Illusion of Time

[jamesbath]

Cottidianum cogitata de tempore perperam accredimus.
//We wrongly accept everyday thoughts about time.//

EDIT:
nihil prorsus similis alteri
//No thing is exactly like another thing//

No moment is exactly like another moment. So no moments repeat themselves. There is no true cycle of time back to a previous state because every moment is a new and unique moment. Every morning is a new and unique morning. Every thought is a new and unique thought, regardless of whether it is similar to other thoughts by any particular criteria. (Well, I'm tinkering with the idea anyway).

[Kasper]

Vale Jacobe.

Nonne hoc perclare? Neminem scio ego aliter putantem credentemve. Credo et Heraclitum hoc iam dixisse. Quis vero te dixit tempores vel dies vel cogitationes se replicare?

[jamesbath]

Vale Jacobe.

Nonne hoc perclare? Neminem scio ego aliter putantem credentemve. Credo et Heraclitum hoc iam dixisse. Quis vero te dixit tempores vel dies vel cogitationes se replicare?

Saluta Kasper.

Male dixi. Plura de tempore post nunc scribam. Heraclitum fruor. Gratis tibi. Et Parmenides et Zeno ceteraque fruor.

I wrote badly. I'll write more of my thoughts about time later. I find Heraclitus interesting. Thanks for mentioning him. Also, Parmenides, Zeno, and other ancient thinkers fascinate me

Vales!

[jamesbath]

It is intellectually obvious that no events repeat themselves. But it is not emotionally obvious. Let me explain:

The so-called routine events of everyday life seem to repeat themselves. They seem to be repeating events because we perceive similarities between presently occuring events and memories of events that most closely match the present ones in appearance. This gives an impression of cyclic repetition. This repetition, like the tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock of a clock, produces the illusion that a series of instances of the same event is happening.

For this illusion of cyclic time to happen, there must be a kind of space in which it takes place. This presumed space is the presumption we call time. We think of it as a special kind of spacial dimension, as in Einstein's space-time concept, but this time-space really does not exist, not as a space. And this opens up a whole new world of possible erroneous assumptions concerning such things as cause and effect which one would think needs a time-space through which to play itself out.

Valete

[jamesbath]

Cogitare Manifestum est imperfectum modum inveniendi veritatem. Pura apprehensio melior est per sensum corporalis. Exempla: mirus solis occasus et elevans musica composita et frigiduli venti in calidi diebus. Hae suavissimae experientiae ante tempestas sunt quia antequam cogitationem. Cogitatio est observatione motu trans memorias. Quae removetur a veras experientias.

Thinking is obviously an imperfect method for discovering the truth. Immediate sensual apprehension is much better. Examples: a wonderful sunset and captivating music compositions and cool breezes on hot days. These most pleasant experiences are before time because they are before thought. Thought is the movement of observation across memories. Which is removed from the true experiences.

[Edited: 12/16/2011]

Iacobus Balneum
James Bath

[jamesbath]

Aevum in cogitationem est sed praecipua sententia. Id in anticipationem et suspensam inconsummationem actionis etiam dialectica in causam et consequtionem est. Hora peculiaris et psychologica est. Id non existit in rerum natura.

Time is in thought but a particular kind of thought. It is in the anticipation and suspense of the incompleteness of actions as well as the logic of cause and effect. Time is personal and psychological. It doesn't exist in the real world.

[Kasper]

Hoc olim et ego credidi, sed nunc dubito. Quamquam cognatio temporis individualis, et, ut dixisti, cuicumque homini peculiaris sit, non ab hoc sequitur ut tempus non existit sine cognatione humana.

Cognoscimus enim arbores, animales, veroque montes (nisi terram ipsam) fieri et deleri per dies, menses annosque, mundo vertente. Hoc factum cottidianum videmus sentimusque. Nonne de hoc sciemus tempus existere et sine cognatione humana?

[jamesbath]

Vale Kasper.

olim homines terram planam persuasum est. Nihil in eis personalibus experientiis docuerunt habitaverunt immensam spheram terrae et aquae.

//Once upon a time, people were convinced the earth was flat. Nothing in their subjective experience told them they lived on a gigantic ball of earth and water//.​
​

manifestum enim quod videbatur illis quod solem et astra circaverunt terram. Esset illusio, ex rotatione terrae in eius axis fecit, nescierunt. Nunc scimus aliter ex nostra conrecta cognitione. ​

​//Also it seemed obvious to them that the sun and stars circled the earth. They did not know this was an illusion produced by the rotation of the earth on its axis. Now we know differently, based on our evolved knowledge.//
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Illi veteres, illis progenitoribus animorum nostrorum hodie, etiam in veritate temporis crediderunt. De illo etiam non recto erant, ut error de terra plana erant? Et de terra immobilis in centro mundi fuisset? Opiniones suae de tempore aeque non recte fuerint? nobis antiquae falsa opinio hereditaverint?

