Hello, I read your interesting paper and did have a question for you. It is a question I have myself thought for some time [and I really hope it is not singularly relevant to my own mental processes], and maybe it is relevant here but I might botch some of your terminology a little! You think of the 'state model' in relation to thought, and my question is on visual memory, bordering somewhat on the phenomena of imagination. Let's say you are actively remembering the face of a beautiful girl you met this afternoon when you are in bed and almost asleep---because you find her face attractive. How come, when you are consciously or actively recalling that girl's face, the dress she wore also features in your mental picture, without you having to consciously recall it? For it would be strange if it were just a face floating without context, but it usually isn't. What aspect of consciousness would explain that inadvertent inclusion of a detail such as a dress, almost a bit of unconscious imagination, but which is such that, if you turn your attention to it, is fully clear and apparent to your 'mind's eye' in much the same way as the girl's beautiful face is? I feel like focusing on the 'forcefully' thought thoughts that a conscious mind can think is not sufficient to answer this question convincingly. But with this example I am not talking about full-fledged dreams, which many noteworthy theorists posit fully on the side of the unconscious. Perhaps a bit outrageously, I am suggesting that the divide between conscious and not-conscious, intentional and unintentional, is difficult to actually define, even in the case of a seemingly singular mental memory image, as in the example I have given. But I think the most important practical point is that, if there is a bit of unintentional content [like the dress] in our visual memories/thoughts, then can we ever expect to 'artificially program' that into any AI, assuming we want to make that AI very similar to humans? In any case, these might sound like particular questions in response to your theory, but I still think it is food for thought! Please do let me know what your responses are, including if I am incorrect somewhere regarding what you are going for. Good paper though, I enjoyed it!

If you remove a big rock from a river all at once, some of the water fills the gap that is left, and so the water that filled it becomes discrete upon completely filling that gap. This discreteness is impermanent not because of that water's own tendency to flow, but because there is a whole river of flow pushing up against it. So, that initial 'block of water' is moved by the force of the flow of water behind it, and another block takes up the space of that previous block for itself, and again, becomes discrete, because the previous block of water was discrete, but again for a brief duration because of more flow behind it. The newer water takes up the space of the previous water incrementally, but in the final step it has taken no more space than the initial block, that initial bit of discreteness. So, in a sense, whichever block of water that comes 'there' becomes discrete because that gap has an origin and a 'history' of discreteness. Same goes for pressing a piece of wood upon the surface of the river, I feel, for a particular region of water comes to fill it once you remove the wood, and that region of water can be thought of as having become discrete for a bit before the rest of the flow also comes to become discrete there. So, the tendency towards discreteness is in the flow, because there is no other way, since discreteness, once established, is permanent, in the sense of constantly having a 'chain-reaction' type of history.

So rather than focus on the apparent contradiction, appreciate the fundamental mutuality of the metaphysical dichotomy which is the discrete~continuous. — apokrisis

They might certainly be fundamentally mutually established as you say, but all sorts of value systems come in when we start using one with the other. For a start, which one does the philosopher or scientist use first, the discrete or the continuous, in their analysis? This might influence a lot of their analysis.

But my main point was that in any flow, I can easily make discrete marks, by shifting some of the flow away. But once those discrete marks have been made, I cannot really erase them at all--they are permanent, their shell remains even if their content is erased. Even if I want to make a flow where I have made discrete marks, those discrete marks end up existing in form. Since all flow can be shifted, but all discrete marks are permanent, as an analytic tool at least, discreteness is more reliable than continuity.

