What is meant by technological, social assemblages? Within the context of being a working part in a multiplicity of conscious states, I mean. — Mww

If one is working as the financial trader at the stock market, one’s mind is preoccupied with a multiplicity of heterogeneous realities: the reality of the “real” economy, the reality of forecasts about the economy, and the reality of expectations of these prices rising or falling. All of above are given through diagrams, curves, other ways of presenting data and various flows of information. So, being conscious while multitasking processing information, trader’s mind operates according to pre-designed and pre-constructed schemes and algorithms. Can we say that this is an independent, autonomous, and conscious activity?

Deleuze begins from objects, paired down and relational, as polarities, as fundamentally arbitrary. I am alienated from myself every moment because the 'I' is nothing but arbitrary, polarized and polarizing vectors, gestures, signs. — Joshs

I disagree. Deleuze wrote that: ““Self, the spontaneity of which I am conscious in the “I think” cannot be understood as the attribute of a substantial and spontaneous being, but only as the affection of a passive self which experiences its own thought.”
There is nothing arbitrary about this relation: If “I” defines our existence as passive
and changeable existence of “Moi” in time, the time has been the formal relation, through which the mind effects itself through affect; or the time is the way through
which we are able to experience affect.” I think that this formula allows us to differentiate what is given to us while applying a variety of available recourses.
The I split not arbitrarily, but by the time and affect. However, Deleuzian time and affect are not metaphysical or logic-discursive essences, they are our time and affect, intervened with our experiences, knowledge, lives, etc.

Derrida's notion of the trace begins before language as human speech, before any notion of consciousness or humanity or animality or the biological. — Joshs

If so, where can one find it? For me, it looks utterly mysterious, or (using your term) arbitrary.

To say otherwise is to uphold a claim of difference that needs to be deconstructed. What gives something the power to differ purely? So neither the Cartesian unity nor the Deleuzian difference, but a gesture more primordial, already divided within itself before it can simply be the same or different, — Joshs

It could be useful to consider this gesture, this power to differ purely.
Derrida wrote:” division, delay, d_i_f_f_é _r_a_n_c_e_ _must be capable of being brought to a certain absolute degree of absence for the structure of writing, supposing that writing exists, to be constituted. It is here that d_i_f_f_é _r_a_n_c_e_ _as writing could no longer (be) an (ontological) modification of presence. It must be repeatably iterable in the absolute absence of the addressee or of the empirically determinable set of addressees. A writing that was not structurally legible iterable beyond the death of the addressee would not be writing. All writing, therefore, in order to be what it is, must be able to function in the radical absence of every empirically determined addressee in general. And this absence is not a continuous modification of presence; it is a break in presence, "death," or the possibility of the "death" of the addressee, inscribed in the structure of the mark (and it is at this point, I note in passing, that the value or effect of transcendentality is linked necessarily to the possibility of writing and of "death" analyzed in this, way).” As far as I see, the power of this gesture is the erection of the lethal transcendental subject, acting through deconstruction for the sake of deconstruction.

For James the 'I' is not self-identical but self-consistent in time, due to the fact that intended meanings refer back to previous intentions as part of their own sense. — Joshs

Don't you think that "self-consistent in time" presupposes a kind of self-identity?

Shaun Gallagher talks about socially distributed cognition:

“Such institutions go beyond individual cognitive
processes or habits: they include communicative practices, and more established institutions include rituals and traditions that generate actions, preserve memories, solve problems. These are distributed processes supported by artifacts, tools, technologies,
environments, institutional structures, etc.”
Such processes don’t originate in individual minds but are shared among a community of participants in an activity. — Joshs

I agree with this. I just want to question the nature of “community of participants in an activity.” Who are these participants? For some thinkers, they are machines or some automatic processes. As Felix Guattari wrote: “When we drive, we activate subjectivity and a multiplicity of partial consciousness connected to the car ‘s technological mechanisms. There is no “individuated subject” that is in control of the driving. If one knows how to drive, one acts without thinking about it, without engaging reflexive consciousness…We are guided by the car’s machinic assemblage. Our actions and subjective components (memory, attention, perception, etc.) are “automatized,” they are a part of the machinic, hydraulic, electronic, etc. apparatuses, constituting non-human parts of the assemblage. Driving mobilizes different processes of conscientization, one succeeding the next, superimposing one onto the other, connecting or disconnecting according to the current events of driving.”
One could argue that any way we face here a version of “Shaun Gallagher socially distributed cognition.” Yet, in favor of a more radical Guattari’s comprehension of consciousness one could say, that our practice of driving a car, in spite of being a subject of the intervention of many institutions, in fact, has become entirely autonomous, self-driving collective activity, where machines and automatized
processes are substituted for intentional, conscious individual acts.

The traditional apprehension with respect to the conception of consciousness is that it is a singular faculty, or functionality, or rational enterprise.....or this thing that does this something.

What do you think? How would you fill in the blanks? — Mww

I think that we definitely need to think of consciousness as a multiplicity. But, this is just a first step. Next, it is necessary to conceive the nature of this multiplicity, each distinct “state of consciousness” should be identified as a working part in an appropriate assemblage – technological, scientific, social, cultural, etc.

Not being all that familiar with James, does he say what he thinks consciousness to be? Without that, how can it said whether or not it is discontinuous? Given the general conception of it, it is easy to say consciousness is continuously interrupted, merely from the mind being in a state of deep sleep, and by association, recommencing upon the attaining the state of awareness. — Mww

I think that James did not define consciousness rigorously, but he brought a lot of clarifying examples, even of someone sleeping, or in the state of delirium. As far as I understood, he posed the problem of continuity, but not of a multiplicity of consciousness.

