“Traveled” implies having gone from point A to point B. — Luke

No, "traveled" does not imply points. A "point" is a non-dimensional precise location which has no real corresponding place in the world that we travel in. That is your category error., points are theoretical only. This mistake is significant in our discussion of duration. If time passage is continuous, then there are no points within any duration, which would separate one particular duration from another, and assuming that there are points within that medium would only lead to problems like Zeno's paradoxes.

But this does not prevent us from talking about distinct durations in time. We just need to bare in mind that any beginning or end is theoretical only, if time is understood as continuous, so any proposed duration cannot be mapped into the real world in any precise way. That's why I objected to you asking me about what point does the present begin and end.

Same with discerning yellow from red. It's automatic. — javra

I would not call this automatic (though it seems to be) for the reasons I explained. I wouldn't even say it's obtained the status of "habitual", for the reasons I gave. I think there is a type of anticipation which differs

edit: Sorry premature posting, will finish later.

I asked how a metre is not the distance between two points.
I did not ask how the distance between two points is not a metre.
Obviously the distance between two points “could be any distance” (including a metre).
That does not explain how a metre is not the distance between two points. — Luke

No, actually you asked "how is the distance traveled by light in 1/299 792 458 of a second not the distance between two points".

Anyway, the answer to your question of how a metre is not the distance between two points is very simple. I gave the definition of a "metre", and it does not mention "the distance between two points", or anything about points. And, in no way is "the distance between two points" implied by that definition I gave. Therefore it is very clear that "metre" means something other than "the distance between two points", and a metre is not the distance between two points.

For some reason you seem to believe that the definition of "metre" implies "the distance between two points". As I've been telling you though, this belief is only supported by a category mistake. But if you're really insistent in your belief, and not ready to face your category mistake, then I think the onus is on you, to demonstrate your logic. Show me why you believe that "metre" implies "the distance between two points". Then I think I will be able to pinpoint, and show to you, the precise location of your category mistake. I think maybe there are two category mistakes in your reasoning, so lay it out for me to see. I've already told you why a metre is not the distance between two points, now it's your turn to tell me why you think it is.

Thanks for the reply. Yes, what you term "conscious judgement" I would term "conscious discernment". To me a discernment can be automatic from the pov of consciousness whereas a judgment is an act of judging, which in turn is the process of forming an opinion, which takes time to come to a conclusion. But there is no fixed set of rules for use of linguistic expressions in cases such as this. Yes, I think more intelligent lesser animals can make conscious judgments as I've just described the term, and, more so, that all animals can make discernments. A favorite example of mine: ameba (which are far simpler than animals) can discern predators from prey - but in my lexicon I wouldn't say that ameba can make judgments about what is predator and what is prey. — javra

I've considered this issue many times before, because I would question whether an habitual act is a conscious act. It appears to be automatic. In the case of habit, there seems to often be a conscious decision, which sets in motion many subservient automatic, habitual actions. So if I decide to walk to the store for example, that is a conscious decision, but then my feet moving, and opening the door etc., are all automatic.

However, it may not be possible to class my examples of holding up a number of fingers, and an object and asking what colour it is, as automatic, or habitual. This is because the reply cannot be known in advance. In the case of habit, the required action is known in advance, and I believe that this is what facilitates the habit's expression as automatic. The anticipation has been subrogated from conscious anticipation to subconscious anticipation. In other words, the habitual action remains ready to kick in when called upon. In the case of my examples, the reply to the question cannot be known in advance, so the anticipation must be right there at the conscious level. The conscious mind remains at the ready, to make a decision when called upon This is why I classed it as a conscious judgement. It's just an easy decision, and made quickly because the conscious mind is prepared in anticipation. We are trained as children to make these decisions quickly, with the use of flash cards and things like that. It is a useful trait, because in many situations, such as dangerous ones, the ability to make quick decisions and not get all flustered is important.

A favorite example of mine: ameba (which are far simpler than animals) can discern predators from prey - but in my lexicon I wouldn't say that ameba can make judgments about what is predator and what is prey. — javra

Obviously we need more distinctions then simply conscious judgements and non-conscious discernments, because we have to account for all sorts of different habits, both innate and learned. I think you would agree that there is a big difference between the response to a flash card, and the response to the tap on your knee when the doctor tests your reflexes. And as well, a big difference again between the reflex of your knee, and the behaviour of the ameba.

I believe that the difference lies in the mode of anticipation. I think that the different systems of living beings have built into them different anticipatory mechanisms. Scientific theories and principles, being validated by observation, describe the anticipatory mechanisms as response mechanisms, being unable to observe anticipation. So science doesn't really get to the true nature of these systems as fundamentally anticipatory

That said, I continue to maintain the mainstream view that the physical future can only occur after the physical past. — javra

I think you ought to consider that there is no such thing as "the physical future". Physics is based in observation, and all observation is of things which are in the past. I know you disagree and say that observations are of things at the present. Nevertheless, everything observed is in the past by the time the observation is made, so physics concerns things which are all in the past. We make predictions about the future, but these are supported by the continuity of time at the present, as I explained already. This continuity is very real or else the predictions would fail, but as I also explained, it is not necessary. Because of this, we can say that it is not necessary that anything will continue being in the future, as it has in the past, although we observe that things do. And if such continuity is not necessary, then it is impossible that any physical thing could be existing in the future because it is possible that any physical thing could cease being at any moment of the present. Therefore no moment of the future coud have any physical things within them.

From this perspective, physical things are coming into being, being recreated, at every moment of the present, from a future which has no physical things. Our perspective is somewhere in the middle of this becoming, we see it as things happening, objects moving and changing. So we do not see the part in front of us, furthest in the future, where the objects are coming from nothing physical, nor the part behind us, furthest in the past, where the objects become entirely static.

By "conscious judgment" I understand deliberation between alternatives that one then settles on in the form of a conclusion. This deliberation often takes significant time.. — javra

I don't think that conscious judgement requires deliberation between alternatives. Nor does it always require "significant time". Some judgements take weeks, some days, some hours, some minutes, some seconds, but many are very simple and seem almost instantaneous. If someone holds up three fingers and asks how many fingers is this, is the answer not a conscious judgement? What about holding up an object and asking what colour it is? To answer such simple questions requires conscious judgement, but usually not deliberation between alternatives, nor does it take "significant time".

But, by then, a plethora of new observations have already occurred. Where each such novel observation to require conscious deliberation to discern, one would never be able to react more or less instantly to a stimulus. Such as in turning one's head automatically milliseconds after hearing an unexpected loud boom ... one that distracts one from all the deliberations one engages in. — javra

A reaction like turning one's head in response to a boom does not require the judgement that the sound had a beginning and an end. Nor does it require the judgement that the turning of the head will be after the boom. So I really don't see that you have any sort of argument here. Notice that such a milliseconds response of turning one's head is generally accompanied by a thought like "what was that?", not "that was a loud boom". The latter is a conscious judgement which probably would not occur in the time frame of that reaction.

I guess we'll just have to disagree on this matter because it doesn't seem like either one of us will be convincing the other.

I can't help but think of how lesser animals discern comparative sizes, colors, loudness, and which events occur before others (with this discernment being requisite in, for example, both classical and operant conditioning) without associating words with what is happening. As adults we're accustomed to using language for many if not most activities, yet certainly we were able to discern the items listed when we were pre-linguistic children - otherwise we could not have learned what words signify. Again, although awareness can greatly differ between adult human individuals, I can't help but take what you here say with a grain of salt. — javra

I'm beginning to see that you and I have completely different ideas as to what constitutes a "conscious judgement". The examples I've used, of applying language in the description of something, I use because I think that it is obvious and clear that if words were used to describe something, then necessarily conscious judgement was used, because we might agree that to use language in description requires a conscious judgement concerning the thing described. But not all conscious judgements involve language. Many lesser animals are conscious, yet they do not use language. Would you not agree that they make conscious judgements? But I can't say that I know what the conscious judgements made by lesser animals would be like. I watch my dogs and cats when they seem to make judgements about where they are going, and things like that, but I can't say I know what such a judgement would be like. Nor can I say that I know what my conscious judgements were like prior to me learning to use language, because I can't remember that time. There seems to be a correlation though, between learning language and increased memory power, so I wouldn't be surprised if these two factors facilitate a change in the way that conscious judgement is made also.

While this muddles the picture, the same can be said regarding how almost all occurrences of both (a) and (c) are contingent upon what takes place within realms of (b). As one simplistic example, one cannot anticipate that the sun will rise again tomorrow without memory of the sun's activities in past days. The same applies to predicting what another person will do. And so forth. Anticipation is conjoined with (long term) memory. — javra

I don't agree that both a) and c) are contingent on b). This is one point where I strongly disagree with conventional determinist principles. And this is why I've argued to place anticipation and future as prior to, or before past. When I described anticipation as a general feeling of anxiety, not directed toward any particular goal, this description denies the need for anticipation to be based in a past memory. This is what allows for what I would call the true forward looking perspective.

The physical world, as it is (which really means as it has been up until now) places restrictions on our possibilities for the future. We cannot do something which is beyond, or outside the range of what is allowed for by the conditions of the past, and we may say that these limitations are the basis for what we deem as "physically impossible". This inclines us to be always looking into the past, to see how we are constrained by the past. But with an understanding of free will, and a slightly different conception of time, we can dismiss the continuity between past and future, which we take for granted (eg. Newton's first law), as not necessary. There is a continuity between future and past, through the present, which we observe and demonstrate the reality of, through prediction, but the continuity is not necessary; as Newton said I believe, it's dependent on the Will of God. When this continuity is understood as not necessary, then the constraints which the past place on the future are not necessary either.

It is this perspective, which allows anticipation, and forward looking thinking to be unconditionally free from the constraints of the past this provides us with the true possibility of freedom. And that this perspective is the true perspective can be logically derived, if it is true that time had a start. If time had a start, then at that instant, when time was just beginning to pass, there was only future, and no past. Time could not have begun to pass unless there was a future, but at this beginning there would have been no past. So if time did have a start, then the perspective which places the future as before the past is the true perspective because there was necessarily a future before there was any past.

That said, my ability to influence occurs within realms in which I am actively observing; plans of what to do in case of X, Y, and Z so as to satisfy intent i, are themselves formulated, changed, and maintained by the conscious mind within realms of (a). So, while I agree that all conscious activities that occur during (a) extend toward (c) in one way or another - this being the theme of intent-driven determinacy regarding what occurs within (a) (to not say "within the experienced present") - I yet find a clear distinction in that (c) hasn't yet happened physically whereas (a) is happening physically (and, to complete the list, (b) has already happened physically). — javra

I pretty much agree with this, but I would still like to insist on a division of a), between the passive and active aspects of the person in the situation of a) (to not say experiencing the present). The passive "observer" is not consistent with c), but in many ways is consistent with b), while the active participant is consistent with c) but in many ways not consistent with b).

Do you then not find this slowing and speeding up of time to be experiential in nature? What is commonly termed "time perception". I'm asking so as to clarify where we stand on the capacity of experiencing time. Again, not philosophical time which can only be an abstraction obtained via inference but lived time as it's innately experienced. — javra

No, I definitely do not find this to be experiential. In all my experiences of time slowing down, my experience seemed completely normal at the time, except for a feeling of being hyper-aware, in the sense of anticipatory. It was only afterwards, when going through my memory as to what occurred, that I would think how was I capable of doing all those things in what I now understand to have been an extremely short time. In other words, I was very aware, and I was reacting very quickly, but it never occurred to me at the time that time was going slower. And afterwards I was amazed at how much I could remember happening, and doing, in such a short time, but I never thought of it as time slowing down until you mentioned it now, and I think that's a good way of describing it. However, it doesn't describe what I experienced, only what I determined afterwards.

Likewise, for time speeding up. We used to have a saying, "time flies when you're having fun", but I take that as a metaphor. When I get involved in something extensive, suddenly it's later than I thought. It's not the case that I experience time going faster, it's just that I am so involved in what I am doing, that I pay no attention to the clock, and I do not realize how much time has passed.

Those examples, time slowing down, and time speeding up, are really more evidence that we do not experience time. If we do not pay attention to the clock we quickly lose track of how much time has passed. Then when we try to make the judgement as to how much time has passed, simply by referring to what we remember as having happened, we are very wrong. Gotta go---where has all the time gone?

How is the distance traveled by light in 1/299 792 458 of a second not the distance between two points? — Luke

The "distance traveled by light in 1/299 792 458 of a second" is a metre, and "the distance between two points" could be any distance. Obviously one is not the same as the other. You can continue in your category mistake all you want, I really don't care if you refuse to correct it.

A length is the distance between two points. What do you think the length of one metre is? — Luke

A metre is the distance traveled by light in 1/299 792 458 of a second. It is not the distance between two points. You are making the classic category mistake of confusing the particular with the universal. A particular, measured metre is the distance between two points, like a metre stick has two ends, as an instance of a particular measured metre. But the universal, "metre" refers to a defined length, not a distance between two specific points. .

That analogy does not hold because an hour has a specific duration of an hour, which begins at 0 minutes and ends at 60 minutes. — Luke

No that's not true, an hour does not need to start at 0 and end at 60, it could start any time. There is a specified duration, a length of time, but no requirement of a starting or ending point. This is the case for all units of measurement, a meter, a gram, even a numeric quantity. That's what makes these so-called "units" universals rather than particulars; in themselves there is no particular ending or beginning point. . Only in application, the act of measuring a particular thing, are points required

Not sure how to proceed. An event is not eternal but has a beginning and an end, with the former preceding the latter; otherwise expressed, with the beginning occurring before the end and the end occurring after the beginning. Again, I find this intrinsic to awareness when addressing specific, concrete events - and not something ascertainable only after inferences are made. And to address befores and afters is to address temporality. — javra

We disagree here, and we went through this already with your "snap" example. If I am meditating, or doing anything really, and there is a snap noise, it passes through me as a noise, and I hear it, but I do not recognize a beginning and an ending to it. It is only on reflection that I realize that it must have had a beginning and an ending. And in all my experience of simple awareness, I never experience one thing as before or after another thing, this is always a conscious judgement I make upon reflection. It may be the case, that within my evolved intuitions, this capacity has not been developed, as important, yet within your evolved intuitions it has been developed, so you have intuitions which judge before and after subconsciously, while I have to judge this consciously.

