Past, Present and Future - do they exist?

Flushd, you're right in that Plato's real vs ideal worlds (approximate meanings vs absolute meanings) antedates the dualism of Descartes, but the latter's division of mind and other (subject-object:"I think therefore I am", i.e., I am separate from thought and thought must have a thinker) has had a major impact on Western thought.

Just to draw you all back to the discussion of past, present and future...we need to recognise that any form of "persistence" (whether it be pattern, word, or self etc) coupled with any form of "change" semantically implies a time dimension. As I have already said, logic itself does not require such a dimension because it is based on static set membership i.e. only the persistance of set membership properties alone.

If we can agree so far, then the following problem arises. "Causality" (which is the normal basis of what we call explanation) is the application of logic to "events" in time. However since "events" themselves are observer-related it follows that "causality" is a function of agreement between observers and NOT simply the applied logic.

I'd like to introduce a new term to this discussion, and that is "the breaking point". The breaking point is when an event becomes visible. If a landslide happens this year, and a flood the next year we are inclined to say that the landslide happened before the flood. In actuality the landslide may well have been in the making for several years, while the flood is just a result of recent storms. Their breaking points were what mattered however, in pinpointing the events in time. Not when they began, but when we noticed them.

Causality is not only the application of logic to events in time. It is the defining and separating of each event, when in reality no event is separate from another. Causality is a fluid process, and any and all timelines we construct are strictly subjective. I am maintaining my view that everything happens at once. No moments are on hold until the time is right.

fresco wrote:



An agreement of one. (an single individual with the usual sense of separation experiences duration and causality (not that there are any individuals))

But what is meant by agreement? An elephant probably has a sense of time and causality. Where's the agreement. What form would it take?

Cyracuz,

I agree that the size of "an event window" is arbitrary. However in essence you imply we remove all "change" from "reality". This is nihilism..i.e.NOT everything happens at once BUT nothing actually "happens" at all. This constitues a similar "perverse position" to solipsism because we appear to be engaged in a segmented sequence of communications from "others".

Cyracuz wrote:

Twyvel Fresco

Even if there is no such thing as time, that does not mean that everything happens at once, for that would imply the existence of a present. I do believe, however, that the concepts of future and past are essential. Otherwise we could not make promises or call in promises. Society would be impossible and, as such, our species' survival.
Logic is, strictly speaking, impossible because there are no things or beings which are represented by the Xs, As, Bs, and Ps & Qs of logic. But we can say that reality's continuously "becoming" (and un-becoming) processes do occur at different rates of speed and, as such, can be treated subjectively as static set memberships. We live not only by means of knowledge of "truths, but also by means of imperatively functional fictions.

hi folks
boggling stuff, i have just spent an hour reading this entire thread...unfortunately for me i am still a dedicated presentist, well almost.
It seems to me we are trapped in an 'eternal Now'. We don't experience the past, we experience memories of the past in the present. And we don't experience the future, we experience the present.
Nothing can exist physically except in the now. I have to write a term paper titled 'does the past exist, does the present exist, does the future exist' and am still struggling how it can be concievable that either the past or the future do exist, it is not plausible! If they did exist it would be beyond human comprehension.

"Suppose that I am going to recite a psalm that I know. Before I begin, my faculty of expectation is engaged by the whole of it. But once I have begun, as much of the psalm as I have removed from the province of expectations and relegated to the past now engages my memory, and the scope of the action which I am performing is divided between the two faculties of memory and expectation, the one looking back to the part which I have already recited, the other looking forward to the part which I have still to recite. But my faculty of attention is present all the while, and through it passes what was the future in the process of becoming the past. "
(Augustine, Confessions 278; bk. 11, sec. 28)

I feel this sums it up...
But then I ask myself, if i was a dedicated presentist, I could in reality deny the existance of say the tsunami last year, saying it as the things only exist exist in the now, then it does and did not exist. But it did. And I couldnt say that it was only in our minds that things exist (i.e. only when someone recollects something happening), because say of nobody saw a tree falling in a forest, but it did, you cant deny that happening either. So i do not entirely believe in the presentist view. Possiblism to me, is almost as ludicras as eternalism...So I stand somewhat bemused. I believe that only the now exists, but refuse to deny that because it does not exist now, it did not once temporally exist. It merely no longer physically exists...Ive had my mind racking over this for about a month now...
Any ideas on where to stand? Or 'destroy' my views - because that is always useful!

ktrocky

Welcome on board.

You need to be careful with that word "exist".

I can't remember whether I've raised this here but I'm notorious for arguing "existence" means "to be in relationship". If "you" relate to "the past" or "a rock" or "God" then all those items "exist"...but the nature of the relationship is different. A physical relationship is only one of many and by "physical" we are merely defining/predicting a subset of potential interactions.

existance
but surely you could then argue that existance is only physical in the now? surely? counter-argument would be to say we are in relationship to the past? but then in response i would say it is only possible to have have a physical existance with something in the now...ie pick up a bottle [now] bottle in hand [now] bottle put down [now] the only reason you are still holding the bottle is becuase you are holding it in the now, the now has moved on, you arent holding the bottle in another time dimension, it is just a fact that you once picked it up... i can see problems with this, but if oyu literally take the idea that the past CANT exist, then these problems are surely overcome...i think the past is in our head just there to stop us going mad! ok so it exists physically in our heads, but NOT externally...