//Those same ancients, those progenitors of our present day thought, they also believed in the reality of time. Were they wrong about that also, as they were wrong about the earth being flat? And about the earth being fixed motionlessly in the center of the universe? Were their thoughts about time just as tenuous? Have we inherited a prehistoric insanity?//
​


ADDENDUM:

excoluerunt illarum ideae temporis, mihi videtur, de quaerere concordiam naturalibus rhythmis, ut crescentum et temporis messoris, maribus aestibus, et die ac nocte.
​
Sed non video quam naturalibus rhythmis indicium temporis sunt.

It seems to me they developed their ideas of time from seeking harmony with natural rhythms such as planting and harvesting seasons, sea tides, and day and night.
​
But I do not see how the phenomena of cycles are proof of time.
​
​

[jamesbath]

Salvete Omnes.

Although the events we call "effects" may seem to result from prior events which we call "causes", it does not follow that time makes this possible.
​
​​//quamvis rerum effectum dicimus ex ante rebus videantur, quas causas dicimus, non sequitur quod tempus hoc fieri potest.//
​
For one thing, there are no prior events. There are only thoughts painting pictures of prior events in the present.
​
//Aliquid enim, res priores non sunt. Tantum quae cogitationes faciens fabulas de prioribus rebus in praesenti sunt.//
​

[jamesbath]

...

In a universe where everything is new, where nothing repeats, there is no room for "old" things.
​
// In universum, in quo omnia nova, ubi nihil repetit, locum non pro vetaribus rebus est. //
​​

[jamesbath]

In a universe where everything is new, where nothing repeats, there is no room for "old" things.
// In universum, in quo omnia nova, ubi nihil repetit, locum non pro vetaribus rebus est. //
​​

Our past is composed of mental experiences. These mental experiences exist only in the present. ​
// Nostri praeterita componitur mentis experientas. Hae experientiae mentium non sunt nisi praesentibus. //
​
​
Saint Augustine wrote:

For if there are times past and future, I desire to know where they are. But if as yet I do not succeed, I still know, wherever they are, that they are not there as future or past, but as present. For if there also they be future, they are not as yet there; if even there they be past, they are no longer there. Wheresoever, therefore, they are, whatsoever they are, they are only so as present.

Si enim sunt futura et praeterita, uolo scire ubi sint. Quod si nondum ualeo, scio tamen, ubicumque sunt, non ibi ea futura esse aut praeterita, sed praesentia. Nam si et ibi futura sunt, nondum ibi sunt, si et ibi praeterita sunt, iam non ibi sunt. Ubicumque ergo sunt, quaecumque sunt, non sunt nisi praesentia.
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[jamesbath]

This post ends this thread and at the same time begins a new thread under the subject "Investigation into Time and Reality." I have done this because my Latin skills have improved significantly from the beginning of this thread. So I think a fresh start is in order.

The following is the text of the new thread, duplicated here for completenes:

The universe is in a high energy state of perpetual newness all the time. We live in and of this energy, in the only moment that ever is, the present. This is the pure innocent mind of infancy. This is when we are dazzled and awed by everything we see.

Then we learn to think. We translate real impressions into objects of thought. That is, we become more observant of recurring impressions. These impressions become increasingly substantial thoughts. We begin to arrange these thoughts into various orders. We begin to exercise reason. After that, we get lost in our thoughts. This is where we slowly construct the concepts of separation and of time.

Universitas in statu strenuo virtute​ novitatis perpetuae semper est. In hoc et uis habitamus, in solo tempore umquam est, nunc. Haec vita nova est mens infantiae puram. Quod est cum fascinati sunt per omne videmus.

Deinde discimus cogitare.​ Impressiones rerum interpretamus in ea cogitationis. Hoc est, nos magis observandum de impressionibus recurrens. Haec impressiones fiunt magis substantia cogitata. Cogitationes in varios ordines incipimus cogere. Incipimus exercere rationem. Deinde cogitationes nostrae nobis confundunt. Ubi est concepta separationis et temporis paulatim construimus.
​

[jenniferolsen]

Since old times, when Aristotle thought time, it was connected with the idea of kinesis or movement. Then there is no movement at all at the universe!?

[LCN]

Since old times, when Aristotle thought time, it was connected with the idea of kinesis or movement. Then there is no movement at all at the universe!?

Aristotle's view of time is that is a sort of pathos in the soul and that it is a measure of motion.

Motion for Aristotle is most certainly real. Motion is something like the the most complete being of potency (dunamis), and potency along with being-at-work (energeia) and matter are the ruling or eidetic causes (arxai...I don't know of any appropriate translation for the term in modern languages though) of all beings excepts numbers and nous/theos (thought).