In my experience of simple awareness I find a continuous stream of differences, changes, things which are distinct from each other, in many different ways, but I do not seem to have any awareness of how they differ from each other, they are simply different. So without conscious judgement I do not recognize one thing as bigger than another, as greener than another, louder than another, or before another. I do not even distinguish the end of one thing and the beginning of another thing because I do not even separate things. These are all judgements which require associating words with what is happening, and for me this requires conscious judgement.

Then there are a) events (in the plural) I sense myself to be actively partaking in - even if only as an observer - some of which I feel myself capable of changing to some extent were I to so want, b) events that I can remember which have already transpired and which I sense myself to no longer have any capacity to affect, and c) events I can for example foresee happening or that I intend to bring about through some form of effort. But here, again, I find the experiential nature of what I can only term "time": the progression into (c) with (a) and with the perpetual passing away of an ever-changing (a) into realms of (b). Experiential because I don't need to put it into language or infer it in order to immediately experience it. Temporal because I can only linguistically describe (c) as the future (b) as the past and (a) as the (lived, experiential) present. — javra

Referring to your divisions here, I do not see a clear separation between a) and c). Whenever I am actively partaking in an event, (a), there is always a view toward what I intend to bring about (c). However, I can make a clear division within a), between actively participating, and observing. This is like the difference between playing a game, and watching a game being played. The two are very distinct, and I think a division is called for here. Sometimes at a sporting event, fans will get very loud and actually try to influence the game, but this is not the same as participating in the game. Likewise, at a rock concert, some fans get very excited, and try to somehow influence the performance. Do you agree that there is a very big difference between participating in (active), and observing (passive), events?

If we start with this distinction we can proceed toward b) and c) in a slightly different way. From the perspective of a passive observer, we can see past events, b), as requiring no action, and we can continue to observe indefinitely, in the attempt to deny the need for an activity, c) on the part of the observer. In other words, as a passive observer we have no view to the future, all is past and there is no requirement for action. That is to make c) irrelevant. But from the perspective of an active participant, we already have invested interest, goals we intend to bring about, c), as we are actively making that effort, and we cannot just step out of this position to become an observer, without forfeiture.

BTW, have you never experienced time slowing down for you when, for one reason or another, you paid extra-close attention to details (e.g., a first kiss or a near car crash) - and, conversely, time speeding up for you when you were so engaged in some activity that you hardly payed any attention to the environmental details you'd normally take into account (e.g., an enthralling festivity or an intense preoccupation with a hobby)? This relative to the time clocks keep. — javra

I've been involved in a number of vehicle accidents. They all happen extremely fast, but afterwards I remember everything happening in every smallest fraction of a second, as if there was a long time span between them. This is how I remember the incidents and I'm quite sure that this is how the events occurred to me at the time they happened. I attribute this apparent "time slowing down" to a heightened sense of anticipation, anxiety, what you call paying extra close attention.to details.

I believe that this heightened sense of awareness, this type of anxiety can be trained into oneself, cultured, and this is done by high level athletes involved in fast games like hockey. There is also probably a significant difference amongst human beings at the innate level, and this partially accounts for what we call gifted athletes. When you watch someone like Alex Ovechkin play hockey, he appears to be always one step ahead of the game (the rest of the players) in his anticipation, so he must be able to process an extremely rapid succession of events, in the same way that you and I would process a much slower succession of events. This I think is what they call being on top of your game, being in the zone.

We might look the other way too, toward "time speeding up". You can see that these two roughly correspond to the way I divided a). For the active participant with a vested interest, each detail matters, so time slows down, but for the passive observer who just wants to see it all and do nothing about it, time speeds up.

Where in the past? At what point/event does the sense part begin? — Luke

I don't really know what you're asking. I'm not talking in terms of points.

A duration of time has beginning and end points.
You claim that the present has/is a duration of time.
Therefore, the present has beginning and end points. — Luke

Only when we measure a specific duration, points are required. We can talk about a duration in the general sense, such as "an hour", and no points are required because no specific hour is to be separated from the rest of time. Talking about "the present" as a duration in a general way, is the same principle. Points would be required to say that the present is a specific duration, but not to say that it is a duration, because i am not trying to measure that duration.

As to "true agency", in a slip of the tongue where the conscious mind intends X and the subconscious mind intends Y, which of the two if any hold the "true agency" of the whole? I say both hold (true) agency to the degree that agency occurs, each in this case being a discordant aspect, or part, of the whole psyche. — javra

I think I tried to express in the last post, that we do not know what holds the "true agency" of the whole. but it is I believe the same principle which is responsible for unification. Aristotle designated "the soul" as that first principle of agency of a living being. Then he named the potentialities of the soul, consisting of things like self-nourishment, self-movement, sensation, and intellection. Each of these capacities, he explained, are best known as potentialities because they are not all the time active, so they need to be activated each time they become active. This implies the need to assume a first actuality of the living being, the soul.

But, as with our discussion of our awareness of time, I find that you are quick to superimpose ontological principles obtained from inferences upon what we consciously experience. Nothing wrong with that, only that it diverges from the perspective which I'm doing my best to work with, which is as follows: That we (as conscious minds, i.e. as first person perspectives) experience what we experience is the strongest form of certainty regarding what takes place that we can obtain; everything which we (as first person perspectives) infer - including about why we experience what we experience - is of a lesser degree of certainty. And, implicit in all this, we can only hold a first person perspective awareness. — javra

I think that I agree with this. But I will stress (and perhaps you still disagree). that time is not something which we experience. So anything we say about time, what it is, how it passes, etc., is inferred. Therefore our knowledge of time cannot obtain that strongest form of certainty, so it will always remain, to some degree, speculative.

Going back to the principle topic of the experienced present, that we experience a present that is neither memory of former present times nor extrapolation of upcoming present times is an occurrence of the strongest degree of certainty. — javra

Whether or not "the present" is something experienced, is as I've said, dependent on how "present" is defined. If it is defined in relation to time (the division between past and future for example, or a specific part of time) then the present is not something experienced, but something conceptual, derived from a concept of time. But if we define it without reference to time, (what does it mean to be present, for example), describe this, and then perhaps proceed toward a conception of time if necessary, we cam make "the present" refer to something experienced.

That this experienced present is specious, fictitious, illusory, etc. is a conclusion drawn from inferences made by the conscious mind that wells within the experienced present which, as conclusion, is less certain than that which is experienced - here, namely, the present moment. — javra

By referring to it as "the present moment", you seem to be defining "present" as something temporal, therefore not something experienced, and not obtaining that highest degree of certainty. That this is true is very evident from the fact that we first had to clarify whether "moment", as a temporal term refers to a point in time, or a duration of time. Then when it was ascertained that we were talking about a duration of time, there was no indication as to how long this duration is. Obviously, "the present moment" is not something known with a high degree of certainty, and it is not something experienced.

All the same, because I feel like we're going around in circles in regard to the experienced present, I'm tempted to let things be for now. — javra

What I think we might do is remove any temporal references from our description of "the experienced present", which are loaded with third person prejudices and biases, which we have learned from others, rather than directly from personal experience, and start from a clean slate. Do you agree that when we are experiencing the present, we are experiencing things happening, like events? And do you feel as i do, an inclination to interfere with, change, and even create, things happening? If so, we might proceed to look at what motivates and supports such an inclination.

I didn't refer to it here as a point in time. I referred only to the beginning and end points of your "medium" or "gap", and I asked you at which end of that "medium" you located the present. — Luke

You are asking me to locate the present at a point. I already said that the present cannot be located at a point. The conscious part is future, the sense part is past, relative to each other, though we might say they are both at the present. Without a second temporal dimension, grounded in real physical evidence, locating the present as any particular duration is arbitrary.

If the present has a duration with its own beginning and end points, then why is your view that the present "consists of some past and some future"? — Luke

Time is continually passing. Why would I think that the present has beginning and end points? That doesn't make any sense.

Where (or when), in the duration of the present, is the past separated from the future? Are the past and future separated by the entirety of the duration of the present such that the past and future do not meet (option 1 below)? Or are they separated at some point within the duration of the present such that the past and future do meet (option 2 below)? Or are they separated at some point within the duration of the present such that the past and future do not meet (option 3 below)? — Luke

Do you see that the passing of time is a process? And any process requires a duration of time. So the process whereby the future becomes the past (this is how I describe the present) must itself require a duration of time. As I said already, this requires a second dimension of time, what is sometimes called thick time, I call it the breadth of time.

If the passing of time is a real physical process, then there must be a corresponding change to the universe. That is, the universe as it is in the future is different from the universe as it is in the past. I assume there is a process whereby the universes changes from being in the future, to being in the past. And, since the universe has a vast array of different types of objects, large and small for example, it makes sense to think that some types of objects might be affected by the passing of time before others are. This would mean that at any given time (if we could assume a point on a time line) some types of things are in the future while others are in the past.

So the second dimension of time is required because the common modeling of time shows such a continuous timeline, which can theoretically be divided at any point. But if we take such a point to represent the physical reality of "the present", we'll find that at any proposed point of the present, some things are in the past while others are in the future. Now we need to be able to map this process, whereby somethings are in the future and other things are in the past, relative to the one dimensional continuous timeline. And, since this is a process, it requires "time", and this "time" is not represented by the continuous one dimensional time line, so we need another dimension of time. We need to give the timeline breadth.

This is most like your option 2. I believe that past and future actually overlap, with time having breadth. So your first question 'why do future past overlap?'' is explained by the present being a process which itself requires time, and the theory that not everything in the universe is affected by this process simultaneously. And the answer to the second question is that there is a process which separates the future from the past. This process is the coming into existence of the past, it is a becoming of the past, and it comes from the future.

By subconscious experiences (which I grant is not a mainstream usage of terms) I in part am address things such as this: When we forget an item, ask ourselves "where did I place it" with our inner voice, and then consciously experience an intuition regarding where the item is that reminds us, it is not us as a consciousness that knew of the answer but aspects of our subconscious mind that informed us after we as consciousness sent out a request to our subconscious mind to be so informed. It is the subconscious mind's agency (here simplistically abstracting a unified subconscious) which informs us as consciousness - and not our conscious agency. — javra

I wouldn't describe this in the same way. I agree that there is in a sense, subconscious agency, but such agency is not independent, it is at the direction of the whole. So in your example, the conscious mind is the representative for the whole, and it is what directs the subconscious to act that way. And if we go back to our explanation of sensation, in which the subconscious is actively creating images, presenting them to the conscious, again, the subconscious is acting this way at the direction of the whole. This is really no different from the physical organs which all have functions in relation to the whole. All such purposes, or functions, are in relation to the whole, in support of the whole. The individual systems, which have agency themselves, do not have independence. they receive their agency from the whole, being dependent on the whole for it..

Ontology is extremely important here because we need to be very careful concerning our designation as to what constitutes the "whole". We are prone to thinking that the conscious mind is representative of the self, and is therefore the spokesperson for the whole. But this is really an illusion that the conscious mind creates for itself, to make itself feel important. We know that the conscious mind can very easily be corrupted by minor chemical imbalances, mental illness, and simple forms of moral corruption, just like physical organs might get corrupted in their functions, by illness. So we can see that the conscious mind is really just another part, though it likes to act as the representative for the whole. We really do not seem to have the vaguest notion as to what really constitutes the "whole".

And the ontology gets worse still. Many conscious minds like to congregate, and communicate, existing as a culture, or society. and then they will insist that the culture, society, or even the species is itself a whole. That's the ontology of Darwinism, it makes a species a whole. But these conscious minds who get together and claim the existence of such a "whole" have no principles, criteria or justification, as to what constitutes a whole, so such designations have no validity whatsoever. These conscious minds must feel some emptiness, imperfection, or deprivation, recognizing that the conscious self is not properly a whole, so they seek fulfillment elsewhere, trying to create a whole out of a group of conscious minds. But what is really required for a good ontology is for these conscious minds feeling imperfect, to turn inward, and recognize that the "self" which represents the conscious mind is only a small part of the whole person.

To me consciousness is a unified agency composed of an ever-changing plurality of subconscious agencies. (With some subconscious agencies, such as one's conscience, not being unified with it; minimally, while a conscience is sensed by a consciousness.)

So, to me consciousness is exactly one part of a total psyche - which consists of parts in addition to that of consciousness. — javra

This, is quite similar to what I've said above. The only real difference is in the way that we each describe "agency". I assign "true agency" only to the whole. This means that although the parts are active in agency, they are subservient, or directed by the whole, according to their respective functions. So, from my perspective, when we say that "consciousness is exactly one part", then we remove "true agency" from consciousness. That the conscious self is the director of the living organism is just an illusion. And this we know is the truth because the conscious mind has no power to direct the vast majority of the living systems within the body, which are said to be involuntary.

This opens up a hole which is the lack of a whole. If the conscious mind is not the proper representative of "the whole" then what is? We need to assume that there is a whole, which serves to direct all the parts in their respective functions, or else nothing unifies. All the subconscious agencies need to be directed by the "true agency", or else there is no unity, but we cannot assign "true agency" to the conscious mind, as this is just another part.

At any rate, by the experiential present of consciousness I, again, am not referring to a total psyche, but to strictly consciousness as a first person perspective - which holds first person awareness and which infers about matters such as the mechanisms for its first person awareness. — javra

Let's say that the first person perspective, being the conscious mind, places itself at the highest point in the hierarchy, the first in the temporal perspective, as being capable of causing free willing activities, as time passes. However, this is an illusion it creates for itself, because it only wants to look at all the physical parts downstream (in time) from it, which it has some control over. When it looks upstream, toward the true controlling whole, therefore what controls it, it is completely lost, and cannot see anything. It doesn't even know what things look like up there. Even to say "look" up there, is a misnomer, because this implies using the eyes to see, but to see is to look downstream into the past.

