SO what is a dimension?

Take a point and slide it. You get a line. One dimension. Only one number is needed to set out the relative position of two points - hence, length x

Take a line and slide it. You get a plane. Two dimensions. Two numbers are needed to set out the relative positions of two points - hence, the cartesian coordinates (x,y)

Take a plane and slide it. You get a volume. Three dimensions, measured with the coordinates (x, y, z) — Banno

Oh, so dimensions are made of lines? I just drew some lines - I just created a dimension did I? Utter, utter tripe.

You don't grasp the basic point - nothing that is actually infinitely divisible can exist in reality. The 'idea' of it can exist - because ideas are not infinitely divisible - but it itself cannot.

So you sit in your cave writing bonkers definitions of 'dimension' on the wall to your heart's content - call a spoon a dimension if you want - the fact remains that any analysis of time that identifies it with something that can be infinitely divided is demonstrably confused.

Note too, I gave 3 arguments and one of them makes no mention of infinities.

Folks, notice the slide Bartricks makes from "it doesn't exist", as used in the OP, to "it's not a thing", as used here. — Banno

Bozos, notice that Banno can't read or quote accurately.

Rubbish. — Banno

Brilliant. I stand corrected.

You sound very young. — christian2017

And you sound very patronising.

You have to understand people of many philosophies on this sight see science as the only way to answer any question on this site. Believe it or not various mathematical fields can be applied to any field of study including philosophy. Your favorite ice cream could probably be quantified through a systems analysis and design approach. — christian2017

Yes, and that's a mistake. They're not doing the same thing - that's why 'science' exists as a distinct discipline.

These questions: what is morality? what is free will? what is truth? what is time? and so on, are 'not' questions science investigates. Why? Because you can't answer them by looking down a microscope. You have to apply your intelligence to them - that is, you have to reason. The questions have answers, but you're not going to find them by inspecting sensible matter ever more closely.

Without applying some field of mathematics or even a science, how do you expect to get a real answer other than "time is a banana split sundae."? — christian2017

And there it is: the arrogant dismissal of philosophy. You're one of those people you just mentioned above, aren't you?

For instance, a theory - no matter how complex - about how someone behaves, is not a theory about what a person is. — Bartricks
Thats actually not true. You can claim a very weak connection between any two entities or concepts and in some case a strong connection. — christian2017

Er no, that actually 'is' true. There's what a person 'is' and then there's what they get up to. Distinct theories.

You might be right that there is almost no connection between special relativity and what time is but it is doubtful. — christian2017

Arguments?

On a different note, i don't believe time travel would be possible unless there was someone who over sees what happened in the past. — christian2017

Question begging - you're just assuming that time is a stuff or dimension, that it is something we travel about in. I provided 3 arguments that appear to refute that idea. You've just blithely ignored them.

I believe time is understood and measured by the movement of particles. — christian2017

Well that's nice for you. Once more: try actually engaging with the arguments. That is, try thinking rather than spouting.

Are you familiar with special relativity as well as vector analysis and Newtonian physics? I believe to understand special relativity you have to understand vectors and also Newtonian physics. — christian2017

No I am not because those are not theses about what time is, but about 'behaviour'.

For instance, a theory - no matter how complex - about how someone behaves, is not a theory about what a person is.

Likewise, a theory about how things that are in time behave, is not a theory about what time is.

This kind of confusion - thinking that squarely philosophical questions are and have been answered by scientists - is, needless to say, rife.

Look, you're going to say I am playing with words no matter what I argue - or rather, if or when I argue for something you disagree with. Basically, you have a problem with me using words.

Physicists are not investigating what time is. That's not a question in physics. How it behaves, yes. What it is, no. That's a philosophical question. You have to use your reason to figure out the answer.

When you watch a documentary about time, pssst, it's not about time. It'll have lots of physicists doing philosophy badly and saying weird stuff about time bending and such like - but it isn't about time, it is just about entertaining people for half an hour while they push fish fingers into their face.