But that in itself being sufficient reason with respect to a specific conception, says nothing about consciousness as a “multiplicity”, — Mww

James did not think
of consciousness as a multiplicity.

it remains the purview of the respondant to conceptualize consciousness in his own terms, theorize the possibility of it being capable of obtaining to a multiplicity, — Mww

It looks like when some thinkers assume a multiplicity of consciousness, they really break with traditional apprehensions

I think it has to be continuous and discontinuous, both have to be aspects of consciousness. I am not really sure how to clarify the two or how to understand how both exist together. The mind permits for both, though. — Josh Alfred

I don't see how this is even a question really. Consciousness is obviously a bunch of different things, different processes working in different ways, and it's obviously not always "on." — Terrapin Station

The problem is that the whole concept of consciousness is related to the set of notions,
supporting the unity, oneness, and substantiality of primordial "I," substantial cogito, and the transcendental Ego. So, it is not merely a question of the same mind that is able to experience
different states of consciousness. Do these states have entirely various qualities?

As Joshs noted: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/4929/perception-of-time/p2
“The impression we get of consciousness as the commander of decision, as unfolding meaning as a linear causal sequence of nows (one damn thing after another), is the result of the way linguistic grammar is constructed , Consciousness, far from being the self-knowing commander, is besieged from unconscious processes and bodily affects that interact with and shape consciousness outside of its awareness. So the notion of agent is a bit of an illusion, there is no ghost in the machine, it is more of a community.of interaffecting agents.”

I agree with you, there are so many ways of thinking, not just one!
It is a matter of choice - what you find more relevant. I will read your paper.

What’s your attitude toward paychoanalytically influenced positikns(Lacan, Zizek)? — Joshs

I think that neither Lacan nor Zizec reflects what we deal with
in our lives. In my opinion, they have still stayed at the plain of the Signifier, which is not appropriate anymore.

What about use of theological tropes by writers like Zizek, Vattimo, Jean-Luc Marion, Caputo? — Joshs

I am not sure about Marion,I need to check it.

Or Marxist influenced approaches(Habermas, Adorno)? — Joshs

May be I will reread some texts of Adorno (is his aesthetics still working?), not of Habermas.

Some would argue that Deleuzian thinking deconstructs theological, psychoanalytic and Marxist critical theory. — Joshs

I think it is not the matter of deconstruction. (By the way, the easiest way to nullify Deleuze is to start identifying and classifying him).It is a matter of taking account of our time.

I’m wondering what other philosophers and approaches you find particularly relevant to you. — Joshs

In my opinion, Guattari is not less important than Deleuze. Also, I found that Massumi, Lazarotto, Goodchild, Raunig and de Landa are interesting. Goodchild, Smith, and Sauvagnargues are indispensable for anyone who wants to understand Deleuzian thinking. Foucault, Lyotard, Luhmann are still relevant.
I used to read some texts of Vygotsky, Blanchot, Bachtin, Baudrillard, Benjamin, Jaspers, Heidegger, and Arendt, but I am not sure that they help me now. Is Kafka a thinker?
I like him so much. Anyway, texts, reading, and authors compose a kind of a sealed universe, so that the process of the endless reading and interpretation can consume all of our time. So, I try to read just what helps me to solve a problem that currently preoccupies me.

Ruth Leys says Massumi argues the affects must be viewed as independent of, and in an important sense prior to, ideology—that is, prior to intentions, meanings, reasons, and beliefs—because they are non-signifying, autonomic processes that take place below the threshold of conscious awareness and meaning. Affects are “inhuman,” “pre-subjective,” “visceral” forces and intensities that influence our thinking and judgments but are separate from these. Whatever else may be meant by the terms affect and emotion, the affects must be noncognitive, corporeal processes or states. Affect is, as Massumi asserts, “irreducibly bodilyand autonomic”(PV,). — Joshs

For me, Massumi is one of the leading thinkers of our time, but one should read his texts with great caution.
I think that a few distortions and misrepresentations allowed to Ruth Leys (as far as I see from your note)
to misinterpret Massumi’s project. I would challenge a few things that could change the whole meaning of Leys’s assertions. First, I do not think that Massumi insists on independence and autonomy of “the affects,” from one side, and “ideology,” from another. Both are irreducibly social, technological, and vital. Second, both are not merely separated and isolated but interrelated in a much more complicated way. Third, to better understand how they work together, one should apply much more appropriate concepts. Fourth, mentioned terms are used not in the traditional manner. Finally, Deleuze and his followers often intentionally use a dichotomy and dualism - as a provocation, a tool for deconstruction, or just a preliminary notion that should be worked out later.

Merleau-Ponty’s chiasmatic intertwining approach to affect is a corrective to this dualism.
He and the enactivists recognize a certain self-consistency to the organism in its interaction with environment that is missing from Deleuze. How does Deleuze explain stable personality features? — Joshs

In principle, Deleuze avoided using this kind of discourse. His project was to consider things in their interdependency, endless variation, and immanence.
Don’t you think that “stable personality features,” after all, are related to keeping untouched a substantial I and a transcendental ego?
Marlo-Ponte stated that our perception is built so that we simultaneously perceive and are perceived. For Deleuze was essential to find out
the ontological and epistemological conditions of this process. It does not happen in a vacuum, just in somebody’s mind. How is that possible? Is that a universal truth? If not, what its genealogy (genesis)? What are the limits of its use? Exceptions? For solving of what problems was it designed?