Here's a little thought experiment to see what I mean. Consider your perspective at the present. You can look backward in time, and see from your memories all about the past, what it looks like, sounds like, etc.. This is all in the past, everything you know. Now look forward, toward the future with your mind. There is absolutely nothing there. It's like a black hole of emptiness in front of you you cannot sense anything there. This is what the passing of time is, the world goes from being composed of nothing sensible, to being composed of everything which exists, at each moment of passing time. So whatever it is which is in front of us in time (the future) is extremely difficult for us to comprehend because it is in no way at all sensible, it seems like there is nothing there. We cannot sense into the future because the world is such that whatever it is that is in the future cannot be sensed. And since we get the majority of our principles of knowledge through sensation, we are lost when we look with our minds toward the future, and try to understand the future. This is why we cannot grasp the principles of what unifies the whole, these are in the future even relative to the conscious mind, which is in the future relative to the sense organs.

And, as I asked, what logical reason is there for locating the present at the beginning of this "medium" (or "gap") instead of at its end? We know that the end point of this "medium" is the time of our current conscious awareness, but at what point in time is the beginning (and why)? — Luke

I don't think that the present is a "point" in time. We went through this already with your use of "moment". What I think is that what we refer to as "the present" is a type of duration (not quite in the same sense as Javra, because I give time a second dimension to account for this type of duration which is the duration of the present). So "the present" is not a point, but it consists of some past and some future. And I believe that the conscious awareness, being goal oriented, is most likely in the future part, like i believe that the sense apparatus is in the past part of the present.

Anyway, do you not acknowledge any distinction between perception and memory? — Luke

No, as I explained there is memory inherent within perception, so I think that trying to make such a distinction is misleading. It's like what E.R. Kelly says is "delusive" in Javra's quoted passage: "The present to which the datum refers is really a part of the past--a recent past--delusively given as being a time that intervenes between the future and the past." So perception, as the signature feature of the "specious present", which is really a fictitious present, is actually a form of memory.

On what grounds would you disagree with the previous sentence? — javra

It's difficult for me to grasp "subconscious experiences", because "experience" is what we commonly assign to conscious beings. However, I see the need to posit something like subconscious experience, because for example, I myself described, "memory" as an aspect of the subconscious, developed over billions of years of evolution. If memory isn't of experience, then what is remembered? We have a very similar problem with "Intention". We commonly associate intentional actions with conscious free willing human beings. And since this is the common association then we start to think that only human beings make intentional acts. But then we have no words to describe all the purposeful actions of the lesser beings.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I think that "experience", like "intention" is a property of a whole being. These two terms express something which cannot be said of a part, but refer to aspects of the unifying feature, which makes parts exist as a whole. This I think, is one reason why we say that the sum is greater than its parts, there are properties which cannot be associated with the individual parts, and can only be associated with whatever it is which unifies the parts to make a whole. . So we can say that the whole being, as a being, experiences, but it doesn't make sense to say that a part of a being experiences. And also, I think it would make sense to say that a living being which doesn't have consciousness, like a plant, still experiences, but it doesn't make sense to me to say that the subconscious part of a conscious being, experiences. This has to do with what type of things we can attribute to a part, and the type of things we can attribute to a whole, and the reason why a whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

I don't believe it is untenable. It is the distinction between perception and memory; between the experience of consciously perceiving an event via the senses, and (later) recalling that experience via the memory. These are very qualitatively different. You do not perceive memories (or anticipations) via your senses; you perceive the world via your senses. And I consider it a misuse of the word to say that we "recall" our perceptions of the world (while perceiving). — Luke

As I explained, there is a medium between sense organs and conscious perception which needs to be accounted for. I called this the subconscious part of the mind The images, or percepts are not received by the conscious mind, directly from the senses, they are created by the subconscious and presented to the conscious. That's why when you are dreaming you do not know that you are just dreaming rather than actually sensing things. The subconscious is creating the same type of images without the senses.

For clarity, implicitly requisite in this is that I'm referring strictly to conscious awareness as that which experiences - i.e., to the first person point of view - and not to the experiences of our own unconscious minds, of which we as first person points of view can only infer. — javra

Do you agree with me, that what you call the unconscious mind, what I call the subconscious, acts as a medium between the sense organs and the conscious mind? If so, then you ought to be able to understand that what the subconscious presents to the conscious, as what is experienced by the conscious, is something created by the subconscious, as a representation, or even a symbol or sign, of what is sensed. This means that we must rid ourselves of the naive realist belief, that the first person perspective, conscious awareness, is an experience of anything other than a world created by the person's own subconscious system. That this is the truth is evidenced by hallucinations and dreams.

Furthermore, yes, within this experienced present, there are givens that occur before other givens (else, givens that occur after other givens) but, from the vantage of the experienced present as experienced by the first person point of view, these occurrences that consist of befores and afters are yet the present - hence, are neither the experiential future (which consists of yet to be experienced experiential present moments) nor the experiential past (which consists of already-experienced experiential-present-moments that are re-presented to our conscious selves, either automatically relative to us as conscious selves or via our volition as conscious selves of so remembering, with the latter most often termed "recall"). The befores and afters that occur in the experienced present are neither our experienced past nor our experienced future. But before further engaging in explaining this: — javra

What I'm trying to get you to do, is drop this notion of before and after, which is derived from a conception of time which sees time as a moving arrow, or something like that, moving from past to future, such that the things first encountered by the arrow are before the things later encountered. I want you to completely rid yourself of this idea, which puts time as something moving external to you, and then place time as within you. Only then, I believe, can you truly understand time as demonstrated by your experience. If you allow that time is something flowing within you, rather than an external arrow, you will be able to see that future things, goals and anticipations are before you, and past things, memories are after you.

Consider, "I am a being", and "a being exists at the present". Now imagine the possibility that the present is what is moving in time, and the rest of what is called "time", the future and past, are outside, external to the present. But the present, hence the being existing at the present as well, is moving through that medium. See, the future is before you, and the past is after, as you are moving into the future, and leaving the past behind. Now, exchange the idea that the present, along with the being at the present, is moving, for the idea that the being at the present is a static thing, and the external "time", the outside future and past are moving through the static being, at the present. Again, the future is before you, as that which is approaching, and the past is after you, as that which has gone by, when time passes through you in this way.

This is direct contradiction to time perception studies - with the sole point to referencing such studies here being that we as first person points of view do hold subjective awareness of time. — javra

I checked your reference here, and see that both of the two presented theories of how a person experiences time, utilize a conscious judgement. The first, "the strength model", describes a conscious analysis of a memory, to judge the strength of the memory, and the second, "the inference model" describes consciously comparing different events.

As I said before I don't think this subject of debate will be fruitful, as there are too many differences of opinion as to what constitutes basic perceptual experience, and what constitutes conscious judgement. The issue I believe is that we have a constant, very rapid interplay, back and forth feedback relation between the conscious and the subconscious. I think that scientific studies of this "time perception" fail in their inability to observe and account for anticipation, which by its nature relates to non-existent, unobservable things. So there is another complete dimensional aspect of time experience which involves the anticipation of something, and the actual occurrence of that something, which scientific studies cannot access. Since an extremely rapid interplay between anticipation of the event and actual occurrence of the event might be occurring at a subconscious level, the people doing the studies could not access this through conscious anticipation.

I have and will use "the experiential present" rather than "the specious present" precisely due to my disagreement with the inference that what I experience is "fictitious", as per the part of Kelly's quote I've boldfaced. (I am most certain of what I directly experience, and less certain of the inferences I abstract from such - this outlook being pivotal to my approach to philosophy in general; a different topic, maybe.) Nevertheless, there is yet mention of an experienced present in Kelly's inference of it being "fiction". — javra

But do you see the reason why Kelly calls this fictitious? It's exactly the same thing that I've been telling you. He says it is not the present at all, but the past, and to think that the specious present is really the present is a delusion. "The present to which the datum refers is really a part of the past--a recent past--delusively given as being a time that intervenes between the future and the past." Hence, your "experiential present" is really a part of the past, according to Kelly, and as the principal for defining of "the present" it suffers the same problem mentioned above. It does not incorporate as part of the "experiential present", the role of anticipation, being concerned only with that "recent past", leaving out the equally important, near future.

This quote by Kelly, quite likely, cuts to the marrow of our disagreement on this subject. Only that you go a step further and tell me that I don't experience time at all. — javra

This is because I think accepting the truth of "I don't experience time at all" is key to understanding time. Once we realize that "time" is completely conceptual, an imaginary, made up thing, with absolutely nothing experienced which corresponds, then we can apply healthy skepticism and demolish the entire concept to start again in conception of "time", from scratch.

To emphasize, what this implies is 1) that conscious reasoning (which occurs in the cerebral cortex) is not a necessity to the discernment of temporal sequences - hence, the discernment of time - and (here overlooking the rest of the linked to article) 2) that lesser animals are quite capable of experiencing time - again implying that conscious reasoning is not essential to the activity. — javra

I don't know the extent of what occurs in the cerebral cortex, so I can't comment on this, other than to say that rats and other lesser animals are conscious. So when I refer to a conscious judgement, I'm not necessarily talking about applying formal logic.

But I don't see how one could demonstrate that a rat can estimate a 40 second interval. Can you say to the rat, show me forty seconds, and the rat counts it out accurately? Then you say show me 36 seconds, and the rat demonstrates an interval of 36 seconds. And then the rat could demonstrate the difference between 39 seconds and 40 seconds? Needless to say, I'm very skeptical of this report.

As to memory, for the sake of brevity, I did and will for now continue to address memory as strictly that which is brought into consciousness by the unconscious which of itself re-presents a perceptual event that has already transpired and ended. To be as explicit as I currently can, this experiential memory (i.e., memory as it is experienced by the first person point of view) always consists of long term memory (e.g., a phone # I had ten years back); usually consists of short term memory and/or working memory (the memory of a phone # I have been exposed to 10 seconds after the fact), and on rare and extra-ordinary occasions of sensory memory (e.g., the experience of an afterimage). — javra

I think I see the root of the problem right here. Experience appears to be continuous. Any startings or endings must be assigned by some sort of judgement, to a particular aspect of the experience. This is a type of individuating. So when you say you will address "memory as strictly that which is brought into consciousness by the unconscious which of itself re-presents a perceptual event that has already transpired and ended", you don't even allow that the real conscious experience is a continuous process which has memory already inherent within it. And you are assuming endings which are only assigned arbitrarily by the conscious mind.

Suppose for the sake of argument, that the subconscious mind already individuates. producing separate events with a beginning and an end, and presents these to the conscious as still frames, appearing like a continuous movie. The conscious mind then chooses its own beginnings and endings. and commits the discrete individual events to memory. If this is the case, then the continuity of experience is an illusion. But why would our bodies create this illusion for us? Well, we haven't accounted for anticipation yet. Perhaps, the future is apprehended by anticipation as continuous. Now the conscious mind, having its attention first and foremost directed forward at anticipating the future, requires that the representation produced by the subconscious be continuous, in order for it to be consistent with the anticipatory perspective it naturally has. So the subconscious presents the past (which consists of discrete individuals, memories) as a continuous process

The point now, in relation to the quoted passage, is that you define "memory" as the discrete, individuated instances produced by the conscious mind. The conscious mind commits to memory specific experiences with distinct beginnings and endings which have been assigned by conscious judgement. However, in restricting "memory" in this way, you exclude from your knowledge of "memory" all the millions and billions of years of evolutionary processes which have given rise to the memory processes employed by the subconscious mind. Therefore you will only get a very primitive conception of "memory" because you are limiting yourself to conscious memory which is only the tip of the iceberg of memory as a whole.

Yes, having said this, what I do not agree with is that there is no experiential difference relative to the first person point of view in question between, for example, looking at an apple (this being the person's experiential present) and remembering once seeing an apple (this being the person's experiential past). Here, experientially, there is a clear distinction between what I deem to be the present perceptions I am aware of and what I deem to be former perceptions I am aware of - one whose threshold is fuzzy, granted, but experientially a clear distinction nevertheless. — javra

I think you ought to have respect for what Kelly says in your quoted passage. The instance of "looking at an apple", is really an experience of what has been, not of what is. The subconscious, with its billions of years of evolutionary experience of producing memories creates from this experience a representation of the apple. And as Kelly says, this is a fictitious present, because he describes it as a delusive present, being really memory. The role of memory here is obvious, and evident through observational scientific practise. However, what we have very little, if any understanding of, is the other side of the coin, the role of anticipation. So we cannot really, truthfully say, as Kelly does, and what I said earlier, that the specious present, the experience of "looking at an apple" is simply a recent past experience, because we need to take into account the role of anticipation when the subconscious create the image which is presented to the conscious, and we call looking at the apple.

(In some ways it's akin to watching a movie and claiming that what we are in fact experiencing is a series of still frames when, in fact, we are experiencing fluid motion while so viewing. Slow down the movie reel's motion and there will be a threshold where we witness both motion and still frames, true. Yet our perception of unadulturated motion is nevertheless experientially real when the movie progresses at its intended pace. In a roundabout way, the same allegorically applies to our experienced present (our seeing motion) and the nitty-gritty analysis of sensory and working memory (the still frames of a movie reel): the perceived present is to us experientially real, despite being made up in many a way by memory. Maybe this will help in getting across what I mean by "experiential present".) — javra

Yes, this is exactly what I'm talking about above. We need to take into account both the appearance of still frames, and the appearance of a continuous movie. We see that the still frames are created by the act of committing things to memory. In the example of conscious remembering, the conscious mind assigns a beginning and ending to the event, and memorizes it that way. But why is the subconscious presenting us with the appearance of a continuous experience, if its presentation consists of discrete memories? If we take the principles of the conscious memory, the production of discrete memories, and apply this at the subconscious level, then we can understand that the subconscious mind is producing memories as discrete individuals. Then it presents these to the conscious mind as the appearance of a continuous process. Why would it do this? As I said above, the only thing which seems reasonable to me, is that it needs to do this in order to be compatible with the conscious mind's focus on the future, anticipation. So the conscious mind is actually within the continuous future, and can only comprehend what the senses are giving it, discrete individual memories, if the subconscious presents these discrete individual memories in the appearance of a continuous process.

