Odysseus
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Trump = Disaster
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Post by Odysseus on Mar 16, 2021 21:15:00 GMT
I do not agree with that. The present is really all that matters. How we react to the present is often based on the past. Evolution, experience, instinct, etc., all are based on past events. I would agree however that the present is transitory. Hence the kernel of truth behind the quotation, "Life is an illusion".
For example, my left hand is cold. I put in on the back on my right hand, and I can feel the cold on my right hand. Then I rub my hands together. The cold parts are less cold. Is it that the cold goes away, or the warmth getting created? Is it all an illusion?
By the time you perceive the sensation, what you are sensing (and interpreting) is already in the past. Everything you perceive through any sense is "what is in the past" because of the time it takes to register the sense and interpret it. Well, physiologically, if you consider the past exists as memories in our brains, and that such memories are actually physical molecular structures (I gather), then one could say the past by virtue of existing in our memories also exists in real time.
I see what I did there.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2021 21:19:57 GMT
Come to think of the past, it was what it was.
For something to exist, it must be in the present.
The past cannot exist in the present, because it's over.
And if it did exist in the present, it would no longer be the past.
Then nothing truly exists. Because the present is ultimately ephemeral. Give someone a watch because there's no present like the time... |
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Post by atreyu on Mar 19, 2021 22:12:13 GMT
The past is all there is. What you think of as the present is actually the past.
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Odysseus
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Trump = Disaster
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Post by Odysseus on Mar 20, 2021 0:34:16 GMT
The past is all there is. What you think of as the present is actually the past.
Eventually, yes.
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bama beau
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Post by bama beau on Mar 20, 2021 3:21:28 GMT
The past is all there is. What you think of as the present is actually the past. But only if and when you think of it. The present upon reflection becomes the past, while the present not reflected upon does not. Thereby, the observer becomes the keeper of time. Is there a cat in that box? |
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Odysseus
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Trump = Disaster
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Post by Odysseus on Mar 20, 2021 6:25:56 GMT
The past is all there is. What you think of as the present is actually the past. But only if and when you think of it. The present upon reflection becomes the past, while the present not reflected upon does not. Thereby, the observer becomes the keeper of time. Is there a cat in that box?
There may be a cat in the hat.
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Post by atreyu on Mar 20, 2021 13:42:55 GMT
The past is all there is. What you think of as the present is actually the past. But only if and when you think of it. The present upon reflection becomes the past, while the present not reflected upon does not. Thereby, the observer becomes the keeper of time. Is there a cat in that box?
No, you literally never see the present due to the speed of causality. Everything you see is what it was in the past. It's present state whatever it is, is different from what you're observing.
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Odysseus
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Trump = Disaster
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Post by Odysseus on Mar 20, 2021 22:05:56 GMT
Oops, we're getting dangerously close to a debate over what exactly is reality.
That cannot be.
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bama beau
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Post by bama beau on Mar 21, 2021 4:36:37 GMT
I do not agree with that. The present is really all that matters. How we react to the present is often based on the past. Evolution, experience, instinct, etc., all are based on past events. I would agree however that the present is transitory. Hence the kernel of truth behind the quotation, "Life is an illusion".
For example, my left hand is cold. I put in on the back on my right hand, and I can feel the cold on my right hand. Then I rub my hands together. The cold parts are less cold. Is it that the cold goes away, or the warmth getting created? Is it all an illusion?
By the time you perceive the sensation, what you are sensing (and interpreting) is already in the past. Everything you perceive through any sense is "what is in the past" because of the time it takes to register the sense and interpret it. Our brains have already taken that into consideration and have made the necessary adjustments. People who think that they have deduced that intellectually should recognize that they've known that all along, as have we all. Once you realize that, then any regression toward witnessing the past as present becomes implausible, if for no other reason than just how quickly that regression approaches infinity. If you can't trust your perceptions in this moment as the present, then how can you trust any previous perception from any previous moment as anything better than your present perception? Where does one "start"? Like Michelangelo never said, at some point it's really like trying to nail Jello to the ceiling. |
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bama beau
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Post by bama beau on Mar 21, 2021 4:44:02 GMT
But only if and when you think of it. The present upon reflection becomes the past, while the present not reflected upon does not. Thereby, the observer becomes the keeper of time. Is there a cat in that box?
No, you literally never see the present due to the speed of causality. Everything you see is what it was in the past. It's present state whatever it is, is different from what you're observing.
