Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Obvious Leo]

I find it absurd to view our cognition of time as objective.

This statement is an oxymoron and must not be attributed to me. Cognition is subjective by definition.

The rest of your post is simply a failure to understand physics and the notion of quantised time. I won't bother responding to it because I've covered all these points many times elsewhere. If you don't get it you don't get and there's bugger-all I can do about it, except suggest you get into reading some physics books and come back in ten years time. If you don't get because because you don't want to get it then you've got plenty of mates within these pages and I've got better things to do with my time.

Regards Leo

[Atreyu]

I find it absurd to view our cognition of time as objective.

This statement is an oxymoron and must not be attributed to me. Cognition is subjective by definition.

The rest of your post is simply a failure to understand physics and the notion of quantised time. I won't bother responding to it because I've covered all these points many times elsewhere. If you don't get it you don't get and there's bugger-all I can do about it, except suggest you get into reading some physics books and come back in ten years time. If you don't get because because you don't want to get it then you've got plenty of mates within these pages and I've got better things to do with my time.

Regards Leo

Higher dimensional theory is not 'physics'. I admit that there is no physics to corroborate higher dimensional theory, but I see this as failure of physics, not the idea. The theory makes sense philosophically and geometrically (in the sense of dimensions of space and their relation with each other). It is quite possible that this theory simply cannot be corroborated by particle theory or any other known branch of physics.

The idea can be visualized very easily if we take our three dimensional universe and reduce it to a point. We have now taken 3 dimensions of space and reduced them to zero dimensions, the point. If we now take this point as existing within an ordinary three dimensional room, as if it were a speck of dust floating around in it, those 3 dimensions of space will be 3 dimensions greater than our 3 dimensional universe, which is now represented by the point. So they represent the 4th, 5th, and 6th dimensions of space. They are usually called dimensions of 'space-time', but I like to call them simply 'dimensions of time', since they are responsible for our perception of time/motion/phenomena as our universe (the speck of dust) floats through the 3 'dimensions of time'.

The speck of dust represents our 3 dimensional universe as it exists in one moment of time. We can say that each point in our 3 dimensional room represents one possible moment of time, i.e. it could become our present if we happened to cross that particular point. Our awareness is limited to three dimensions of space, so for us our 'reality', the entire present moment, is all that exists. Our awareness is limited by the boundaries of the speck of dust as it floats through the room. All the other points we call the 'past' (if the speck of dust happened to cross those points) or the 'future' (the points we anticipate crossing) or possible pasts or futures (points we say we could have crossed but did not, or points we say we could cross but will not).

Let us say that there are fans in the room and we have a certain knowledge of the wind currents. So we can plot to varying degrees of accuracy both where the speck of dust might have been, or where it might end up, depending on how many variables are known and far away from the current position the speck of dust is. So we could plot various points around the room in which the speck of dust could have been in the last hour, or points that it could cross within the next hour. These points would represent the possible pasts and futures which we could have experienced but did not, or could experience but will not. The other points which the speck of dust could not have crossed represent impossible pasts and futures. Things which simply never could have been nor ever could be, which we know based on the certainty of our knowledge of the variables involved, i.e. how confident we are that we know of all the fans in the room and their outputs. So in this analogy our three dimensional room contains our present three dimensional universe as we are experiencing right now, all of our past, all of our future, all the possible pasts that could have been but were not, all the possible futures that could be but will not be, and impossible pasts and futures that never could have been or be because we are confident enough that we know the universe well enough to say so.

Now, the idea here of course is that this three dimensional room with the speck of dust actually represents the real Universe. It might not, but this model explains our cognition of time, shows how it is really space, shows its spatial relationship to our three dimensional world, and represents causation without resorting to either free will or determinism, but rather both depending on how much is known about the 'path' our universe will take as it 'travels through time'. The past is not 'gone', this is a logical absurdity, it is merely the points in higher space which we have crossed but are not currently aware of due to the limitations of our psychic apparatus, namely, its inability to perceive/cognize more than three dimensions of space. And the same with the future. It is merely the points of higher space which we have not crossed yet, but will. And nothing is 'set in stone', because points of higher space outside of any past or future path of our universe as it 'travels through time' also exist, they simply haven't been nor will be crossed.