Otherwise, you are collapsing the distinction between memories that we recall and "memories" that are sense perceptions. — Luke

Yes, that's what I've done, sense perceptions are basically memories. I've argued that there is a medium between the sense organ and the conscious perception, such that the thing sensed is is in the past by the time of the perception. Javra concurred that neuroscience supports this, but I do not base my opinion in neuroscience. Further, I argued that the subconscious uses the memory in presenting the "image" what you would might call the "percept", to the conscious mind, such that the image is already a memory by the time it is present to the mind, as it is a representation.

Memories that you recall, and memories that are sense perceptions is an untenable distinction, I believe, unless you intend this to be a distinction between conscious and subconscious use of memory.. It is just another form of the distinction between recent and long ago memories. Any distinction between the two would be completely arbitrary without further principles. However, we do have further principles in thi case. First, the conscious mind is doing the "recalling", and I am arguing that the subconscious is presenting the sense representations to the conscious mind, as memories, though the condvioud mind is not aware that they are actually memories. So that's a big difference. Also I would argue that memories are related to anticipations, and it is in relation to anticipation, that memories as sense perceptions are separated from other very short term memories in the subconscious activity of the mind. This is why, in an extremely active world, with activity occurring all around us, we remember better, what we direct our attention toward (anticipation at play). This example is of the conscious mind, but the subconscious is similar, I believe.

That is at least some concession, given your earlier statement that: — Luke

It's what I've been saying all along. We might conclude that our experience is in the present, but we cannot say that it is an experience of the present. You might call it a concession, but I haven't changed my opinion. Further, I'm prepared to proceed to the point of saying that we actually do experience the present, so long as we define "the present" in a way which is coherent, in the sense of making it something which can be experienced.

That's why I said "but I don't yet see principles whereby I can say that the present is something which I experience." I believe that it is in describing "the present" as something which can be experienced, which necessitates the conclusion that the future is before the past. When we understand that the passing of time is a real thing, which is experienced by us as "the present", then we see the present as the end of the future, and the beginning of the past. Consider that if the future is before us, and the past is after us, the past is always growing, becoming, as the future is shrinking, therefore the future is ending at the present while the past is just beginning at the present.

I'm not sure about "principles", and this may be heading down the 'absolute' path, but if you accept that we exist in time, then our (veridical) experiences can only be of the time at which we find ourselves. And whatever time we find ourselves at is the present moment (for us). — Luke

Yes, this would be the case, if we find ourselves "in" time. But most presentists I've talked to remove "the present" from time, making it a non-dimensional division between past and future, by which the past and future are distinct from the present, and illusory. Making the human mind outside of time. existing at the present, as distinct from time which is either past or future, supports the assumption of eternal properties of the mind, Platonic Ideas.

Now, Javra has stated that the present consists of a duration of time, the present moment is a duration. So within that duration some parts must be in the future relative to other parts which would be in the past. What this implies is that within the present, there is also future and past. And when we see that, within our experienced present, part is in the future, and part is in the past, then we can acknowledge that the part in the future is before (prior to) the part in the past.

Apart from the distinction already made by the relevant meanings of the two words, the short answer is: sense perception. I anticipate what I will see (or otherwise will sense), and I remember what I have seen (or otherwise have sensed). And I have sense perceptions in/of the present moment. — Luke

Yes, I forgot to state the obvious. a memory is of an event which I recognize as being in the past, and I anticipate events I recognize as being future events. I talked about this at the beginning of my involvement in the thread.

This doesn’t seem like an option for you given your position that we do not experience the present, and that the present is merely a conceptual or logical assumption that we use to divide the future from the past. — Luke

I don't see why you say this. I experience memories and anticipations. I do not experience the present. However, since there is a substantial difference between what I experience as memories, and what I experience as anticipations, which I understand as the difference between past and future, I conclude that something must separate the past from future, i.e. the present. I may even conclude that my experience is in the present, because past experiences are gone and future ones have not yet happened, but I don't yet see principles whereby I can say that the present is something which I experience. I have experienced some things which I remember, and I will experience some things which i anticipate, and I do experience memories and anticipations, but how do you think that I experience the present?

How do you distinguish memories from anticipations? — Luke

Javra asked the same question, so I went through this already, I believe it's some type of intuition. There is I think, a noticeable difference though, in that a memory is something very specific, while anticipation is very general. Consider that if a memory gets very general, that's when it is fading away and being lost, but when anticipation is very general, that's when it is the strongest, as anxiety.

How do you think that you distinguish memories from anticipations?

You said "Aristotle didn't believe in space or time", though Bk.4 of his "Physics" indicates that he believed in both "place" and "time". Though he rejected the prevailing conception of "void", this does not mean that he did not believe in "space", because he replaced "void" with the more comprehensive and practical "place". And, he stated that "time" has two distinct senses, primarily it is a measurement, and secondarily it is the thing measured. In modern usage this separation is not maintained and equivocation is the result. When pressed for an explanation, most people simply deny the second, 'there is no such thing as time', as something which is being measured. You can see this in Einstein's famous quote where he states that time is a persistent illusion.

And youre not being clear about continuity and discreteness. Space can't be discrete. Space necessarily has parts. You say mathematics backed up motion being continuous and yet this was exactly Zeno's point. — Gregory

I don't see what you're objecting to. If space necessarily has parts, then we must conclude that it is discrete, as each part is a distinct and therefore discrete entity. If space were continuous, then it would have no parts, as being partitioned means that it is divided, therefore necessarily not continuous.

Then perhaps you could explain the basis of your claim that “the real thing which is being represented must be in the past by the time the representation is created". Why must the one be in the past of the other? — Luke

It's not "in the past of the other", it's "in the past", where "past" is defined as the things whose existence is demonstrate by memories. "Past" and "future" are not defined here in relation to each other, they are defined in relation to memory and anticipation.

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Don’t we already know that the future is after the past? — Luke

No, our understanding of time is very inadequate, so we do not know that, that's the point I'm making. Placing the past as before the future is a feature of the way that people conceive time. In a different conception of time, one based in a goal driven ontology, there is good reason to place the future as before the past.

Do you recognize that in such transitions, the beginning of one thing is always also the end of the other? So whether the noted instance is a beginning or an ending is completely dependent on which thing you are giving your attention to, as the significant thing. This issue becomes quite pronounced when we look at time itself, and apprehend the present as the divisor between future and past. The common practise is to say that the past ends at the present, and the future begins at the present. But that is just because we emphasize the past, and order furthest away things in the past as "before" closer things. When we see that time itself is a thing which is changing, a thing labeled as dates hours, etc., we have a different perspective. Then we can see the future passing through the present to become past, as the named part labeled by a date, moves from future to past. We see that the present is when the future becomes the past, so the present is when the past begins, and the future ends. — Metaphysician Undercover

When we look at the question of how a goal can act to determine the activity which occurs at the present (free will activity) we need to consider how a thing can come into being at the present. Free will indicates that we must dismiss the idea that these things are determined by the past. However, the existence of the thing which comes into being at the present is in some way determined by the goal. If you understand things as coming into being at the present, then you can apprehend them as coming out of the future and moving into the past, just like time does. Therefore the future ought to be placed as before the past.

Which mathematics demonstrate space can be discrete? Isn't this contrary to the very definition of space? As I said a loop of some kind is a better idea — Gregory

I said the mathematics supports the assumption of continuity. "That motion is continuous was simply an assumption of convenience. Then the required mathematics was produced to support that assumption.

Aristotle didn't believe in space or time, just forms. Space is a physical container and humans use the concept of time to understand how relativity works within space. Aristotle was right actually in that space and time are both phantoms but modern physics doesn't work with these absolute ideas anymore — Gregory

I conclude that you haven't read Aristotle's "Physics".

You're telling me that devoid of your conscious reasoning, aka inferences, what you would experience is an eternal sound, one that is thereby devoid of a beginning (a transition from no sound to sound) and an end (a transition from sound to no sound)? — javra

The more I think about it the more I realize that it's not possible to separate basic experience from conscious reasoning in this way, as the two are deeply mixed and this route may not lead us anywhere.

But to answer your question, I'd have to say no, I don't think that's accurate. Remember, I place memory and anticipation as fundamental parts of experience, and the subconscious probably works with these without the use of conscious reasoning. I believe that such transitions are clearly noticeable, and simultaneous differences in sound are also clearly noticeable. What I do not believe is that they are noticed as "beginnings", and "ends".

Do you recognize that in such transitions, the beginning of one thing is always also the end of the other? So whether the noted instance is a beginning or an ending is completely dependent on which thing you are giving your attention to, as the significant thing. This issue becomes quite pronounced when we look at time itself, and apprehend the present as the divisor between future and past. The common practise is to say that the past ends at the present, and the future begins at the present. But that is just because we emphasize the past, and order furthest away things in the past as "before" closer things. When we see that time itself is a thing which is changing, a thing labeled as dates hours, etc., we have a different perspective. Then we can see the future passing through the present to become past, as the named part labeled by a date, moves from future to past. We see that the present is when the future becomes the past, so the present is when the past begins, and the future ends.

What I doubt, and dismiss, is the idea that the subconscious works with a concept of time, the conception of something called "time" which is passing. I think that this is a conscious judgement. And since the notions of before and after as we commonly use them, are derived from this idea, that time is a sort of medium which validates such judgements, I also dismiss the idea that the subconscious provides us with determinations of before and after.

Consider for example recalling numerous different events, and giving them a temporal order. How is that order determined? In this example, we are doing it consciously, consciously determining a temporal order of past events. But the type of inference used seems to be very sketchy, and it might be varied. For things close together in time, we might say this was required for that, as cause, and was therefore before, .and for things far apart in time, it might just come automatically, as obvious, this was recent and that was a long time ago. The latter, the judgement which comes automatically, would be the closest to a judgement made without conscious inference. How do you think such a judgement is made?

You thereby consciously reason each and every instance of sound that you hear to determine its beginnings and endings as these stand relative to all other sounds that overlap? — javra

I would only do this if I was thinking about beginnings and endings of sounds, but usually i do not think about that. I just hear the sounds, and act accordingly, without thoughts about how the sounds begin and end.

For instance, suppose you're blindfolded and a buddy snaps his fingers on both hands at approximately the same moment, with each hand being placed next to one of your different ears; without inferences (again, conscious reasoning) that you decide upon, you would be unable to discern which hand's snap ended first relative to the other, hence ending before the other? — javra

I would be much more inclined to attempt to determine which snap started before the other, I think that's an easier thing to determine than which one ended first. Don't ask me why, but I think we are sort of trained this way, if we are asked to judge which sound is first, we judge which one starts first. But that's a judgement based in anticipation, I would be expecting, and waiting for the sounds, prepared to make the required judgement. If it just so happened, that two pops suddenly went off, almost simultaneously, one beside each of my ears, I might not know which was first. And even if I could make that judgement accurately, it would require that I reflect on my memory. So either way, it supports my position, that such judgements of before and after are based in memory and anticipation.

EDIT: Upon closer scrutiny, it turns out that when I snap my fingers there's first a swooshing frictional sound made by rubbing my middle finger against my thumb that overlaps with a popping sound made when my middle finger touches my palm at a fast enough rate ... quite audible to me when I snap my fingers slowly. Evidencing that in my experiences there can be discerned a unique beginning sound from a different ending sound in an individual finger snap - with no memory utilized on my part to so discern (in my own experiences). Thought this to be an interesting tidbit to add. — javra

How can you say "with no memory utilized on my part"? Wasn't your decision that there was a swooshing sound prior to the snapping sound, made after the entire sequence of sounds, therefore based in your memory of the sounds? Let's assume that it was not. Then wasn't it based in your anticipation of the sounds? Remember, I argue that judgements of before and after are based not only in memory, but in anticipation as well. Clearly when you say "closer scrutiny" this means that the event was highly anticipated, allowing you to make this judgement.

Now I think we've stumbled across a very important aspect of goal driven determinacy. It appears to me, that when making such judgements, as which comes first, or is the beginning distinguishable from the ending, it is far more effective to approach the object (event) from an anticipatory perspective, then from a perspective of remembering the event. If an event occurs, and then you are asked to make such a judgement, only from your memory, it would be very difficult. But if you are prepared for the event, anticipating it, you'll have far more success in noting what occurs.

Then how can you assert that: "the real thing which is being represented must be in the past by the time the representation is created"? — Luke

Why not? I'm talking strictly about future and past, not before and after. And future and past are determined based on memory and anticipation. The point is that there is no need to bring before and after into this discussion at this point.

What do you require in order to determine "the basis for saying that either one, the past or the future is before or after the other one"? — Luke

This would require definition I believe. So instead of defining before and after in relation to time (because this is circular if we are conceiving of time through the experience of before and after), we need to give "prior to" a different definition, such as logically prior to. When one concept is required logically, for another, the other being dependent on the one, then the one is logically prior. This creates a hierarchy of meaning, pointing to the most important, or significant things as first, prior to, or before the less significant, such that the highest goals, as most important, are prior to, the less important. And since the concept of time is to be derived from the designation of before and after, the highest goals are most causally effective, being prior in time to the lesser goals.

Well, if space is not continuous, arent there gaps to stop the motio? — Prishon

Gaps do not necessarily stop motion. that would only be the case if motion is continuous. Doesn't quantum mechanics demonstrate that it is probably the case that the motion of fundamental particles in not continuous. And if the motion of fundamental particles is not continuous, why not consider that the motion of any body is not continuous. That motion is continuous was simply an assumption of convenience. Then the required mathematics was produced to support that assumption.

I shudder when I say this, but there might be something to this idea. Just a feeling, since the two are so different. — jgill

It wouldn't be the first time we agreed on something, even though the two of us are so different.

