and then become the time of the past (yesterday), or something like that. Supposing a point at which the overlap begins and a point at which it ends produces the very same problem as supposing that the present is one point, except the problem is doubled. So this supposition is not useful.

There is no distinction between past, present and future in "the present" area of your Venn diagram, or in the overlapping area of past and future which creates/defines the present. That section contains all three time periods and there is no distinction between them. — Luke

Again, this is incorrect. The distinction may still exist despite the overlap. For example the wavelength which constitutes green may overlap with the wavelength which constitutes yellow, and this might produce the colour blue. But that does not mean that those wavelengths are no longer there just because a different colour is created. Also, two equal and opposite forces may balance each other as an equilibrium, but that does not mean that the forces are not there. Therefore there is no problem whatsoever with conceiving of the past and future as distinct, yet overlapping at the present.

Furthermore, the present is distinct in terms of its boundary, which is formed by the non-overlapping sections of the past and future (times/circles) that lie outside the present. The boundary created by the overlap distinctly defines the beginning and end points of the present that you earlier claimed were not distinct. — Luke

This objection is based on the incorrect things you've stated, so it is not relevant.

Once again, you appear to deny that the present is a part of time. In that case, what have we been discussing? What is it that has a duration? How can a duration exist outside of time? — Luke

I don't see the problem here. Temporal things, objects, events, etc., have duration. The human experience of the present is such a thing, it has duration. Duration is not time itself, it is what is measured through the principles of a conception of time. So, what exactly is the problem you are pointing to here?

I don't think I said it's impossible to measure one's present, only that such a measurement would be quite arbitrary. — Metaphysician Undercover

You said:

Measurements of time rely on the determination of points which mark the moments which begin and end the measured period. Such points are not real, but arbitrary. In practise, we mark a point with the occurrence of an event, (the numbers on a clock for example). There are no such events which mark the beginning and ending of one's present, unless of course we make arbitrary ones. Therefore any such measurement of one's present would be completely arbitrary, and that is not a measurement at all. Without such points it is impossible to measure one's present.

So I know that the judgements of anyone's duration of the present vary because it is impossible to measure one's present.. — Metaphysician Undercover

See above. You very clearly said that "it is impossible to measure one's present". In fact, you said it twice. You also added that any arbitrary measurement is "not a measurement at all".

What are you saying, that the present is as long as it takes to read a word? That supports what I said, that the present is as long as the event which has one's attention. — Metaphysician Undercover

You gave an example of an event which lasted for one hour. As I stated earlier:

I think that there probably is a "present" that represents the shortest window of consciousness or awareness for each person...

I also recognise that people use the phrase "the present" in other ways; namely, to represent longer periods such as the present day, present year or other common period. I think there are rarely any disagreements or misunderstandings over this usage. — Luke

So I thought we were discussing the possible duration of this "shortest window of consciousness" (or conscious awareness), rather than the colloquial usage denoting longer periods, such as the present hour, day, year or millennium. If it's the latter, then I don't understand what's in dispute, or what you mean by "the duration of the present", as though the colloquial usage might have only one standard duration. Your response to my Google search results did not indicate any surprise on your part of the duration being in the range of only milliseconds or seconds.

I explained that already, it has to do with the "point" in time which separates past from present, and the point in time which separates present from future. Why do you keep asking me this? Are you having difficulty understanding that such a separation requires a point? Or do you find points in time in your subjective experience of time? I even asked you to explain your experience of these points which separate these parts of time? — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't find any "points" in my conscious experience that separate the present from the past and future. Instead, I experience the passage of time in a continuous manner. This continuity may help to explain why some people think of the present moment as having an infinitesimal duration, as it is the shortest discernible "unit" within a continuum.

For example, when you are reading, do you find that there is temporal points of separation between each word you read? I do not. In fact, I don't find that reading is anywhere near like how you described it. I have to understand the words in context, so I'm always reading a bunch of words at a time. Proper understanding requires that the entire sentence is present to my mind, so I often reread. I don't find these points of separation anywhere. — Metaphysician Undercover

While reading, my internal monologue "reads" the words. That is, I "hear" the words in my mind while I am reading them. Since each word is distinct in my mind, then I believe my conscious awareness while reading can be divided into individual words. SInce the present time is defined in terms of my conscious awareness, and since my conscious awareness can be divided into the reading of individual words, then the present time can be associated (or present-time-stamped) with my reading of each word, and the past and future are defined relative to the present time.

