What is "nothing"

@dalehileman,

I personally distinguish what time is from how time manifests itself (I try)...and no I am not an apologist of the continuum hypothesis...I may change my mind when I see a true explicative theory that points that way...meanwhile I don't indulge in fantasy's only for the pleasure of feeling myself more free...I have an ascetic personality...sort of...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Therefore Fil we herewith devolve upon Cyr all leeway necessary for exercise of poetic license

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...I have an ascetic personality...sort of...

You’re entitled

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first , beyond the practable , has no space

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@dalehileman,

Do you understand that the dividing of time into moments is completely arbitrary?

We generally divide our concept of time into three categories. There is the past and the future, and then there is the moment in between the two, where one becomes the other, and we call it the present.
But when we delve into it, we see that nothing ever happens in the past or in the future. Things only ever happen in the present. That's because the present, this single, elusive moment, is the only time that really exists. The past is only memory. It is what we know happened once upon a time.
Similarly, the future is what will come to pass. But whatever the future may hold, when it does happen it is no longer 'future', it is 'present'.

That is why I am saying that the present is infinite. Every single event that can conceivably come to pass will come to pass in the present.

If you understand what I'm saying you will perhaps also realize that there is a fundamental flaw in how we relate to time. We say that time passes, but it does not. We pass. A person gets born, lives his entire life and then dies, all in the present.

In a way, saying that time moves is like saying that the road you are driving on moves. It does not. The road exists in all places at once, at the start of your drive and at your destination, simultaneously. The car is the thing that's moving, and the car's inability to be on all parts of the road at once is what gives the impression of moving time with past, present and future.

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...coexistence in time, lets grant it for the argument sake, makes no case for or against either the continuum hypothesis or quantized time...in fact people often confuse the all matter...stretches of space/time continuum or not can perfectly coexist in simultaneous...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

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Arthur Schopenhauer wrote in §18 of On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (1813): "...the representation of coexistence is impossible in Time alone; it depends, for its completion, upon the representation of Space; because, in mere Time, all things follow one another, and in mere Space all things are side by side; it is accordingly only by the combination of Time and Space that the representation of coexistence arises."

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A spacetime is independent of any observer.[8] However, in describing physical phenomena (which occur at certain moments of time in a given region of space), each observer chooses a convenient metrical coordinate system. Events are specified by four real numbers in any such coordinate system. The trajectories of elementary (point-like) particles through space and time are thus a continuum of events called the world line of the particle. Extended or composite objects (consisting of many elementary particles) are thus a union of many world lines twisted together by virtue of their interactions through spacetime into a "world-braid".

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime

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@Fil Albuquerque,

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Quantized spacetime

In general relativity, spacetime is assumed to be smooth and continuous—and not just in the mathematical sense. In the theory of quantum mechanics, there is an inherent discreteness present in physics. In attempting to reconcile these two theories, it is sometimes postulated that spacetime should be quantized at the very smallest scales. Current theory is focused on the nature of spacetime at the Planck scale. Causal sets, loop quantum gravity, string theory, and black hole thermodynamics all predict a quantized spacetime with agreement on the order of magnitude. Loop quantum gravity makes precise predictions about the geometry of spacetime at the Planck scale.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime

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@Cyracuz,

Cyr I understand your position but taking relativistic considerations into account raises intuitional objections. For instance, forward time-travel experienced an a high-speed voyage yields the impression of us passing through it

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@dalehileman,

...of course we "pass through" it, in fact we are all over we pass through...passing through refers to the experience of being aware on the presence we have in each space/time point...not movement but rather the experience of movement turns out to be the true focal point...movement exists because there is change in what we recognize or are aware off, be it in us or in the world...in fact its the system gain and loss of information in space/time points that embody s the experience of "passing through" in a meaningful sense. Awareness and compared memory of awareness through information patterns that acquire or loose more extensions in space time bring about the whole phenomena of moving through things...

Does this means that we create movement ? No ! We are not calling the shots...in fact we are an ensemble pattern all over space/time...what the **** did we choose ?

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@dalehileman,

Quote:

For instance, forward time-travel experienced an a high-speed voyage yields the impression of us passing through it

Yes, us passing through... We are travelling, and increased or decreased speed affects how we perceive time. But even if we accelerated to where we move close to the speed of light we do not escape the present...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Quote:

Bertrand Russell offered what is known as the "at-at theory of motion". It agrees that there can be no motion "during" a durationless instant, and contends that all that is required for motion is that the arrow be at one point at one time, at another point another time, and at appropriate points between those two points for intervening times. In this view motion is a function of position with respect to time.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno%27s_paradoxes

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@Cyracuz,

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We are travelling, and increased or decreased speed affects how we perceive time.