Space is a container for matter. It's necessary for matter. Time is an effect that happens from motion. — Gregory

Space is a concept, developed from studying the properties of bodies. It is not a container, but has been deemed as a necessary condition for motion, as a body needs a place, space, to move to. Time is not the effect of motion, but it is also a required condition for motion. Traditionally, space was conceived of as static, as an object and its properties were something static. But Aristotle demonstrated the need to allow for change, and motion if our conceptions are to be real representations. This produced the need to integrate the two distinct conceptions, space, and time, as the two necessary conditions for motion.

Does "the real thing which is being represented" come before or after "the time the representation is created", given that the former "must be in the past" of the latter? Or is there "no basis for saying that one event is before or after another event"?

Your conception, based in past and future, is just as circular. — Luke

We haven't determined the basis for saying that either one, the past or the future is before or after the other one. I would be inclined to say that the anticipation of an event is prior to the memory of an event, and since anticipation relates to the future, and memory to the past, the future is before the past, from my experiential perspective.

Furthermore, the snap’s beginning occurs before the snaps end; this, again, at the very least in my own direct experience, is in no way a reasoned inference but an immediate observation (with no need to here address Kantian like innate intuitions required to so observe). — javra

In the case of a "snap", also other quick sounds like a gunshot, I do not experience a beginning and end. It's all at once, a snap. Only by inference do I decide that there must be a beginning and an ending.

In the case of a longer sound, like a held tone, a horn or a bell, I do experience a distinct separation between a beginning and an ending. But this is only because the beginning is a memory by the time the end comes, And by the time the ending is anticipated the beginning is already a memory.

So, I find that the only thing which allows me to experience a separation between the beginning and the ending of a sound is memory and anticipation. And any quick sound, like a snap or a pop, is already ended by the time I notice that it has started, so it doesn't appear to me like I experience a beginning and ending of such a sound, though I know that it must have them.

How does so abstracting what time is from the concrete particulars of direct experience consist of circularity of argumentation? — javra

According to my described experience, above, I don't really believe that you experience a beginning and ending to an abrupt, quick sound like a snap. I think you experience it all at once, as a snap, because the human response time is not quick enough for you to separate the beginning from the end, in your perception. If you really think that you do, try to describe the difference between what the beginning sounds like, and what the ending sounds like, without the assistance of a recording device, or referencing reverberations which are not really part of the initial snap.

Nevertheless, if you actually can separate the beginning of such a sound from the ending of that sound, to prove that you experience them distinctly, this simply supports what I am arguing. I think that you can only make this distinction because the beginning of the sound has already registered in your memory when you hear the end of the sound. So your conclusion that a sound has a beginning and an ending really is dependent on the separation between memory and anticipation.

Math is the cause for getting the physics wrong... — Prishon

Finally, someone on tpf who speaks my language.

I mean, does the fact that things can move trough spacetime prove that there is continuity on every level? — Prishon

I don't see how you derive this conclusion.

Can there be processes outside 4D spacetime that determine how each new interval must look like? — Prishon

I believe that this is the proper conclusion, and what it indicates is that the conception of 4D spacetime is inadequate. What is required is a proper analysis which separates space from time, allowing one to be discrete, and the other continuous. So for example, "processes outside 4D spacetime" implies time outside of spactime, because processes require time. Such processes would be non-spatial, because the concept of "spacetime" is space based, tying time to space. Therefore we need to release time from space, making it the 0 dimension instead of dimension 4, properly non-spatial, allowing for a continuous time, complete with non-spatial processes, along with a discrete space.

I revealed the basis for my conception of time as the difference between memory and anticipation. Before and after are not essential to this conception. Javra's conception is based in before and after, which is circular if before and after are not based in something other than time.

We seem to have come to a standstill. I find that you incorporate so much of neuroscientific knowledge and inferential reasoning into your understandings of percepts, this so as to accommodate your understanding of time, that you conflate what is immediately experienced with very abstract inferences concerning a hypothetical nature of time. — javra

You're missing the fundamental point though. I insist that we have no experience of time. Time is conceptual only, therefore any temporal notions are derived from abstract concepts.

To sum up your stance as I understand it: We know from science that all our immediate percepts occur nanoseconds after our physiological senses first register data, and you thereby conclude that all our perceptions occur in the past. We however do not perceive expectations, so these are not of the past, being instead inferred to regard the future. There then must be inferred a transition between this non-past and past, an infinitesimal threshold of some sort, and this you demarcate as the non-experienced but purely conceptual present. — javra

This is not quite right. What I said is that I distinguish between memories and anticipations as fundamentally different. I do not know how I make such a distinction, it's just a base intuition.

I do not use neuroscientific knowledge to justify my claim that there is mediation in sensation, just simple logic like Plato used in describing seeing. There is spatial separation between sense organs. The mind unifies these spatially separated places, and this requires that something traverses the gap. And traversing a spatial gap is not instantaneous.

In other words there is mediation, a medium, between the parts of my body, in the same way that there is a medium between you and I, it's just on a smaller scale. This is not a new idea, the ancient atomists proposed that bodies consisted of atoms and void. I replace void with medium because void doesn't make sense to me.

To the average person on the street (who most likely doesn’t even have the learning to know that our immediate percepts of which we are consciously aware occur nanoseconds after our physiological senses register information) that all our “perceptions are remembrances” would be utter nonsense. To such, there is a clear distinction between “I am now seeing a house” and “I am remembering a house I once saw ten years back”. By the conclusions you've so far advocated, I'm tempted to speculate that this person should instead be saying, or at least conceptualizing, “I am right now remembering that house over there that I’m now point to (with our awareness of our so pointing also being a memory to us, since this awareness too is perceptual and therefore of the past)” and “I am remembering a house that I visually first remembered ten years back.” Again, to the average person so conceptualizing is nonsense, precisely because it contradicts the experiential nature of present perceptions as contrasted to what is commonly understood by memories. — javra

The average person on the street is like Plato's cave dweller, believing that the reflections, or representations of reality, are reality. The philosopher has the task of leading those cave dwellers out of the entrapments of their false opinions. What Plato taught is that we build up layers of representation, and this is like a narrative. What I say is that the real thing which is being represented must be in the past by the time the representation is created.

I, again, was addressing what we directly experience, and not any reasoning regarding the mechanisms of our perceptions or the ontological nature of time. — javra

Sure, but we do not directly experience time. Time is derived from abstraction. So you have no basis for saying that one event is before or after another event, because from experience you have no principles to substantiate the meaning of before or after. And you are proposing an ontology of goal driven determinacy. I propose that we move to substantiate "before" and "after" by referring directly to our experience of memories and anticipations.

I agree but that's not what you wrote previously. — 180 Proof

Right, I did not use the precise terms of jargon which you used "ontologically independent", I explained in common terms how it is incorrect to say that the prescription lenses could be in any true sense, "independent from us", unless we tackle the problem of how a thing might be conceived of as free from dependence on its creator. So your imaginary scenario of prescription glasses independent of us, which was supposed to be analogous to ideas independent of us, is simply incoherent without such an explanation.

You then went on to claim that what you meant was "ontologically independent", so I had to reassert, that the glasses cannot be "ontologically independent" because they are clearly dependent on the creator for their existence.. Such an ontology, would exclude from the understanding of the existence of the object, the fact that it is artificial, created.

Now you seem to agree with me that the glasses are not ontologically independent. So to go back, and correct your original analogy. Do you agree that it is incoherent to even talk about glasses as being independent from their creator, or ideas as being independent from us, unless we posit some other type of being which is independent from us, with ideas, like God? In other words, it doesn't make sense to talk about ideas as independent from minds, nor does it make sense to talk about footprints as independent from the feet which create them, unless we can express an understanding of the process whereby one gains separation from the other.

and ontologically independent. — 180 Proof

As I explained, the glasses are not "ontologically independent". They are dependent on the creator for their existence. I guess misunderstanding is your thing?

Do you hold percepts that you deem to be immediately obtained from the workings of your physiological senses? Images obtained via the physiological sense of sight that pertains to your physiological eyes; sounds obtained via the physiological senses of sound that pertains to your physiological ears; smells obtained via the physiological sense of smell that pertains to you physiological nose; etc.? — javra

No, I do not agree with immediate "percepts". There is mediation between the sense organ and the image in the mind. That's why I argued that the thing sensed is always in the past. I feel pain in my toe, and I know that there is mediation between the feeling, and the organ which does the sensing. I believe this is the case with all senses. So the feeling, or "percept" is a creation of the mind, the subconscious part of the mind, in response to the sense organ, then presented to the conscious part of the mind as the "percept", image, or feeling.

My OED defines "percept" as a concept resulting from perceiving. This is what the ancients, like Aristotle described as the activity of abstraction. The mind abstracts certain properties from the object, through the use of the senses.

Next, can you hold any percepts that you deem to not be immediately obtained from the workings of your physiological senses? Images that you see with the mind's eye but not with your physiological eyes; sounds that you hear with the mind's ears but not with your physiological ears; smells that you smell with the mind's nose but not with your physiological nose; etc.?

E.g.: I see the unicorn I am right now visualizing, and I can hear its neigh in my imagination. — javra

Since I understand all such images, to be creations of the mind, there is no clear dividing line between fictitious images (eg. unicorns), and the percepts created with the assistance of the sense organs. The existence of hallucinations, and dreaming (which is imaginary yet appears to the mind to be real sensing) supports my position. The conscious part of the mind, which I believe to be a relatively small part, provides us with the capacity to distinguish between fictitious images and true percepts, but it is limited in this capacity, and is not always correct, as hallucinations demonstrate.

If you honestly answer "no" to either of these, then we have drastic differences in what we experience, and I'd be inclined to find out more about our differences. Assuming that you can experience both as I can: — javra

I do not believe that these differences are "differences in what we experience". I think they are differences in the way that we each interpret our experience. I think that "what we experience" is fundamentally very similar, each of us being a very complex organism, which, when you take into account the extent of complexity, are extremely similar. We are very complex, and very similar, so I conclude that "what we experience" is very similar, as this is provided for by innate features, genetics etc. The "experience" I would say is mostly produced by the subconscious, and we could say that the conscious mind is what experiences the experience.

However, the interpretation of the experience is necessarily carried out by the conscious mind, as that which experiences. And the conscious mind is greatly influenced, shaped, by acquired features, i.e. learning. As you probably know, learning is very circumstantial, so it varies greatly from one person to the next. Now when we, each one of us individually, interprets our experience, respectively, we come up with a very large variety of differences in our explanations. This I believe is not indicative of a large difference in the way that we experience (according to innate features), but it is indicative of a large difference in what each one of us has experienced, the circumstances (learning) upon which the conscious mind becomes accustomed to making judgements.

Next, are the memories you experience of the first or of the second type of perception? — javra

So I think I've answered this one already. I see no clear division between the first and second type, as the first type is not grounded at all, and not a real acceptable category. So memories suffer from the same problem, they are often false, influenced by the creativity of the mind, and we have no real way to distinguish a true representation of the past from a false representation. This is why people can honestly insist "I remember it this way", and be demonstrated to be incorrect.

Just to clarity, is your stance that of deeming the notion of a language to be a "fundamental ontological error". Thereby making languages ontologically nonexistent? Because in what I wrote I was addressing a language as having downward determinacy upon a collective of individual psyches. — javra

Yes, I think that is a fair conclusion. I see the concept of "a language" as an ontological entity, to be fundamentally flawed. You can look at the way Wittgenstein breaks down language as an example. If we look at language as a game, for analogy, we see that "a language" as a game, breaks down into a multitude of smaller language games, and cannot exist as one coherent game, as the multitude of smaller games have rules which are inconsistent with each other. This denies the possibility of "a language' as a coherent whole. If we proceed further in the direction of breaking down language in analysis, we will find that each individual instance of use will assign a particular meaning to the words employed, which is unique to the particular circumstances of that instance, and this is the foundation of meaning, rather than a top-down imposition of rules determining how to use language.

Pardon the crudity of this. If one were to skin a cat from tail to head rather than from head to tail then the given outcome of having skinned the cat would itself be different? — javra

This is the point of the distinction between general and particular. The description of an activity is always general, running, walking, sitting, drinking, etc.. Until you mention the particular entities, individuals involved in describing a particular activity which has already occurred, the named or described activity will remain as something general. An activity is an attribute, or property, which may to predicated of numerous different individuals who may do the named activity.

However, we can narrow down the generality of the named or described activity by being more specific. So, to "skin a cat", is quite specific, it refers to a specific type of procedure which must be done with a specific type of animal. However, even in that degree of specificity there is still a vast amount of generality. You might for example specify the colour of skin required. Also, you might specify the technique, as your example, head to tail, or tail to head.

Of course the outcome will be different depending on the technique, as a different technique will provide a different product, even if the differences are minimal. That is why such differences are called "accidentals", because they are insignificant with respect to the named activity "skin a cat". But if we change the specification, because for some reason the differences which seemed insignificant before, are now viewed as important, one might specify "skin a cat from tail to head", and the differences are no longer viewed as accidentals.

What your thinking of in terms of particulars and generalities I'm thinking of in terms of subordinate intents relative to the given intent itself - and then of supraordinate intents to boot. In the example you've given, the intent is that of alleviating the hunger one experiences. A subordinate intent might be to intake a particular hamburger. And a subordinate intent of so doing might be to open up the fridge. And then, the supraordinate teleological reason for intending to alleviate one's hunger is, or at least can be, that of intending to survive. Before continuing, do you find so addressing the matter problematic? And if so, why? — javra

This is close, but not quite what I'm thinking. The difference between generalities and particulars is a category difference, The subordinates and supraordinates are all within the same category, as generalities. The difference between them is just like the difference of making things more specific, in the example above. The more general the goal, the more opportunity for different possibilities in fulfillment. As we move toward less and les general, i.e. more specific, the possibilities are narrowed down.

Here is the reason for maintaining the category separation. Suppose we get to the extremely specific. My goal is to eat that particular hamburger, now. Until the action is actually carried out, there is still possibilities, with a bun, condiments, etc.. It is only after the action is carried out, that it can be described as a particular, without any possibilities. This is the endstate, and it is categorically distinct from the goal, as a particular occurrence, having already occurred. The goal is a view to the future, with respect for possibilities, while the endstate is something which has happened and is now in the past, there are no more possibilities if truth is to be respected.