Do you agree that the past and future are defined relative to the present time? If not, then how do you reconcile this with your view that the present time is defined relative to one's conscious awareness?

You have a habit of saying things like 'then there is no present for you' when what I describe as the present is contrary to your description. — Metaphysician Undercover

It's hard not to draw this conclusion when you say things such as:

I can identify nothing which marks "the present" in my experience. — Metaphysician Undercover

Especially when you have also previously said:

You say that you agree with me that the present is defined by conscious experience — Metaphysician Undercover

Analysis of sensation indicates that everything sensed is in the past, therefore memories
— Metaphysician Undercover

Is this your analysis of your own sensation?
— Luke

Yes. — Metaphysician Undercover

How do you find that "everything sensed is in the past"? When you are consciously aware of having a sensation, how is that sensation (and everything sensed) in the past? You said that "the present is defined by conscious experience".

as we know, the future slips into the past. Therefore there are no points of overlap, as the overlap is constantly changing continuously, as time is passing. — Metaphysician Undercover

In what sense is the overlap changing? The duration of the present (i.e. the shortest possible window of conscious awareness) is changing over time? Why?

The Venn diagram is not a perfect example. As you can see, it consists of two static circles with an overlap, while time is not static. So what is required for a better illustration is a moving overlap. The time of the future (tomorrow for example) has to move through the period of overlap (today), and then become the time of the past (yesterday), or something like that. — Metaphysician Undercover

What do you mean by a "moving overlap"? How/why would the overlap change?

The distinction may still exist despite the overlap. For example the wavelength which constitutes green may overlap with the wavelength which constitutes yellow, and this might produce the colour blue. But that does not mean that those wavelengths are no longer there just because a different colour is created. Also, two equal and opposite forces may balance each other as an equilibrium, but that does not mean that the forces are not there. Therefore there is no problem whatsoever with conceiving of the past and future as distinct, yet overlapping at the present. — Metaphysician Undercover

You consider the past and future to be additive or subtractive forces working in harmony or in opposition with each other to produce the present? How can these forces be defined by conscious experience?

There really is no present time distinct from past and future time. What I said is that the present is the perspective. So it is not a part of time at all...
— Metaphysician Undercover

Once again, you appear to deny that the present is a part of time. In that case, what have we been discussing? What is it that has a duration? How can a duration exist outside of time?
— Luke

I don't see the problem here. Temporal things, objects, events, etc., have duration. The human experience of the present is such a thing, it has duration. Duration is not time itself, it is what is measured through the principles of a conception of time. So, what exactly is the problem you are pointing to here? — Metaphysician Undercover

It depends what you mean by "not a part of time at all". In your opinion, are "temporal things, objects, events, etc." a part of time at all? How is a duration, as a period of time, not a part of time? What is a part of time, if not this?

Lastly, I'll just note that back on page one, you were claiming:

...present is logically prior to past and future, and human beings determine past and future relative to their existence at the present. They do not determine the present from past and future — Metaphysician Undercover

This appears to contradict your latest statements, such as:

There really is no present time distinct from past and future time. What I said is that the present is the perspective. So it is not a part of time at all, but the perspective from which time is observed. Time consists of the two aspects, past and future, and where these two are observed as overlapping is known as the present. — Metaphysician Undercover

See above. You very clearly said that "it is impossible to measure one's present". In fact, you said it twice. You also added that any arbitrary measurement is "not a measurement at all". — Luke

To clarify what I meant, the "arbitrary" measurement is a type of measurement, but not accurate or precise. I should not have said it is not a measurement at all.

So I thought we were discussing the possible duration of this "shortest window of consciousness" (or conscious awareness), rather than the colloquial usage denoting longer periods, such as the present hour, day, year or millennium. If it's the latter, then I don't understand what's in dispute, or what you mean by "the duration of the present", as though the colloquial usage might have only one standard duration. Your response to my Google search results did not indicate any surprise on your part of the duration being in the range of only milliseconds or seconds. — Luke

Sorry, I just don't see your point. There's no such thing as "the shortest window of consciousness", that's what your google search shows. It's an arbitrary designation. That's why I said it's not a measurement at all. But to clarify now, it would be a type of measurement, but not a very accurate or precise one.