Time is real enough as a phenomenon but it seems to be somehow "subjective" to human beings. If all humans died there would be no time, but motion would continue on. Just as there is no time for the individual when he is in deep sleep, but his body and the world around him will continue in motion.

In modern philosophy I'm not sure who has developed a phenomenological view of time (as opposed to repackaging inherited concepts without actually bringing the underlying phenomenon to light) except for Heidegger (who borrows heavily from Husserl in this apparently.)

Heidegger's view is rather confusing to me but the basic idea is that Aristotle's time concept is correct as far as it goes, which is to say as far as the measurement of the motions of innerworldy things. But this common understanding of time he says is founded in temporality, which is the ability to encounter one's self). (I think you can assure yourself of this point at least by thinking of the situations where we find ourselves explicitly experiencing time "I've been waiting in this line forever", "I've got to finish this before 3 o'clock", "I can't believe I've only been on this vacation for three days", etc.)

One's self (oneself) is always persistently there but not always in directly in view. The coming upon oneself in the context of some innerworldy activity (rather than in a theoretical sense, "What's wrong with me?", "What do people think of me?") is temporality.

The reason it's important to Heidegger to establish there there is a ground for time (namely temporality) is so that he can establish the whole positive side of his existential phenomenology. According to Heidegger there is such a thing as primordial or authentic time which is grounded in authentic temporality which is coming across one's most authentic self which occurs in the moment when we experience ourselves both authentically and a a whole, which is the authentic confrontation with death. (This is obviously a lot to chew on and I may have misrepresented it but it's a great mistake to assume that it doesn't have a real meaning. At least in Being and Time Heidegger is always arguing very closely from actual phenomena of his experience, but of course he's not necessarily interpreting them correctly).

So just as, according to Heidegger, the theoretical mode of comportment is a deficient mode of being, so theoretical time, which at least according to Aristotle makes time a mere affect of the soul, is a deficient mode of thinking time. The "real" time, primordial time, is the absolutely finite horizon of being-toward-death that is Dasein. Because Dasein's authentic self is historically constituted there is no possibility of transhistorical knowledge except within the deficient mode of comportment that he especially associates with Descartes and modern science.

However there's a big Achille's heel in Heidegger's system, which is his simple assertion that the theoretical mode of comportment (philosophy originally, these days more familiar as modern science) is a deficient mode of being that arises from the breakdown of our worldy activities.

Plato implicitly argues against exactly this sort of view (which perhaps boils down to the same argument that Aristophanes made) in literally all of his dialogues, but especially in the Symposium. It would be mistaken to pin Plato down to one specific dialogue since he deliberately makes that impossible, but his corpus as a whole makes the argument that philosophy is desire, Eros, directed not to the base (the broken hammer), but to the most beautiful being of all, the agathon kat'auto, the whole, the Parmenidean hen which turns out, with great irony, to be.... the being of the philosopher himself. (I can't claim to understand this, if I did I would be divine.)

Keep in mind this is an extraordinarily bold claim for a very sensuous pagan poet like Plato, not an asexual Christianized philosophy professor like his latter day would-be followers.

So in a nutshell Heidegger's whole system stands or falls on whether Plato's Socrates should be regarded as a deficient being or a divine being. (I think the artistry of the dialogues is strong enough to convince us that Socrates at least represents a genuine human possibility rather than a pure fantasy.)

[Kasper]

Wow LCN, that's a lenghty post. I am trying to make sense of it, but must admit I am falling short of the mark.

Aristotle's view of time is […] that it is a measure of motion.

Time is real enough as a phenomenon but it seems to be somehow "subjective" to human beings. If all humans died there would be no time, but motion would continue on.

OK, so objective time is motion, although humans also experience the length of time subjectively by way of their emotions.

[T]his common understanding of time he [Heidegger] says is founded in temporality, which is the ability to encounter one's self. […]

The coming upon oneself in the context of some innerworldy activity (rather than in a theoretical sense, "What's wrong with me?", "What do people think of me?") is temporality.

According to Heidegger there is such a thing as primordial or authentic time which is grounded in authentic temporality which is coming across one's most authentic self which occurs in the moment when we experience ourselves both authentically and a a whole, which is the authentic confrontation with death.

The "real" time, primordial time, is the absolutely finite horizon of being-toward-death that is Dasein

So, the subjective experience of time is directly related to one’s comparison of the outer world with each individual’s inner world (thoughts and emotions). Although there is objective time, humans always experience it subjectively by reference to one’s inner self at any given moment.

