I don't understand you. If something goes from being future to being present, it has changed, yes? It's changed from being future to being present.

So, once more, if you try and explain what change is by saying that it is when something has a property at one time that it does not have at another, then you've gone in a circle, as one would be invoking change to explain change.

Now, I presented an argument that appears to demonstrate that change is a sensation. When someone does that, one has to challenge the argument, not simply assert an alternative (and in your case, circular) analysis.

For an analogy: if I say "Tom murdered Susan and here is my evidence that he did so....." you are not engaging with my argument if you say "The murderer of Susan murdered Susan, not Tom".

So, you think if a change in temporal properties is not a change? Explain.

For the umpteenth time, it is circular. You haven't bothered actually engaging with the point - you just keep insisting that it is not circular. A change in temporal properties is.....wait for it......a 'change'. Why can't you get this painfully simple point? If you invoke the notion of change in your analysis of change, then you haven't analyzed change at all.

You're the one talking nonsense. The claim that sensations can only resemble other sensations is not nonsensical in any way.

A sensation cannot 'tell' us anything - sensations do not have little mouths or little notepads on which they might write things. Insofar as our sensations give us some awareness of something other than themselves, they do so by resemblance: that is, our reason tells us that there is a world out there that our sensations (some of them) are resembling.

Now, there is nothing like a sensation except another sensation. Thus, if we have a sensation of change, then change itself must be a sensation. That just follows.

Circular. You are simply describing when we have a change, but not saying what change itself is.
If I ask what yellow is, providing me with a list of things that are yellow is not an answer to my question.
You have mentioned time. But though no particular temporal property essentially involves change, the instant one appeals to a 'change' in temporal properties to explicate what change itself is, one has gone in a circle.
So it seems that time is time and change is change, and we can't reduce one to the other.

It's circular. Becoming different and changing are synonymous. It's like saying 'cheese is fromage'. Yes, but I want to know what cheese is, in and of itself, and that's just another way of saying cheese.

I don't understand your point. The argument I provided was seductively valid, so you have to dispute a premise. Which one are you disputing?

I don't see your point. You asked what evidence I have for a sensation of change. I provided some. I can have the impression there has been a change, even though I cannot say what has changed.

It is also not a belief, for I might not believe anything has changed.

So, there is a sensation of change. There is also a sensation of stability. That is, it can seem that nothing has changed (even when things have).

As already explained, movement makes reference to change. So to reduce change to movement is to go in a circle.

If A is a sensation of B, and B is a sensation, then what is B a sensation of? If it's another sensation, that would lead to infinite regress. If it stops at one point "P is a sensation of X" and X is not a sensation, then why is A not simply a sensation of X? Why presume all the middlemen? (middleminds?) — khaled

I have not claimed that all sensations are 'of' things (indeed, the word 'of' is ambiguous anyway). Sensations - some of them - tell us about reality by resembling it. That is not a full account of how perception works - but it is, I think, an essential element of any plausible account of how it works and it is the only element that I need. For if that is correct, then change is a sensation.

That does not imply an infinite regress, for sensations do not 'essentially' tell us anything. It is our reason that tells us that our sensations (some of them - I am not going to keep putting in this qualification hereafter) are resembling an actual world. And as sensations can only resemble other sensations, then the reality they are resembling is itself a world of sensations. Those sensations - the one constitutive of reality - are not resembling anything.

Take a conscious act of imagination: when you imagine something (and are aware you're imagining it), the sensations constitutive of your imagining are not 'representing' anything to be the case. That is, one does not take them to be resembling something. They are not necessarily accurate (I say not necessarily, for one may be trying to imagine something real - in that case they could be judged for accuracy - but this is not a case in which one is trying to imagine something real, one is just engaging in pure imaginative activity). They just are what they are: sensations constitutive of an act of imagination.

If someone else's sensations were somehow tracking my imaginative activity, then that person's sensations could tell them about my imaginary world by means of resemblance. Their sensations would be 'of' my imaginative activity - and so be 'of' a subset of my sensations - but there would be no regress, for my sensations are not themselves 'telling me' about anything. Their sensations are 'of' mine, whereas mine are of nothing (by which I mean that mine are not 'of' other sensations - they are not doing representing work).

I disagree, it tells us what change ontologically amounts to. — neomac

What on earth does that mean? What work is the word 'ontologically' doing?

I explained why it is circular. If you say 'change is when an object has a property at one time that it doesn't have at anotehr' then you have appealed to another change - a change in temporal properties - in your analysis of change. So it is circular. It is really no different to saying "bread is a substance made of bread" when the question is "what is bread?"

