Modern philosophers- jukeboxes...

Wouldn't it be much simpler to just call it experience. Simply because an impossible experience would be a contradiction in terms.

Further, would it not be simpler to just call it just experience rather than physical experience, simply because to experience you must exist.

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Val, your comment--"There is not an "I" beyond the I that is present in the world"--suggests that you, too, do not accept the reality of an "I," an ego-self inhabiting (you say "beyond"; I say "behind" and "within") the being (whatever its ontological nature) that is "present in the world."
The being is present in the world, as part of the world; the ego-self presents itself to the world, as apart from the world.

Cyracuz, an interesting observation. There can be no such thing, by definition, as an impossible experience. But since this discussion IS about theory, can we not talk about hypothetical experience derived, as possibilities, from theoretical principles?

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Yes we can Smile

We are, after all, capable of imagining some things that are pretty far fetched. To encounter a vampire, to be made one, is probably an impossible experience. The idea is not. It is the same with flying like superman, or controlling fire with your mind. All these things are possible to imagine, but impossible to do.

Why is that? Many answers form partway in my head, but as of now I am unable to give any coherent explanation.

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Maybe I have one now. It is possible to control fire with the power of your mind. In fact, it is impossible to do it any other way.

As for flying or bloodsucking, they are things of the imagination. But things that were science fiction 50 years ago are respected scientific facts today. Maybe in a few decades someone will have invented an anti gravity belt, or a pair of tecno-fangs that can drain the life from living beings. When it comes to the latter I hope not, though.

Come to think of it, the power of our minds is all we really have. This raises the question of wether the physical existence is really the most important. It is after all merely the manifestation of our spiritual existence.

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Yes, our capacity to imagine the impossible is the basis for popular fantasy (fundamentalist religion and science fiction) and great art. And it probably has had survival value insofar as "impossibilities" sometimes turn out to be not so impossibile. I'm thinking about the human capacity for invention.

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Maybe it is "impossible" that is the only thing that is imaginary?

Like I said, the only way we can control fire is with the power of our minds. Through our understanding of the phenomena "fire" has come the knowledge of how to harness it.

The only impossibility with controlling fire with our minds is the assumtion that when I say "with our minds" it implies that fire should pop out of nowhere were I to desire it. This is, of course, ridiculous, but imagine the response of an ancient tribal human if someone should suddenly flash a lighter. He would assume that this was magic, and that the person holding the lighter was a magician.

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Impossibility is, of course, historically situated. Today, science-engineering is doing what was previously impossible: flying, light without fire, x-ray vision, travel at speeds over 50 miles per hour (without falling off a cliff), etc.

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JL Nobody

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your comment--"There is not an "I" beyond the I that is present in the world"--suggests that you, too, do not accept the reality of an "I," an ego-self inhabiting (you say "beyond"; I say "behind" and "within") the being (whatever its ontological nature) that is "present in the world."
The being is present in the world, as part of the world; the ego-self presents itself to the world, as apart from the world.

As we have already discuss it, I see the "I" not exactly as the Being. But it is very difficult to me to express the difference in english. In German, the difference is between "Das Sein" and "Das Wesen", and in portuguese "Ser" and "Ente".
Let's say that my Being is the sum of all experience of my "Wesen", the "I" that is in the world. Only in death my Being is complete, because in that moment all the possible experiences come to an end.
That is one of the reasons why Heidegger calls Man as being-to-death.

The "I" is the way I am present in the world. Not because I am not part of the world, or have a supra-physical existence, but because it is me that gives sense to that experience.
The portuguese neurologist António Damásio gives the example of a snail: the experience of the snail, although significant, is very limited: good to eat, not good to eat, dangerous, not dangerous.
Let's imagine a stone. To the snail a stone is not good to eat, not dangerous, not good to mate. That is what a stone is in the snail experience.
To us, is different. In our experience, the stone isn't just there. If we perceive the stone, we experience it's geological properties, or we experience it as a weapon and so on. We give a meaning to our experience of the stone. The "I", as conscious "Wesen", is always revealing the meanings of things. Human beings give the world it's "Being", making things appear as significant things.

In fact, I believe my perspective is the opposite of yours. You believe that the "I" is a chimera: reality to you means the "dilution" of the I in the All (or in the Nothing). To me there is always an "I" in the experience, giving it a sense.
But in one point I think we agree: the "I" exists only in it's presence in the experience.