One who abides by your view still needs to make a switch from the discrete view to the continuous view and vice versa, I am assuming. But is that switch convincing when we go from discrete to continuous in some cases? For example, in some systems of length measurement, if one erases the set of discrete marks from a given reality, there are still the erasure marks themselves the still designate a discrete measure, and one only assumes that the marks are gone and one is perceiving things continuously now. For example, if you use an eraser to erase marks from a map, those white gaps signifying your erasure are still marking the map discretely. So, it is only a matter of assumption that the discrete view has been 'switched off' and the continuous view is now valid, in my given example. You might think that this example is too random and too particularly about the type of eraser I have, but I feel like my operating with one particular eraser is sufficient reason for me to think the discrete view has validity. The permanence of those discrete marks, such that their absence is itself a notable absence, means that the discrete-ness of reality cannot really ever be overcome, and in this sense it is more relevant to reality than the continuous view, which is like a reaction dependent on whether you choose to identify the gaps of erasure as discrete marks or not. The discrete is there whereas the continuous is an 'argumentative leap' based on an assumed definition of erasure. One can only go so far as to assume for the sake of some function one wants to do that the discrete marks are not relevant, but they are never any less real, in my example. Even if you physically remove a concrete entity from the fabric of reality, to vividly demonstrate the continuous view to someone, that hole where that entity was is still a discrete, concrete hole. In this sense, at least, the discrete-ness of reality seems a permanent feature, and making the switch to a continuous view is a rather 'arbitrary' project. Even if a flow completely fills that hole you have made by removing a discrete item, like let's say when you remove a big rock from the middle of a river and the river fills the hole with its own flowing water, a discrete function is seen to be active, because the river is filling a discrete hole, the river is engaging with a discrete-ness. Even if you think that rock was continuous to begin with, I think you have come to that conclusion based on the erasure of discrete marks you first made from it, which, I am trying to say, is not ever that convincing, as the gaps of erasure are themselves discrete markings, and could readily be used for a discrete measurement or process. So, discrete-ness is basic, as a point of departure for the assumption of continuity. It has to thus be a little more real, a little more true, at least. I hope this made some sense at least.

Beginning, Middle & End and Past, Present, & Future are human concepts, not natural increments. Are you thinking otherwise? — Gnomon

Yes, I agree that they are human concepts. Let's say a person hallucinates a river, and so, it is completely that person's river, a 'human' river. My question is, how is it possible to conduct and operate with quite plausible analysis of that hallucinated river using concepts of Beginning, Middle and End, regardless of the truth that any river is not in fact broken into such steps? Why can any statement on that river not necessarily have to reference its true nature of flow at all? How come the discrete view is not very irrelevant, in the manner in which if someone asked that person, "what's the weather like outside?" that person replied "it smells like a white light"? The discrete view has to correspond accurately to something, whether in nature or in the imagination. Even if the middle phase is a content of a human's consciousness assuming things are discrete, and not really 'out there' in nature, it is thus still a middle phase somewhere, even if it is within the thought image in an assumption. In short, the discrete view is not as lacking of a correspondence as 2+2=5 is. If someone hallucinates a river, and then says to you "I hallucinated a discrete river" you wouldn't think that river looked in their eyes any different from a real, natural river, right? If someone said, "I am beside a huge flooding river, but I view it as discrete" you would still warn them to run away from the flooding river, for you would know they were talking about a natural river, and not an 'unnatural' river with joints. That means the discrete view has some strange credibility where it is perfectly capable of corresponding to a real object, ie, the river. Really hope this made sense!

I apologize for sliding into some irrelevance up there, but more will follow! Your point is a really interesting point, but how are the no sound point in a volume dial and the max sound point in a volume dial transit points? Are they rather not 'interior limits' to how soft/loud the sound can become? The sound becomes 12 dB loud, but does not go beyond, so it cannot be a transit point, and has to be the interior end point, as I see it. I was actually thinking of systems like that when I made my post.

If you say 'everything flows,' it is as if my loud song always already exists at 12dB and that that loud song is only a transit point in something getting louder. But before my turning the dial approaches that loudness of 12dB, my song at that loudness does not even exist, so how can it flow from there? I am a little suspicious that my example of sound here might not be scientifically founded, but I am asking philosophically.

Maybe you are questioning how the human mind can analyze seemingly unbroken processes of change into smaller bits. — Gnomon