No it doesn’t. First of all, that definition of change makes no mention of predicates like “being present” and “being past“. — neomac

What? If an object goes from being present to being past, it has changed, has it not? Changed from being present, to being past. So it is no analysis of change to say "an object has changed when it has a property at one time that it does not have at another", for that's no more or less than to say that an object has changed in one respect when it has changed in another - true, but not an analysis of change.

Secondly, “being present” and “being past” may not be properties in strict sense. — neomac

Yes they are, and that would be irrelevant anyway, for you'd still be appealing to a change in your analysis of change.

A substantial answer to the question "what is change" must not make any mention of change or a synonym for change, otherwise it will be circular.

That's not necessarily a fault, incidentally - if we find we cannot analyze change without making mention of change or one of its cognates, then we have discovered that change is change and not another thing.
The point, though, is that my sensational analysis does not make mention of change and thus is substantial.

This sounds like a categorical confusion between “sensations” as an ontological type (the sensation of "red" is neither true or false) with “seeming” which is an epistemological type (what seems to be red can be blue so the red-seeming can be true or false). — neomac

You keep putting in extra words. What's a 'categorical' confusion as opposed to just a confusion?
Anyway, what you're doing is throwing mud at a wall and hoping some of it sticks. I have not said that sensations can be true or false, so why on earth do you think I am confused about the nature of sensations?

There are different sorts of sensation, and some of them are 'of' reality and thus are capable of being accurate or inaccurate. That's not true of all of them. A sensation of pain cannot be accurate or inaccurate. However, the impression that one is in pain can be. And similarly, my visual impression that there is a mug on my desk can be accurate or inaccurate.

The impression of change is like this - that is, it is capable of being accurate or inaccurate. It is accurate if there has been actual change, and not if not.

The point, though, is that the accuracy condition of a sensation is going to be another sensation. And thus, if change is something we have a sensation of, then change itself is a sensation.

What is not still, changes. Thus, change is movement/motion. There is no overall Stillness, else naught would go on; therefore, something is ever changing. — PoeticUniverse

None of that follows. I provided an answer to the question I posed in the OP. Whether is works or not is the matter under discussion.

Possibilities are not good evidence. Note as well that I have argued that change and time are not equivalent, for any attempt to provide an analysis of change in terms of time would simply be circular (for a change in temporal properties is still a change). Furthermore, this thread is not about what exists, but about what change is. Whether change is real or not is a matter that must wait upon the correct analysis of change. To start out by assuming change is an illusion, is to have started out thinking one knows already what change is and then insisting that there is none. It is, then, to say the least, premature.

I think that premise 1 here needs to be justified. If you can explain how change can be sensed by one sensation, rather than needing a number of sensations to be perceived, then we might have a solution to your question of what is change. — Metaphysician Undercover

We can get the impression a change has occurred, without being able to identify what, if anything, has changed. Thus there seems to be a feeling or sensation of change. For this would not be possible if, rather than having a sensation of change, we had instead to infer change from some kind of comparison between cases.

Put down your dictionary and start thinking.

If one wants to know what change is, it is no good just offering up some synonym for change.

Now, I offered an argument for the view than change itself is a sensation. Do you have anything to say about that case?

False. You argued that. Berkeley argued sensations resemble reality. You don't even understand your own argument.... — khaled

Er, Berkeley made that argument. I am simply applying it to change. You clearly haven't read Berkeley. Or me.

You had terrible explanations for why you think your God is a single mind, but no explanation for why this is a single mind. You have to connect this mind with your idea of God, they're not necessarily the same. — khaled

I could give you any number of arguments in support of there being a single, unified reality that our sensations give us some awareness of, and it would make no difference, would it? If Bartricks makes an argument, it must be shit - yes? So why would I bother? I made one, but I am not going to bother making it again or adding others to it, when my interlocuter is so determined that I am wrong about everything. It's just boring.

I said you haven’t proven it is. — khaled

The clarion call of the internet educated.

Why should our sensations resemble reality to be "of" it? — khaled

If the external world bore no resemblance whatsoever to any of our sensations, then in what possible sense would our sensations be enabling us to perceive the world?

At the moment there appears - visually - to be a blue mug on my desk. If there is no desk or mug there in reality and I am actually stood in a field, then I am not seeing the field by means of the visual appearance of the mug and desk, for there is barely any resemblance between the field that is actually there and the mug and desk I am getting the impression of. A fortiori, if there was no resemblance at all between my sensations and the external world, I would not be perceiving the world at all but living in a dream world.