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According to my limited knowledge of german "Das Sein" translates into "existence", and "Das Wesen" into "creature". "Being" means both, simply because if you have existence you must be a creature, and if you are a creature you must have existence.

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Let's imagine a stone. To the snail a stone is not good to eat, not dangerous, not good to mate. That is what a stone is in the snail experience.
To us, is different. In our experience, the stone isn't just there. If we perceive the stone, we experience it's geological properties, or we experience it as a weapon and so on. We give a meaning to our experience of the stone. The "I", as conscious "Wesen", is always revealing the meanings of things. Human beings give the world it's "Being", making things appear as significant things.

Shouldn't this be an indication that maybe the "I" envelopes more than you admit at first. The "I" is essentially the culmination of your experience. I believe I have that notion from you. But the experience of the snail seeing a stone and that of a human seeing a stone is not all that different. We see it according to the culmination of out experiences, wich is, in a way, an echo of the world the "I" exists in, and it is the same basis that the snail sees it on. It sees it in relation to the culmination of it's experience.

I feel that I should probably define experience. It is not only my memories and my waking life. In me, in my physical form, resides millions of years of experience that my "I" has no knowledge of, but that it uses frequently. My capacity for thought, for one, is an ability that is the result of physical evolution. The experience of this evolution culminated in my sense of self. So me and the snail are the same kind of creatures. We have the same existence. I just have more experience.

I think I agree with most of your thoughs val, but it seems to me that you are looking for absolutes, for some constancy where there is none, according to my own logic. Change is the only constant.

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Val, so then we agree on what I think is the essential truth: [T]he 'I' exists only in it's presence in the experience." It has none of the objective substance we attribute to the body; as mental and subjective experience it is illusory so long as we grant it objective substance, i.e., ego-being within a body-being.

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The 'I' exists only in it's presence in the experience."

I can't argue with that. Or can I? What is "it's precence in the experience?"

I have argued many times over the nature of time, though not with much success. I have argued that the present is all that exists, and that what we call past and future exist only within the presence. Roughly translated they can be called respectively memories and dreams. The past, as well as the future are but experiences of the present, and to percieve that one must have precence. But what is equally true is that for anything to happen, it must have precence. Nothing can be save right now.

So the initial quote does not really narrow it down, because it means basically that the "I" only exists now, but "now" is infinity... Everything exists only now. Even yesterday and tomorrow.

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[the fly drops swiftly from the wall buzzing annoyingly around the participants of this fascinating discussion.....]

is the 'I' not a singularity (as in a black hole) sucking everything around it in, and emitting radiation in the form of feedback to the surrounding environment, and co-participants?

similarly time is, as related to the 'I', a continuum, containing, but not limited to the past, present, and future.

[zzzzzzz- back up to the wall, far a way in the corner over there....]

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Bogowo, according to my understanding it would be more accurate to say that time is the singularity, and the "I" is the continuum.

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cyracuz

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I have argued many times over the nature of time, though not with much success. I have argued that the present is all that exists, and that what we call past and future exist only within the presence.

We could say that the present never exists. When you do something, think of something you are always "jumping" in the future, you are moving to next step. Present can be seen as an illusion, because it supposes a time divided in static moments. And, if this was the case, then perhaps Zeno was right: the arrow never moves because, in each moment, it is in a specific point of space.

But, as our flying friend BoGOWo said, if we see time as a river, then you are never in "this point". You are always moving - jumping into future -
not yet in the next point but not anymore in the last point. In fact, we cannot even speak of points or moments. We are always in a state of transition.

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When you do something, think of something you are always "jumping" in the future, you are moving to next step.

Hmm, but by the time I land there it has already become the present.

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Present can be seen as an illusion, because it supposes a time divided in static moments.

No, the idea of time as something linear does that.

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the arrow never moves because, in each moment, it is in a specific point of space.

That's just it. To think of time as something that moves negates the movement of all other things. But we know that objects and energies move.

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You are always moving - jumping into future -
not yet in the next point but not anymore in the last point.

And that is what it means that time is infinite. You can never say that a change is complete.

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We are always in a state of transition.