I don't find any "points" in my conscious experience that separate the present from the past and future. Instead, I experience the passage of time in a continuous manner. This continuity may help to explain why some people think of the present moment as having an infinitesimal duration, as it is the shortest discernible "unit" within a continuum. — Luke

There is no such thing as a unit within a continuum. That is the whole problem here. It is a fundamental issue with "the real numbers". The continuum is designated as divisible in any way (infinitely). This means that any division of it is purely arbitrary, and artificial, there are no natural points of divisibility within it. If there was any natural dividing points, then any true division would be constrained to follow those natural points of divisibility. But the very nature of "continuum", by definition means that there are no such points of natural divisibility, all is the same. So the assignment of points of division (real numbers on the number line for example) is completely arbitrary. There is an infinity of numbers between any two numbers.

You seem to think that the proposition of an "infinitesimal duration" could provide real dividing points. But the infinitesimal duration is itself arbitrary. You call it a "shortest discernible 'unit' within a continuum" But there are no discernible units within a continuum, that's the definition of continuum. Any units are assigned to the continuum in an arbitrary way of representation. But this "representation" is not a true representation because the units represented cannot exist within the continuum itself (by definition).

To clarify though, the assignment of units is not absolutely arbitrary, it is carried out according to some mathematical axioms which are principles of order, such as the real numbers of the number line. This is supposed to be a way of "representing" division of the continuum. That is why it was incorrect for me to say that the arbitrary measurement is not a measurement at all. It is a real measurement in the sense that it's carried out according to principles, but the axioms are not based in any thing real.

Therefore, what your refer to, "an infinitesimal duration, as it is the shortest discernible 'unit' within a continuum", is just a fictional thing. There are no discernible units within a continuum, and any representation of the continuum as "units" is an arbitrary representation, based in some axioms of pure mathematics, rather than discerning real units within the thing divided. So this proposal does nothing for us.

While reading, my internal monologue "reads" the words. That is, I "hear" the words in my mind while I am reading them. Since each word is distinct in my mind, then I believe my conscious awareness while reading can be divided into individual words. SInce the present time is defined in terms of my conscious awareness, and since my conscious awareness can be divided into the reading of individual words, then the present time can be associated (or present-time-stamped) with my reading of each word, and the past and future are defined relative to the present time. — Luke

Of course this is just arbitrary. Why not divide your conscious awareness by apprehending each letter of a word, in order, instead of by apprehending each word of a sentence in order?

Do you agree that the past and future are defined relative to the present time? If not, then how do you reconcile this with your view that the present time is defined relative to one's conscious awareness? — Luke

I think I may have said that earlier, that past and future are defined relative to present. But now I see I may have misspoke on this as well. I think what is really the case is that "the present" is defined relative to past and future, which are defined relative to conscious experience. This means that conscious experience gives to us, past and future, as the memories and anticipations which I mentioned, and from this we derive a present. "The present" is derived from conscious experience, but from an understanding of the elements of it (past and future).

So what we call "conscious awareness", or the conscious experience of the present, is really an awareness of the difference between past and future. Since these two are radically different, yet appear to be in some way a continuum, we conclude that there must be a "present" which separates them. What I am arguing is that this separation between past and future is a misrepresentation, a misunderstanding, as the present is really a unity of the past and future. This unity would be the basis for the conception of the "unit", parts united. The "unit" you mentioned above fails as being completely arbitrary.

How do you find that "everything sensed is in the past"? When you are consciously aware of having a sensation, how is that sensation (and everything sensed) in the past? You said that "the present is defined by conscious experience". — Luke

I know from science, that there is a process within my body whereby the information, signals which are sensed, are apprehended by the consciously aware mind. That process is carried out by organs which have a spatial separation of some degree, and I know that it takes time for such information to traverse spatial separation, even at the speed of light. So I know that even by the time my consciously aware mind apprehends a sensation, the thing sensed is in the past in relation to my consciously aware mind. This is a principle which is well understood scientifically as "reflex".

In what sense is the overlap changing? The duration of the present (i.e. the shortest possible window of conscious awareness) is changing over time? Why? — Luke

As I said, "the shortest possible window of conscious awareness" makes no sense to me as your Google search supports. Different aspects of conscious awareness take different amounts of time. Check the reflex of different senses for example.

The overlap between past and future is changing because time is passing. For simplicity, the overlap is the present, and the present is changing as time passes. That's why the "now" is a moving target, by the time you say "now" it's in the past.

You consider the past and future to be additive or subtractive forces working in harmony or in opposition with each other to produce the present? — Luke

That was an example of how things can overlap, yet still be distinct. There are many different examples, each different in its own way. So you ought not take one example and assume that I think time is defined by the example.