How far "back in the past" are the average human's "present" perceptions? My argument is that we can only ever go back as far as "now". That's what the present is for us. We might think we know something better because we've learned things about ourselves, space and time that we didn't know as early as we knew about past, present and future, but that's already/always been known by us and figured into the equation, or none of us would be here. Except maybe archie. |
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bama beau
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Post by bama beau on Mar 21, 2021 6:31:07 GMT
Do you witness the present?
Or do you experience it?
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bama beau
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Post by bama beau on Mar 21, 2021 6:33:55 GMT
Do you witness the present? Or do you experience it? The answer is that if you weren't doing both, you wouldn't have understood the questions. |
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Odysseus
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Post by Odysseus on Mar 21, 2021 7:32:41 GMT
I have no idea what I'm witnessing presently in this thread.
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Post by atreyu on Mar 21, 2021 14:18:23 GMT
No, you literally never see the present due to the speed of causality. Everything you see is what it was in the past. It's present state whatever it is, is different from what you're observing.
How far "back in the past" are the average human's "present" perceptions? My argument is that we can only ever go back as far as "now". That's what the present is for us. We might think we know something better because we've learned things about ourselves, space and time that we didn't know as early as we knew about past, present and future, but that's already/always been known by us and figured into the equation, or none of us would be here. Except maybe archie.
I get what you're saying, but to me that's just messing with definitions of words.
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bama beau
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Post by bama beau on Mar 21, 2021 16:00:42 GMT
How far "back in the past" are the average human's "present" perceptions? My argument is that we can only ever go back as far as "now". That's what the present is for us. We might think we know something better because we've learned things about ourselves, space and time that we didn't know as early as we knew about past, present and future, but that's already/always been known by us and figured into the equation, or none of us would be here. Except maybe archie.
I get what you're saying, but to me that's just messing with definitions of words.
Either way, we're messing with definitions. My argument is that we have to have a reference point which we can all agree is "the present", that moment not being even being a millisecond in the past, or it can no longer be thought of as the present. I can understand the concept of a lag between event and observation, but I'd argue that any such lag has already been accounted for by us as a species long ago. We might well think that we have "discovered" it and that we must then recalibrate or readjust. I think any such discovery is self discovery. |
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Post by atreyu on Mar 21, 2021 19:30:35 GMT
I get what you're saying, but to me that's just messing with definitions of words.
Either way, we're messing with definitions. My argument is that we have to have a reference point which we can all agree is "the present", and that can't be a moment can't even be a millisecond in the past. I understand the concept of a lag between event and observation, but I'd argue that any such lag has already been accounted for by us as a species long ago. We might well think that we have "discovered" it and that we must then recalibrate or readjust. I think any such discovery is self discovery.
Nah, let's take a human living on Mars and a human living on earth. Their subjective "present time" is vastly different.
I would see them do something on earth in the present that they did 3 minutes in the past on Mars.
They can't agree on what the present is. Only by calculating it can they reveal the truth. By calling it the "present" it would be confusing.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2021 22:10:23 GMT
And yet... grammatically speaking... the present can be perfect.
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Post by Mercy for All on Mar 21, 2021 22:21:08 GMT
By the time you perceive the sensation, what you are sensing (and interpreting) is already in the past. Everything you perceive through any sense is "what is in the past" because of the time it takes to register the sense and interpret it. Our brains have already taken that into consideration and have made the necessary adjustments. People who think that they have deduced that intellectually should recognize that they've known that all along, as have we all. Once you realize that, then any regression toward witnessing the past as present becomes implausible, if for no other reason than just how quickly that regression approaches infinity. If you can't trust your perceptions in this moment as the present, then how can you trust any previous perception from any previous moment as anything better than your present perception? Where does one "start"? Like Michelangelo never said, at some point it's really like trying to nail Jello to the ceiling. I'm not saying our perceptions are unreliable. I'm saying that they are recording the past. More than you know. Ever look at an analog clock and it looks frozen for a couple of seconds before it starts ticking? Not everybody sees this, but I have many times. It's because when you first "look at it," you're not really "seeing it." Your brain "fools you" by retroactively "filling in the time," telling you that you've been looking at the clock longer than you actually have. www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982202007078 |
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Post by Mercy for All on Mar 21, 2021 22:22:52 GMT
This has to be one of the best discussions that has ever happened on LNF. I'm not exactly sure "when" it is happening. Has it only happened in the past? If it is a continuing discussion, is it "happening right now," even during a hiatus?
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Odysseus
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Trump = Disaster
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Post by Odysseus on Mar 21, 2021 23:05:02 GMT
There is that bothersome time-space continuum, after all.
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