I think the human mind does not just "analyze" unbroken processes of change into smaller bits, because the eyes can actually 'see' reality [or nature: I use reality and nature interchangeably, if you don't mind] as broken into smaller bits. I see a piece of metal as non-rusty one day at 12 noon, a little rusty at night at 12 AM, and then the next day I see it as fully rusty 12 noon. If you really get down to looking 'microscopically' at the change by observing it continuously rather than at 12 o'clocks only [this continuous observation, by the way, would show a subjective engagement with reality, given how the periods of observation themselves have first been increased from being discrete to a status where they seem continuous], I can guess there is no joint in between, but I could at least imagine it in my mind as being a very obvious joint-based becoming of that piece of metal--like flipping a switch from "no rust" to "middle rust" to "full rust" at the three 12 o'clocks I observed them. Even if reality itself is a continuum, and the sight of smaller, joint-based parts of it is an illusion, I would now ask, inside that realm of illusion, how the middle phase is traversed. Your denial of joints in reality/nature has not denied the joints for the eyes, as I see it. As I see it, the point of asserting that reality is continuous has the implicit message that the eyes do not see it as continuous and the mind does not process it as continuous. So, what is the 'truth value' of those optic and mental perceptions and analyses; what to make of the joints therein? As for the science, I know I am probably completely wrong about all that! I was sincerely asking from the metaphysical side of things. In sum, if nature was continuous, or a flow, I would have gotten the sense of its continuity even if I observed it now, and then ten years from now, and then twenty years from now, if continuity was really its independent nature. But I am sure that if I took three photos of these three temporally distant observations of nature, and put them side by side, at least my eyes and my mind will convincingly be able to identify joints in there, though they may not be really present in that nature itself.

As I have thought it, it is the third point in a triangle. Literally the third corner that makes it a triangular form. The points are not points of time but their time-based origins and ends and natures can be analyzed.

Thanks for your analysis. First, let me say that the problem is that by my definition a form has three points at least, so it is not about whether I need the third point in my theory---it is that reality has three-pointed forms as its most basic forms. Now I will try to explain my theory given what you have written. I feel like what you say explains the first cause, or the arising of the first point, well. Your analysis uses logic, so we can sum up and say that the first cause/point is explained by analysis via logic. The second point, since it arises second in this sequence, is explainable in part by whatever we have used to explain the first. So, the simplest explanation would be: "The second point arose in dependence on the first point, and since the first point is explainable by logic, the second point, by association with the first, is also explainable by logic. It is dependent on the first point, and it is logical in its arising like the first point." So far so good. The problem of the third point is that it is both unique [like the other two points, with its own place and arising] and yet a point in the given form. One cannot say the third point is explainable in the way the first point is, because if it were like the first point it would have to be a source of a new form, ie another triangle, and not be a third point in the triangle we are given. If you say the third point arose in dependence on the first point, then it wouldn't necessarily have as unique a place, ie, a form would not be completed, for the third point would simply be the opposite end of a straight line and not construct a triangle with the other two points. If one instead says the more convincing: "the third point depends on the second point," again, there is a reason to believe that we would have a straight line---it could simply arise next to the second point, in a sense, and not be above the other two points. In short, any explanation on the third point would explain the extension of a line, but not the extension of a form. But we actually have a triangle, which, to me, makes the third point unique from both the other points. There is an explanation for the uniqueness of the first and second points, as we have seen, but no necessary explanation for the uniqueness of the third point in a form. The explanation via logic used for the first point and the explanation via dependence on the first point used for the second point cannot be used on the third point. And since these two types of explanation constitute the whole field of types of explanations, there really is no explanation for the third point at all. It is there, it is real, for it is the third point in a form and hence is completely within the field of reality, but it cannot be explained by the tools we have. So, it is an ineffable mystery, in the sense that it completely escapes the type of logic you did for the first point as well as an explanation that says "the third point is dependent on the second point." I might be missing something here, but that is my theory as it stands in a nutshell. Hope this is somewhat clearer..

I feel like the idea of absurdity implies that there is an explanation to something and that that explanation is absurd, like an explanation we cannot accept about something. So, absurd explanations would be suited for the first point in my theory of three points, in the sense that the explanations can be given for the first point but they are not easily acceptable. For some, God might be an explanation with a low degree of absurdity, for others the Big Bang might be absurd but still acceptable. But I don't know if I would say the drastic departure from all explanatory frameworks is an absurd situation first and foremost. The exclusion of the third point in my theory from all explanatory frameworks just makes the whole form first and foremost unspeakable---I feel like one cannot even 'enter' into the third point, even a little bit, to ascribe a characteristic like absurd to it. Also, to say the form is absurd is to give it an additional layer of interpretation, for me, which would be synonymous in a way with the unspeakable description but still feels heavy on the subjective side, if you get me. I feel like a Buddhist might say [and I am not all that sure], the assigning of 'absurd' to this situation would be too much of a 'view.' So, I would still insist that 'ineffable' is as far as we can go to describe the third point [and thus the whole form]--for me, it is not ineffable because it is absurd, rather it is absurd because it is ineffable; one does not first make contact with its absurdity and then say it is ineffable, rather it is ineffable first, which is to say it gives one no 'surface' to make contact with at all. But I do feel that to say it is absurd is a more expressive description, hitting at an aspect of mental life that the actual situation engenders. At least that's from what I understand about absurdity as a descriptor!