In your opinion, are "temporal things, objects, events, etc." a part of time at all? — Luke

Strictly speaking, no. Thinking that temporal things are the parts of time produces the misconception that time is change. Temporal things, events and change, demonstrate the existence of time to us. From the existence of change we abstract the idea of time. Time, in this sense is an abstraction. The abstraction is distinct from the things which it is derived from. The things are particulars, the abstraction is universal.

I believe that the reason why people believe time and change to be one and the same thing, is that they know that "time" must represent something real, but they are not prepared to take the next step, to see that this real thing called "time" is necessarily logically prior to physical existence which we know as change. Time is what is required for change therefore is logically prior to it. This is the same problem which people have with "God". God is required for material existence, as prior to (cause of) material existence, but people are not ready to take that next step to apprehend this logical requirement. So they refuse and deny.

So temporal things are not, strictly speaking, a part of time, just like material things are not a part of God. Time, and God are prior to temporal, material, or physical things, as necessary for their existence, the cause of them. This produces a separation similar to that of the separation between cause and effect, past and future, between them. And as I explained earlier, the separation is categorical, which allows for overlap of distinct things as predicates, rather than denying them as contradictory. Cause as prior to, is not contrary to effect as posterior.

This appears to contradict your latest statements, such as: — Luke

Yes, I think I made a mistake back then. The proper representation would be that we determine a past and a future, then we deduce that we must be at the present, as described above. My apologies for the mistake. Conscious experience demonstrates that the idea of "the present" is a deduction derived from experience. The conception of "present" is based in the conscious experience which consists of past and future, as I've been saying, but "present" is not what is experienced, it is deduced logically.

This explains why we have such a wide ranging variety of claims concerning the conscious experience of "the present". No one really experiences "the present", they deduce the existence of the present, and that they must be present. That they produce this conclusion from different premises depending on how they understand "being" is the reason why you and I, and others, have different conclusions as to what the conscious experience of the present is.

To clarify what I meant, the "arbitrary" measurement is a type of measurement, but not accurate or precise. I should not have said it is not a measurement at all. — Metaphysician Undercover

Should you also not have said "it is impossible to measure one's present"? You failed to comment on that.

There's no such thing as "the shortest window of consciousness", that's what your google search shows. It's an arbitrary designation. That's why I said it's not a measurement at all. But to clarify now, it would be a type of measurement, but not a very accurate or precise one. — Metaphysician Undercover

Then how could the accuracy or precision of the measurement be improved?

I don't find any "points" in my conscious experience that separate the present from the past and future. Instead, I experience the passage of time in a continuous manner. This continuity may help to explain why some people think of the present moment as having an infinitesimal duration, as it is the shortest discernible "unit" within a continuum.
— Luke

There is no such thing as a unit within a continuum. — Metaphysician Undercover

Hence my use of scare quotes around "unit".

It is a fundamental issue with "the real numbers". The continuum is designated as divisible in any way (infinitely). This means that any division of it is purely arbitrary, and artificial, there are no natural points of divisibility within it. — Metaphysician Undercover

What would a "natural point of divisibility" look like? I don't understand what you mean by non-arbitrary.

Of course this is just arbitrary. Why not divide your conscious awareness by apprehending each letter of a word, in order, instead of by apprehending each word of a sentence in order? — Metaphysician Undercover

Because the present is defined in terms of conscious awareness, and I am conscious of reading each word, per my internal monologue, not of reading each letter of a word.

Also, because the present is commonly defined as being the time of utterance i.e., of words/statements, rather than of individual letters.

So what we call "conscious awareness", or the conscious experience of the present, is really an awareness of the difference between past and future. — Metaphysician Undercover

Are you saying that conscious awareness has nothing to do with what we are consciously aware of (in the present)? It is merely "an awareness of the difference between past and future"?

So I know that even by the time my consciously aware mind apprehends a sensation, the thing sensed is in the past in relation to my consciously aware mind. — Metaphysician Undercover

The present is defined in terms of your "consciously aware mind". Whenever your "consciously aware mind apprehends a sensation", it does so in the present moment. The present moment is not the time at which you are consciously aware of something plus (or minus?) the time it takes to become aware of it or for your brain/body to produce your conscious mind or anything of the sort.

For example, when we become consciously aware of the latest most distant celestial object in the universe, it does not mean that the present time is therefore located 13 billion years ago, or whatever, simply because that's how long it has taken us to become aware of it. Instead, we are consciously aware of it in the present; the present is defined in terms of our conscious awareness.

"The present" is derived from conscious experience, but from an understanding of the elements of it (past and future). — Metaphysician Undercover

No, it is the time at which we consciously experience. Scientific understanding does not change that.

