gracias — Corvus

No hay de qué, caballero. Lea José Ortega y Gasset.

What did you mean by "future" when you said:

I was imagining and meaning some present moment in the future,
— Corvus
? — Relativist

"future" is the moment which will become present soon and in inevitable consequence, and it can be imagined at present.

Well as far as Einstein was concerned — Wayfarer

And for you?

I've made my views clear, I had thought.

No hay de qué, caballero. Lea José Ortega y Gasset. — Arcane Sandwich

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Ortega_y_Gasset
Es un nombre nuevo para mí en filosofía, pero parece ser un gran filósofo, especialmente para los estudios de Heidegger. Gracias de nuevo mi amigo.

Es un nombre nuevo para mí en filosofía, pero parece ser un gran filósofo, especialmente para los estudios de Heidegger. Gracias de nuevo mi amigo. — Corvus

Aun mejor es Carlos Astrada, buen hombre.

I assume you agree that our imaginings of future and past are not the same as the future and the past.

But when you are reflecting the events in past, present and future, they don't need to always in the order of the past -> present -> future. You could think about the future on what will happen to your project or the world in next year, and then you could go back to the past, when you have started the project, and then think about the present state of the world economy — Corvus

So reflecting on past and future doesn't have bearing on their having actually been a past, nor in there eventually being a future. Right?

The ordered relation: past-present-future refers to the actual, not to the order we choose to contemplate them.

If you like.

It comes down to the juxtaposition of idealism and realism against physicalism, realism against antirealism, in which you tend to the idealist persuasion. It might be possible to give an account of the debate in which both are correct. 's mentioned of McTaggart went ignored.

Edited for

Aun mejor es Carlos Astrada, buen hombre. — Arcane Sandwich

Es bueno saber que hay muchos grandes filósofos en los países de habla hispana. Leer y estudiar sus obras nos brindará perspectivas interesantes y alternativas sobre muchos temas filosóficos difíciles.

I assume you agree that our imaginings of future and past are not the same as the future and the past. — Relativist

But you can only access all the past and future from present. Past has gone and not accessible from present unless from the memory and experience. Future is only accessible from imagination. I could only tell about the future of the world economy from at this moment and it is totally based on my imagination.

If I can access the future in reality, then I can win the lottery jackpot tomorrow. But I can only imagine it, which is surely inaccurate. Why inaccurate 99.99%? Because it is based on my imagination. All can only be accessible from present using my memory of the past, consciousness of the now, and imagination for the future. That was my idea. You may disagree on that.

yes, very good. I often find @sime's posts illuminating, but had missed that particular one, thanks for calling it out.

Es bueno saber que hay muchos grandes filósofos en los países de habla hispana. Leer y estudiar sus obras nos brindará perspectivas interesantes y alternativas sobre muchos temas filosóficos difíciles. — Corvus

Indeed, comrade. Indeed.

Cheers.

So what I am offering is not too far from the Wittgensteinian suggestion that A-series and B-series are different language games.

It comes down to the juxtaposition of idealism and realism — Banno

Yeah but you're leaving out materialism there. I'll explain it to you:

It's well known that Aristotle coined the terms "matter" and "energy". The former, hyle, is potentiality, and this is what Meillassoux is referring to when he speaks of "the capacity-to-be-other". The latter, energeia, is what Aristotle called "actuality", which is form-in-motion. By the same token, potentiality would be matter-in-motion.

Bunge would disagree. He defines energy, not matter, as the capacity to change. Matter itself is that which has this capacity, instead of being that capacity. That's why it's false to say that matter is identical to energy. It isn't. Energy is a property of matter, in Bunge's view. And this doesn't contradict Einstein's famous formula, E = mc², because in that formula, "m" doesn't mean "matter", it means mass. Matter is not identical to mass. Matter has mass, because mass is a property. — Arcane Sandwich

Or, as Heidegger would say:

Remanens capax mutationem — Heidegger

So what I am offering is not too far from the Wittgensteinian suggestion that A-series and B-series are different language games. — Banno

Sure, but the question is which of the two is used to speak the truth. And if it's neither the A-series nor the B-series, then it's time for a new language game, the C-series.

Sure, but the question is which of the two is used to speak the truth. — Metaphysician Undercover

Why not both.

I think that what says in this post, is that the truth of the B-series would render the A-series impossible, and vise versa. This means that the two are incompatible. That's why McTaggart proposed the C-series which might take some aspects of each.

the truth of the B-series would render the A-series impossible, and vise versa — Metaphysician Undercover

well,

...but he believed that the A series when taken together with some hypothetical C series that he only partially explicated, could reconstruct the so-called B-series in a non-contradictory fashion. — sime

i'll leave it to @Sime to fill this in.

↪Wayfarer
If you like.

It comes down to the juxtaposition of idealism and realism against physicalism, realism against antirealism, in which you tend to the idealist persuasion. It might be possible to give an account of the debate in which both are correct. ↪sime
's mentioned of McTaggart went ignored.

Edited for ↪Arcane Sandwich — Banno

Physicalism is not the same thing as materialism. Do I need to spell it out for you with symbols?

I believe the problem is that there is no difference between future and the past in the B-series, while the A-series presupposes a difference between future and past. Taking a point called "the present", and inserting it arbitrarily into a random position in the B-series, to artificially produce a future and past, doesn't do what is required to create that difference.

What is required is that the present is real, thereby making the difference between future and past real. But if we grant this, we rule out the possibility of the B-series. Therefore the nature of "the present" would need to be severely compromised, so as to be no longer consistent with the A-series, to make it compatible with the B-series. In other words, the A-series has a real present, and the B-series does not, and that's why they are incompatible.