You can write it off because physics cannot grab hold of it, but not everything is within its boundaries, nor may they be looking in the right direction. But this model resolves and explains many of the dilemmas in regard to our subjective perception/cognition of space and time.

[Obvious Leo]

I have no comment to make about your theory and will not be so disrespectful as to mock it. In fact it shows an agility of mind which does you credit, even though what you're saying is non-physical. I can see a lot of things wrong with it but I can offer no critique because you offer no supportive argument, let alone supportive evidence. You need to explain how you arrive at the ideas you do or else it's just an opinion. Opinions are worthless in science unless they lead to a conclusion which can be tested. I'm sure you can find no fault with that.

Regards Leo

[Felix]

I suspect the universe is both logical and alogical, i.e., both causal and acausal (contingent) events occur in it. We can fathom the former but not the latter - not through critical analysis anyway.

[Bohm2]

Just think of time as continuously coming into existence, just as your most basic intuitions tell you it does. Your intuitions are not fooling you because this would completely contradict evolutionary law.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the point you are trying to get across but how would it contradict evolutionary law?

[Atreyu]

I have no comment to make about your theory and will not be so disrespectful as to mock it. In fact it shows an agility of mind which does you credit, even though what you're saying is non-physical. I can see a lot of things wrong with it but I can offer no critique because you offer no supportive argument, let alone supportive evidence. You need to explain how you arrive at the ideas you do or else it's just an opinion. Opinions are worthless in science unless they lead to a conclusion which can be tested. I'm sure you can find no fault with that.

Regards Leo

It's not 'my' theory. It's fairly established and has been in development since the early 1900's. The supporting evidence is that geometrically it's possible, and it explains our perception of chronological time in a logical way. I believe it can definitely be called 'theory' because there is 'math' (metageometry) behind it, but due to its nature it's beyond any means of testing at the moment. Perhaps you could propose some means to prove or disprove it?

The alternative is to assume that we in fact can perceive all the dimensions of space possible, that there happen to be only three of them, and that our perception/cognition of chronological time is a real property of the Universe. That leaves us with a very strange world in which perhaps nothing really exists, since the 'present' is not a fact but only an idea since as you correctly posited earlier that we never really see it, but only the very recent past. We can't really grab onto to the 'present', by the time we "catch it" it's the past! And it leaves us with a strange world in which all that exists is in a sort of continuum with non-existence. Everything 'pops' into existence from non-existence, but only for a moment, and strangely enough a moment we can't even be sure exists.

Look at it this way. If our perception/cognition of time is a real property of the world, if the past is really 'gone' and the future really 'to be', then what does that say about our own personal existence? Imagine yourself when you were 8 years old. Now imagine yourself 10 years from now. Is that "you"? You clearly remember yourself at the age of 8, yet according to the usual view that 8 year old no longer exists. And you can envision yourself existing 10 years from now, but according to the usual view that "you" absolutely does not exist.

So, do you exist? Right now? If you say 'yes' what kind of truth can there be in that statement? The very next moment the "you" you are sure exists, because it is yourself, immediately does not exist. Again, the next moment that "you" absolutely and forever disappears into absolute non-existence only to be replaced by a "new" you, which will only last for a brief moment.

But we know that this is not so. You know that the 8 year old and the man 10 years from now are both "you". "You" are the man which exists from birth to death, not merely the temporal "you" which just happens to be how you view yourself in the present moment. The usual view of time makes not only everything but also ourselves something so temporal and transient than the mere term 'existence' begins to become a doubtful term.

Fortunately, we now have higher dimensional theory which can resolve this dilemma quite nicely. It shows that the 8 year old and the man 10 years from now both exist, they are just outside of the boundaries of our awareness which is limited to one point in the dimensions of higher space. Our awareness is limited to the 'speck of dust' in the example I delineated earlier. If it expands, it will expand into the past and the future, realized or unrealized. The expansion of awareness is the expansion of the present, enlarging it into the past and future, since the 'present moment' is always the way awareness cognizes the world. We're always in the present but that 'present' expands as awareness expands. And what else could the present expand into if not the past and the future?

[Obvious Leo]

Our intuitions can best be simply called common sense, which is sadly not as common as it needs to be or used to be. All other species rely exclusively on common sense because they haven't evolved the capacity to outsmart themselves.