And yet again, your objection shows only that you choose not to use"infinite" in the way mathematicians do, — Banno

Hilbert was a mathematician. Hilbert's hotel was a thought experiment he devised to underline the absurdity of thinking actual infinities can exist.

But don't let that worry you. If you want actual infinities to exist, then they jolly well can.

So you say seven doesn't exist? Or seven cannot be divided by any other number? Or both? — Banno

Sorry, I am being too subtle for you. I am saying it is not a 'thing'.

Exactly what numbers are is itself a fraught philosophical issue, but no-one apart from a PLatonist thinks they're actual things, and even they would agree that the thing that is the number 7 - the Form of 7 - is not divisible.

(3) is wrong. Hilbert's hotel can always take more visitors. — Banno

Ah, yes, of course. Thank you oh mighty Banno. I see now. Yes. It can. Yes. Brilliant reply. I be learning much.

misuse words — Banno

You are misusing the word 'misuse'.

Nor is mere assertion. — Banno

I didn't merely assert, I appealed to self-evident truths of reason. Try it sometime.

7 is laughable example. I mean, really? 7 is a thing, is it? A thing that can be infinitely divided? And it cannot actually be infinitely divided, only potentially so. You're mistaking the number 7 with '7 things'.

Now, tell me, which premise of this argument is false and why?

1. If an infinitely divisible thing can exist, then a hotel with infinite rooms can exist
2. A hotel with infinite rooms is a hotel that can be full to capacity, yet still admit new guests - an infinite number.
3. It is impossible for there to be a hotel that is full to capacity yet can still admit new guests
4. Therefore an infinitely divisible thing cannot exist

I answered those questions.

A substance is a bearer of properties.

And to be 'extended' is to occupy some space.

'Time' is neither. It exists, but it is not a kind of stuff and nor is it extended.

where's your case? Nay saying isn't arguing.

And here's the problem with your posts. You think I have not addressed your argument. — Banno

Yes, that's what I think.

Address an argument. You know, do some actual philosophy for a change.

Thanks for reminding me. All I wanted to do was prove that time is non-spatial, despite its measurement being so and that time isn't some kind a special space. Although it's represented as a 4th dimension in modern physics it is unique enough to deserve separate treatment. — TheMadFool

Yes, but I have not claimed that time is mistakenly thought to be space. I have claimed that time is mistakenly thought to be a dimension.

The case I have made for that is that, conceived of as a dimension, it would be infinitely divisible. Yet nothing can be infinitely divisible, and thus time is not a dimension.

So, here's argument 1:

1. If time is a dimension, then it will be infinitely divisible
2. Nothing existent can be infinitely divisible.
3. Therefore, if time is a dimension it does not exist
4. Time exists
5. Therefore, time is not a dimension

Another argument was that if time is a dimension, then it would have to extend infinitely as any event in time can recede into the past forever. Yet nothing can extend infinitely.

Argument 2:

1. If time is a dimension, then it extends to an actual infinity.
2. Nothing that exists is infinitely extended
3. Therefore, if time is a dimension, then it does not exist
4. Time exists
5. Therefore time is not a dimension

Another argument was that if time is a dimension, then there is no fundamental difference between events that are past, present and future. Past, present and future cease to be intrinsic features of time. But they are intrinsic features of time, thus time is not a dimension.

Argument 3:

1. If time is a dimension, then past, present and future are not the intrinsic temporal properties
2. Past, present and future are the intrinsic temporal properties
3. Therefore time is not a dimension

You're not making a dot of sense imo. So, Tim is killed by a headshot - it kills him instantly. You're saying that's not a harm - that if Roger shoots Tim in the head, then Roger has done no harm to Tim, yes?

For instance, can something exist that is infinitely extended? Well, no. — Bartricks
Why not? You are making it axiomatic that this cannot happen. Is your axiom true or false? How can you tell? — John Gill

I've already said. I am not 'making it' axiomatic, I am appealing to reason.

Actual infinities can't exist. Or so says the reason of virtually everyone (which is the best evidence there can ever be that something is the case).