So that is the reason why we need a good understanding of "the present", because the present, "now" is what provides us with that category separation, and confusing the two categories is a category mistake. We have a difference between the activity described as a goal for the future, and the activity as described as a past occurrence (the endstate). What lies between these, within the medium, is the accidentals of the actual activity. No matter how specific we get with our description of the desired activity, we cannot include all the possibilities for accidentals, so the goal will always remain as something general in relation to the activity which will be brought about, allowing for a multitude of different possible endstates to fulfill the conditions of that goal.

Finishing the marathon is implied in running the marathon, otherwise one would either 1) run indefinitely without ever stopping or else 2) run for a few yards or so and consider one's goal actualized. And, as with most anything else, implicit in finishing a marathon is that of doing so honestly. If one were to finish a marathon by driving a car, how would that yet be a marathon? If one were to take a shortcut from the marathon's path, one again would cross the finish line without having run the given marathon. — javra

Yes, that is the nature of the named activity, to "run a marathon", that finishing it, and not cheating, are implied by the definition. That is a feature of the specification. What I was pointing out is that "run a marathon" is not exactly the same specification as "finish a marathon", and one might be defined differently from the other, with different things implied.

Reification fallacy I think (or is it misplaced concreteness?). Prescription lenses*, for instance, are just pieces of 'glass' independent of us. 'Ideas' are abstract tools insofar as we (or some complex information processing systems) use^ them, otherwise they are just 'footprints on the beach at low tide' so to speak. *Benny & ^Witty, respectively. — 180 Proof

Prescription lenses cannot be "independent" from us because they are dependent on us for their creation. Since independent means 'not depending on', this would require a special meaning for "depend", one which allows that the created thing does not depend on the creator for its existence..

This leads to a very important metaphysical question. How is it possible, that a being like a human being can be dependent on something else for its existence, yet be free in the sense of free willing, and therefore "independent" in that sense? The simple solution is to deny the Creator, giving the being "independence" in an absolute sense, rejecting the reality of that sort of dependence. But reality is complex, and the simple solution is obviously not the correct solution.

So it's finally been decided?
Metaphysics is defined as "peddling woo". Then there's a special class of peddling woo, wooing that works, and this is called "science".

To conceive of a point that divides past from future is already an act of dealing with a conceptual abstraction of what time is ontotologically. It is not what we directly experience time to be - but is, instead, how some of us conceptualize the objective nature of time to be. Some claim our experiences of time to be an illusion, yet we nevertheless experience time as such. — javra

I've been arguing that we do not directly experience time at all. It's conceptual, an abstraction. You end the paragraph with "we nevertheless experience time as such" , but you don't say what you think we experience time as. We've defined "moment" as a short duration of time, but what is duration? We've really said nothing about how we come to a notion of "time", or how we would distinguish a short duration from a long duration. Even the idea of "duration", the dimensional extension of time does not appear to be derivable directly from experience. It's more like a comparison of activities, one to the other, and noticing that one takes longer (extends past the other), that gives us a conception of time as duration.

This is why I proposed the difference between past and future, as something derived directly from experience, as the principal defining terms for "present", and also "time". I think that we directly experience a substantial difference between past and future, which is fundamental to the way that we view the world, and it inheres within us, and influences everything we do and think. You asked me, how do I distinguish between the experience of a memory and the experience of an anticipation, and I cannot answer this for you. It's something deep within my intuitions, as fundamental to my experience itself, that I recognize things remembered as distinct from things anticipated. I therefore have a fundamentally different attitude toward things anticipated than i do toward things remembered. How I can distinguish one from the other, I cannot say, but this is only because this distinction is so deep, at the base of my experience.

There is a way, I believe, towards understanding why this fundamental distinction exists within our minds, and why that difference is always evident to us. The separation between the two exists as the difference between the particular, and the general. Memories of the past are always of particular things which have occurred. Anticipations, being grounded in what you called potential, are always general. This is why anticipatory problems, like anxiety disorders are so difficult to deal with. There is never a particular thing which causes the anxiety, it's just a general feeling.

We can, as you do, name a particular goal, as that which causes the anticipation, but having what we might call "a particular goal" is really just to direct the anticipation in a particular direction. It does not address the question of what anticipation really is, like we might say that a memory is a representation of a particular incident in the past. We cannot say that anticipation is of a particular incident in the future (such as a goal), because it doesn't really exist that way. It's something general, and shaped by the conscious mind to be directed in a specific direction.

Right, because it is experienced as the (extended) present.

However, I think that an "intersubjective experienced present" is not sufficient for an ontology.
— Metaphysician Undercover

Nor am I claiming that an "intersubjective experienced present" is sufficient for an ontology of time. But it is a necessary account of what our experiences of time consists of - if we are to be truthful about what we directly experience (be our experiences illusory or not). — javra

In all truthfulness, I really don't believe that we experience time as passing at all, therefore what we experience as the present is not an extended duration of time. If you rid yourself of any conception of time, and think about what you are experiencing, there is a lot of things happening, but we cannot say that this is time we are experiencing, we are experiencing changes. We only derive a concept of time as passing when we compare changes, with measurement, and apply numbers. Then we start to talk about time as something passing. But if we start strictly with our experience, we have things changing (external observations), and intuitions of future and past (internal observations of memories and anticipations), but we don't have a passing time. We only construct a passing time when we put these two distinct types of experiences together, derive an independent future and past, and say that things change as the future becomes the past. But I still don't see the principles whereby you derive the idea of time as passing. It can't be from experience, because we don't in anyway sense time, and we don't experience it internally, we only seem to have intuitions of a distinction between past and future.

First, we experientially find that the ever-changing present we live in consists of befores and afters. Right now listening to crickets chirping in the backyard while at my laptop. At the very least every individual chirp I hear occurs for me in the extended present, not in the past and not in the future. Yet each individual chirp likewise has a starting state and an ending state, and the start of the chirp occurs before the end of the chirp, despite the total chirp again occurring for me within what I experience as the present moment (neither memory nor prediction, but a present actuality). When time is conceived of as a series of befores and afters, time passes even within the experiential present moment. This confuses our conceptualizations of what time is, but it is an honest account of what we (or at the very least I) experience to unfold withing the extended duration of the present moment. — javra

I can see your point, to think of your experience in terms of befores and afters, But this is to look at time from the perspective of memory. Notice that you only assign (judge) a before and after, after remembering the entire sequence. We can remove the need for this type of judgement if we look directly at our experience of memories and anticipations, to derive our conception of time. Now there is no need for such a judgement (a judgement which could be wrong), because we refer directly to our experience, of the difference between things remembered and things anticipated, to produce a conception of time, and we have no need to say that one is before the other, or after the other, they both exist within us, together, but are simply different. That's what experience tells us, that remembered things are different from anticipated things.

But when you make a judgement of before and after, you are already employing a preconceived notion of time in that judgement. So when I hear a cricket chirp, I notice it's in the past, a memory, and I might anticipate another, in the future, but without a conception of time, I can't analyze the chirp, breaking it down into parts, saying one part is "before" another part . I think that this is fundamental in experience, that we notice things as wholes, and breaking them into parts in analysis, or even making a relationship between one thing and another, such as the before/after relationship, is conceptualizing. The memory/anticipation separation is not a relationship, it's a distinction, as a first step toward breaking things into parts. It is an act of conceptualizing, but a first step, therefore not requiring prior conceptualizations.

Downward determinacy and upward determincay are not mutually exclusive. That said, one aspect of culture is language. Yes, we might and on occasion do communally change the language which we speak in minute ways (dictionaries change over time), yet that does not negate that the thoughts and expressions pertaining to a collective of individual psyches which speak the same language are in large part governed by the language which they speak. It's why foreign words are sometimes introduced into a language by those who are multilingual so as to express concepts that would otherwise be inexpressible (if at all imaginable) in the given language. Zeitgeist as one example of this. We as individual constituents of a language do not create the language we speak in total; our thoughts and expressions are instead in large part downwardly determined by the language(s) we speak. Do you disagree with this as well? If so, on what grounds? — javra

I disagree with you fundamentally on this issue, so I do not see any point really in discussing it. I think that assuming "a collective of individual psyches" as a whole, is a fundamental ontological error. derived from a category mistake which males a generalization into a particular. When we see things as similar, we class them as 'the same" in some respect, placing them in a collection, or set. But that set does not have real existence, as an object or a true whole, and despite the fact that you can point to all sorts of relations between the particular individuals, members of the collective, this does not justify the claim that such a collective is a true whole. So for example, we see a species as a whole, therefore you might call that whole a particular individual, but this is just making a universal into a particular. What is fundamental to a particular, as an individual, is difference, not sameness.

Taking an expression at face value, you find it an impossibility that there can be more than one way to skin a cat? Here "skinning the cat" is the goal. The "one or more ways" are the means toward said goal. If you do find this to be an impossibility, on what grounds? Determinism? — javra

I say this on the grounds of how a particular object, a thing, is defined, by the law of identity, each thing being different from every other. When you define "goal" in such a way, so as to make it a thing (the particular desired endstate), then you must respect the differences between particular things, what Aristotle called accidentals. Since the accidentals between two things are different, then despite being the same type of thing, the two things are distinct. And the existence of a contingent thing is inseparable from its causes,, as what is required for the existence of that thing. So we cannot say that two contingent things, being "two" because they exist under differing circumstances, are the same thing, because that would contravene the law of identity. The best we can say is that they are two of the same type of thing.

What I propose to you, is that we recognize "a goal" as a general type of thing, a universal rather than a particular thing. This would allow that two distinct sets of circumstance could lead to two distinct endstates consistent with "the same goal". "The same" being used in the sense of similar, meaning the same type, not in the sense of "the same" as in the law of identity. But then "a goal" cannot be a particular endstate, but a general, type of endstate, allowing that many different endstates might fulfill the criteria of that one stated goal..

I think that this is consistent with our experience of anticipations, desires, and intentions. Take hunger for example. In it's raw anticipatory form, it is simply an unpleasant feeling, an anxiety of want and need. When we apprehend this feeling we associate it with the very general need for food. The goal starts as most general, the desire to quell the uneasy feeling. But then to fulfill this goal, we specify general types of things which one might want to eat, or what is available to eat. In relation to the goal, we maintain its generality so as to keep many possibilities. But when we observe particular items of food available to eat, we rapidly narrow down the goal to a particular item which is readily available. So the shaping of the goal, is a narrowing done from the very general, to the more specific, then perhaps to the particular. But when we reach the particular, the goal to eat this particular hamburger, we cannot say that this is the same goal as the goal to eat another hamburger beside that one, even though the two goals can both be described as the same goal, to eat a hamburger.

In this sense, fulfilling a goal can be said to be bringing about a particular endstate from a general goal. In maintaining a separation between the goal, as something general, and the endstate as something particular, we allow that many different endstates can truthfully be said to fulfill the same goal. But if we say that the goal is a particular endstate, eg., I need that particular hamburger, then we misrepresent what a goal really is, and force upon ourselves an unrealistic need (the need for a particular endstate) in relation to fulfilling our goals. Fulfilling our goals does not require particular endstates, and creating this illusion that on particular thing is required to fulfill your goal is self-deception.

So I do accept that a goal can be fulfillrd in many different ways, and I understand this as the goal being something general, and each endstate as something particular, so that many different endstates might fulfill the conditions outlined by "the goal", as describing something general. This is the same principle we find when many different things are said to be the same type.

When I remember something I do not experience a perception obtained via my physiological senses' interaction with external stimuli; I instead experience a memory, which has many of the same perceptual qualities as an imagination but is instead felt to correlate to present moments I once experienced but no longer do, past present moments in which I then experienced perceptions obtained via my physiological sense's interaction with external stimuli. To observe is to take note of what is happening ... in the present. The observing perspective takes place in the experienced present, not in the experienced past. See my initial reply regarding the experienced extended present. — javra

I don't agree with this, and I don't believe you actually do experience things in the present the way that you claim to. Take your cricket chirp for example. By the time you recognize that it is a cricket chirping, is it not in the past, and you are dwelling on it as a memory? you are remembering it. And by the time you analyze it for a start and end, isn't it already in the past, a memory? Even if you think, "there's a start", after it starts, and before the end, the start is already in the past, and just a memory.

So I believe that you are simply denying the role that memory is playing in your experience at the present. Committing things to memory is not necessarily a conscious activity, so recalling things from memory, remembering, could take place without the person even knowing that the things were already memorized, and being recalled. Imagine that you are watching someone do something, or listening to a piece of music. You would have no idea as to what was going on, if your memory was not constantly providing you with what just happened before that moment. Because you are not consciously committing what si happening to memory, and recalling it, you do not want to say that the memory is active here. But it is.

Now you might want to extend the present "moment" beyond that quarter of a second which is human response time, to include things longer in the past as part of the present, but then I think that you would be simply using an inaccurate representation of the "moment" just for the sake of denying the role which your memory plays in your experience

And as for observation, to "observe" is to take note of what is happening, so remembering is obviously a necessary aspect. The thing observed is definitely in the past by the time the observation is made, so observation, as much as it is a part of the present, is always of the past. We take note of what has happened, so observation is in itself a recollection of what has already happened. It is not as you and many others seem to believe, a taking note of what is happening, it is a recreation of what has already happened, through the use of memory. As human beings we do not have the capacity to take note of things as they happen, we need to interpret first. So we remember, and take note after the fact, using our memories to the best of our ability, to recreate what has just happened.

Running a marathon is an activity driven by the desire to finish the marathon. So is the person's finishing, or not finishing, the marathon not real, else fictional? — javra

I still don't agree with this. The motivating desire is to run the marathon, not to finish the marathon. If the desire actually was, as you say, to finish the marathon, the most inspired marathoners would be looking for the best cheats, ways to finish without making the effort of running. But clearly the goal is to make the effort and actually run the marathon, not just to reach the finish line. The "finish" is simply the glory, or satisfaction of knowing that this particular desired activity has been carried out. The goal is not to finish, but to carry out the activity, but the activity is such that it has a clearly defined "finish". So the finish is not the goal, it just so happens that the desired activity is one which has a clearly defined finish. So the finish indicates that the goal of carrying out the activity, has been obtained.