"Simondon notes the connection between self-reflection and affect. He even extends the capacity for self-reflection to all living things– although it is hard to see why his own analysis does not constrain him to extend it to all things (is not resonation a kind of self-reflection?). "At this point, the impression may have grown that affect is being touted here as if the whole world could be packed into it. In a way, it can, and is."

Notice that the “inside” here is the self-consistent pattern of perceptual perspective that is disrupted from without. You could say that the ‘without’ as affect is already alongside as background, keeping perception from being purely self-enclosed, and therefore the inside is already outside itself. — Joshs

I agree with all this, and I do not see how the quote and your commentary contradict with what I wrote about “inside” and “outside.”
I do not think that Massumi intended to isolate affect and then to elevate its status up the level
of the universal explanatory principle. When he wrote: “there are affect modulation techniques accessible in the event. They become accessible
to the event through reflex, habit, training and the inculcation of skills –
automaticities operating with as much dynamic immediacy as the event…
Affective techniques of thinking-feeling improvisationally are relational
techniques that apply to situations more directly than to persons,” he followed the strategic approach which was laid out by Deleuze and Guattari:
“There is no such thing as either man or nature now, only
a process that produces the one within the other and couples the machines together.
Producing-machines, desiring-machines everywhere, schizophrenic machines, all
of species life: the self and the non-self, outside and inside, no longer have any
meaning whatsoever.”
Therefore, when you wrote: “The mind functions as an inseparable interaction with environment and body. It is nothing but this interaction. There is no self-identical self in this model. Self is a bi-product of the constant constructive interactive activity of the organism-environmental interaction. Consciousness is not self-conscious in the sense of being able to turn back on itself and grasp itself identically”, I agree with all this. I just want to add that the meaning
of notions “environment,” “body,” and “interaction” has changed.

Question: when Deleuze talks about the effect of cinema on our understanding of time, does he mean that it makes us realize what was always already true about time that we just never realized before, or does he mean that technologies like cinema create an absolutely new experience of time?
I think he means the former. — Joshs

I agree with you. The fundamental question is whether “an absolutely new experience of time” should be attributed to someone, watching a movie at the cinema, or the Deleuze’s cinematographic time-image
has also unfolded at our offices, schools, medical institutions, etc.?
I think that just a few scholars support a more radical version of the answer.
Maurizio Lazarotto writes: ”Enslavement does not operate through repression or ideology. It employs modeling and modulating techniques that bear on the “very spirit of life and human activity.” It takes over human beings “from the inside,” on the pre-personal (pre-cognitive and preverbal) level, as well as “from the outside,” on the supra-personal level, by assigning the certain modes of perception and sensibility and manufacturing an unconscious. Machinic enslavement formats the basic functioning of perspective, sensory, affective, cognitive, and linguistic behavior”.
Should this approach be considered as too militant and far-reaching?

He understands it in a different way than Merleau-Ponty does. If youve never read him, he was bot5h a philosopher and psychologist. His Phenomeology of Perception offers a detailed account of memory, language , consciousness, perception and affect. There are currently a host of psychological writers who are using his ideas in their embodied, enactive approaches to cognitive phenomena. Its a burgeoning field. Check out the journal Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. — Joshs

Thank you for your advice! Definitely, Marleau-Pontu is a great thinker.
Yet, I am not sure that his phenomenology can be applied to some things that I am interested in. I mean that our time has become the “cinematographic, telecommunicational Time”, so that “the momentary synthetic synthesis of competing streams of fragmented perceptions and conceptualizations “ as well as “a community.of interaffecting agents” that you wrote about occur in a radically novel environment. Therefore, our memory, consciousness, perception, and language have been entirely transformed. Has the nature of these momentary syntheses, determining the ways of our being and thought, changed since Marleau-Pontu laid out his philosophy?

the new is the place where an inside is exposed to an outside to challenge, destabilise and transform that inside. Bodliy affect serves that role for Deleuze in relation to linguistic consciousness. It exposes a self-enclosed schematism to a radical otherness./quote]
As far as I know, Deleuze avoided using opposition of terms “inside,” and “outside.” So, he did not just propose that “the bodily affect exposes a self-enclosed schematism to radical otherness,” but he went much further.
For him, the “inner,” (intimate subjective qualities of self), constituting a person, is no more than effects, produced by “a community.of interaffecting agents.” Accordingly, this is how I understand this quote: ”The active synthesis of the future results in the I which is fractured according to the order of time and the Self which is divided according to the temporal series correspond and find a common descendant in the man without a name, without family, without qualities, without self or I, the already-Overman.”
The I, the self is no more than an assemblage of interacting impersonal instances (agents). For me, it has precisely the same meaning as yours “the momentary synthetic synthesis of competing streams of fragmented perceptions and conceptualizations.“ I was wondering if the future that Deleuze wrote about in 1968 has already become our reality?
— Joshs

Future present and past interprenetrate in the same way.
The past is repeatedly recast by a future that can never be anticipated in a
present that cannot be fixed. Anticipation re-figures recollection as much
as recollection shapes expectation. — Joshs

It is an impressive model. Is that possible to assume that we exist in different temporalities? (You described one of them). Nevertheless, does the newest one prevail the others?

So the notion of agent is a bit of an illusion, there is no ghost in the machine, it is more of a community.of interaffecting agents. — Joshs

I could not open this link.