To borrow the example of Hilbert's hotel - an example employed to illustrate the rank absurdity of supposing infinities to be actual - a hotel with infinite rooms could be full to capacity and still accept new guests (indeed, an infinity of them). And if half the guests left, it would still be full.

Now, that's true - no? And it is also absurd. If I told you I own a hotel that is full to capacity but we can take as many new guests as you like, you'd be fine with that?? You'd think "yup, there are hotels like that"?? Or would you say "er, how can your hotel be full to capacity 'and' be able to take as many new guests as I like?"

Just address the argument.

Incorrect. We have an instrumental reason to avoid getting killed. — khaled

Why? I mean, yes, obviously we do. But why? Please explain how I can have an instrumental reason to avoid something that will not harm me.

Oh so: "We should avoid killing ourselves and others" is "self evident truth" but "There is no afterlife" is "a mere article of faith" — khaled

Yes, that's right.

I think "We should avoid killing ourselves or others" is a convenient evolutionary instinct and nothing more. — khaled

So you don't think it is true that we have reason to avoid killing ourselves and others?

Getting killed is a harm to the one getting killed. Death cannot be a harm to the one that is dead (because he's dead, he doesn't exist anymore) — khaled

That's just incoherent.

and his name is obviously a joke. — Pfhorrest

Yes, I am aware of that. Winter evenings must fly by in his house.

So, possibly, the being humans call God, being so much more knowledgeable than us mere mortals, knows perfectly well that there are no gods, and that we're wrong for calling him one — Pfhorrest

But an omniscient god would know that he is a god, otherwise he'd be ignorant of something.

What's harder to fathom is how God could be morally good and omniscient, given that being morally good surely involves being humble to some degree, yet being omniscient would involve God knowing that he is morally perfect. Someone who believes he is morally perfect lacks humility and is thus not morally perfect. The morally perfect, it would seem, cannot know that they are morally perfect and thus cannot be omniscient.

So, "God isn't humble" would be a better name, I think, than "God must be atheist". It lacks humour - but then so does the latter, and at least it makes sense.

What nonsense. You're just insisting that your scenario shows what you say it does. Everyone is perfectly in his own right to say whether it strikes him as a case of knowledge or not. — fiveredapples

No, not nonsense. Your reply is as inept as insisting that in Russell or Gettier's original they were just 'insisting' that the agent lacks knowledge.

Then you've just said "everyone's entitled to their opinion". Er, yes. That's not in dispute. That's what someone says when they've lost the argument.

In the original clock case it is clear to the reason of virtually everyone that the agent lacks knowledge despite also clearly possessing a justified true belief.

Now, you - you - have insisted that any true belief based on the report of a broken clock does not count as knowledge.

I provided a clear counterexample. I'll describe it again in case you just didn't bother reading it.

There's a clock that's been working fine until 3pm, when it breaks. Tom looks at that clock at 3pm - the moment it breaks - and forms the belief that it is 3pm. Now, does he know that it is 3pm?

Yes. Doesn't your reason tell you the same? Seriously, what does your reason say about the case?

Note, if you just reject such intuitions on the grounds that respecting them would require abandoning your thesis, then you're the dogmatist. You've now got an unfalsifiable thesis.

Have you experience with debating him? — god must be atheist

Nice of you to set yourself as a Bartricks-early-warning system.

You know your name makes no sense, right? First, it should be "God must be 'an' atheist". But even then it is conceptually confused. God can't possibly be an atheist - God is, by definition, all-knowing and existent. Thus he would know he exists (and know that he's a god).

What names got rejected? 2 are being 3? Fishes is cow? Right are wrong?

To who? I'd say getting murdered painfully is a burden and harm but death (the final result) certainly isn't. Who is there to be burdened by it? They're dead. — khaled

But death clearly is a harm, for it's self-evident we have instrumental (and perhaps moral) reason to avoid it in our own case, and certainly moral reason not to visit it on others (extreme circs. aside).

By contrast, the idea that our deaths cease our existence is a mere article of faith.