The only true unfalsifiable series of propositions 'S' in the way you seem to be construing 'un-falsifiability' are statements or metaphysical viewpoints that for any experiential phenomenon 'E' they would be consistent with it.

This is to distinguish this from some practical weaker sense of 'un-falsifiability' that you portray here, — substantivalism

Yes, that's what I mean. Isn't this what falsifiable, and unfalsifiable mean? If empirical evidence can be used to prove the falsity of the proposition, then it is falsifiable. The only truly unfalsifiable propositions would be ones in which it is impossible to get empirical evidence to falsify them. The closest we have is tautologies, and self-evident truths, which might still be falsified if we alter definitions.

The "weaker sense" seems to say that if the empirical evidence is not readily available we can designate the proposition as "unfalsifiable". But the judgement as to whether the evidence is readily available or not, is completely subjective. So those who are too lazy to seek the evidence required to falsify the various metaphysical propositions will simply designate them as "unfalsifiable", and refuse to engage in the metaphysics required to determine how the various propositions are to be falsified.

The curious issue I have is about metaphysical hypotheses that are by definition consistent with any previous, current, or future experiential phenomenon. Take idealism, forms of neutral monism, most forms of ontology on substances, the brain in a vat, the simulation/matrix hypothesis, the misleading demon, being in a dream, etc. These are unfalsifiable in that you could most definitely define the terms well enough in question to the benefit of your intuitions regarding them but yet be no where closer to falsifying or proving any of them nor would it be the case that any one of them is necessarily true. . . it is also not the case that any are necessarily false. — substantivalism

I don't agree with this because I do not accept your initial premise. I don't think there is such a thing as a metaphysical hypothesis which is consistent with all experiential phenomena. If there was, then metaphysics would be complete, no more need to solve metaphysical problems, and no more metaphysics, which is the activity of trying to resolve such inconsistencies. We have self-evident truths, but they do not really qualify as metaphysical hypotheses. And a big part of philosophy involves analyzing supposed self-evident truths to determine whether they really are.

So, all that is required to falsity such hypotheses is to find the inconsistent phenomena. And all metaphysical hypotheses are falsifiable in this way, because no one is capable of completely understanding reality to the extent of producing a metaphysics which describes experiential phenomena to that degree of perfection.

Your critique of this weaker sense of 'un-falsifiability' being an appeal to a healthy skepticism to our best scientific knowledge of the world that certain experiences, such as going beyond the observable horizon of our local cosmos, are physically impossible but such knowledge could be in fact over turned. Give or take a few hundred years, a thousand, or an indefinite amount of time until it is done so. — substantivalism

Actually, there are other methods, like the application of deductive logic, using premises derived from empirical observation. That's the way we normally proceed don't we? We already go far beyond the observable horizon of our local cosmos, through logical proceedings, as quantum physics deals with particles which cannot be observed..

Per Wiktionary, "moment" has two non-specialized definitions: a brief but unspecified duration of time and, potentially at odds with this, the smallest portion of time. But in both cases, there is a duration - rather than it being akin to a mathematical point on a linear diagram of time. I was using "moment" in the first specified sense. As to the divisions being arbitrary, they are in the sense that the experiential division between past, present, and future are fully grounded in the experiences of the arbitrator. Yet, as I previously mentioned with conversations, there is an intersubjectively experienced present whenever we in any way directly interact. — javra

OK, I always understood "moment" to refer to a point in time, but we can define it that way, as a short duration, if you want. I just wish to ensure that there is no ambiguity, so that if we talk about a point, which divides one portion of time from another, this is not a "moment", as we hereby define it, a moment is not a point, it's a short duration. So if we posit a short duration, a "moment", as the divisor between the future and the past, what this means to me is that we assume a short duration of time which we cannot determine whether it has passed or not.

However, I think that an "intersubjective experienced present" is not sufficient for an ontology. I believe that the passing of time is something which occurs whether or not there are human beings in existence, and as I explained, the way that the world appears would be quite different to other types of beings which experienced a different duration of present. Therefore it is incorrect to assume that an intersubjective description of the present provides with a true description.

I don't find this to be the case. For instance, natural laws determine things in a downward direction: from the source's form, i.e. the given natural law, to the many givens that are partly determined by it. Same can be said of a culture's form (or that of any subculture, for that matter) partly determining the mindset of any individual who partakes of it. These being examples of downward determinacy. In contrast, the type of forest that occurs (temporal, tropical, or else healthy or sickly, etc.) as a form will be significantly determined upwardly by the attributes of individual trees to be found in a given location. Or else the attributes of a given statue as form, such as the potential sound it would make were it to be hit, will be in part determined by the statue's material composition (wood, bronze, marble, etc.). These latter two are examples of upward determinacy. In both upward and downward determinacy, that which determines and that which is determined by it occur simultaneously. You can't have one occur before or after the other - if at all conceivable - and still preserve the determinacy in question. So the lengths of "now" would hypothetically only make a difference to this in terms of whether the given determinacy is at all discerned. But if discerned, the determinacy would be found to have the determiner(s) and determinee(s) concurrently occurring. — javra

I have to reject this passage completely. I don't see that the proposal of "natural laws" has been justified. Laws are made by human beings, and are therefore artificial. Some people seem to think that the the laws of physics, which are descriptive laws, are representative of some sort of prescriptive "natural laws", which govern the way that inanimate things behave. But this really makes no sense to me, because prescriptive laws need to be interpreted and understood by conscious beings, to be followed, so I can't see how we can conclude that the motion of an inanimate object is somehow determined by a natural law.

Furthermore, I think you have the relationship between the individual human being, and the culture, backward. Individuals act to create a culture, so that the "culture" is just a reflection of the acts of individuals. The culture is not causally active in determining individual acts, the individuals are active in determining the culture. The entirety of the "culture" can be reduced to individual acts, because only the individuals are active, the culture is not. Being inactive, the culture itself has no causal force. The relation between the individual human being, and the culture, is really not different from the relation between the individual tree, and the forest.

So I believe your examples of downward causation are really upward causation, in disguise. This is why determining the true length of the present is so important. When your present "moment" is too long, you do not apprehend all the rapid activities of the smallest parts, which are responsible for creating the appearance of a whole. All you see is the whole, as a static thing, and you think that this static thing somehow has a magical force which might control the activities of the individuals, in downward causation, because you do not see the extremely fast activity of the parts, which actually act in an upward causational way, to produce the appearance of a whole.

I'm confused here. Weren't you arguing that goals are not found in the future? Facing one's goals would then not be tantamount to facing one's future - as far I've so far understood your arguments. — javra

I guess you misunderstand. The goals are not in the future, as I said. but facing one's goals is how a person faces the future, because this is our only means of relating to the future. So the goals are as a medium, an intermediary between the conscious mind and the future. To face the medium is to face the thing which lies beyond the medium, but the medium is not that thing, nor is the medium within that thing, it is between you and the thing.

Two disagreements. My goal of, say, writing this post to my satisfaction does not cause the specific words that appear in this post. I could have chosen words that are different to those that now appear while still being determined by the exact same goal I hold or writing this post to my satisfaction. — javra

I don't agree with this. You cannot write different words, without having a different goal. You are simply saying that you could, to back up your position, but you really can't. That is why "meaning" is defined as what is meant. To change the words changes the meaning, therefore what was meant, so it's necessarily a different goal. I think you are just free and easy in your writing as to what a "goal" is, but you haven't taken the time to determine through introspection what your goals are really like.

This in the sense that one can do different things for as long as each of the two or more alternative paths yet lead to the fixed potential end one strives to make the actual end of ones given set of activities, this being the given goal. It is not my stated goal which causes these individual typed words but, rather, it is I as a conscious being (that is partly determined by my goal) who causes these specific words. Again, I could have chosen to cause different words than what appear while yet being driven by said goal. — javra

This as well, is very doubtful to me. I do not see how two distinct activities could lead to the very same end state. I used to think in this way, but I've come to see it as false. Minute differences are still differences, and mathematical allegories don't suffice because "equal" is different from same.

So I really think that you are making up a falsity, saying that you could have chosen different words, while still being driven by the same goal. Obviously, if the words you chose were different, you'd have been driven by a different goal. I really do not think that you are taking the time and effort required to think about what goals are really like, as they exist within you. I find that they really do not take a form which is easy to name or describe as a desired end state. We seem to be trained to make long term goals which are describable as desired end states, so that we might be able to state them, but all the very short term goals, which we are acting on at the moment of the present, are not even stateable. So we fool ourselves, thinking that goals are these stateable long term plans, when in reality what really influences our actions the most are short term intentions which we haven't even the ability to state as goals.

The second contention is that my typing words on this screen is perpetually under the sway of getting closer to my goal of writing this post to my satisfaction. My goal always dwells ahead of me while I type words. The end I pursue - technically, the potential end that I want to make actual - has not yet occurred. When and if the goal is actualized (I could erase all I've written and try again some other time), all activities that strive to actualize it end with its actualization (when I've written this post to my satisfaction, I no longer type words for this purpose). It is not until my goal is actualized that I might look back at what I once wrote and need to also then look back to what my intents were in so writing. But for every existing goal that I hold - every goal that has not yet come to fruition - it is never behind me but, instead, is found in front of me. So, I'm not currently looking back in time to remember my goal of finishing this post to my satisfaction; I'm instead looking forward to the time that this goal will (fingers crossed) become actualized. A time period I approach with every activity striving to accomplish it. — javra

This is a fine description, but can you see that it is not "the observing perspective". To be always looking forward toward your goals, and intent on obtaining your goals, leaves no room for "observing". To observe requires taking note of what happened, and this is to look back and to remember. The observing perspective is very different from the goal oriented perspective, that's one of the principal points I've been arguing.

But my initial point was that if you uphold free will, as I think you do, then it is you in the present as, in part, "the observing perspective" which causes effects via your free will. You as cause is the very observing perspective addressed. Yet this free will that causes effect is always in part determined by its intents, or goals, in so causing - which, again, dwell ahead as that which one is nearing. — javra

So I disagree with this. I think the free will is tied to the goal driven, forward looking perspective, not the backward looking "observing perspective". The point of observing is to be passive, not active.

Goals can change. True. Yet a goal is still a potential state of affairs one wants to accomplish. No? — javra

Well, this is how you would define "goal", and it is how we have been trained to. What I am arguing is that it doesn't really represent what truly motivates us to act. I think that we are already motivated to act, and therefore are acting naturally. Goals will assist us in directing our actions, but this requires that they become integrated into the action, as part of the acting. To represent goals as desired end states is to separate them from the acting.

Notice that you're here equivocating between telos (potential end striven for) and endstate (actual end arrived at). Also that an endstate is the culmination of any activity - and not the ultimate cultimation of all of one's activities. But to be more forthright, death, as in a complete non-being of what once was, is only one of a number of possible ultimate endstate scenarios for any individual psyche. That we die is a certainty. That our mortal death equates to eternal non-being is a faith, for it cannot be demonstrated. An arduous topic, though. — javra

I don't agree here for the reasons given. I don't agree with your concept of actual end states. I don't think we ever get to end states, we keep goin until death. There is an end state in relation to the goal, if the goal is achieved, you can say you've reached an end state. But that's not a real end state in relation to the person, the person keeps going. Nor is there a real end state if the goal is not achieved, because the person could keep trying, or alter the goal. This is why your description of "goals", and end states upon achievement or failure is not accurate. The end state is a fictional position only existing in relation to the goal when "goal" is defined in this way. Since this definition of "goal" produces this fictional end state, we need to consider that it doesn't accurately represent what goals really are within human beings.

I have so far not found this in Aristotle (but I grant most of my readings are secondhand). Can you point out some references from Aristotle that substantiate this interpenetration of what the unmoved mover is for Aristotle? — javra

You'd have to read his Metaphysics toward the end of Book12.

When two things are clearly incompatible ("NFPW" and "FPW"), how can something else be compatible with both?

As per your description, how can free will allow that you both can, and can't, know what the outcome of your choice will be?

It means that determinism is neither here nor there. It makes no difference to the issue of free will. It doesn't matter. — Olivier5

That doesn't jibe with:

Compatibilism is perfectly fine and logical. — Olivier5

Sure, there's nothing obviously false about compatibilism if you say determinism is unrelated. But then you've just misrepresented "compatibilism".

But of course, if you so much as refer to any of that, then you're 'peddling woo'. — Wayfarer

You shouldn't take "woo" so negatively. Wooing is an art form which needs to be mastered. When mastered, the audience won't even notice the woo. But some will automatically dismiss all forms of rhetoric as "woo", except of course, their own.

I believe that free will is compatible with a non-fully-predetermined world (it would also be compatible with a fully predetermined world). — Olivier5

A "non-fully predetermined" world is not compatible with a "fully predetermined world", so how could "free will" be compatible with both of these?

Dennett arguing that it does exist, but is compatible with determinism; — Janus

Compatibilism is self-deception. It's usually composed of a false representation of "free will", which makes free will an illusion, but it can also be composed of a false representation of determinism, like soft determinism, or its composed of both false representations. Any way, it does not get to the real reason why free will and determinism are incompatible, because of the misunderstand presented by these misrepresentations.

But, again, to me this does not constitute our experiences regarding the extended present moment; which, again, is at least in part composed of actualized percepts that have not yet become consciously recalled memories. — javra

That the present is extended, is the reason why it ought not be called a "moment". "Moment" usually refers to a much more precise point in time, not an extended duration. When we realize that the "experiential present" is an extended period of time, rather than a moment in time, we need principles which separate now from past, and now from future, or else any divisions made are arbitrary.