The overlap between past and future is changing because time is passing. For simplicity, the overlap is the present, and the present is changing as time passes. That's why the "now" is a moving target, by the time you say "now" it's in the past. — Metaphysician Undercover

But the division of time into the periods of past, present and future is unchanging, so I don't see how the passage of time affects your Venn diagram, or its overlap, at all.

As I said, "the shortest possible window of conscious awareness" makes no sense to me as your Google search supports. — Metaphysician Undercover

Then I don't understand what you have been talking about when you speak about the duration of the present. Obviously, the term "present" can be used in a colloquial manner to refer to various periods of time of vastly different durations. I thought we were talking in terms of the present when defined in terms of conscious experience, and the duration of the present denoting the shortest duration of one's conscious awareness. Or, as you put it earlier:

Try to pinpoint the present, the exact point in time, which divides the future from past. Every time you say "now', by the time you say "now" it is in the past. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is this meaning of "present" that I thought we were discussing, where uttered words become past once spoken, not longer periods such as hours or days. How can you not understand this "pinpointing" of the present?

The past doesn’t exist at the moment. Neither does the future. — Art48

Of course they do. Where else do they exist?

Excessive thought and concern about past and future takes me away from where I really am, takes me out of reality, takes me away from God. — Art48

Thinking does that, yes — it can take you out of paying attention to what you are currently doing or feeling. But it’s still reality. Not sure where “God” comes into the picture.

Then how could the accuracy or precision of the measurement be improved? — Luke

More work is required before this can be determined. If we can find natural points of division, and abide by them, measurement would be improved greatly. The problem though is that such points are not experienced by us.

What would a "natural point of divisibility" look like? — Luke

Take a look at two distinct objects, like a chair and a table. Do you not see a natural divisibility between these two? This is the foundation for counting, such natural points of divisibility allow us to count objects as distinct things. A supposed continuum has no such natural points of divisibility, therefore it can provide no principles for counting.

Because the present is defined in terms of conscious awareness, and I am conscious of reading each word, per my internal monologue, not of reading each letter of a word. — Luke

I am very sure that I am conscious of each letter in each word, or else I would misread the word. Are you sure that you are not conscious of each letter in each word?

Are you saying that conscious awareness has nothing to do with what we are consciously aware of (in the present)? It is merely "an awareness of the difference between past and future"? — Luke

No, I said that we are not consciously aware of the present. We are consciously aware of the past, through sensation and memory, and consciously aware of the future, through anticipation. And I said that since we are consciously aware of both, past and future, we come to the logical conclusion that our awareness is at the present.

The present is defined in terms of your "consciously aware mind". Whenever your "consciously aware mind apprehends a sensation", it does so in the present moment. The present moment is not the time at which you are consciously aware of something plus (or minus?) the time it takes to become aware of it or for your brain/body to produce your conscious mind or anything of the sort. — Luke

I am not at all understanding what you are saying. First, as you are well aware, "present moment" doesn't make any sense to me. And what I said, is that the consciously aware mind is in the future relative to whatever it is aware of via sensation. So in your example of the distant celestial object, the conscious mind is in the future of the past event that it becomes aware of in that celestial object.

The point is that the thing, whatever it is, which we become aware of, through sensation, is always in the past by the time we become aware of it. And, the mind which becomes aware of it is therefore always in the future relative to the thing which it becomes aware of. Furthermore, the mind is concerned with anticipating what will happen next, and it is even actively determining (as cause through freedom of choice) what will happen next.

There is no room for your "present moment" here. The mind is in the future relative to the things sensed which are in the past. So where do you think this so-called "present moment" is, where the mind apprehends the sensations? That "present moment" is just a misconception.

No, it is the time at which we consciously experience. Scientific understanding does not change that. — Luke

That is the faulty definition which is inconsistent with human experience, and which you are trying to impose on human experience. We do not experience any present moment. We experience the past and we anticipate the future. There is not anything within human experience which indicates a present moment. You assume that since past and future are "distinct", they must be separated, therefore there must be a present which separates them. You deny and refuse to accept the reality that past and future are distinct in the sense of different categories, and therefore may overlap. So there is no need to impose a "present moment" to separate them.

But the division of time into the periods of past, present and future is unchanging, so I don't see how the passage of time affects your Venn diagram, or its overlap, at all. — Luke

Again, you fall back on your misrepresentation. Time is divided into past and future. The conventional divisor is "the present". In the conventional sense, the present divides time, it is not itself a period of time. What I propose is that in reality the present unites the two parts of time, past and future. When these two are united, then the present may actually be a part of time, the part when past and future coexist. But this cannot be represented as time being divided into three periods, past present and future, that is a misrepresentation.