Your original question may be motivated by a scientific desire to slice the "flow" of Change (cause & effect) into ever smaller increments. — Gnomon

No, I don't think my question was motivated by that; it was actually about 'in-between-ness' in becoming as such. A cup of tea is 'sliced' such that it is felt as hot for two minutes, cool for 24 hours and frozen for 2 minutes afterwards, let's say. Science can investigate very small increments and tell me why that change happened in terms of particles, room temperature, the external climate etc. But I am asking why it is possible for that 'change' of temperature to happen, for there to be 'in-between-ness' in reality. Basically, I am asking why there can be made at the very least three slices to any 'thing,' as this idea of becoming I have in mind seems to have it.

For someone who strictly believes in becoming, to know hot did not become cold, slices have to be made to the thing, and in those slices an observation has to be made that coldness is elusive or absent. This can be the only application of the concept of elusiveness or absence in becoming; ie, when the sought out attribute [here, cold] is completely irrelevant to the slices. So, elusiveness cannot work as an attribute for anything present in a given becoming is my basic point, and the only viable alternate option for an attribute I can apply to the middle phase is 'fragility,' which is such a concept that, if it is accepted, there can really be no becoming at all.

What real world example of "something in between" being overlooked or trivialized provoked you to ask the question? — Gnomon

There is not any thing like that to be honest :smile: . But the problem is that it is difficult to say that the idea of a 'continual progression' is 'not in the human mind' whereas the idea of digitized 'a series of steps' is. I don't see why 'continual progression' should be any more empirically established in the real world, whereas our digitized categorizations of reality is not. Why do you think so?

If I were to think about what makes me talk about the 'something in between,' I would say the names and presence of entities themselves: that in a theoretical A-to-B-to-C flow, there is a label, a name, B, and it looks a certain, unique way, and so the question of why it is there, what its nature is, and what happens to it, such that C is possible after it, is raised. To continue with the color example, if a hypothetical animal changes color from yellow to orange to red in the exact same place on its skin, what is the philosophical status of that orange, and why is the transformation to red possible in the first place if orange could have been an obstacle that prevented it? Why would things not simply have been 'digital' in the sense of shifting one step from yellow to red, and not passing something else in between yellow and red in at least three [but maybe infinitely many] steps? But yes, maybe it is a question for science and not philosophy, but to take the idea of becoming or continuity as a given is also a philosophical position, and one which I am trying to argue against here.

If one endorses the view that everything flows, an endpoint doesn't exist - everything is an in-between. — TheMadFool

Yes, if 'everything flows' is taken broadly as a principle in reality, then there are no end-points, I completely agree. But I feel like given a particular frame of reference, where there is a flow between two end-points and not before and beyond that, there has to definitely be a difference in the nature of the thing that is in the middle of the flow and the nature of the end-points. Maybe this is plainly theoretical on my part and not empirical. But, when you say "yellow keeps flowing" and then say "orange keeps flowing," then the referenced entity that keeps flowing are different in each of your statements, the point being that 'every thing,' ie each individual thing, flows, rather than 'All is one flow.' So, a similar question still stands: how does the nature of the flowing entity change from yellow flowing to orange flowing to finally red flowing in a given process? If orange was just an elusive middle phase, we would not have seen it, whether as a stable thing or as a flow, and there would have been no way to say it was "orange" flowing. Rather, we would say this process of becoming is yellow-to-red [a 'digital' kind of process] and not yellow-to-orange-to red [a process of becoming]. The question is how do we have the name and reference of an entity called orange when it is a middle-phase, regardless, I think, of whether it is a flowing middle phase or a static middle phase. We would not have it if its nature was to be completely elusive. I think we have the reference because it exists as a distinct thing, again distinct either as flowing or static, but then gets broken up in a particular flow that has red as its end-point. As for the process of becoming in my mind, I am thinking of the end-points as already pre-determined, in the sense that the end-point red is an absence of yellow and the end-point yellow is an absence of red. Now, for me, the middle-point orange is not an absence of both yellow and red, which would make it elusive. Rather, it is definitely there, for a definite duration, but it gets broken up in the flow of becoming because its nature is fragility. This is of course not a scientific fragility, like it was made of a weaker 'substance and form' than yellow or red, and I really do not know why it is fragile, only that, if it is the middle phase and yet is not elusive, it has to be considered fragile. Maybe this gets to the Buddhist-ic idea of a thing being neither A nor B and both A and B as well. Both these options are not satisfying, to me, because they ultimately paint that thing as elusive, as not having some kind of identity of its own. This is not empirically satisfying when orange is clearly there and is clearly identifiable with a label or a name: orange. So, I would say the Buddhist 'neither A nor B' and 'both A and B' are the language of elusiveness, when the more empirically satisfying language has to be the language of fragility--orange is fragile if it is the middle stage in a flow of becoming. Again, this raises all kinds of problems for the idea of becoming or flow--for any continuity between yellow and red is not there if orange, the middle point, is broken up completely. Yellow would be yellow and red would be red, with no concept of becoming to explain a relation between them, because even if yellow became orange, let's say, if that orange is fragile, it cannot possibly have become red.

