Time simply does not exist

@Ding an Sich,

there you go again with "we"...you don't know for sure what is the correct domain of "we"...in the end of the day you are left with "events"...given more then one exists you have a "world" in place..."external" or "internal" are just subjective or relative referents...(I prefer relative)
the important question as I see it does not concern internal or external location but rather on knowing if there is such a thing as agency or free will, or if in the other hand what you have is mindless sequencing of events, from which "awareness" is yet another event...neuroscience seams to have conducted studies that support this belief as it is able to predict behaviour before you are aware...

1 Reply

@Fil Albuquerque,

in fact any thought is a process of externalization and objectification, an event on itself which immediately detaches from the current "I"..."I" being just awareness says nothing on what is external or internal aside an impression a self aware "system" has from the transition...pretty much you have a cycle from internal to external to internal to external again, and so on...(you can start the other way around)

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@Fil Albuquerque,

oh and no, there isn't any contradiction with what I said earlier...the entity is well entitled to see reality as being internal to his experience from his point of view...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

...answer me if you will please, in a hologram what is external and internal ? because if every internal as the same as any external and vice versa what would do of it ?...as you transition from one unit moment of the "I" to another unit moment immediately you have a world both internal and external...

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http://www.ted.com/talks/david_deutsch_a_new_way_to_explain_explanation.html

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Bottom line what people ask with "internal" or "external" is who or what is in control...it may be the case, it certainly seams the case to me, that whatever is true is true...nothing is in control...nor "you" nor "God"...its there !

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@Razzleg,

You replied to me

Quote:

Ugh...like Heidegger, you seem to conflate experience with process, and assume that the second requires the former to "is" properly. Many processes occur outside the horizon of Dasein's ability to experience them-- why should they be subject to a linguistic origin? Might their existence be a posteriori to a social network of associations?

I do not necessarily subscribe to Heidegger's views on language, but one aspect they do seem to capture is that "man" (Dasein) is "languaging entity" as conceived by Maturana and others. Despite cross species behavioral studies, what still significantly distinguishes humans from other species is their use of language (including mathematics) in their attempts to control their "world". Maturana even goes as far as saying that all of what we call "observation" is necessarily verbal/reported. That is, our worldview and our dealings with that "world", essentially has language as its substrate and NOT vice versa where an "external world" is merely represented.

NB You are correct in assuming I have not read Heidegger directly. I have however followed Dreyfus's 45 hours of Berkeley webcast lectures on him and I have also written papers on Rorty's and Merleau-Ponty's analyses of some of Heideggers ontological positions.

1 Reply

@Cyracuz,

...I had already saw that video, it is remarkable, but there is nothing in there that I need to disagree with to state what I just did...in fact if anything the notion that we don't know how reality really is can apply to the very notion of "I" which again is yet another object of experience, as when mind searches mind it always ends up with the world, bits and pieces...that is, an "I" which transits evolve and changes, that externalizes itself from itself moment by moment...so there is nothing in that video proving that we, with true agency, build constructs of reality, but rather, that relational constructs happen in reality...If for instance, as an example, I don't know the solar system other but from what I experience, equally so does Mercury Jupiter or Pluto, aware even if not self aware, experience different gravitational pulls and relations with the solar system, each very specific and particular, which although under the guise of the same category, are distinct of course from how a particle experiences it, even if subjected to the same general principles...that there are different systems with different forms of relation changes nothing concerning how reality works...whatever we may know or not know...

...if no one is in control, as "I" don't control what I am being, but rather reacting for what I am, and the world expresses its own nature through all the time not because it chooses as sentience but because it is, again if no one is in control, relations in their multiplicity express different levels of interaction and organization, with more or less depth, from macro to micro systems, with different patterns and algorithms working upon each other, on top of each other, exactly for what they are and what they can with each other, in a causal efficient simulation throughout the arrow of spacetime...knowledge a process among processes, informs always limited to the level of depth and background from which the question arises, a field of reality in itself, demanding a specific form of want to know which is paramount to the working essence of that which needs informing, its level of comprehension, what is meaningful for itself...Jupiter certainly does not need much more then knowing gravitational forces of its surroundings to keep itself in place...but in another level so do we, as we act and know only what we need for what we are...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

hell, yet another small correction...it seams some characters and words were missing...apologies.

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

...answer me if you will please, in a hologram what is external and internal ? because if every internal has the same as any external, and vice versa, what would you do of it ?...as you transition from one unit moment of the "I", to another unit moment, immediately you have a world, both internal and external...

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@Ding an Sich,

Quote:

If language is an abstract function, then language exists! Simple existential generalization. However, it does not exist independently of us, and it seems nebulous to talk about it in such a away. Although, you can use autopoiesis to account for the languaging of given organisms, but even then this requires a observer noting phenomenal domains. So really it's nebulous to talk about language independent of some observer.

Close enough to a number of my thoughts on time.