I thought we were talking in terms of the present when defined in terms of conscious experience, and the duration of the present denoting the shortest duration of one's conscious awareness. Or, as you put it earlier: — Luke

The problem is that you always think in terms of separate portions of time past, present, and future, as if the present is a distinct portion of time. I know that this is your preferred way of understanding "the present", but this idea is inconsistent with what I am proposing, so if you cannot dismiss it for the sake of discussion, and quit falling back on it as a crutch, you'll never be able to understand what I am proposing.

It is this meaning of "present" that I thought we were discussing, where uttered words become past once spoken, not longer periods such as hours or days. How can you not understand this "pinpointing" of the present? — Luke

What I've been arguing is that the pinpointing of the present is a mistake. That is what is at issue, I am saying it is a mistaken notion of "the present". You were willing to respect that first step, and accept the present as a duration instead of a pinpoint, but then you wanted two pinpoints, one at the beginning and one at the end of the present. So all you did was double the mistake. And then you wanted to move the two pinpoints closer and closer together, to produce a shortest period of conscious awareness, as if you were trying to get back to the original one pinpoint. You need to drop these ideas about shortest duration, pinpoints, etc. these are not what the experience of time is all about.

The idea was to remove points in time altogether, as inconsistent with the nature of time as we experience it. Until you remove from your mind, this idea of dividing points in time, you will never be able to understand "the present" as a unifier, and the paradigm of unity, rather than as a divisor.

am very sure that I am conscious of each letter in each word, or else I would misread the word. Are you sure that you are not conscious of each letter in each word? — Metaphysician Undercover

I'd ask you to look at the following link.

https://www.sciencealert.com/word-jumble-meme-first-last-letters-cambridge-typoglycaemia

I'd ask you to look at the following link. — wonderer1

I checked your link. Notice that each letter still needs to be there. Luke says reading occurs as a temporal order, I disagreed. Your link seems to support my position.

I checked your link. Notice that each letter still needs to be there. Luke says reading occurs as a temporal order, I disagreed. Your link seems to support my position. — Metaphysician Undercover

Maybe we just experience it differently. It is clear to me that I have no need to be conscious of every letter in order to grasp the intended content. My brain yielded pattern recognized words, largely despite the 'brokenness" of many of the words. I can't say that I know what it is like for you though. I thought you might recognize that you didn't need to be conscious of every letter to understand the content.

Would you say that for you it was like solving a sort of logic puzzle to determine the following content?

Maybe we just experience it differently. — wonderer1

I think that's right. I think different people read in different ways. That's why some read faster than others. I myself read in different ways depending on what it is that I am reading. Sometimes I need to read carefully, sometimes i skim through.

I thought you might recognize that you didn't need to be conscious of every letter to understand the content. — wonderer1

If understanding the content is the issue, rather than simply reading, then the entire content must be respected, so Luke's claim that we read one word after the other could not be correct. We only really understand each word after reading the entire sentence, and we only really understand the sentence within the context of the entire passage.

But the issue of misreading, and misunderstanding must also be addressed. If someone reads a passage very quickly, and mixes up some words so that there is misunderstanding, can this really be called reading it?

Would you say that for you it was like solving a sort of logic puzzle to determine the following content? — wonderer1

It definitely is a sort of puzzle, but not a logic puzzle. Some words (especially the long ones) are very easy, and flow naturally, but others require thought. I would say that much thought was put into the way the presentation was made. And I do not agree that it is the positioning of the first and last letter which makes the word recognizable. Notice the double c in According, and the ch's in research, (if that is what that word is supposed to be). I am not educated in phonetics, but things like that strike me as give aways, which if they had been scrambled in a different way would have made the words much harder to recognize. If you read the article, it's all a hoax anyway, there was no such research.

If someone reads a passage very quickly, and mixes up some words so that there is misunderstanding, can this really be called reading it? — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't see any good reason to look at it in black and white terms. I don't see reading as defined by not making any errors. Consider the varying interpretations people have of literature. Do you think all people who read a piece of literature have the same interpretation? Does it seem likely that lexical errors play a major role in the variance of interpretations?

If you read the article, it's all a hoax anyway, there was no such research. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, I read it and found the additional text samples interesting as well. Regardless of the hoax, it is still interesting to consider what text samples like that can reveal to us about our thinking.