It is a victim of the momentum of time itself. Whatever that is! :cool: — jgill

I think that is very well said. The way you put it suggests that time is not that gentle a flow, and that it is not so much the middle-phase thing which is fragile, but time which is strong.

On level of intuition, for me survival of both the body, brain, and memories seems important, but I dont know if they actually are. — AJ88

I had a thought once that, if things in the external world reached a certain level of noise, like literally a lot of different sounds coming and going in quick succession or layering etc, then one could never be fully certain that one's brain, mind or consciousness did not add a small sound of its own in the midst of that noise without it itself being conscious of it. I was thinking of noise with a lot of moving parts as an auditory hallucination trigger. So my thinking is that if waking life reaches a certain level of noisiness [not just in terms of sound but even images, smells, tastes, thoughts], consciousness/mind adds a small noise of similar form, but itself does not notice its own addition because it is so noisy. During sleep, I again see reality or perception as having noise. Once you close your eyes, you see a fulness of darkness that is like an opaque noise, in a way, and so maybe the mind adds something to it without even noticing that it has done so. My speculative point here is that consciousness or mind does not perish or die at night, but gently adds darkness to the darkness it encounters. So the mind is still active. Now, this is speculative [there being no scientific evidence that the mind adds a noise in a noisy place!], but still worth maybe a quick thought.

Therefore, like Einstein, I suspect that the solution to the stated problem depends on your perspective --- it's all relative. The paradox results from the assumption of Infinities in the Real world. But the physical solution is found, only if you ignore idealistic Infinity. So, are asking for an Ideal answer, or a Real answer? :nerd: — Gnomon

I don't know if I was thinking of sub-dividing something to reach something extremely small, such that the question of infinity is raised. Rather, I was thinking of why, in any process we call 'becoming,' where there are at least three phases, with two end-points and a middle point, the middle phase gets passed over or traversed. Is it because it is elusive, as if in a sense it was never there? I do not think this line is convincing, because you can clearly see the middle phase in some processes of becoming. While you are right that a lot of the middle phases in any becoming are elusive, and cannot be seen, because, in a sense, they are infinitely small, I believe that even when some middle phase is very evident and visible, but it gets traversed, there has to be some explanation as to why it gets traversed. The explanation that the middle phase is so small that it is Idealistically infinite only works for some entities in the middle phase but not all of them. That was why I was proposing that the middle phases which are visible and evident, that we clearly see and know as not being the final end-point, are not elusive but fragile, that is, some phase or entity which gets broken apart in the very flow of that becoming. And the problem is, if that middle phase is broken up in becoming, then what really becomes the final phase? If yellow has a clear orange as a middle phase, but that orange gets broken up in the flow of becoming, what really becomes red [assuming the whole chain of becoming is yellow-to-orange-to-red]? This is why the notion of becoming itself appears problematic for me. Instead, we are left to imagine some kind of creative force that is active after the middle phase has been traversed, that is, after orange has fragmented and broken up in the flow of becoming. Otherwise, the arising of red as an end-point in this process cannot be explained. This eventually leads to the conclusion that there is no such thing as becoming, that there are only stable beings, and that becoming is an illusion. Now, the real and ideal distinction is important here, as you suggested. However, I am not thinking of the natural world when I imagine a machine that is causing a yellow-to-orange-to-red becoming; instead, I am thinking of a specific machine which just allows one singular entity to start from yellow, traverse orange, and become red, and it can be orange for any unit or span of time--the point being that that orange is traversed, overcome, even though it is not elusive. In sum, when fragility of a middle-phase entity in the flow of becoming is the only way to explain this process, then becoming itself becomes problematic as a concept. So, I am going for a quite Real answer, as you put it.