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@vikorr,

...yeah, yeah, but where, whom, and what, is the "observer" ? oh let me guess more "languaging" right ?
(not being deliberately provocative here really want know)
What "observation" itself consists off ultimately ?
(I know ultimate shouldn't be there but I leave it anyway)
Can there be progressive layer type levels of "observation" ?
Can or cannot observation refer to interaction in simple terms ? and if not why not and how do you know it ?

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@Fil Albuquerque,

another good question would be about "awareness"...how does awareness can be the source of agency ? and how do you know ?
Could it go the other way around ? That is, you, being aware of what you need to do as a system ? It certainly is possible to program a robot to dodge targets, is it aware ? and did it had a choice ?
...if at this point someone will say it doesn't had a choice because it wasn't program to choose, I'll rephrase, would a robot do a free choice if he was programmed to choose under a given criteria (algorithm) ? Think not...even with several algorithms there must be an order of importance in place...I think I have made my point, you see we to have criteria...

...any way I apologise, we should be talking about time...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

...yeah, yeah, but where, whom, and what, is the "observer" ? oh let me guess more "languaging" right ?
(not being deliberately provocative here really want know)
What "observation" itself consists off ultimately ?
(I know ultimate shouldn't be there but I leave it anyway)
Can there be progressive layer type levels of "observation" ?
Can or cannot observation refer to interaction in simple terms ? and if not why not and how do you know it ?

Observation consists, according to Maturana and Varela, of causally determined neuronal states within a nervous system. Interactions between an organism and its neuronal states give rise to descriptions within the operationally bounded system of the organism; when the organism operates with its descriptions, we get an observer.

Furthermore, observations can be higher order because of the recursive ability of the observer.

You know Fil, it would be better if you read Autopoiesis and Cognition. That is where most of this is coming from. Maybe then you will be "oriented" to the proper linguistic domain. :-)

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@Ding an Sich,

Yes. But Fil has a vested interest in "information" as a substrate so he will resist Maturna's deflation of it in autopoiesis.

The key ontological (existential) issue here is not about "time", but in what way the concept of "time" is related to the chosen substrate. The naive realists hold that substrate to be "physicality", but phenomenologists have drifted towards "nested systems". Insofar as any system is by definition dynamic, a "time factor" can be considered axiomatic.

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

You replied to me

Quote:
Ugh...like Heidegger, you seem to conflate experience with process, and assume that the second requires the former to "is" properly. Many processes occur outside the horizon of Dasein's ability to experience them-- why should they be subject to a linguistic origin? Might their existence be a posteriori to a social network of associations?

I do not necessarily subscribe to Heidegger's views on language, but one aspect they do seem to capture is that "man" (Dasein) is "languaging entity" as conceived by Maturana and others. Despite cross species behavioral studies, what still significantly distinguishes humans from other species is their use of language (including mathematics) in their attempts to control their "world". Maturana even goes as far as saying that all of what we call "observation" is necessarily verbal/reported. That is, our worldview and our dealings with that "world", essentially has language as its substrate and NOT vice versa where an "external world" is merely represented.

NB You are correct in assuming I have not read Heidegger directly. I have however followed Dreyfus's 45 hours of Berkeley webcast lectures on him and I have also written papers on Rorty's and Merleau-Ponty's analyses of some of Heideggers ontological positions.

Erm...well, that is a much more civil response than my earlier post in this thread deserves.

I apologize for my previous overt hostility...i was being a drunk, faux-intellectual bossy-pants. Mentions of Heidegger just get my blood up -- I do recommend that you actually read him, though; comparing an essay like "The Origin of the Work of Art" (readily available in Basic Writings [edited by David Farrell Krell]) in contrast to the scholarly work of Meyer Shapiro's "The Still Life as a Personal Object -- A Note on Heidegger and Van Gogh" (available in Theory and Philosophy of Art: Style, Artist, and Society) tends to deflate his authority and highlight his actual value.

I have spent the last seventeen years considering, and sometimes rereading, Heidegger's writings. And even though i essentially believe he is full of **** (y'know, philosophically speaking), i also think he was brilliantly full of ****. Indirect studies of the man and/or his work are not quite the same as, if i can be forgiven the misnomer -- first readings. 'Nuff said for now on that topic.

One of the benefits of being a "languaging being" is having some access to the language of past beings (being languaged as well as languaging) -- That is not to say that history represents a perfect, or even a reliable, image of the past, but it is sometimes enough of an honest record to contain inconsistencies that might be compelling. You used the phrase "attempts to control"...mightn't the fact that "attempts" was written in the plural imply that such attempts at control were, at least once, futile or unrealized? Under those circumstances, might not the relationship between a person and their environment be "represented" as more complex than a question of control; even in so far as allowing the question of "representation" to be an object of circumspection?

Maturana might go as far as saying that all of what we call "observation" is verbal/reported, but isn't his own model of consciousness based on cellular research (or a metaphor based on the same)? And wasn't cellular structure discovered in the course of mechanical observations of an undescribed substrate of biological existence? Maturana's metaphor is the product of the history of a phenomena, whose unspoken existence proceeds that metaphor by millions of years. You might be tempted to say that those "millions of years" only have a linguistic context...i would contest that, of course...but regardless, they have no linguistic precedent. They are not merely the product of a new combination of previously "known facts" -- their origin seems to be pre-linguistic...