Plato implicitly argues against exactly this sort of view (which perhaps boils down to the same argument that Aristophanes made) in literally all of his dialogues, but especially in the Symposium. It would be mistaken to pin Plato down to one specific dialogue since he deliberately makes that impossible,

If Plato literally talks about this in all of his dialogues, why is it a mistake to take an extract from each or any of these dialogues to confirm the point?

but his corpus as a whole makes the argument that philosophy is desire, Eros, directed not to the base (the broken hammer), but to the most beautiful being of all, the agathon kat'auto, the whole, the Parmenidean hen which turns out, with great irony, to be.... the being of the philosopher himself. (I can't claim to understand this, if I did I would be divine.)

What does this mean, and what does it have to do with time?

Keep in mind this is an extraordinarily bold claim for a very sensuous pagan poet like Plato, not an asexual Christianized philosophy professor like his latter day would-be followers.

I don’t understand the bold claim. What is the bold claim?

So in a nutshell Heidegger's whole system stands or falls on whether Plato's Socrates should be regarded as a deficient being or a divine being?

I don’t follow this at all, I’m afraid. I would be grateful if you could explain.

[LCN]

Wow that's a pity. I spent about half an hour writing a reply (and working out the nesting quotes) but somehow it got lost in the brower cache.

I don't have the energy to resume right now but let me just say that the original post by me was bad etiquette, I was really just writing for myself to try to work some things out, although I think I can and did answer your questions (in the nixed post) adequately.

Maybe I can give a very rapid version my responses.

-Regarding time, there is no inner-world versus outer-world, that dualism is an artefact of Cartesian dualism which in Heidegger's view (and it seems to me as well), is utterly false. There is only being-in-the-world. For Aristotle motion is real, time is merely an affect of the soul.

-Time, the affect of the soul, is only possible as a phenomenon for a being that comes across itself - i.e. a temporal being. To assure yourself of this try to reflect on the times when you actually explicitly experience time. It's always an mode of coming-upon-yourself. (I.e. *I* am late for an appointment, *I* have been wasting to much time watching TV, *I* am going to die some day.)

Beings that do not have selves (almost all animals and all things) do not have temporality and thus do not have time (but they are still in motion and affected by motion and thus can be thought of within the horizon of time by Dasein - i.e. human beings.)

-This part unfortunately I really have to abbreviate although I thought I worked it out tolerably well in my nixed reply.

For Heidegger theory is a deficient mode of the "care" which seems to be just his term for Eros or desire. His argument for this is subtle but the West is in the grips of a misdirected understanding of "Being" initiated largely by Plato and Aristotle.

The Platonic counter is that authentic theory, i.e. philosophy, is the highest (most natural, most powerful, most beautiful) expression of desire. This is a bold claim from the point of view of both ancients and moderns.

For ancients it's bold because they were great admires of physical beauty and hence physical desire, but also the more refined among valued the desire for honor above all. Thus the great admiration for the Homeric heroes, especially Achilles, and the great law-givers and the important politicians of their own day.

For modern post-Christian materialists it's a bold, even laughable claim because we are convinced that sex is the most natural and powerful form of desire and anything short of sex is repression or sublimation.

For Christianized Victorian philosophy professor types this was an easy sell because they, at least in the stereotypical view, did not know anything about the ecstasies of desire, being shriveled up old donnish prudes. This is incidentally a vulgarized version of the case Nietzsche and Heidegger want to make against the modern West as a whole.

The reason the figure of Socrates is important for both ancients and moderns is his life illustrates the surpassing beauty of the being whose being is pure contemplation. The proof of this is that the beautiful young men all flocked to him (the young are the greatest lovers of beauty), even though philosophy was widely in disrepute among Athenian aristocrats, even though all of their myths told them they should prize honor above all. To the point that the most brilliant and most attractive of the Greek youths, Alcibiades, tried to seduce Socrates.

Any time one prattles on about desire as I have been doing one runs the risk of speaking while saying nothing. Desire is bodily and temporal, obviously it can be unspeakable powerful. To really appreciate the boldness of Plato's argument, next time you find yourself in the throes of desire ask yourself whether you can believe that a life of pure noetic contemplation is a superior form of desire to what you are experience at the moment.

It's a bold claim indeed. To Nietzsche it was laughable but then again he was a virgin who spent his life in contemplation so...

[Lex]

It's a bold claim indeed. To Nietzsche it was laughable but then again he was a virgin who spent his life in contemplation so...

Well, he died of syphilis, so he apparently "contemplated" the fairer sex at least once in his life...

[dlb]

There is no true cycle of time back to a previous state because every moment is a new and unique moment. Every morning is a new and unique morning. Every thought is a new and unique thought, regardless of whether it is similar to other thoughts by any particular criteria. (Well, I'm tinkering with the idea anyway).

UNIQUE: "being the only one."
Are you saying that NO ONE on the face of this planet has ever had the same thought? Do you know everyone's (every) thought?
If no, then you can't say what you posit.
If yes, then you are unique.

Do you see every morning thru everyone's eyes?
Are you God or god or just working on your Latin translation?
.