So the notion of agent is a bit of an illusion, there is no ghost in the machine, it is more of a community.of interaffecting agents. Consciousness performs a momentary synthetic function, making it appear that this community is a single 'I' . But the unfolding of time for this constructed 'I' is always a bit disjointed, a past that is always reconstructed by the present that it is supposed to frame, and a futuring that pulls the present into an anticipative orientation ahead of itself. There is no room for the transcendental in this model. — Joshs

A few things remain unclear in this model. First, its explanatory power is not evident: can it be applied to explain the known theories of consciousness and memory? Second, the role of time looks like a metaphorical description instead of a rigorous elaboration. When one describes the present as the interface of the interaction between the past and the future (or “the place of the clash between the forces of the future and the past”), one makes a mistake of confusing and equaling the ontological status of both. As a result, there won’t be any place for the creation of the new, and there will be just repetitions and reiterations, obeying the casual patterns. Therefore, the transcendental as an external creator (or as a universal casual principal) could have imposed again.
Another approach is based on the distinction between the actual and the virtual, the duality of actual individuation and of virtual subjectivation. The movement of actualization, involving stable forms and organizations, occurs in the field of intensive singularities, so that chance is reintroduced at every moment. As the result, there is the emergence of self, or its ceaseless re-emergence and reconstitution. This process happens in the zone of indiscernibility, of indeterminacy, of the becoming, where the future is just coming into itself

The mind functions as an inseparable interaction with environment and body. It is nothing but this interaction. There is no self-identical self in this model. Self is a bi-product of the constant constructive interactive activity of the organism-envirnmental interaction. Consciousness is not self-conscious in the sense of being able to turn back on itself and grasp itself identically. To reflect back on the self is to alter what one turns back to. The impression we get of consciousness as the commander of decision, as unfolding meaning as a linear causal sequence of nows (one damn thing after another), is the result of the way linguistic grammar is constructed , But rather than a single linear causal intentional vector, consciousness can more accurately de described as a site of competing streams of fragmented perceptions and conceptualizations jostling for attention. Consciousness, far from being the self-knowing commander, is besieged from unconscious processes and bodily affects that interact with and shape consciousness outside of its awareness. So the notion of agent is a bit of an illusion, there is no ghost in the machine, it is more of a community.of interaffecting agents. Consciousness performs a momentary synthetic function, making it appear that this community is a single 'I' — Joshs

I agree with all this, I just want to add to your definition of self and consciousness, that our bodies and unconscious processes are far more complicated, than it can be understood from biology or from classical psychoanalysis. We take part, often without knowing about it, in numerous technical and social assemblages, so when you write: “Consciousness, far from being the self-knowing commander, is besieged from unconscious processes and bodily affects that interact with and shape consciousness outside of its awareness”, it is absolutely necessary to describe the nature of terms used.
I think that these “interactions and shaping consciousness outside of its awareness,” are entirely different from Merleau-Ponty's comprehension.
“So the notion of an agent is a bit of an illusion, there is no ghost in the machine, it is more of a community.of interaffecting agents. Consciousness performs a momentary synthetic function, making it appear that this community is a single 'I.'”
Good point! I think it is entirely matching to what Deleuze wrote about the active
synthesis of future: “The I which is fractured according to the order of time and the Self which is divided according to the temporal series correspond and find a common descendant in the man without a name, without family, without qualities, without self or I, the already-Overman.” The future has already arrived!

The past is always a new past, a past prefigured by the present and the future. "Primordial and authentic temporality temporalizes
itself out of the authentic future, and indeed in such a way that, futurally having-been, it first arouses the present. The primary phenomenon of primordial and authentic temporality is the future. — Joshs

I am not sure if the whole notion of the authentic temporality presupposes a kind of transcendentalism. Could you clarify it?

This comes about from a logical analysis of the nature of time. Time is passing. And with the passing of time, there is past time which is coming into existence. This is a "becoming". A becoming requires a cause. The cause of past time cannot be the present, because if the present were actively creating past time there would be no future, just the present creating the past. So it must be the future which is the cause of past time. Imagine the present like a static membrane, a plane or something, The future is being forced through, or forcing itself through, the present to create the past. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is a perfectly logical analysis; nevertheless, I entirely disagree! Logical analysis of time lays out the past, the present, and the future at the same plain, created by few
founding presuppositions, axioms, norms, and a few more discursive means. The main problem with this kind of analysis that it does not allow us distinct and differentiate between the different times in which we live and think. And, by applying just logic-discursive means, one is able to show that the past and the future do not exist (as St. Augustine did), or to state that” the future which is the cause of past time.”(as you did) So, if we assume (with a great caution, and after doing all preliminary work), that there are three different times, functioning differently
and even coexisting in the same mind, we can try to understand the nature of
“the becoming”, and the forces of the future, knocking to our doors.
There are no causal(predictable) relations in the becoming! Whatever is causal, logical, discursive, etc. – all of these are already existing! On the contrary, the future forces
are not recognizable or known(yet!). So, “becoming” is the transition from known to unknown, or existence in between the two knowns. Probably, to think of future requires from us not just to leave what is already known and take the risk of failure,
but also to change the ways we are. That is what Deleuze wanted to say:
“The present and past are no more than dimensions of future, of the third active synthesis of time: the past as the condition, the present as an agent. They possess a secret coherence which excludes that of the self; they turn back against the self and smash it to pieces, as though the bearer of the new world were carried away and dispersed by the shock of the multiplicity to which it gives birth.”

this is a defining aspect of consciousness, not a defining aspect of time. The dual present you described might be fundamental to consciousness, but if you deduce that it is therefore fundamental to time — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, nevertheless it is fundamental that the subjective time occurs in mind.

you have an invalid deduction because you have no premise to state the relation between consciousness and time — Metaphysician Undercover

.
During our discussion, I tried to lay out the philosophy of time, based on the three syntheses of time. Accordingly, consciousness is born, develops, lives and dies in the subjective time; and conversely, this time exists through consciousness.