What if during these times... in both your life in this universe and your life in another universe... these are gateways or "opportunities" for your alternate selves to experience or "view" these lives while dreaming? We've all done or said things during times "when we're not paying attention" or simply "lost track of the time"... do you think this theory could possibly account for this? — Outlander

I really like this idea. Of late, I have been thinking not of the enchantment of the dream's world objects and storylines, but rather for me the important thing has been subject formation in, or at the edge of, the dream world. I like to think about the philosophy and processes behind how some waking subject or self gets carried to, 'taken to' or 'invited into' a dream world. I literally imagine someone walking from a dark place to the dream's more enchanting world! The interesting philosophical question here is whether we ought to think of a dream world as already having been constituted or constructed, so that a subject or self can be 'brought to it' when he/she falls asleep, in much the same way one enters an already built city for the first time. Clearly, we are not building the dream world with our hands and tools, but experiencing it as selves. Thinking of subject/self formation in dreams in this way, one could really see that your ideas of alternate/parallel universes as being accessed in dream- and dream-like states have credence, for if the dream world is already constructed/constituted and we only enter it, it is not just 'similar to' a parallel/alternate universe, but wholly is a parallel/alternate universe.

What happens when you ask the story of how yellow turns into blue? Why does it have to pass through white to get there? — apokrisis

If we think that yellow does not have to pass through some other color to get to blue, I think we may have the issue of whether we are dealing with the same entity when we say "it was yellow" and "it is blue." In my mind it is even more difficult to think of a continuity between a yellow entity and a blue entity if there is no becoming in between that made that yellow entity that blue entity. If something yellow became something blue, then I can say one single thing changed color. If, however, I try to think of a 'digital' type of shift from yellow to blue, without becoming, it is almost as if there are two distinct entities there, one yellow and the other blue. We can say, "It was yellow. It is blue." but are we really talking about the same "it" in both those sentences? Wouldn't their difference in color be the defining mark that would make them different entities? I don't know..I think will need to think more about this, but thanks for raising your points.

But it doesn't actually exist on the electromagnetic spectrum. There is no magenta wavelength. — Bird-Up

Thanks for raising this point. But I feel like you are thinking of becoming as the process between two prominent end points [for eg, two colors with wave lengths] and an elusive middle [eg, magenta]. I would say that even if all points were well-known, even if, let's say, a machine in charge of becoming made an entity magenta in color for years and years, when it finally becomes some other color, how are we to think of what happened to that magenta? It is difficult to say it was elusive, for it was there for years and years, so it is almost as if some stronger way of understanding the process is needed. So, I would say that any middle point in a becoming gets broken apart in the flow of becoming, as it is fragile, not elusive. Even if magenta is there for years and years, once that entity becomes some other color, we must come to see it as actually fragile.

I think you are also viewing red as a final stage but it can also be a transitory stage. Everything is ever changing. — philosopher004

I completely agree with this. But when I was thinking of this, I was actually thinking of a machine that stops the process of becoming at red. I think you mean that in nature generally red can also be a transitory stage, which is true, but I do wonder about the 'less-than-everything' field here.

As for the scientific explanation, I know there has to be some explanation as to how one color becomes another color. But I think my point was trying to go more into the why: why does the transitory stage between two colors give way, philosophically speaking? To me, the idea that a transitory stage is elusive is not very persuasive. So, I began to think of the entity at the transitory phase as fragile, broken up and apart, no matter how subtle the flow of becoming in which it is.