Common sense is nothing more than the ability to receive information from the environment and process it in such a way so that it confers survival value on the organism. Stupid animals get eaten and thus have a lesser reproductive success, thus common sense evolves of its own accord. It can't be wrong by definition. However in modern homo we have an exception, and a very new exception this is. Homo has a greater capacity for reason and this comes at a cost. He can make assumptions about his world that are false and draw conclusions from these assumptions that are also false. This comes at no cost because he is the uber-predator of his biosphere whose only threat comes from other humans. His reproductive success is more likely to be affected by his beliefs than by his flawed reason. In complexity theory this is known as a self-reinforcing causal loop, or circular causality. The flawed reason creates the belief and the belief reinforces the flawed reason. Stupidity evolves of its own accord. It is always wrong by definition but it proceeds in this vicious circle. This is a very new development in human evolution and came with the evolution of agriculture, about 10,000 years ago, it was only then that humans formed themselves into the larger groups now known as societies and beliefs were enabled to flourish.

In the hunter-gatherer societies this didn't happen because flawed reason came at a cost. The dumb ones became the prey of the smart ones, which is how homo evolved to the top of the tree of sentience in the first place, yet another example of circular causality which is everywhere to be seen in nature. The hunter-gatherers basically only had their intuitions to guide them in the processing of information from the environment. They had no science, mathematics, religion, government or a fixed and immutable law. If their intuitions were wrong they paid the price. They were the epitome of pragmatism and they made changes on the run to every aspect of their lives as they adapted to the changing world around them. Pragmatism is another word for common sense, which is another word for intuition.

Much is known about the hunter-gatherer societies of Australia because they lived here successfully for 60,000 years before the European invasion. Although their traditional cultures have been largely obliterated there is still much that can be learned from them. Their intuition for time is uniform across all groups and thus cannot be wrong. They all agree that time passes and that their own lives are simply a journey through it.

I also accept this as a statement of the bloody obvious and assert that this is the reason why our models of physics make no sense. Passing time is not a valid construct in physics because the geeks have outsmarted themselves. The Australian Aborigine would never make such a mistake but would rather accept that what he observes is not the real world if told that he couldn't have both. The correct interpretation from Michelson-Morley is that time and space could not both be physically real. Einstein simply nailed his colours to the wrong mast. It really is as simple as that and by accepting this all of physics can be reduced to a small suite of simple, intuitive, commonsense statements without a single paradox.

Regards Leo

[Londoner]

So, do you exist? Right now? If you say 'yes' what kind of truth can there be in that statement? The very next moment the "you" you are sure exists, because it is yourself, immediately does not exist. Again, the next moment that "you" absolutely and forever disappears into absolute non-existence only to be replaced by a "new" you, which will only last for a brief moment.

Don't we have the same problem with any reference, for example location? The 'you' that has the property of being in one location ceases to exist and is replaced with a new 'you' at another location and so on. (See also 'Hericlitan flux'; "No man ever steps in the same river twice" etc.)

The answer is surely that the meaning of words like 'you' and 'exist' include a variable bundle of references that we understand according to context. 'Him over there' includes location and the person referenced would no longer exist if the person moved. But naming 'President Obama' does not require him to be at a particular location.

Similarly; 'me aged 8' might reference a memory or a photograph, but we understand this isn't a claim that 'me aged 8' exists in the sense that 'President Obama' exists.

I do not think we require dimensions in higher space; we just need to recognise that words like 'you' and 'exist' have different meanings, depending on context.

The usual view of time makes not only everything but also ourselves something so temporal and transient than the mere term 'existence' begins to become a doubtful term.

And so it is; a doubtful term. But I do not see that means it must be therefore be in need of resolution through higher dimensional theory or anything else. If it is doubtful because it has no clear meaning, then any resolution will only work because it has limited the meaning to one that doesn't reflect usage.

[Atreyu]

Leo, I was merely trying to give some 'evidence' for the model. Trying to show some psychological correspondence with it. The way we think and cognize the world often corroborates with the idea that something beyond the moment has a real "metaphysical" existence. And that corresponds with higher dimensional theory. It shows how that could be so.

