What is time?

[Michael Mooney]

AnnsiH,
Looks like our exchange dead ended, but I had asked, here and in other threads how your perspective differs from subjective idealism.

Maybe, and I'm guessing, it is that subtle difference between Berkeley's subjective idealism and Kant's transcendental idealism.

For the casual reader, from Wikipedia, the latter is:

... a doctrine founded by German philosopher Immanuel Kant in the eighteenth century. Kant's doctrine maintains that human experience of things consists of how they appear to us — implying a fundamentally subject-based component, rather than being an activity that directly (and therefore without any obvious causal link) comprehends the things as they are in and of themselves.

Simple question: Are you a transcendental idealist?
A direct answer, with whatever explanation you would offer, would be very much appreciated.
(And this does relate directly to the thread topic addressing the ontology of time.)
Michael

[AnssiH]

Originally Posted by Michael Mooney

AnnsiH,
Looks like our exchange dead ended, but I had asked, here and in other threads how your perspective differs from subjective idealism.

It's probably best described as constructivism.

I'm only concerned by the mechanism which allow a worldview to be built. I.e. how our ideas of reality are related to the information from reality in its raw form (i.e. how to to interpret that information in any sense at all, beginning from the very lowest level)

-Anssi

[Michael Mooney]

Originally Posted by AnssiH

It's probably best described as constructivism.

I'm only concerned by the mechanism which allow a worldview to be built. I.e. how our ideas of reality are related to the information from reality in its raw form (i.e. how to to interpret that information in any sense at all, beginning from the very lowest level)

-Anssi

Thank you.
Still, one must ask why clocks slow down and speed up at different velocities (having been subjected to differences in acceleration to bring them to different velocities.)
The leap from the above observable fact to "time dilation" (making "time itself" into an entity) seems to me to be the ontological heart of this thread topic.

But, of course, as long as relativity and its epistemology *rules* the above ontology will not even be addressed.

Michael

[Rade]

Originally Posted by ldsoftwaresteve

Rade:You have not contemplated the idea that only now exists and that the past is gone and the future hasn't happened yet.....Only now exists.

Yes, I have so contemplated. As you existed in the past-now when you wrote your post, you also exist in the present-now as you read my post, and, god willing, you will exist as the future-now when you conclude your read. But not only the now exists, also exist time and space independent of the 'now'--for if there was no time neither would there be a 'now'. And if there was no space, neither would there be any place for Existence to exist. Thus much better than to say "only now exists" is "only Existence exists", then develop your thinking of how time and the concepts of past-present-future enters the philosophic picture.

We can apprehend time only when we label "motion", and we mark it by the terms "before-past" and "after-future". And we judge these two to be different such that some third thing must be intermediate to them, and that thing we call time. Thus the mind can comprehend the concept 'now' to be a number "two", one before and one after. But, the mind also can comprehend the 'now' as the number one, what we call the 'present', which is always in relation to a before and an after. Thus we see how on the one hand the 'now' is always the same (it always measures time in so far as time involves the before and after), but on the other hand, the 'now' is in perpetual succession because it takes the form of different attributes (i.e., past-present-future).

Originally Posted by ldsoftwaresteve

We have no external evidence suggesting that all three co-exist.

True, past-present-future nows as existents cannot co-exist, I never so suggested. However, I think you miss my point. The 'now' as the 'present', as the one, is a boundary, it is an attribute of time. The 'now' (present) connects the past and future 'time' (not past and future existents). The 'now' is beginning of future time and the end of past time. Thus it is the begin of future and end of past that 'co-exist' within the 'now', not past and future existents.

Originally Posted by ldsoftwaresteve

And even 'now' is untouchable because by the time you become aware of it, it's gone

Yes, of course. The reason is that the now as "present" is the mathematical limit of all aspects of the past and the future. The present is indivisible, there is no time within the present, neither motion nor rest, yet it does exist as a boundary within time. There is nothing to be aware of within the present, for awareness requires motion of energy and matter, and none of these are possible within the 'present'. All awareness occurs within time and space.

Originally Posted by ldsoftwaresteve

The whole concept of space time is like a structure of fog. Space is nothing and time is an internal concept used to order events in a conscious mind, i.e. it doesn't exist outside of a conscious mind.

Well, I completely disagree with this philosophic belief system you have (subjective idealism). Neither space nor time that are present within the universe derive their existence from the presence of a conscious mind. Space is not the same as 'nothingness' also called the 'void', thus your comment that 'space is nothing' is false. The human mind does not create reality, it identifies it.

[watcher]

there is a possibility that space is conscious.

[lawcat]

I am not sure we can talk about "now" in any momentary point-like terms. It seems to me that "now" must be an approximation, much like a point. There is no such thing as a real point; it is an approximation, or a bounded limit beyond which we can not reduce further. "Now" is always bounded to the extent of our precision between past and future. Now can be a day, or two hours, or 1 second, or a nanosecond.

[watcher]

when people speaks about "NOW" ala echart tolle, they are talikng about stilling the mind.
when achieved what's left is an awake spacelike consciousness
this is how time is transcended

it is like removing this arbitrary point. a self referencing mechanism of the mental perception. in short, now is a different state of consciousness from our ordinary day state of consciousness of space, time and objects. in this state, time space and objects are seen as one substance

[lawcat]

I can not wrap my hands around that concept. IMO even consciousness is subject to time, for it can not exist without it.

But I like what Rade had to say several posts ago.

time is that which is intermediate between two moments, space is that which is intermediate between two existents. Thus space-time is that which is intermediate between two moments of existents.

Although it seems circular from the first glance--i.e. because spacetime is a collection of moments and existents, then all moments and existents are spacetime--there is more to it. I wish we could expand it from there.

[watcher]

yes that is a good description of their relationship.
i think the mystery is as to what is the substance of spacetime

[ldsoftwaresteve]

Rade, if you agree that you cannot perceive by touch or sight or any other sense the past or the future, how then do you conclude that they exist? I would say that your 'perception' of time is purely an internal construct based upon the fact that you have memory and imagination. You perceive a distance between events because they have distance, internally, in your world of ordered events. Wouldn't your idea of time, then, be more subjective than mine? It certainly isn't an object you can point to or touch or see with your senses.

If you are saying that time is necessary to cause change, you have made it into an existent, a cause, and I don't think it is one. It is simply the effect of a consciousness being aware of change.

Our belief in time as causative factor (whether on its own or coupled with space) has blinded us to any cause for change that might be mechanical in nature and that operates at a level we cannot perceive directly. Basically, it acts as a placeholder which blocks other valid exploration.