I can sort of see that, but my approach is more intuitive - more 'classical' if you like. What is outside time as ecstatic. Not that this is anything I myself can approach, but there are allusions aplenty in the classical literature.

Physicalism is not the same thing as materialism — Arcane Sandwich

But isn't it a difference only meaningful within academic philosophy? I mean to all intents and purposes, they're synonyms, or rather, physicalism is rather more sophisticated term for materialism.

Physicalism is not the same thing as materialism — Arcane Sandwich


But isn't it a difference only meaningful within academic philosophy? I mean to all intents and purposes, they're synonyms, or rather, physicalism is rather more sophisticated term for materialism. — Wayfarer

Nah mate, physicalism is the crass version of scientific materialism. I've a paper on this as well, though it's not been published yet (it will be published later this year, in a Bungean journal that I contribute to).

I'll just quote Bunge himself:

I am a materialist but not a physicalist because, as a physicist, I learned that physics can explain neither life nor mind nor society. Physics cannot even explain phenomena (appearances), because these occur in brains, which are supraphysical things; nor can it fully explain machines, as these embody ideas, such as those of value, goal, and safety, that are nonphysical. Physics can only account for matter at the lowest level of organization, the only one that existed before the emergence of the earliest organisms some 3,500 million years ago. Hence physicalism, the earliest and simplest version of materialism, cannot cope with chemical reactions, metabolism, color, mentality, sociality, or artifact. — Bunge (2010: vii)

That's from his book Matter and Mind, from 2010. He was around 90 years old, more or less, when he published it.

EDIT: And here's some more Bungean wisdom for you:

These recent developments have vindicated the original goal of the quantum program, namely the derivation of classical physics from the quantum theory. Does this entail that we will eventually be able to dispense with such classical concepts as those of friction, heat, temperature, viscosity, vorticity, elasticity, magnetization, surface tension, or wetting? These concepts will continue to be needed because they stand for objective bulk properties and processes that emerge from myriads of quantum facts. Likewise, the neuroscientific explanation of cognitive and affective processes does not allow us to dispense with such words as “fear”, “imagination” and “love”. Explained emergence is still emergence. — Bunge (2010: 77)

True, the proponents of the thesis that the quantum theory is universal write symbols said to designate state functions for cats, observers, measuring instruments, and even the universe. But I submit that these symbols are fake, for they are not solutions of any equations containing Hamiltonians: they are just squiggles. — Bunge (2010: 77)

well, it's not difficult to translate left and right into north and south. For the rest, I'll leave you to it.

I don't much care. Physicalism suits my purposes. You can phrase it how you wish.

...ecstatic... — Wayfarer

Well, not in my experience either.

I'll use materialism for newtonian philosophies and physicalism for the doctrine that physics is the only ontology, others may do as they please.

Thanks for the explanation, although I'm hard pressed to understand how he can maintain that position viz a viz physics, and still claim to be a materialist.

I looked at the book abstract, and it says 'Most of the thinkers who espouse a materialist view of mind have obsolete ideas about matter, whereas those who claim that science supports idealism have not explained how the universe could have existed before humans emerged.' I do address that problem in The Mind Created World, although if you would like to discuss it further, that would probably a better thread for it.

I'll use materialism for newtonian philosophies and physicalism for the doctrine that physics is the only ontology... — Banno

I'd sort of agree, although Marxist materialism is a different kettle of fish.

I'd sort of agree, although Marxist materialism is a different kettle of fish. — Wayfarer

As is new materialism.
https://www.academia.edu/40986241/WHAT_IS_NEW_MATERIALISM

Thanks for the explanation, although I'm hard pressed to understand how he can maintain that position viz a viz physics, and still claim to be a materialist. — Wayfarer

Because physics is not the only materialist science. Geology is materialist, Biology is materialist, Sociology is materialist, etc.

I looked at the book abstract, and it says 'Most of the thinkers who espouse a materialist view of mind have obsolete ideas about matter, whereas those who claim that science supports idealism have not explained how the universe could have existed before humans emerged.' I do address that problem in The Mind Created World, although if you would like to discuss it further, that would probably a better thread for it. — Wayfarer

Sounds interesting, I'll check it out.

I'd sort of agree, although Marxist materialism is a different kettle of fish. — Wayfarer

It's "overmining materialism", to use Harman's technical terms. By contrast, physicalism is "undermining materialism". Both of them ignore the mid-level, the mezzanine level, of objects themselves.

↪Arcane Sandwich
I don't much care. Physicalism suits my purposes. You can phrase it how you wish. — Banno

But the rest of the Universe is under no obligation to share your purposes.

I'll use materialism for newtonian philosophies and physicalism for the doctrine that physics is the only ontology, others may do as they please. — Banno

But physics is not the only ontology. Geology is ontological, just as physics is. If you say that you believe that physics is the only ontology, then you don't believe in geology. We've been over this, Banno, when we spoke of tables. Now I'll say the same thing, but for stones. A stone is not identical to the collection of atoms that compose it. It is a new, emergent object in its own right. It is not reducible to the collection of atoms that compose it. This follows from the contrapositive of Leibniz's Law, together with some other premises.

well, it's not difficult to translate left and right into north and south. For the rest, I'll leave you to it. — Banno

I'm afraid it doesn't really work that way, there's too many glitches. At the north pole for example, every direction is south. Adding dimensions into your representation is not a simple translation.

I'm afraid it doesn't really work that way, there's too many glitches. At the north pole for example, every direction is south. Adding dimensions into your representation is not a simple translation. — Metaphysician Undercover

Inwards and outwards: inwards towards the center of the Earth, outwards towards outer space.