Not how we perceive our time but that on the outside of our vehicle.

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But even if we accelerated to where we move close to the speed of light we do not escape the present...

That is our present. Note at this point however if you could quickly achieve such a velocity, even if you could survive the acceleration and not run into anything you’d be instantly destroyed when all the stars suddenly go nova then peter out to nothing

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@Cyracuz,

I think that because reality is inherently undivided it is in(de)finite. All measurement is the result of human thought; that includes the mathematical "properties" ascribed to Nature.

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@JLNobody,

I have come to think of the undivided reality as non-existing (I understand 'undivided reality' to mean the universe thought of as one holistic phenomenon). My understanding of the term 'reality' has changed so that I no longer think of the objects I perceive as reality. Instead I think of reality as the phenomenon that occurs when relationships are established between a perceiving agent and that which is perceived.
Traditional ideas about what reality is often promote the assumption that reality is what is seen, not the seeing itself. I think it is what happens within the relationship between seer and the seen, and that any truth that can be known about reality is only true in that specific relationship. Outside of it, it is merely a consideration without context, and has no informational value.

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@Cyracuz,

I never perceived my seeing as not being a part of reality I don't think of me as an metaphysical being...the point is to know to what extent my seeing reflects other portions of reality, and to know if what I see is what I need to see, given the relation of my state of affairs and the outside world state of affairs, or if what I see is what I want to see, better, if what I want to see reflects what other portions of reality come to be...from where I stand obviously my will alone is not a constraint of what other portions of reality come to be but rather a constrain of my perception to some extent...for simplification purposes one might simply say that confusing my arms for wings won't get me to fly any time soon.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

I never perceived my seeing as not being a part of reality I don't think of me as an metaphysical being...the point is to know to what extent my seeing reflects other portions of reality, and to know if what I see is what I need to see, given the relation of my state of affairs and the outside world state of affairs, or if what I see is what I want to see, better, if what I want to see reflects what other portions of reality come to be...from where I stand obviously my will alone is not a constraint of what other portions of reality come to be but rather a constrain of my perception to some extent...for simplification purposes one might simply say that confusing my arms for wings won't get me to fly any time soon.

It isn't about what you see or don't see, it's all automatic (involuntary)
It's about how you access what you see --- whether or not it is important enough for further investigation

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@Rickoshay75,

...did you care to notice I was replying to someone else ? I know its automatic...some folk tend to think its the product of consciousness...and that of course requires will and awareness.
One thing is to admit we have a perceptual modelling of the world which developed a certain way for evolutionary convenience and that such may limit our relation with reality to an extent...but quite another is to assume there is no reality if not through what we imagine...you as a unit, the self, to not be yet another collection of parts in a world, a collection of things, requires consciousness, awareness and most of all free will...I while certain of awareness still don't take free will just as easily, and consciousness, well consciousness is just another obscure big word...even top down decision making if not free amounts to crap for defending consciousness as the motor of reality...its just pattern coupling with a feed back.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

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I never perceived my seeing as not being a part of reality I don't think of me as an metaphysical being

If you say so. The point is that our entire culture, our way of thinking about things and ourselves, and how we perceive the universe, is rooted in a fundamentally material perspective.
It is often hard to think in terms of the entire relationship. We are so accustomed to embodying one side of the relationship.

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@Cyracuz,

You see my tendency for going after functions always imply s a relationship in place, I just think we have no control over it...that's perhaps why I keep on insisting we are part of a world, our perception included...besides by now you should know I am not a materialist..."physical" is just another relation in place...as I see it not particularly from an observer, but just from systems and rules between them with several layers at work...

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@Cyracuz,

When I call myself a ("mystical") Monist--as I do--I mean that reality appears to me as both unitary and multiple, essentially indivisable but treated for practical purposes as divided into segments and degrees. I also perceive reality to be ME (and you), a complex, ever-changing (holistic) phenomenon resulting from the interaction of forces within and eternal to "me". But let me emphasize that the world as I see it does not consist of passively organized abstract "objects" as such; it consists of the dynamic results of the concrete, contextually grounded "relationships" referred to by you and Fresco.

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What is "nothing"

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