The present may be fundamental to time. And the dual present is fundamental to consciousness. That's why I say the impression that the dual present is an aspect of time is an illusion, it's consciousness wrongly imposing itself on time. — Metaphysician Undercover

The relations between “objective, idealized time,” and “the subjective time of mind”
are incredibly complicated, and cannot be clarified unless we comprehend the latter one.

how we make distinctions is a secret of the soul itself. No one knows exactly how we differentiate. — Metaphysician Undercover

If so, instead of philosophy, we need to go to wizards, magicians, or augurs.:smile: :smile:

According to this comprehension of the active synthesis of memory,
each conscious act of mind has the dimensions of reproduction and
reflection. The problem now is that the activity of mind has been
pre-designed and pre-constructed, so that the Past has become
the dominating instance, so that “present” and “future” has converted into the dimensions of this time, and the active synthesis of the mind
has become the transcendental a priory of the Past.
— Number2018

Yes, I see this as a problem, because what has been described is reducible to an everlasting, eternal cycle of repetition of moments. It's really a circle. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree with you.

We can begin with the assumption, for argument sake, that every new moment coming from the future is completely different, and there is nothing to make anything the same from one moment to the next. Each moment the future could be throwing us something completely new. Then, recognize that there actually is continuity, inertia, and seek the reason for this. The reason for it is that some things in the past, (massive things) have the power to act in the future. — Metaphysician Undercover

I understand your “continuity and inertia” fas the fundamental power of the transcendental Past over our way of being and thought. The problem is that when we need “to recognize something, how can we differentiate, make any distinctions within ourselves?

So when the future is forcing a new moment upon us, the massive existence which we've observed in the past appearing as a continuity distinct from the repetition of different moments, is acting within the imposition of that future moment, such that it acts upon us from the future, as a force from within the moment of the future which is now upon us — Metaphysician Undercover

I like that you apply terms of forces and clash; yet, there is the same drawback of using our cognitive abilities: “observe, appearance.” To sum up: how can we realize
in our individual minds, that the radically new forces are coming from the Future? If we are constituted by pre-designed and pre-constructed cognitive, social, and habitual patterns, what should we do by ourselves to counter the Future?
According to Deleuze's comprehension of the third, active synthesis of time as the most radical form of change:
“The present and past are no more than dimensions of future: the past as the condition, the present as an agent. They possess a secret coherence which excludes that of the self; they turn back against the self and smash it to pieces, as though the bearer of the new world were carried away and dispersed by the shock of the multiplicity to which it gives birth….The I which is fractured according to the order of time and the Self which is divided according to the temporal series correspond and find a common descendant in the man without a name, without family, without qualities, without self or I, the already-Overman.”
It looks like Deleuze wants to show how the I, the self, and the ego are produced by impersonal heterogenic forces from the future so that our identities and personalities are no more than effects.

If you look closely at the nature of time, you will see that it is the future which causes the present to pass. A new moment is always pushing in, from the future, to take the place of the existing moment, at the present, and this forces that present moment into the past — Metaphysician Undercover

You state this truth as an evident and common knowledge!
It reminds me what St. Augustine wrote: “What, then, is time? If no one asks of me, I know; if I wish to explain to him who asks, I know not. Yet I say with confidence, that I know that if nothing passed away, there would not be past time; and if nothing were coming, there would not be future time; and if nothing were, there would not be present time. Those two times, therefore, past and future, how are they, when even the past now is not; and the future is not as
yet”?
My point is that in so far as we do not clarify rigorously the ontological status of our statements about time, we can always produce, by applying logical and dialectical recourses, contradictory propositions.

The present and former presents are not,
therefore, as two successive instants on the line of time; rather, the present one necessarily contains an extra dimension in which it represents the former and also represents itself. The present present is treated not as the future object of memory but as that which reflects itself at the same time as it forms the memory of the former present.
— Number2018

I believe that there is a problem in this passage, which is a conflation of the being which is experiencing the passing of time, with the passing of time itself. It is only the conscious being which brings back the past moments of present to have them continue existing at the present. This is what creates the illusion of a double present. — Metaphysician Undercover

For me, it is not about illusion! As you write: “It is only the conscious being which brings back the past moments of a present to have them continue existing at the present” – I see this operation as the fundamental and absolutely necessary condition of any conscious act! Therefore, the conscious being has always been enclosed in the transcendental a priory of the Past. That is why comprehension, thinking, and speaking about Future have constituted a real problem.

I would like to get back to this post.

in order for an ideality to continue to exist as itself it has to repeat itself. What happens when you try to repeat a thought in consciousness? — Joshs

It is a perfect question. Who or what is the agent
of repetition of a thought in consciousness? Am I the agent, the operator of this repetition? How is this repetition related to time? Is there any difference between the two repeated thoughts? Am I aware of these differences?

As soon as a concept is animated with the intention to say something, it exposes itself to context. — Joshs

Is “my intention” the source of repetition?? What is the relation between time and my thought?
Between time and “my intention”?
If ” a concept is animated with the intention to say something,” don’t we confuse between the two heterogonous presuppositions: of the concept as the part of the transcendentally determined thinking subject, and the psychologically evident reality of ”my intention, related to the content of my existence?