Consider that the average human reaction time is around two to three tenths of a second. If we take this as a base for a non-arbitrary length of "now", then we can see that other possible durations of "now", would provide us with completely different perspectives of various activities. But what makes this "now" the best "now"? With our duration of "now" for example we can't sense electrons moving (other than getting burned or shocked by them), but a being with a much shorter "now" might in some way be able to observe moving electrons. Likewise, if a being had an extremely extended "now", like a hundred years or so, this being would not be able to observe the earth moving around the sun, because in that period of time which is "now" for that being, the earth would have circled the sun a hundred times, rendering itself a blur, just like an electron cloud is a blur to us.

This provides a good argument for why we need to be careful with naive realism. Our temporal perspective, the length of any supposed experiential "now" has a huge influence on how what we call "the world" appears to us. So we need to take this into account, and validate any principles we use to designate the length of "now", when speculating ontological principles, because how the world appears, from the perspective of experience, is greatly shaped by the particular temporal perspective.

Upward determinacy (bottom-up; or Aristotelian material causes) and downward determinacy (top-down; or Aristotelian formal causes) would occur such that what determines is fully simultaneous to that which is determined. — javra

The difference between upward causation, and downward causation, may simply be the product of different temporal perspectives, different lengths of "now".

Still, I don't find this to affect the uncontroversial assertion that intents partly determine behavior. Right? IOW, by my reckoning, the reality of our experiencing ourselves to be goal-driven in a good part of what we do is not contingent on establishing the temporal placement of goals. So I figure we can further address telos-driven determinacy without needing to agree on the temporal location of teloi. — javra

I agree that goals determine behaviour, and that having goals is a large part of our experience. And I would also add that to be facing one goals, facing the future, is to be forward facing in time.

More importantly to me is this quote above. When I cause these words to appear on my screen, me as cause to the words that appear is not "further away from the observing perspective" than are the words I type as effect and observe. — javra

Take the forward looking perspective, looking ahead in time. You have the goal of making certain words appear on the screen. You act, and then the words appear. You, as an observer, "the observing perspective", see the words appear. Now you have to look back in time to remember your goal having caused the words to appear Having the goal to make the words appear was prior in time to the words appearing, therefore further away, in time, from you as observer, than the words appearing is. Perhaps I wasn't clear to say "further away in time", but I was talking about temporal relations.

OK, more concretely exemplified, my goal of completing this post to my satisfaction is in and of itself an activity in which way? Regardless of the goal's temporal placement, it is a state of affairs which has yet to transpire that I want to accomplish. My activities to actualize this goal might differ, but the goal remains fixed for as long as I strive to accomplish said goal. The goal is static while the activities done to actualize it are dynamic. — javra

My argument is that to characterize the goal as an endstate is a misrepresentation. Your true goal is to write the post, and this is an activity. That there is an end, a completion is a feature of "the post", not a feature of your goal. Most likely you will continue on, and write another post, so finishing that one particular post is not really your end goal, it's juts a step along the way, in an activity which has stops and starts.

Incidentally, this is probably one reason why goal directed activity is so hard for physics to understand. Physics doesn't have the principles to understand one extended activity, which consists of many stops and starts (writing many different posts for example), these would be distinct actions in physics, therefore not necessarily in the same direction. But with goal directed activity, the activity may stop and start, while keeping going in the same direction (the same goal).

My activities to actualize this goal might differ, but the goal remains fixed for as long as I strive to accomplish said goal. The goal is static while the activities done to actualize it are dynamic. — javra

I agree that this is the way "a goal" is commonly characterized, but I think it's a mistake. Suppose that you fix a goal in your mind, and you are what we call "determined" to achieve that end. I believe that this is not the best disposition to have. Consider that things change, circumstances evolve, and unknown factors become known. We must be willing to adapt our goals accordingly, as we move forward. So being hard set in one's ways, and to relentlessly seek to fulfill a fixed goal, is not good. We must be flexible.

In reality, the goal and the activity mix together, and become one. The activity is directed toward a goal, but the goal then gets adapted to match what the activity is capable of. Then the activity must be readjusted to meet the new goal. The proposed endstate is what, death?

Also, since you've brought up Aristotle's notion of "a final end (or ultimate telos)", remember that for Aristotle this ultimate telos was an unmoved mover (this with no intimation of personhood whatsoever) of all that is. Being unmoved, this final telos cannot be an activity. It instead teleologically drives all that is activity - this while remaining determinate, or fixed, or static, in a metaphysical sense. At the very least here, the telos cannot be activity. — javra

The unmoved mover is a thinking which is thinking on thinking, and this is clearly an activity. That's why Aristotle described the most virtuous activity as contemplation. And this divine thinking, of the unmoved mover was posited to account for the eternal circular motions of the planets.

In the moment one looks the other direction and simply doesn't feel anything. Needle tech has come a long way in 20yrs. There isn't even a pinching sensation anymore; one would have to be trying to feel it. — Cheshire

I sure as hell felt it. Maybe it's the technique of the person injecting, which makes a difference, like the dentist with freezing. And afterwards, I felt like I got punched in the arm.

For my part, I don’t understand how your claim that present perceptions are aspects of the past can be obtained without reliance on inferences made by neuroscience. — javra

Neuroscience supports what I'm saying, but is not necessary. Even Plato argued that there was a medium, light, between seeing, and the object seen. All I'm doing is extending this acknowledgement of a medium, from the external of the body, to the internal, so that there is a time delay between the sense organ, and recognition by the mind, such that sensation is temporally prior to conscious apprehension.

With these neuroscientific inferences being themselves an aspect of reasoning, and not one of direct experience. — javra

The problem is that "time" itself is an aspect of reasoning, not an aspect of direct experience. So to move toward an ontology which is based in temporal conceptions such as "goals" which implies future, we need something other than direct experience, as a premise. The difficult thing here is to find the premise which provides us with the highest probability of being true. So we want a temporal premise which appears as close as possible to being consistent with experience, without distorting and manipulating our description of "experience", in a way which would be caused by an attempt to rationalize a premise already held due to prejudice or bias.

I’m only clamming that as far as direct awareness is concerned, the perceptions we are directly aware of are taken to occur in the now... — javra

I think that you are employing a preconceived, temporal conception of "now" here. This is the point I was trying to explain to Luke. We cannot employ descriptive terms which are purely conceptual, ("now" being based in a concept of time rather than something empirical), and claim to be making an empirical observation. This is what happens when we proceed toward description, we employ predication. So we take preconceived ideas, descriptive terms, as predicates, and apply them toward describing our perceptions. Basically, this is observation. However, the descriptive terms may not be well defined, causing ambiguity and confusion, and this is the case with your use of "the now".

What does "the now" mean to you? If you define "the now" as the time which you are perceiving, then you are begging the question. If we define "the now" in relation to a justified conception of time, we have something much more solid to start from. But this is not easy to do. As I said earlier, by the time you even say "now" that now is in the past. So if "now" is supposed to refer to the present, we do not want to place it in the past in our conceptualization. How do we define "now" then? That's why I suggested we define "now" as the divisor between past and future.

..are taken to indicate nows that have already passed by... — javra

This exposes another problem with "the now". We experience the passage of time as continuous. Do you agree, that a continuous passage of time is most consistent with experience? How do you support individual and discrete "nows"? Is there one long continuous "now", or is there many past "nows"? Notice that both of these put "now" into the past, assuming that the past presence of "now", or past "nows", are part of "now". But why would we do this? Now ought not consist of something past.

And I maintain that these concrete experiences consist of an ever-changing now, of former nows, and of nows that have yet to be: with former and future nows being meaningful only in reference to the ever-changing now which we perpetually live through at the level of direct experience. And yes, I agree that the now we live through is extended in duration, otherwise we would not be able to experience sounds (as we once previously discussed on a different thread, with emphasis on musical notes). — javra

Now you mix the two incompatible definitions of "now". You talk of one extended, ever-changing "now", but then you say it consists of past nows and future nows. It's only when you put the now into the past and future, that you derive these "nows". If we define "now" as the divisor between past and future, we no longer have this problem. We have one continuous now, which separates past from future, and all the individual, discrete "nows" are really just the products of memories and anticipation, therefore distinct from the true continuous "now".

But, again, I don’t think the nature of time is all too pertinent to what I’m stipulating for as long as there is general agreement in there being a past, present, and future. — javra

You are proposing an ontology based in a temporally grounded idea "goals", so the nature of time is very important. If we do not have principles to separate past memories from future goals, such an ontology cannot even get started. You asked me yourself, how do I distinguish memories from anticipations, in my mind. If we do not have clear definitions of what constitutes the difference between past present and future, such an ontology would be lost in ambiguity.

If we agree that a goal significantly determines one’s intentions toward said goal, that one’s intending to achieve said goal occurs in the present, that the future is not fixed (or actualized) prior to it becoming the present moment, and that the goal (i.e., that aim one intends to make actual) references a future state of affairs, why again do you object to claiming that the as of yet unactualized (ese stated, potential) future one strives to make actual determines one’s presently occurring intentions toward said goal? Such that here, a potential future state of affairs determines the actuality of present activities. — javra

What you describe here is having one's attention firmly fixed on the future, one's goals. As I described in an earlier post, addressed to Arcturus, we need to distinguish between this, and having one's attention firmly fixed on the past, empiricism. Please read that post. It is only by having a very good understand of what constitutes "the past", and what constitutes "the future", that we can distinguish principles derived from facing the past, from principles derived from facing the future. There is an inversion involved with any sort of "turning around" (for example, what is behind you on the left will be on your right when you turn around), and the inversion between past and future is difficult. So I believe that making this distinction is very important, so that we can determine the nature of the inversion, allowing that principles of empiricism (backward facing) can be transposed to a forward facing goal-oriented ontology.

Therefore, to answer the question "why again do you object to claiming that the as of yet unactualized (ese stated, potential) future one strives to make actual determines one’s presently occurring intentions toward said goal? Such that here, a potential future state of affairs determines the actuality of present activities", let me again refer to what you call "a goal". The "goal" exists as part of what you call "present activities". However, as an object, or objective, it is a thing, and therefore has the status of a static state, the desired object, or state. This is inconsistent with "activities", and such a conception is based in backward facing memories of remembered states, what you called "nows".

When we turn around, to face the future, "the goal" becomes something active rather than passive, as the means, what you call "telosis", and the goal, as "an object" becomes elusive. In Aristotles ethics, the end is "that for the sake of which". But each end is just the means to a further end, onward indefinitely, until we posit a final end, which he suggested as "happiness". But he further suggested that the highest virtue was to be found in activity, because as living beings our nature is to be active. Now we have the problem that activity is usually represented as a means to an end, telosis, because we ask what is the purpose of any activity. But this is just the product of the backward facing ontology which makes "the end" a static object. When we replace this with an ideal, such as "to better ourselves", then activity, or practice is implied rather that a static goal. And the goal itself is to be active.

This is my proposition. Forward facing "goals" are activities, such that true goals are described as activities. Backward facing descriptions, observations, are expressed in terms of static states. This implies that activity does not really happen at the present, it occurs in the future, in relation to our experiential perspective which we call the now.

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But of course we do "derive directly from experience" that "we are experiencing things happening". It is this that we do not need the additional "idea" for. Some might even say that our experience (or our "experiencing things happening") is less conceptual than our memories and anticipations. — Luke

My point was that we do not derive directly from experience, that things are happening at the present, when "the present" is supposed to be a temporal concept. I'm sorry if I didn't make myself clear.

Sure, the additional "idea" is not necessary, but if you remove that distinction which I'm trying to make, you'll never understand what I'm trying to say, and keep repeating the same questions over and over again.

It may be true, that we are experiencing things happening, but this does not mean that we are experiencing the present, unless you remove the temporal conception of "the present". So if you insist that there is no need that "the present" as an "idea", so that things happening is synonymous with the present, you just create an inability to understand the difference which I am trying to explain.

If you do not agree with me, you might argue that there is no difference between things happening, and the present, but as i explained, there is an inconsistency between "the present" as a "moment", and things happening at the present. So you need to reject one or the other.

Whatever. If time doesn't pass at the present moment, then time doesn't pass. And you can't have a past or future without a present moment. — Luke

Time could pass at the present, so that there is no "moment" of the present. That's the point of two dimensional time.

Then I ask you again: — Luke

As I said, I find "present moment" to be incoherent.

How does one overcome the fear of getting a needle stabbed into one's flesh, to make this into a voluntary event?

What's the difference? — Luke

There is an object of experience, just like there is an object of sensation. The present is not an object of experience, nor is it an object of sensation. So, we do not experience the present, though we conclude logically that we experience at the present.

We "derive directly from experience" our conscious perceptions of the world, just as much as our memories or anticipations. We don't need the additional "idea" of these things (over and above these things). — Luke

The present is not a perception. And, since it is clear that a conception is not the same type of thing as a sense perception, nor is it the same type of thing as a memory or an anticipation, being composed of elements from all these three, I think we do need the additional "idea" over and above these things.

I could equally say that no time passes in the past or the future, either. In that case, according to your logic, past and future cannot produce the concept of time, either. — Luke

I agree with the first part here, you can equally say that no time passes in the past and future, but you cannot say that this statement does not employ a concept of time. You have used "time" in that statement. So you simple employ a particular concept of time, within which time passes, and claim that such a conception of past and future would not require that particular concept of time, but it just requires a different conception of time.

But we can say that we are always experiencing at the present moment, — Luke

I look at this as incoherent. No time passes at a "moment", so it is impossible that we are doing anything at the "present moment" because activity requires the passage of time. I find "present moment" to be logically incoherent and that is why I assume the need for two dimensional time, a thick present, or a present with breadth. The idea of a timeline, with a point that marks the present, even if that point is supposed to be moving, is inconsistent with what we experience. We experience activity, change occurring at the present, therefore there must be temporal duration of the present, and not a "present moment".

Your description of experience does not include conscious perceptions of the world? — Luke

That's right, I am a skeptic and I find the proposed concept of "the world" to be unacceptable as a starting premise. There are objects of sensation, as I said above, but as I also said previously, these objects are all in the past by the time they are perceived by me through the medium of sensation. Therefore I class such perceptions with memories, images which appear to me, but the true object represented by the image is in the past. So what you call "conscious perceptions of the world" (assuming that you refer to sense perceptions) are in fact memories, by the time the images are present to the conscious mind.