Yes, we're always changing, but all change has to take place within the present. This very transition you are talking about is the precence, and that is why the present is the only true infinity, because in this heartbeat the world trancends itself. You might say that you will buy a car tomorrow, but you cannot do that until tomorrow is this moment.

But tomorrow is this moment, because only in this moment does the idea of a future exist, in the intention of the present.

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Yes, the past and future are illusions, conceptual contrivances; there is only what is occuring [now]. I bracket "now" because it, as concept, is also a relativistic contrivance. The present makes no sense without the concepts of past and future.
If we are to use bodies of water as metaphors for time, I would prefer the lake or pond over a river. A river, with its lineality, necessarily implies downsteam-past and upstream-future; a lake/pond denotes change (the moving surface) but in the present. Cyracuz is right to note the severe limitation of the river (and I would include the lake/pond) metaphor: it suggests that everthing off-shore is static, which isn't true. We cannot talk about time and change without implying timelessness and changelessness, but in reality there cannot be--or I cannot imagine--anything outside of changing time. One cannot step into the same river twice not only because it is never the same river but because we, too, are never the same.

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When it comes to this issue there is only one satisfactory explanation, and that is Omm. Omm is the birth and death of dualism, in the same way that the present is a constant birth and death of a moment. Remember that it's all illution. All save Omm. (To clarify; the objects in themselves, the moment in itself, are not illutions. The illutions are the individuality of these things.)

Think about music for instance. A piece of music is not just sound. It is sound and silence in harmony. It is not the beats, it is not the space between, it is both. We see that the space and the beats are two separate ideas, but we also see that they are one, because they are mutually dependent on eachoter. Without the silence, the beat would be everything(an unbroken, continuing sound), and without the beat, the silence would be nothing. We see how the piece of music is Omm, and time, wich is the space between, and the notes, that are the substances of the world, interact to uphold the unity, and that they are both nothing without the other.

So, like the music...

The unfolding of the world is the creation of time, in the same time that the unfolding of time is the creation of the world. But in reality they are one. Omm. That is why time is an illution.

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Wonderful, Cyracuz. All is Ommm (or, in Rinzai Zen, Muuuuuu) IF we see Ommm not as an idea but as the very intoning moment itself.
I love the way you employ the example of music.

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cyracuz

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Hmm, but by the time I land there it has already become the present.

You never land there. You are always passing.

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No, the idea of time as something linear does that.

Any idea of a real present supposes a pause in time.

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That's just it. To think of time as something that moves negates the movement of all other things. But we know that objects and energies move.

No, we move because our perception of things is only possible in time, although we never perceive time itself. Time is a representation of the world in our perception. In fact, I believe that time is in us. We are the river.

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And that is what it means that time is infinite. You can never say that a change is complete.

Yes, I agree.

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Yes, we're always changing, but all change has to take place within the present. This very transition you are talking about is the precence, and that is why the present is the only true infinity, because in this heartbeat the world trancends itself. You might say that you will buy a car tomorrow, but you cannot do that until tomorrow is this moment.

It is you that isolate a situation, like buying a car. In fact, it means a great number of situations and you are always moving to the next (but even those "situations" are mental constructs, as if you try to freeze time in moments-situations).

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Any idea of a real present supposes a pause in time.

No, you do that entirely on your own. The present is the total existence of everything. Nothing can exist outside it. The present is the grand total of time. Future and past both exist within the present. And not at all without it.

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No, we move because our perception of things is only possible in time, although we never perceive time itself. Time is a representation of the world in our perception. In fact, I believe that time is in us. We are the river.

Our perception is an extension of evolution. Evolution is the creator of time, as time is the creator of evolution. They are inseperable, and it is the interaction that creates the present. Time is not time without it's counterpart, space.

Val, everything can be seen as mental constructs. Even so, you still have to chose wich constructs are true and wich are false. It is clear that the "isolated situations" are mental constructs. What is less clear is that these constructs are illusory. Not real. The objects they refer to are real enough. It is merely their existence as individual objects that is the illution. The existence of "a moment" is also illusory. It is the construct you have chosen to categorize your world.

Incidentally, do you believe time travel (in the H.G. Wells, time machine, sense of the word) is possible? It is my opinion that this notion stems from a misunderstood concept of time, and is therefore just a dream.

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