Don't we have the same problem with any reference, for example location? The 'you' that has the property of being in one location ceases to exist and is replaced with a new 'you' at another location and so on. (See also 'Hericlitan flux'; "No man ever steps in the same river twice" etc.)

The answer is surely that the meaning of words like 'you' and 'exist' include a variable bundle of references that we understand according to context. 'Him over there' includes location and the person referenced would no longer exist if the person moved. But naming 'President Obama' does not require him to be at a particular location.

Similarly; 'me aged 8' might reference a memory or a photograph, but we understand this isn't a claim that 'me aged 8' exists in the sense that 'President Obama' exists.

I do not think we require dimensions in higher space; we just need to recognise that words like 'you' and 'exist' have different meanings, depending on context.

No, you are simply failing to see that time and motion are bound together as phenomena. Your examples of things being at different places are simply things moving, and everything moves in time. Obama being in the White House and then Obama being at Martha's Vineyard is simply Obama existing at different moments of time.

So yes, we do need higher dimensions of space to explain how anything can have any kind of real existence beyond the moment, "physical" or "metaphysical", which corresponds to how we often think. If we agree that the "you" that is here, in time and place, is the same "you" as existed both 5 years ago and in a different place, then we must resolve that with the way we perceive/cognize chronological time, because if we take that as being a real property of the world, then we must conclude that there is really nothing, absolutely nothing, true or real in that cognition that "you" are the same person as the other existing in a different time (and place). For our direct perception and cognition only the present moment really exists. But our reason tells us that this cannot be so, and so we resolve the dilemma with higher dimensions of space, which are responsible for our perception/cognition of both time and motion.

The usual view of time makes not only everything but also ourselves something so temporal and transient than the mere term 'existence' begins to become a doubtful term.

And so it is; a doubtful term. But I do not see that means it must be therefore be in need of resolution through higher dimensional theory or anything else. If it is doubtful because it has no clear meaning, then any resolution will only work because it has limited the meaning to one that doesn't reflect usage.

But it is not a doubtful term, and it has a very clear meaning, for our direct experience. And that is science as well as life. We are thinking, feeling, pondering, chatting with others about philosophy, fighting, battling, feeling, living ---- how can we not have any real existence in the Universe?

Our direct experience tells us quite clearly and obviously that we have a real existence in the world. Duh... Now we must reconcile that with our apparently absurd direct perception of chronological time, because taking it at face value leaves us with a self and a world that would apparently not "really" exist at all. We reconcile our theories with our direct experience of the world, we don't deny our experiences in order to reconcile them with some pet belief or theory we might have.

[Obvious Leo]

No, you are simply failing to see that time and motion are bound together as phenomena. Your examples of things being at different places are simply things moving, and everything moves in time. Obama being in the White House and then Obama being at Martha's Vineyard is simply Obama existing at different moments of time.

Nicely put. Time and motion are simply two expressions of exactly the same thing. Another synonymous construct is change because there is no such thing as absolute rest in a relativistic universe. We can think of change as motion through time independently of motion through space. Change occurs within atoms at the speed of light because electrons emit and absorb photons. Thus the speed of light is exactly the same thing as the speed at which time passes.

So self-evidently obvious is this notion that it gave birth to the title of my philosophy. However you over-think this when you invoke the need for extra dimensions, either spatial or temporal. When we think the world in this more intuitive way we can easily see that the three Cartesian dimensions of space which we already have are in fact surplus to requirements. We can simply put these back into the head of the observer where they belong, and where every philosopher in history has told us they belong. This is what the "observer problem" is all about, sometimes known as the "measurement problem" in physics. Space quite literally does not physically exist


The models of physics are modelling what's happening in the observer's head and not what's happening in the real world.

It really and truly is exactly as simple as that, and the sooner this is understood the better, because this altered world-view makes every counter-intuitive paradox in physics simply vanish and then it leaves the holy grail of quantum gravity standing bare in stark resolution. Because the truth of time is that it is the same simple thing as the truth of gravity. These things can be quantised equivalently. There never was a bloody mystery other than why the hell don't physicists read philosophy books and stop deluding themselves with their extravagant mathematical virtuosity. In Plato's day the whole bloody lot of them would have been sold into slavery a century ago.