I provided an example that appears to demonstrate that one can have cause and effect without change.
You reply by just stipulating that 'effect' and 'change' mean the same. I mean, what's the point?
Again: change and 'effect' are not the same, for one can have cause and effect without any change, as Kant's example demonstrates.

And once more, even if that's false - and it isn't - it wouldn't be an answer to the question 'what is change?'

"What is cheese?" "Cheese is Fromage in French". That's not an answer to the question. What you've done is say "Cheese is Potage in French". That's is false, but even if it is was true, it would not be an answer to the question.

There is no argument to dismiss. — Cheshire

Yes there is. I suspect that, like most people here, you don't know an argument from your elbow. Here is the argument:

1. There is a sensation of change
2. A sensation can only resemble another sensation (and so if a sensation is 'of' something, then what it is of is itself a sensation)
3. Therefore, change is a sensation.

Reality potentially. Depends on whether reality is a sensation or not. In order to say that sensations represent sensations and only sensations, given that sensations represent reality, you must assume that reality is a sensation. — khaled

Question begging.

If you think that there is something that resembles a sensation, yet is not one, provide an example. Note, there is no question that sensations do resemble sensations. If you think that there is something else - something that we have no reason to think is itself a sensation - that a sensation can resemble, simply provide an example. (You will find yourself in difficulties, for anything you suggest will have to in some way 'look' or 'feel' or 'smell' or 'taste' or 'sound' like the sensation you are comparing it to, and so will itself be something we are aware of via sensation, and thus it looks like you are doomed to beg the question).

Your conclusion is assumed in your second premise. I’m sure you know what that means. — khaled

You're one of those people who thinks that all valid arguments beg the question. Tedious. Learn to argue properly.

The problem with your proof is the same as the problem here:

Barkley argued that cats resemble X. Assume that’s true.

Cats resemble cats and only cats.

Therefore X are cats.

The validity depends on what X is, let’s assume “X” is “dogs”. Then the conclusion is clearly false, so where was the error? Either premise 1 or 2 is wrong. Let’s trust Barkley for now. So premise 2 is wrong, cats must not resemble cats and only cats given that cats resemble dogs. That or premise 1 is wrong and cats don’t resemble dogs.

So this type of argument doesn't work for any X. What makes you think reality is such an X that it works? — khaled

What on earth are you on about? First, it is 'Berkeley' not 'Barkley' (it's pronounced Barkley, but spelt 'Berkeley').

Berkeley argued that sensations resemble sensations and nothing else. Now, if that's true, then it follows that a sensation of X, is a sensation of a sensation.

↪Bartricks
From this it follows that change itself is the sensation of a single mind.
— Bartricks

And this doesn't follow either. Why single? Why not a coalition of minds?

If we sense changes and changes are sensations, then are we "sensing sensations"? What does that even mean? And the sensations that we're sensing, what's the source of those? Other sensations?(infinite regress) — khaled

I explained why it is a single mind.

And yes, sensations are 'of' sensations, as sensations can only resemble other sensations. Why do you ask 'what does that even mean?'. It means what it means: it means that sensations are of sensations.

What's hard to understand is how a sensation could be 'of' anything else.

As for the 'waht's the source of those' question - er, a mind. You don't seem to be following the argument.

No, you are dismissing an argument on the basis of an assumption you have made about the arguer. That's just silly. I don't have an agenda, but even if I did, it wouldn't alter the soundness of my case.

No, you can have causation without change. An example (due, I think, to Kant): imagine a ball on a cushion and imagine that both have existed for eternity. Now, the indentation on the cushion is being caused by the ball, even though there was never a time when the ball was not on the cushion.

Anyway, do not be distracted by that example. For this thread is about change, not causation. And as I have pointed out, even if causes create changes - and they do not necessarily do so - that would not tell us what change itself is. If I ask what a car is, and you tell me that factories create them, you have not told me what a car is.

In simple terms, change is "An act or process through which something becomes different" (Oxford LEXICO) — Alkis Piskas

That is circular as well. For what does 'becomes different' mean if not 'changes'?

The question is not 'when do we have a change?', but 'what 'is' change?'

Heraclitus described "change" in a superb way with his "Everything flows" and "You cannot step in the same river twice". What else should one need to understand change? — Alkis Piskas

Once more, he is simply saying that everything changes, not telling us what change itself is. "What is change?" "Change is everywhere" is not an answer.

Change is movement. — Alkis Piskas

That's circular. For a thing moves when it changes location.