As a matter of fact and not of fiction, any one language within symbolic logic- as with sentential and predicate logic, and their variants- is capable of representing any one thing, both real and fictional; this is the aim of such languages.

The variables you mention represent any set of things within the particular universe of discourse under consideration. If you mean to say that rules of inference do not represent "real" things or beings, I respectfully disagree; not only do they represent any entity that any mind can muster, but they are capable of capturing entities within any universe.

Pray tell, notwithstanding your premise in the first statement of the above quote, what evidence has lead you to the conclusion that logic is an impossibility? This is not a setup- my interest is genuine.

Your thesis is impressive, though I wish to know more about this peculiar role of causality.

Causality, as process, is an application of logic to events in time; it both defines and separates each event through this application, and the application is carried out within a subjective medium.

Is the notion of causality familiar with logic and its surroundings?

In what way does the application proceed within this medium?

How are all events interconnected?

And, finally, if everything happens at once, how do we avoid entropy?

I suppose I'm a "presentist" insofar as I acknowledge/experience only THIS immediate moving moment. But to say "present" is to imply past and future. The concepts cannot exist be themselves.

Like Fresco, I also see my reality/existence as only definable in terms of relationships. I might call this perspective interactionism. I am sitting here on a chair which is on a floor which is on the earth. My "existence" is totally conditioned by my entire context: air pressure, gravity, oxygen, light, temperature, etc. all within a certain necessary range of values. I'm interacting with a computer and by that means with you-all. Everything is conditioned by everything else. And everything in this context is changing. This changing moment is not analogous to a river in which we move from downstream (past) upstream (future). It's more like a lake in which events are analogous to the continuously changing movements of water, happening here/now and going nowhere. I've also got to be careful not to connote an absolute "here" since it clearly depends on "there," doesn't it?

Quex, logic is "impossible" in terms of the exactness of philosophical inquiry. Obviously, we do "represent" aspects of experience loogically (even if they are not exactly what we construe them to be ontologically). That is so even if it's sole function is to keep us from contra-dicting ourselves.

Ktrocky, you say that "surely you could then argue that existance is only physical in the now? surely? counter-argument would be to say we are in relationship to the past?" Do you see the past, present, and future as distinct "things?" As I construe it, the "past" and "present" are not distinct, except in our heads. They are epistemological rather than ontological issues. The so-called past is not only evidenced in the conditions "it" has generated "now." It is not even past: it IS the conditions of now. And the "future" is a limited but open range of possibilites stemming from the conditions existing now. Metaphorically, past and present are like the two ends of a stick. One end of the stick does not generate the other.They are continuous and unitary rather than discreet and causally related in nature.

Can you further amplify the first statement? I do not wish to read into it that which is not there.

Thank you.

ktrocky

but surely you could then argue that existence is only physical in the now?

No "physical" implies sensual (via the senses) interaction or the expectancy of interaction due to past experiences and public confirmation thereof. We already have aspects of "time" involved. The difference between physical and non-physical existence lies mainly with public agreement. Theists concur "God" exists and for them "He" does as a positive form of relationship. Atheists such as myself may be obliged to interact with theists in a similar manner to adults interacting with children over "Santa Claus"...but this interaction itself constitutes acknowledgement of a "positive" relationship for others and a "negative" relationship for self. Both relationships are contingent on the "existence" of the concept named "God". I do not distinguish between "concepts" and "things" because this begs the question of "physical reality".

twyvel wrote:


You're right. Nothing happens. Nor did anything happen. Everything is happening.

And yes, constructions are involuntary, but they can be changed in retrospect, and they can be wrong from the start. I am sure that history is not entirely consistent with the actual progression of change.

Duration, non duration, causality and the uncaused. These are halves, and our perception renders your statement true, not the world we percieve.

JL, you say that if everything happens at once it implies the existence of a present. I'd rather say that it implies the existence of a presence, though that is saying it double. It implies presence.

Quex, by my comment, "logic is 'impossible' in terms of the exactness of philosophical inquiry", I was referring to the ontological reality that there are no "things", no "beings" standing in absolute static relationships that we can "grasp" by means of logic. Logic IS a way of keeping our propositions non-contradictory, but it is not an instrument for the investigation of the world, per se, in the sense that microscopes or telescopes are. We investigate the world by means of experience (and its extensions, e.g., microscopes), but the inferences we make regarding such experiences must be clear of contradictions which are evaded by means of logical condums.

Cryacuz, sorry but I do not understand your use of "presence." I also have difficulty understanding the use of that term in writings about abstract art.

I think we're taking about the non-existence of existence. This awake, observing - Nothing - has presence but not existence. It is too obvious to no one.

Space is nothing but what I am.