Regards Leo

-- Updated August 4th, 2014, 2:30 pm to add the following --

The only bloke in history who made a similar mistake was a bloke called Ptolemy. He made a cock-up with his a priori assumption as well and then set about trying to hide the fact behind an escalating cascade of equations every time he discovered something else. The stupid prick was determined to make his universe conform to his assumption by brute mathematical force or die in the attempt, and he couldn't care less how absurd it made his universe look. Like all of modern physics he was happy to accept that we lived in a universe that didn't make sense, rather than go back to first principles and check that he hadn't made a false assumption.

It took over a thousand years for Copernicus to realise what Ptolemy had done. Let's hope they can get this **** sorted out a little more quickly than that.

Regards Leo

[Londoner]

Atreyu

No, you are simply failing to see that time and motion are bound together as phenomena. Your examples of things being at different places are simply things moving, and everything moves in time. Obama being in the White House and then Obama being at Martha's Vineyard is simply Obama existing at different moments of time.

I don't think that when Obama has gone to Martha's Vineyard he does still exist in time back at the White House.

What does exists in time mean? Are we saying it is a location, such that we can look and find him there? I might 'remember' that Obama was at the White House; there might be things existing now that are explicable by Obama having once been at the White House, but those things are in the present. Later in your post you emphasise 'direct experience'; I cannot have 'direct experience' of things that are no longer the case.

Certainly time and motion are bound together; they are bound together in that they are related ideas. But such ideas do not 'exist' in the the sense that objects exist. I also have ideas like 'numbers', or 'logic' and experiences like 'dreams' but I do think there must be a 'numberland' or 'dream-dimension' where these things have an independent existence.

But it (existence) is not a doubtful term, and it has a very clear meaning, for our direct experience. And that is science as well as life. We are thinking, feeling, pondering, chatting with others about philosophy, fighting, battling, feeling, living ---- how can we not have any real existence in the Universe?

I think 'pondering' and 'living' are different sorts of things. The existence of my 'ponderings' and the existence of my physical body etc. are different. For example, the claim that 'my body exists' includes the notion that it has extension in physical space; if I claim 'my thoughts exist' there is no such claim of extension. In fact, for that reason I am unlikely to say 'my thoughts exist' but rather say 'I thought x'.

I would also observe that 'me aged 8' neither exists as a physical body nor does any thinking.

Our direct experience tells us quite clearly and obviously that we have a real existence in the world. Duh... Now we must reconcile that with our apparently absurd direct perception of chronological time, because taking it at face value leaves us with a self and a world that would apparently not "really" exist at all.

Our direct experience tells us we have had a direct experience. But you write that it tells us something further, that we have 'real existence'. What is meant to be conveyed by 'existence' that was extra to 'experience'? And what is is meant to be conveyed by 'real' that is extra to 'existence'?

It is necessary that we humans have the notion of time in order to order our experiences and create a coherent picture of the world, just as it is necessary to have the notion of 'cause and effect' and 'extension'. But if we are saying that our 'real existence' consists in having such mental architecture, then this means that things that don't have a notion of things like time e.g. stones, plants, perhaps animals, don't really exist in their own right!

To put it another way; if you are saying that the sort of direct experience we have of objects (touch, sight etc.) is sufficient evidence of their 'real existence', then 'time' does not qualify.

But if it is our internal experiences (ideas like time, dreams etc.) that represent 'real existence', then we end up with some form of solipsism.

Once again, I think these are two different philosophical ideas. They may both use that word 'exist' but since they give it different meanings it doesn't follow they are the same idea, or that some dimensional theory must exist to reconcile them.

[Obvious Leo]

I don't think that when Obama has gone to Martha's Vineyard he does still exist in time back at the White House

Indeed not. The Moving Finger, having writ, has moved on. Nevertheless the physicists beg to differ.

I would also observe that 'me aged 8' neither exists as a physical body nor does any thinking.

Once again you show yourself to be a heretic. Lucky for you burning at the stake is no longer fashionable.

Would I be putting the case too strongly if I were to conclude that modern physicists would have to be the stupidest geniuses in history? Even Ptolemy would gasp on awe.

Regards Leo

[Chaosnature]

Flipping the pages back a bit.