I made a case for change being a sensation. My case was that we have a sensation of change - that is, we are aware of change by means of a sensation. And as a sensation has to resemble that of which it gives us some awareness, we can conclude that change itself resembles our sensation of change. And as a sensation resembles another sensation and nothing else, change itself can now be concluded to be a sensation, albeit one that is not borne by our own minds, but some other mind.

OK, but isn't it in the same way that we perceive anything in the physical universe? So, the sensation/perception of change doesn’t really gives us --or at least, adds-- any insight on change. — Alkis Piskas

How does that follow? One can't refute an argument by simply noting that it applies to other things. We are aware of the sensible world via our sensations - and change is a feature of it - and so the sensible world itself must resemble our sensations of it (for they would not be 'of' it otherwise). And thus the sensible world must itself be made of sensations.

I don't see a problem, just an extension of the same argument. Indeed, that argument - the argument that the sensible world is made of the sensations of an external mind - is well known and was made by George Berkeley. I am simply taking that argument and showing how it casts light on other features of reality - such as change.

What is like a sensation, but not one?

You don't seem to grasp the point.

How is there an exception? Either an argument is sound, or it is not. At no point do the motives of the arguer matter.

So, what's wrong with the argument I made?

I am not sure I follow. If the law describes a change, then change is being invoked, not analysed. If the law itself changes, the same applies.

The big mistake, it seems to me, is that most of those who seek to analyse change, simply describe the conditions under which one has a change, but do not say what change itself is.

What I have done is squarely address the question and have provided an argument leading to the conclusion that change is an external sensation.

To block my case one would need to challenge one of the premises that got me to that conclusion

My motives - which are pure - do not matter. You should assess a case on it's own merits, not concern yourself with the arguer's agenda.

That's not true - one can have a cause and effect relation without there being any change.

But even if that's incorrect and change is what causes create, that isn't a view about what change 'is', but rather a view about what creates change.

On grandest scale change is the norm. — Cheshire

That's not a view about what change 'is'. It's a view about how widespread it is. If I ask "what is bread?" and one answers "bread is everywhere", then one has not answered my question.

Or it's the subtext to greasing yet another slide into a creationist agenda. — Cheshire

There you simply express a prejudice: you believe any analysis is false that implies the existence of a god, yes? Why?

yes, that's how one does philosophy. Just express your view, but at all costs don't engage with arguments. Blimey - is there anyone here who can actually argue, or are you all expressivist narcissists?

I won't give specific responses to your specific comments, I'll just lay out my general philosophy of government. — T Clark

Why not? They're not just comments, but arguments.

A society where a significant portion of it's citizens live unhappy lives of poverty, hardship, and despair; especially while another significant portion lives lives of luxury and overindulgence; is not a good society. When other institutions can't or don't work to overcome these conditions, a good government will step in and do what's needed and what's right. — T Clark

The good and the right. They're not the same. There's what's good, and there's what is right. It'd be good if Tom stopped seeing Jennifer. That doesn't mean it is right for me to physically prevent them from meeting.

Maybe read the OP again and say specifically what you disagree with and why, rather than just describing your ideal state. Note: I haven't disagree that it'd be good if there wasn't too much inequality and so on. Yeah, great. Good. But that doesn't entitle one to do whatever is needed to bring such states of affairs about - not if doing so would violate people's rights.

A place can't disagree with someone. And you don't seem to understand how arguments work. You need to address an argument with an argument, not just express your unreflective hostility to its conclusion.

Yes, I am generally opposed to codifying things. I believe in judging on a case by case basis - I believe that's how they did it in the Ancient world. No or few written laws - everything decided in court and no precedent set. And no lawyers.

Barty baiting. Tedious. Go away.

I reject this. Or if you like, prove it. Nor indeed, if I think about it, can I assent to an intuition being an impression. All these words that you try to reduce to one word or one idea, and it just isn't the case — tim wood

I don't care that you reject it - that's just you expressing yourself, isn't it! Anyway, a debate about what exactly an intuition is - which, no matter what I say about it, you will reject due to the fact I said it - is not on topic. That is a topic in moral epistemology and although I am appealing to moral intuitions, you are not engaging with the topic of this thread if you insist on making this about more general issues in epistemology. That's like insisting that because I am using words to express myself, we need to have a debate about the philosophy of language before we can proceed.