There are ideal instance all the time. But in order for an ideality to continue to exist as itself it has to repeat itself. What happens when you try to repeat a thought in consciousness? The very sense of its subtly changes, because time means exposure to context, and context is always changing context. This is the fundamental underpinning of time. — Joshs

I’d like to refute your point by using your own example.

The thunder itself we believe to abolish and exclude the silence;
but the feeling of the thunder is also a feeling of the silence as just gone, and it would be difficult to find
in the actual concrete consciousness of man a feeling so limited to the present as not to have an
inkling of anything that went before. — Joshs

If all my past experiences are present in my current “content”, doesn’t it mean that
I am still enclosed in the totality of my mind?

As soon as a concept is animated with the intention to say something, it exposes itself to context. — Joshs

Even my intention to say something is no more than a simple repetition of the similar past intention.

When Descartes stated “I think therefore I am,” did he breakthrough the solipsistic circle? What is the nature of this “therefore"?

IS there something in the self that comes back to itself identically moment to moment as it interacts with a world? — Joshs

How would you show that there is a non-ideal instance in the mind,

the embodied basis of thought. — Joshs

?

it actually is the mind with memory, that synthesizes time — Metaphysician Undercover

If the first passive synthesis constitute “the living present of now,” and the fundamental property of this particular present time is to pass, to become substituted for another present. To grasp the former present in “the current present,” the mind has constituted the new instance of memory.

"Memory is the fundamental synthesis of time which constitutes the
being of the past (that which causes the present to pass).
At first sight, it is as if the past were trapped between two presents: the
one which it has been and the one in relation to which it is past. The past is
not the former present itself but the element in which we focus upon the
latter. Particularity, therefore, now belongs to that on which we focus - in
other words, to that which 'has been'; whereas the past itself, the 'was', is
by nature general. The past, in general, is the element in which each former
present is focused upon in particular and as a particular. In accordance
with Husserlian terminology, we must distinguish between retention and
reproduction. However, what we earlier called the retention of habit was
the state of successive instants contracted in a present present of a certain
duration. These instants formed a particularity - in other words, an
immediate past naturally belonging to the present present, while the
present itself, which remains open to the future in the form of expectation,
constitutes the general. By contrast, from the point of view of the
reproduction involved in memory, it is the past (understood as the
mediation of presents) which becomes general while the (present as well as
former) present becomes particular. Now the former present cannot be represented in the present one without the present one itself being represented in that representation. It is of the essence of representation not only to represent something but to represent its own representativity. The present and former presents are not,
therefore, as two successive instants on the line of time; rather, the present one necessarily contains an extra dimension in which it represents the former and also represents itself. The present present is treated not as the future object of memory but as that which reflects itself at the same time as it forms the memory of the former present. Active synthesis,
therefore, has two correlative - albeit non-symmetrical - aspects:
reproduction and reflection, remembrance and recognition, memory and
understanding. Every conscious state
requires a dimension in addition to the one of which it implies the
memory. As a result, the active synthesis of memory may be regarded as
the principle of representation under this double aspect: reproduction of
the former present and reflection of the present present.”

According to this comprehension of the active synthesis of memory,
each conscious act of mind has the dimensions of reproduction and
reflection. The problem now is that the activity of mind has been
pre-designed and pre-constructed, so that the Past has become
the dominating instance, so that “present” and “future” has converted into the dimensions of this time, and the active synthesis of the mind
has become the transcendental a priory of the Past.

what do you mean by "passive synthesis"? — Metaphysician Undercover

This synthesis is passive because it is not carried out by the mind, but occurs in mind, which contemplates, prior to all memory and all reflection.

there is no such thing as a repetition of the very same AB, AB, over and over again. Each new moment is particular, and brings something new, something changed. So there is no such thing as a pure repetition of AB, and this is why a mind is necessary right at this point. The mind abstracts and creates the repetition of AB, by removing the unnecessary differences which distract. — Metaphysician Undercover

to truly understand time itself we need to go back to the occurrences which the mind abstracts from, when it creates the repetition of AB, and understand the nature of these. — Metaphysician Undercover

If there were not a repetition of physical stimuli in the surrounding environment, there would be just chaotic and quick changing, so that the basic living organisms would not be able to sustain any kind of the necessary stability and succession. So, there is the external material repetition of a kind AB, AB, AB… Or, 123C4, 123C4, 123C4…we can call
this repetition “a bare material repetition”. There is no time yet. What mind creates is not a pure repetition of AB, but the contraction – getting just A from outside, in one single moment, it grasps both A and B, so that the stimulus A causes in mind something corresponding to the external group AB. As a result of this passive synthesis, the fundamental difference between “a bare material repetition” and the repetition of a mind in “a present living time” has been established. Mind repeats differently from nature.

In order to notice a flow one must recognize a past. And this is the same with "change", in order to notice change one must have memory of the way things were. So without bringing the past to bear upon the present, all that would be evident would be what is present, and there would be no indication of flow or change.