@ Leo,

How does the brain get its initial information if there is no little man?

Consciousness and mind as the same thing

How? From what i have observed about myself, the mind Operate through data gathered from the brain whereas the so called consciousness passes through from what seems like no where into the brain bypassing the mind.

Since good choices lead to good outcomes they improve the survival prospects of the organism and will therefore be repeated, a simple enough definition of learning....I agree

We could lay out all the components of a living organism and understand each of them in the minutes of detail (in principle), but this can tell us nothing about what the whole organism DOES. The universe must be regarded in exactly the same way or else you see only trees and never a forest

but this can generate ideas, from which we could co-create.

-- Updated August 4th, 2014, 7:30 am to add the following --

In addition, there is always one rule i have followed and has never failed me.

If the words are different then the meaning is not the same.

If I am incorrect please list any 2 words that has the same meaning, and I don’t mean similar meanings

[Quotidian]

Consciousness is an emergent consequence of all this electro-chemical activity

Certainly living organisms require a healthy brain in order to exhibit the signs of consciousness, but that doesn't necessarily mean that consciousness can be understood solely as the consequence of 'electro-chemical activity'. Such explanations are reductionist. Do you understand the problems of reductionism?

Answer this question: how does electro-chemical activity give rise to meaning, grammar, syntax, representation, and such things?

Take a simple example. If you say that 'this pattern of neural activity represents the image of a fire-truck', what are you actually saying? As soon as you say that it represents something, then you're actually invoking the very thing that you're trying to explain, in order to do the explaining. And that is the precise meaning of 'begging the question'. Your actually using the faculty which you're attempting to give an account of, to account for it. But how could you avoid that in this case? How could you 'explain consciousness' from some point outside of it?

Obviously, we do understand how one thing represents another: that understanding is intrinsic to the ability to hold a conversation. As rational beings, we make use of it in every one of our conscious moments. But you can't really be saying that this ability really is just electro-chemical activity, as it involves many other kinds of other elements, physical, psychological, cultural and so forth, including the ability to make inferences and interpret symbols, and so on. How does regarding it as 'electro-chemical activity' actually explain any of those things especially in light of the vast complexity of the brain itself? Ten years ago an American NIMH Press Release stated:

“The explosion of data about the brain is overwhelming conventional ways of making sense of it," said Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., Director of the National Institutes of Health. "Like the Human Genome Project, the Human Brain Project is building shared databases in standardized digital form, integrating information from the level of the gene to the level of behavior. These resources will ultimately help us better understand the connection between brain function and human health.”

The HBP is coordinated and sponsored by 15 federal organizations across four federal agencies: the National Institutes of Health (NIMH, NIDA, NINDS, NIDCD, NIA, NIBIB, NICHD, NLM, NCI, NHLBI, NIAAA, NIDCR), the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the U.S. Department of Energy. Representatives from all of these organizations comprise the Federal Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Human Brain Project, which is coordinated by the NIMH. During the initial 10 years of this program 241 investigators have been funded for a total of approximately $100 million.

More than 65,000 neuroscientists publish their results each month in some 300 journals, with their output growing, in some cases, by orders of magnitude, explained Stephen Koslow, Ph.D., NIMH Associate Director for Neuroinformatics, who chairs the HBP Coordinating Committee.

“It’s virtually impossible for any individual researcher to maintain an integrated view of the brain and to relate his or her narrow findings to this whole cloth,” he said. “It’s no longer sufficient for neuroscientists to simply publish their findings piecemeal. We’re trying to make the most of advanced information technologies to weave their data into an understandable tapestry.” 1

And, bear in mind, this is only about health. This doesn't even begin to touch on meaning.

We can define the Self as the entire universe of our personal existence which is contained within a self-existent universe and we are then reminded of many ancient theologies which speak of Transcendence and Becoming. Nowadays we recognise such words for what they are and substitute them into the evolutionary paradigms where they belong.

I suggest that is making a religion out of evolution. Many do, but that doesn't make it right.

[Obvious Leo]

How does the brain get its initial information if there is no little man?

What initial information?

I can't answer any of your other questions either because I don't understand them.

Do you understand the problems of reductionism?

This entire thread is a refutation of reductionism. Perhaps you should read it.

Regards Leo