The simple fact is that no matter what moral issue I was discussing here - whether historic injustices, abortion, capital punishment, whatever, you would have made the same points.

you forgot to also demand ridiculous amounts of money in compensation for all the bad stuff that happened as a result of the initial crime. — Book273

Yes, the reasoning behind such claims does seem palpably bad. I think this can be illustrated by focusing on cases where the reverse is true - that is, where it is obvious that a crime has benefitted the victim.

For instance, let's say that someone has cut the brake cables on my motorbike, such that if I was to ride it I would certainly crash and die or be horribly injured. However, someone steals my motorbike on a trailer before I get the chance to ride it. That motorbike is then sold or given to some innocent third party and the original thief dies. Well, it seems clear that I am entitled to the motorbike. No one, I think, would have the intuition that as I was made much better off by the theft, that now the motorbike no longer belongs to me, that my benefitting from the crime somehow operated to reduce right to the motorbike, or taht I am only entitled to the value of the smashed-up motorbike that my actual motorbike would have become had it not been stolen.

And if that is clear in that case, then I see no reason why the same should not apply to any disadvantages that would accrue to me either. So if, say, the brake cables were fine and I was planning on riding the bike to an important job interview - an interview I would have got if only I'd turned up - then when my bike is found, I am entitled to the bike, but not compensation for having failed to get the job.

And I think that generalizes. Innocent victims and innocent benefactors do not owe each other compensation for the harms that befell them due to the crimes committed by others. So, if Tom stole my motorbike and you bought it from Tom innocently - and I thereby was prevented from attending an interview for a job, whereas you did attend an interview for a job (and got the job), I am entitled to my motorbike back, but I am not entitled to your job - even though you wouldn't have got the job had by bike not been stolen from me and given to you.

So yes, many of these claims for compensation for past injustices - or rather, for the costs that came in their train - are unjust, at least if my intuitions about these sorts of relevantly analogous case are correct.

All right, but how normative, how evaluative? Normative and evaluative comprise judgments. How exactly is an intuition a judgement (assuming that judgments and intuitions are not the same thing)? — tim wood

A normative proposition is a proposition about what is to be done - it concerns action - and so it would be about the rightness or wrongness of an action. Evaluative concerns goodness and badness.

Judgements are not the same as intuitions, though they're often based on them. I judge that there is a cup on my desk on the basis of my visual impression of one. The judgement is not a visual impression, though it is based on one.

An intuition is a kind of impression, albeit a rational impression, not a visual one. And we base many of our moral judgements on them. However, one can have a moral intuition that an action is right, yet judge it to be wrong. So the two are not the same.

That's why simply expressing one's opinion - that is, expressing one's judgements - has no value, philosophically speaking. For they have no probative force at all - one's judgements are not evidence for anything. The impressions on which they are based may be, but the judgements themselves are not.

So, simply judging that Rodney owes the original owner of the pizza slice some money and expressing that judgement -as James Riley did above - is of no philosophical value whatsoever.

By contrast, if it is the case that most people's moral intuitions represent Rodney to owe nothing, that is good evidence - though not decisive - that Rodney does indeed owe nothing. There's nowhere else to go for evidence - all appeals to evidence are ultimately appeals to rational impressions of one sort or another, and if they're widely shared and we have no reason (itself supplied by other rational impressions) to doubt that these impressions are tracking reality, then one has made a good case.

If you want to engage philosophically with what I have argued, then you'd need to argue either that our intuitions are not widely shared about such cases, and/or come up with other thought experiments that elicit contrary rational intuitions and that seem no less analogous to the controversial cases about which insight is being sought.

Yes, let's make this about basic issues in moral epistemology - which is what you'd do to any debate about anything, right?

But not that it matters, an intuition is a mental state with representative contents. And in the case of a moral intuition, the content in question is an evaluative or normative proposition.

And one appeals to them in making any moral case for anything. And using thought experiments is the method moral philosophers use to elicit them. And when it comes to a controversial issue on which people have strong opinions and much emotional and other investment, applying one's reason (which the faculty that creates intuitions in us) to thought experiments about relevantly similar cases is the most reliable way of making progress.

Thus, if most people's moral intuitions about the pizza case are like mine - that is, if they represent Rodney not to owe anyone anything if he acquired the pizza slice honestly and then destroyed it by eating it - then this is highly significant.

The alternative, when it comes to issues of intergenerational justice and so on, is shout and stamp and scream and bash each other over the head. Identify your tribe, find out what your tribe believes, then scream it.

Yes, because moral intuition has no role to play in trying to figure out what's actually right and wrong. Good point. We should just consult the law or our own opinions. Good job. I am learning a lot from you.
Now, once more, engage with the arguments in the OP, Barty Baiter