Mightn't Maturana be oversimplifying the relationship between a languaging being and her environment, if he reduces that relationship to that one distinguishing characteristic? Mightn't all of those other common biological relationships be equally at play?

Don't get me wrong...i'm not opposed to the idea of autopoesis. i'm just questioning the relationship between "it" and consciousness, and consciousness's relationship to the non-auto-...

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@Ding an Sich,

There are of course a gazillion problems in going that way...as "organism" is vague and "neuronal states" even vaguer...I suppose you would need to observe neuronal states in order to neuronal states exist given your account of reality, a lovely contradiction...if not, "neuronal states" can fit an almost infinite array of possibility's...from where I stand you are already talking of an "operative system" without specific central location, a sort of a conscious God...one from which any other 2 category organism manifests...but even in 1 category ,"organism" fits the word "system" perfectly, and "neuronal states" an a priori order to that system...the substrate, the blood of the very system, could be information, but then again unless the system is magical, or ineffable, as I bet you prefer, you are reducing the whole system to a world of jointed information, you end up where you started...that is you don't have organism or system without parts, and you don't get parts to operate, without system...naturally words like "neurons" who deliberately intend for pro active consciousness are an insufferable colourful appendix in the whole theory, you can go without them...consciousness itself still is reduced to interaction with some basic rules pretty much you can leave Nature in its place altogether...as for physicality I would agree that beyond the vague meaning of substance the word is empty... so there is nothing in the explanation that privileges observation as arising from consciousness as the theory does not at all clarify s what the "observer" is...and that was all along my point...you place people in the centre because you choose so not because you have any good reason...more, as you don't account for a complete timeless nature on the ground of "observer" which is dynamic, you end up attributing this observer God like magical powers once bypassing its internal conditioning as a system...again if you opt to a deterministic approach where the system is constrained by goals (algorithms) and give it direction, you wash away consciousness to a sort of mindless impotent awareness of what you are...you destroy the freedom openness in the system, that was what from the first second, you biasedly set out to protect...

1 Reply

@Fil Albuquerque,

In resume:
My objection to consciousness come from an objection to freedom...safeguarding the very notion of a system establishes a deterministic approach to the problem and washes away consciousness as will, thus rendering it a mindless process, with or without awareness...

Furthermore such objection strengthens when with a deterministic finite approach (circular if infinite) you avoid invading dodgy realms like nothingness as a form or some sort of "open space" towards where a system progresses growing "new" substance...nothingness has no logic and Being needs confined grounding.

...to conclude:

I don't have a problem with "nested systems" (if I get the proper meaning of it) prevented they are simple and not open, or non indeterministic...either way "mind" goes out the window...

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@Razzleg,

Quote:

Maturana might go as far as saying that all of what we call "observation" is verbal/reported, but isn't his own model of consciousness based on cellular research (or a metaphor based on the same)? And wasn't cellular structure discovered in the course of mechanical observations of an undescribed substrate of biological existence? Maturana's metaphor is the product of the history of a phenomena, whose unspoken existence proceeds that metaphor by millions of years. You might be tempted to say that those "millions of years" only have a linguistic context...i would contest that, of course...but regardless, they have no linguistic precedent. They are not merely the product of a new combination of previously "known facts" -- their origin seems to be pre-linguistic...

As I see it, "Language" arises from mathematical relations bounded in very simple rules imbued on how quantity's of substance can relate through a priori algorithms..."emitters" "functions" "receptors", "subject" "message" "observer", "social networks" "language" "group behaviour" bring progressively several layers of order build upon each other, with defined direction...they are perhaps infinite or boundless as quantity, but finite in terms of rules or quality (patterns) producing a limited also finite number of qualitative phenomena... (pseudo emergence)
There is nothing outside Being as the arrow of spacetime revealing emergent phenomena, even if boundless in quantity, it is qualitatively limited or finite...

...the problem of progressing towards "nothingness" is solved by confining Being to itself without novelty coming out of nowhere...

This last sentence is central to my belief !

1 Reply

@Fil Albuquerque,

Without infinite qualitative emergence, having pseudo emergence instead, the system becomes circular...static rather then dynamic...movement and time meaningless...and still apparently boundless...( a bit like a Mandelbrot fractal)

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Yes. But Fil has a vested interest in "information" as a substrate so he will resist Maturna's deflation of it in autopoiesis.

I have a vested interest in information as well, on the part of thermodynamic processes. A computer, in the course of transmitting information, gives off heat, which can be accounted for via a physical theory (thermodynamics). The same may be said of organisms as well, but it is not quite clear whether any information is ever transmitted between two autopoietic systems (although we may be able to say such things of allopoietic systems). Nevertheless, there is a thermodynamic process occurring in allo- and autopoietic systems.

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Time simply does not exist

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