It is irrational to reject a self-evident truth of reason on the basis of a mere article of faith. So, we should conclude that, as our reason represents death to be a harm to the one who dies, and as our reason also represents existence to be something required for harm to occur, we survive our deaths.

I think death is a burden, a harm, yes. And a far bigger one than living - unless you're on fire or something - which is why our reason tells us to do all we can to avoid it.
Plus, if death is not a burden, not a harm, then what's so wrong about killing someone? I mean, what if someone is in my way and I don't want to burden them with the task of moving - should I kill them? Would that be the kind - because less burdensome - thing to do?

To me the conceptual problems only emerge when we presume (or else intend to gain) an omniscient perspective of reality and, thereby, possession of an infallible knowledge. We never hold such. — javra

I am not sure I am following you. What are these conceptual problems and how do they arise for my position?

So, my position - as described in the OP - is that knowledge consists of a feeling Reason is adopting towards true beliefs.

This explains why there will be nothing, beyond simply being a 'true belief' that all clear cases of knowledge have in common.

Gettier-style cases and other similar thought experiments show us that sometimes a true belief qualifies as knowledge due to the fact it was justified, sometimes not. Sometimes a true belief can be knowledge without there being any justification for holding it; sometimes a true belief fails to be knowledge precisely because there is no justification for holding it; sometimes a true belief fails to be knowledge despite there being a justification for holding it.

How can we make sense of that?

Well, consider the property of 'delicious-to-me'. Only something I am eating can be delicious to me. But sometimes something I am eating to me is delicious because it has flavour P; yet sometimes something I am eating it is not delicious to me because it has flavour P; and sometimes something is delicious to me and flavour P, despite being present, played no role at all.

There is nothing problematic in that. I am not contradicting myself if I like foodstuff A due to its having flavour P, yet dislike foodstuff B due to its having flavour P.

Likewise, then, if knowledge is a feeling. There is nothing problematic - nothing incoherent - in Reason finding that she has the knowledge feeling about one true belief due to it being justified, yet does not have the knowledge feeling about another true belief despite its being justified.

The question of what time is, is a philosophical one. It is not a question in physics or mathematics.

What 'wise' man said that? I mean, it seems clearly false.

My take away from this is that declarative knowledge is: true belief that, on account of being true, can be factually justified without end were one to so want and be capable of doing. In practice, we never spend an entire lifetime factually justifying one single belief-that, so our justifications are never perfect but always approximate. Regardless, we assume that anything we consider a known could be so justified ad infinitum without and problems manifesting in the process. The shortened version of all this is then, imo, JTB. — javra

But aren't you answering a different question, namely "when is someone justified in believing they have knowledge"? The person in the Russell clock case - and other Gettier style cases - may well be justified in believing they have knowledge. But it still seems true (and would seem true to them too, were they aware of the nature of their situation) that they do not, in fact, possess knowledge.

Although I believe Bartricks thinks he does because he thinks the broken clock lends epistemic justification. — fiveredapples

I do not think this - I think they 'can' lend justification. I'm a holist about knowledge. That is, I think what transforms a true belief into knowledge in one context, may not in another.

So, sometimes an agent has a true belief about the time, but it fails to qualify as knowledge due to the fact it was based on the report of a broken clock.

But sometimes an agent has a true belief about the time and it 'does' qualify as knowledge even though it was based on the report of a broken clock.

That's going to be the case whatever condition you specify. It'll provide you with the correct explanation of why an agent lacks knowledge in some cases, but a false one in others.

To return to my analogy with deliciousness: sometimes I find something I am eating delicious due to the presence of chocolate in it. But sometimes I find something I am eating foul due to the presence of chocolate in it.

What a curious response. I showed why there was no need to invoke the notion of luck in your treatment of the two knowledge claim scenarios. Your only coherent response is to argue why my objection is somehow mistaken or insufficient. Instead, you want to move on to some other point without admitting your error. — fiveredapples

How is that curious? First, I showed why your alternative to my 'luck' analysis is false. Note, the only evidence you provided that I was mistaken was the putative truth of your analysis. So I refuted your analysis.

