Because otherwise we would have no possible explanation of how the watch functions. — JuanZu

there must be an ontological continuity between the clock and those movements. — JuanZu

Wayfarer knows how I feel about idealism very well. We argued about it for years! — fdrake

Bergson considers an oscillating pendulum, moving back and forth. At each moment, the pendulum occupies a different position in space, like the points on a line or the moving hands on a clockface. In the case of a clock, the current state – the current time – is what we call ‘now’. Each successive ‘now’ of the clock contains nothing of the past because each moment, each unit, is separate and distinct. But this is not how we experience time. Instead, we hold these separate moments together in our memory. We unify them. A physical clock measures a succession of moments, but only experiencing duration allows us to recognise these seemingly separate moments as a succession. Clocks don’t measure time; we do. — Aeon.co

For years, Trumpists falsely accused the DOJ of being politicized, to provide cover for Trump's criminal behavior. Now they're overtly politicizing it — Relativist

What I want you to understand is why the measuring device is necessary — JuanZu

But there must be an ontological continuity between the clock and those movements. — JuanZu

The observer is subsumed in this interaction in such a way as to make that interaction physical. So the observer is our measuring machines, like a clock, which makes the coherent state of an isolated system disappear. — JuanZu

You can know stuff about the stuff about which nothing can be known? — Banno

Kant's introduced the concept of the “thing in itself” to refer to reality as it is independent of our experience of it and unstructured by our cognitive constitution. The concept was harshly criticized in his own time and has been lambasted by generations of critics since. A standard objection to the notion is that Kant has no business positing it given his insistence that we can only know what lies within the limits of possible experience. But a more sympathetic reading is to see the concept of the “thing in itself” as a sort of placeholder in Kant's system; it both marks the limits of what we can know and expresses a sense of mystery that cannot be dissolved, the sense of mystery that underlies our unanswerable questions. Through both of these functions it serves to keep us humble.

Again, how could you know this? — Banno

If time only passes from a perspective, then clocks would be pointless. Clocks have a use becasue time also passes independently of perspective — Banno

In some possible world there are no minds. — Banno

We would not measure time because that accuracy is not given by our experience but by the clock mechanism. Hence it is the clock that measure. — JuanZu

We don't actually measure the time from the clock, the clock does the work automatically, we read that measurement. — JuanZu

appeal to authority — Banno

He is assuming time is relative rather than absolute. Notice he says: "The passage of time is not absolute" — Metaphysician Undercover

How are they actually stopping the people responsible for disbursing the funds from disbursing them? Can you answer that? — Janus

It cannot be concluded that time does not exist without minds. It's an illegitimate leap. — Banno

The problem of including the observer in our description of physical reality arises most insistently when it comes to the subject of quantum cosmology - the application of quantum mechanics to the universe as a whole - because, by definition, 'the universe' must include any observers.

Andrei Linde has given a deep reason for why observers enter into quantum cosmology in a fundamental way. It has to do with the nature of time. The passage of time is not absolute; it always involves a change of one physical system relative to another, for example, how many times the hands of the clock go around relative to the rotation of the Earth. When it comes to the Universe as a whole, time looses its meaning, for there is nothing else relative to which the universe may be said to change. This 'vanishing' of time for the entire universe becomes very explicit in quantum cosmology, where the time variable simply drops out of the quantum description. It may readily be restored by considering the Universe to be separated into two subsystems: an observer with a clock, and the rest of the Universe.

So the observer plays an absolutely crucial role in this respect. Linde expresses it graphically: 'thus we see that without introducing an observer, we have a dead universe, which does not evolve in time', and, 'we are together, the Universe and us. The moment you say the Universe exists without any observers, I cannot make any sense out of that. I cannot imagine a consistent theory of everything that ignores consciousness...in the absence of observers, our universe is dead'. — Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life, p 271

How could you know that? — Janus

That tells us nothing about time. Only about believing, doubting, and measuring. — Banno

I don't know enough to know if the article is correct — Janus

Is he actually flouting the law, the courts? — Janus

Every one of President Trump's most sweeping executive orders is now being challenged in court by multiple lawsuits.

But time? It needs human mind to exist. Are we being extreme idealists here? — Corvus

If mankind is a part of nature, then no act of mankind within nature is open to judgement. However, if mankind is separate to nature, for what reason does mankind have a responsibility to nature, and if mankind does have a responsibility, then its relationship with nature may be open to judgement. — RussellA

How would it flow? If time is a general concept which covers all the temporality in general, how would time flow without human mind perceiving, measuring, asking, and telling? — Corvus

Question: Do magnetic phenomena refute the Empiricist claim that an ordinary object (such as a magnet) is nothing more than a bundle of perceptible qualities corresponding to the five human senses? — Arcane Sandwich

David Hume famously suggested that there is nothing more to an ordinary object, such as an apple, than what we can be perceive with our five senses. The apple is simply a bundle of qualities. It has colors, it makes a certain sound when I munch on it, it has a fragrant aroma, it has a sweet taste, and it feels solid to the touch. But there is no philosophical substance or res extensa underneath, so to speak, supporting those qualities. — Arcane Sandwich

What do you think of van Fraassen work? He's an Empiricist. — Arcane Sandwich

Plato was addressing an intuition he had (I speculate, from Socrates) that humans approach things already and inevitably "clouded" by the concepts history has constructed. — ENOAH