And how do we attribute existence to the moment in time at which that color exists? Does time flow in a continuum of instants? Or does it exist only in intervals? Bergson argued that time as we live it is in duration (durée réelle), and time for science is a matter of instants - allowing for the freezing of time for purposes of calculations, like instantaneous velocity. So the existence of "a traversed thing" is equivalent to an instant of time. — jgill

You raise interesting points; it leads me to think [or at least speculate] that a lot might depend on the specific type of process or machine that is causing the becoming. What I mean is that, for a quite sophisticated machine, maybe we are able to see the becoming for quite a long duration such that we see the orange phase between the yellow and red throughout certain moments in time before it gives way to red. So, my answer is to say that "the traversed thing" is not necessarily a point in a continuum of some kind, because one can often see some traversed thing as a single traversed thing, equivalent to an instant of time as you say, depending on such things like the speed of the process of becoming, even though one cannot see all traversed things in any becoming. I am trying to say that some of the traversed things are not elusive at all, as points on a continuum might be thought to be, but that they are fragile, and cannot participate in the flow of becoming after they have arisen. The thought is not about whether a traversed thing is 'missed by calculation' on the one hand or 'properly calculable' on the other, for it is completely there to see, completely visible and concrete, like the color orange in a yellow-to-red becoming done by a sophisticated machine...but why does orange 'give way' even after it has become visible in a particular yellow-to-red flow of becoming?

Everything starts out continuous and ends discrete — Gregory

That's a really interesting philosophy. It seems, from your point, that the in-between phases in a supposed becoming are all a continuous part of the first point in a becoming, while the end point is an absolutely distinct point. Quite cool!

And apologies for getting Zeno's name wrong.

Hence, those frequencies of on-off blinking (max/min; yes/no; something/nothing; positive/negative; hot/cold; energy/entropy; potential/actual) are increments of Planck Time. So there is no physical "substance" in between color states --- just the Potential for being, that I call Intention, Causation, Time in action. — Gnomon

It's cool, your thoughts were good to hear and I am thinking about them out loud here, although the terminology is quite new to me. So, one unit of Planck time [ie, one 'blink'] is something with nothing else in between, but just the "Potential for being," as you say? But is it not true that given there was a duration, no matter how short, between the hot entity staying hot and then becoming cold, something actual happened in that duration to that entity? If there is no becoming, ie, no process- and time- based based transformation from off to on or hot to cold, then what makes us say it is the same single entity that was once hot that now is cold, or off that now is on? Without becoming, would it not be two distinct entities that have the two phases? Your thoughts were very good food for thought for me, thanks!

Sounds like a transposition of Xeno's traversing half of a half of a half... distance with color.

If physics solves Xeno's paradox by pointing to the relationship between distance and time as measured for a moving object, then maybe we can apply it to a color continuum (or perceived changes in color states) in some way. — Nils Loc

Yes, now that you mention it, it does sound like Xeno's paradox! Physics probably does have an answer for this. I might need to think this through, but here's a response: I think the difference is that when we speak of the change of position of an arrow, like Xeno does, we get the sense that that arrow is impossible to locate at any one point in space. The arrow is, in other words, elusive. But I have been trying to think becoming in terms of the fragility, and not the elusive-ness, of the in-between. Maybe this means that in becoming one need not look for where the arrow is when one does not find it at the location it is supposed to be in. Rather, in becoming, one knows exactly that orange is supposed to be 'located' between yellow and red, but it is still not there, so it must have been destroyed in [or close to] the flow of becoming. And, if that is so, ie, as soon as you say something is destroyed between the two poles in a becoming, big problems emerge for the idea of becoming itself.

But if you consider yellow as the initial stage and orange as the final stage then there are still transitory phases present. Then we cannot even consider orange as a fixed state.

Yes, I agree. The way I see it, all processes involving becoming have a starting point and an end point, but with transitory phases in between. So yes, between yellow and orange, there would be many shades of darker yellow before we get to orange. But the problem is why does any process of becoming end where it end and not end before? For me, it has to be because of some fragility to the transitory phases, and not because they are 'elusive.' If we think in terms of the transitory phases being elusive, we are already not thinking along-with the process and only thinking-back once the process has ended.

As to your other point, I think it is really interesting that you think an entity in becoming is broken up but not annihilated. But even when we think that it is broken up and not completely annihilated, it is still hard to see how it participates in a flow of becoming as one single thing, which it has to be, because the entity that was yellow was one single thing and the entity it becomes, ie, a red entity, is also one single thing. So, it is one entity when it is yellow, and unless it breaks up when it is orange, and then reassembles to become red, it is difficult to see how yellow becomes red via any process.