So, we can define “flow” as “this living present.”
— Number2018

So I disagree with this. If there was only present, there would be no flow at all. The flow is the activity which is the future becoming the past. These future and past, are necessary for flow. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think that our disagreement is caused by different applications and meanings of the terms of “flow,” and “the living present.” Your comprehension of “flow” belongs to a reflective conscious experience of time. Whereas I think of “the living present” as related to the different subjective time - at the level of the first passive synthesis.
Deleuze laid out how one (it can be an animal as well as a human) is able to experience time at this level:
“Hume takes as an example the repetition of
cases of the type AB, AB, AB, A .... Each case or objective sequence AB is
independent of the others. The repetition (although we cannot yet properly
speak of repetition) changes nothing in the object or the state of affairs AB.
On the other hand, a change is produced in the mind, which contemplates:
a difference, something new in the mind. When A appears, we expect B
with a force corresponding to the qualitative impression of all the
contracted ABs. This is by no means a memory, nor indeed an operation of
the understanding: contraction is not a matter of reflection. Properly
speaking, it forms a synthesis of time. A succession of instants does not
constitute time any more than it causes it to disappear; it indicates only its
constantly aborted moment of birth. Time is constituted only in the originary synthesis which operates on the repetition of instants. This
synthesis contracts the successive independent instants into one another,
thereby constituting the lived, or living, present. It is in this present that
time is deployed. To it belong both the past and the future: the past in so
far as the preceding instants are retained in the contraction; the future
because its expectation is anticipated in this same contraction. The past
and the future do not designate instants distinct from a supposed present
instant, but rather the dimensions of the present itself in so far as it is a
contraction of instants.”
So, there is the passive synthesis of time, without involving recognition, memory,
and other conscious cognitive abilities. This “living present” is fundamentally asymmetrical: it contains the transition from the repeated particular stimuli (the past) to the more general level of the expected (the future). Therefore, there is the foundation for the direction of time, and for the different meaning of “flow,” which can be understood as the motion from the particular to the general. Also, it is possible to understand how an insect can live in a “perpetual living present,” in spite of having consecutive presents of entirely various qualities.

The problem with this idea is that we notice a very distinct difference between past and future. Things in the past are determined, fixed, and there is no possibility of changing them. Things in the future are to some extent undetermined, and there is possibility involved with what will or will not occur. It is this difference which give "the present" meaning. It is not the appearance of "flow" which gives the present meaning, because if there were no difference between past and future, "the present", with the associated flow, could be at any point on the time line, with a flow occurring.

So the idea that "flow" is the defining aspect of the present, is flawed and misleading. Once we reject this notion, and see the present for what it is, as the division between future and past, we get a completely different perspective on the apparent "flow". The change from future to past, as time passes, no longer appears as a flow, but it appears as a change. The two are radically different because "flow" is represented as a continuity, and change is represented as a discontinuity — Metaphysician Undercover

The source of the confusion in different comprehensions of time is the systematic substitution for differently experienced times, the absence of the rigorous clarification of the
concepts applied. One can have an experience of the “flow” even without reflection
on time, without applying the notion of the past and the present. It is a basic experience of some change, a passive synthesis, the living present. Something has just passed, something will have come, and both have been grasped at one present moment. So, we can define “flow” as “this living present.” The continuity of the “flow” is an abstract concept; in fact, various presents actualize different qualities of life. So, there is the first time of the “flow” (leaving present). When one starts considering properties of time, reflecting on it, one utilizes a variety of thinking and logical recourses. One keeps leaving in the present while doubling this present by intellectual means of representation, reproduction, and a priory knowledge. Even when one uses the notion of “future,” one does it as not the invention of something radically new, so that one’s modi of life and thinking will have become entirely different.
Therefore, we can distinguish the second synthesis of time, and since the memory is the most crucial factor in this synthesis, it can be called the synthesis of the past. Finally, there is a time of the creation of the new, which is inseparable from death, wreck, taking a risk, and becoming – this time can be called the time of the future, the third synthesis of time. The change and the becoming are its main determinants.
Each of the three kinds of time has its own “past,” “present,” and “future.”

Once we reject this notion, and see the present for what it is, as the division between future and past, — Metaphysician Undercover

The Stoics had developed the notion of the present as just the gap between the past and the future, represented by Aion. But, they also did not forget about Cronus, the god of the living present.

"what is time? Who can easily and briefly explain it? Who even in thought can comprehend it, even to the pronouncing of a word concerning it? But what in speaking do we refer to more familiarly and knowingly than time? And certainly we understand when we speak of it; we understand also when we hear it spoken of by another. What, then, is time? If no one asks of me, I know; if I wish to explain to him who asks, I know not. Yet I say with confidence, that I know that if nothing passed away, there would not be past time; and if nothing were coming, there would not be future time; and if nothing were, there would not be present time. Those two times, therefore, past and future, how are they, when even the past now is not; and the future is not as yet? But should the present be always present, and should it not pass into time past, time truly it could not be, but eternity. If, then, time present -- if it be time -- only comes into existence because it passes into time past, how do we say that even this is, whose cause of being is that it shall not be -- namely, so that we cannot truly say that time is, unless because it tends not to be?"
St. Augustine has laid out brilliantly that there has not been such a thing as “the substantial time”: our only experience is in the present time. Therefore, if the past and the future exist in the physical way that the present does, we have no way of knowing it, because we only experience the present. And yet, if the past and future don't exist, then what exactly are we measuring when we measure time? Remarkably, St. Augustine has not resorted to any theological argumentations, though he intended to show
that time entirely belongs to the faculties of the soul. And, if so, one is not able to explain time without theology. How could one refute St. Augustine’s arguments?