Before we spend more sweat and tears on responses to each other, I want to highlight a very important disagreement we have, which might be the source of most of our disagreements. You believe that a broken clock can lend epistemic justification to beliefs about the time. I believe that a broken clock cannot lend such justification. Unless we address this disagreement, we're going to be talking past each other quite a bit. We might simply have different intuitions about knowledge. — fiveredapples

No, we're not talking past each other. I refuted your view. How? I outlined a case in which a person forms a belief about the time based on a broken clock's report - and it was clear that the person's belief qualified as knowledge. Your analysis would insist it would not qualify as knowledge. It does - clearly it does - therefore your analysis is false.

There are other cases - fake barn cases - that also imply your analysis is false.

So, the question to others is, can a broken clock lend epistemic justification to beliefs about the time? Or, in simpler English, if you come to believe that it's 3 PM based on your looking at a broken clock, do you have the right kind of justification for your true belief -- by sheer coincidence, the time actually is 3 PM ---- to count as knowledge? — fiveredapples

No, there are cases and cases. Individual cases need to be described. Our intuitions are about particular cases, not about principles.

So, if you present someone with the original clock case then they may well agree that the reason why the agent's belief fails to qualify as knowledge is that it is based on the report of a broken clock.

Note, I do not deny that this is true of that case.

But if you then present them with 'my' broken clock case, they are likely to agree that the agent's belief does qualify as knowledge.

Likewise with Potemkin barn cases.

No it isn't. We have a concept 'of' time, but time is not a concept. The past, the present and the future are real. It is not by convention that there is a now. There 'is' a now, and we have come up with ways - no doubt confused - to express this.

Yes, that's correct. Space - conceived of as a dimension or stuff - shares some of the same problems.

As for 'absolute' time - I am not sure what you mean.

I do not dispute that time essentially consists of the properties of present, past and future. But your analysis simply assumes that time is a dimension. The OP provides several reasons for thinking this is a misconception. Those problems have not been addressed.

For instance, can something exist that is infinitely extended? Well, no. For instance, when a position is shown to generate an infinite regress, we consider that a damning indictment of the view. Why? Because we - most of us - recognise that actual infinities cannot exist.

Now consider that any event in the past recedes potentially infinitely further into the past. Well, if we conceive of time as a dimension then the only way it would be possible for an event to recede infinitely into the past is if time itself extends infinitely - yet as just shown, nothing can be like that. Thus time is not a dimension.

they are all wrong, see op for details.

Salva Veritate. — creativesoul

Yes, veritable saliva.

No, Smith's belief is about the person who will occupy the role.

But even if it rigidly designates Jones - and it doesn't - we could easily construct another Gettier case in which Smith's belief about Jones's coin situation is justified, true, and not knowledge.

I described such a case. You either didn't read it, or didn't understand it

Addressediumed I didium. Youvium est confusedium. De ja vu. (sorry, that's French).

No. I have both cases right. — creativesoul

Yes, but you're confidently wrong about that, Confidentlywrong. The relevant belief is about the person who will occupy the post, not Jones specifically.

And even if it was about Jones specifically - which is isn't - we could construct a case in which the belief is about Jones yet does not qualify as knowledge. I did that, but you didn't read it.

I consent. That is modus tollens. — creativesoul

Yes - 'denying the consequent'.

Ah, perhaps my replies don't sound Latin enough. So, here goes: Yourvium understandium est Gettier cases hoc confused rubbishium.

Ah, your such a dick! — creativesoul

Classy. Is you upset because the nasty man did some clever on you?

Oh, and it is 'you are' or 'you're' not 'your'.

Do you also agree that you're completely wrong about Gettier cases? If I remember rightly, in our last spat you seemed to think it is crucially important that one is called Smith and the other Jones. That's right, isn't it?

Humble pie. Shovel. Your mouth. Come along, eat up.

Denying the antecedent...

Not valid. — creativesoul

No, denying the consequent. Valid.

Look, confidentlywrong, you're confidentlywrong. Get on that.