That's not time which is being cyclical, it's the actions of people which is cyclical in that description. That some people are repetitive in their activities doesn't mean that time itself is cyclical. — Metaphysician Undercover

So, what is your understanding of “time itself”? Do you believe that there has been the real, true time so that different models and theories can no more than approach it, represent it or distort it?

You are merely a meaningless cog in the remorseless extraction of profit by capitalists. Cogs, however, are needed to make the gears work -- so you have a bright future before you. (My cog years are behind me; I'm just waiting to be recycled--the final extraction of surplus value). — Bitter Crank

Does it mean that while being on this forum, and so living "in the cyber-technological present" I just
bring profit to the capitalistic system?

And, by doing so, subjectively, we reproduce our past and a cyclic model of time.
— Number2018

I don't see where the cyclical aspect comes from. — Metaphysician Undercover

The perfect example of the cyclic model of time is a religious life, organized by following the same festivals and rituals throughout each year. When the year is over, the cyclical repertoire will be repeated again. Let assume that one is an atheist, reproducing the same habitual, speaking, working, and thinking patterns from the past. One is afraid of an unpredictable future and organizes the routine of life by what has been already proven as a safe and reliable reiteration. One does not follow an external religious cyclic calendar but nevertheless reactivates the circular rhythms over and over again.

There are non-linear contemporary philosophies of time
— Number2018

Yes, cyclical perhaps, but I don't see how that would be grounded. Any others? — Metaphysician Undercover

Lyotard proposed a few comprehensions of time. First is the “psychoanalytical” model, based on the exceptional, founding event in the past. Another one uses a narrative and discursive approach. Lastly, he proposed a techno-monadological model. Also, Deleuse developed the different philosophy of time in his book “Difference and Repetition.”

The point is that "present" is a fleeting moment only in some descriptions. In other descriptions, the present may be years long.

When someone says, "be in the present" they don't mean a 20 year present. They mean a few minutes, at least. Maybe 1/2 hour. Everyone who has read anything on this forum has lived in a fairly long techno-present time. Even if they are 85 years old, they have always lived with steady technical progress. — Bitter Crank

I agree with you. There are so many different “present times,” at which we
live our lives. Probably, one could live simultaneously (consciously or not) at a few different “presents” of various time intervals. Your example of techno-present
time – who or what in control of it? Am I consumed entirely while being “in the present” of a gigantic cyber-machinic environment?

Meaning is something that individuals do --it's an active, dynamic process executed by individuals, and it's done variously, by different people, at different times, in different contexts, etc. — Terrapin Station

I agree with you. I tried to make a point that “my present time” or “your present time,” in spite of being singular and individual, have regularly been objectified, transformed and reduced from “this present time” to “that present time.”

The past is pretty clear -- from now back to eternity, and so is the future--from here forward to eternity. — Bitter Crank

I do not know what eternity is. Could you explain it to me?

What is unclear is the present -- at least to some people. I don't know how long your present is. Some would say it's measurable in nanoseconds. Practically (every day usage) "now", "the present", "currently", and so on can be fairly long — Bitter Crank

I agree with you. For me, my present is a whole, conscious experience, it can last from a few seconds to a few hours. I think, that my life is given to me through my "presents".

How long is the "political present"? — Bitter Crank

There are too many answers.

What I'm thinking of, is more of a linear model of time — Metaphysician Undercover

As you wrote in your previous post:

So we're actually facing the future, and going forward. That we seem to be facing the past and walking backward into the future, is really a matter of walking forward, but facing a giant mirror showing only what's behind. — Metaphysician Undercover

Doesn’t it mean that we project our past into our future?
And, by doing so, subjectively, we reproduce our past and a cyclic model of time.
I think that you write about two different experiences of time: "real"(objective), and "subjective", and sometimes you do not differentiate between them.
I mean "subjective".

we end up with a linear model of time which extends from past through future, with the present being a point somewhere on this line, without accounting for the fact that the future is substantially different from the past, and such a continuity is a misrepresentation. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree with you, a linear model does not reflect our subjective experience of time.

The problem being that instead of recognizing that the past begins at the present, and that the future is fundamentally different from the past, we draw a line — Metaphysician Undercover

There are non-linear contemporary philosophies of time

When one says “present time,” as an occurrence, the sentence is a “now,” it is presenting time which is “right now.” This presenting of time has inevitably
become the presented, mediated, and objectified time.

Thank you for your point. What about “time today”?

I'm curious as to why time is not so easy to define. Perhaps the right word is ''impossible''. — TheMadFool

When one tries to define time, one applies various logical and language recourses.
Therefore, the fundamental features of time, related to change and becoming,
have escaped the definition. It has been possible to assume that any scientific or/and objectified approach to time reduces it to spatial representations and forms.

the Hopi indians have three verb tenses: one for the present, one for recent events for which sense data still exists, and one for everything else, including hopes, promises, the far past, the future, and emotions. As a consequence, Hopi indians have trouble understanding clocks — ernestm

Probably, for the Hopi Indians experience of time and its language forms had been inseparable
from the rhythms of their social and natural environments. In contrast, the clocks and calendars had imperialistically and systematically suppressed anterior expressions of time.

we're actually facing the future, and going forward. That we seem to be facing the past and walking backward into the future, is really a matter of walking forward, but facing a giant mirror showing only what's behind. So we're really going forward, while looking at a giant rear view mirror. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree with you. Since we cannot predict and foresee our future, we are inclined to eliminate it, to substitute it for familiar images and identifications from the past. As a result,the cyclic model of time has been reproduced over and over again.

Why look for some words to set out what you already know? — Banno

I haven't known yet.