Past, Present and Future - do they exist?

Ok i think were on the same page. Earlier on the topic people were posting strange conceptions to say the least. I only defined because other members were going in circles.

only 8:30 here

Ego love? I think it is only vanity in disguise. It is not love at all if it creates distance.

Welcome Adiest, great to have another smart person who shows the courtesy to edit his/her posts at least once.
You say that "If all you ask is if the present and future exists as a real entity in the Universe, then i think science says yes."
It seems to me that time and space are not discoveries of Science or the scientific method; they are among a set of highly foundational assumptions which make science as we know it possible.

why is it good to edit you posts???

Immanuel Kant's thoughts came to me as I read the last post by JLN.

Space and time, Kant says, are not attributes of the real world, but of the human being. It's known as his copernican twist, since it revolutionized philosophy in the way copernicus' discovery of the relation between the sun and the earth revolutionized science.

Kant explores the possibility that the forms of perception are there prior to experience, as a blank canvas that will be filled as we percieve the world.

I do not personally agree with much of what Kant wrote, but in this particular subject I find his thoughts very stimulating.

And I apologize for the wording in this post, wich I cannot guarantee is correct. I have only read Kant in norwegian, so I have to translate as I go.

quite agree, some of Kants work seems logical. as you saidn Kant sees neither space nor time as substances, but more of a systematic framework structuring the experiences of human. i.e. when we experience events as causing other events, it is because we have a concept of causality in nature into which we fit our experience...nice idea huh?

Cryacuz and ktrocky, it does seem to me that Kant's defense of "pure reason", i.e., that a priori concepts, like the axioms of logic and the intuitions of space and time, are essential for the integration of empirical observations. But it also amounts to an implicit confession that the world is our construction (built on the structure of our, at least Western) minds, rather than the "objective" subject matter of positivistic science.

that it does...

i have to write an essay with the title of this debate and i'm still no further on it! anyone got any really good sources......

Is it the case--I don't recall--that Kant considers our a priori assumptions to be something like intuitions into the "thing in itself," the real world behind our world of appearances?

yeah more or less.life would be so much easier if it were true

Only mystics seem to say that one can see phenomena as they are, which to say empty, transient, or, as Tywvel puts it, non-existent, having no reality or substance.

JL wrote:


Not neccesarily that the world is our construction. Our ability to percieve comes from the world itself, and as I see it, Kants idea could explain that the world doesn't neccecarily follow the principles that our perception follows.

Everything does happen at once, as I understand it. We cannot percieve everything at once, so we see pieces and puzzle them together according to our forms, as Kant describes. Both space and time are indelible in themselves. The forms space and time are not, hence the confusion.

Indian tradition has believed that for ages, i think.
They call the 'truth' seeing beyond the 'viel of maya'

PQueen, yes the "thing in itself" of Kant does sound a bit like Indian theology, that which we see when and if we could penetrate the veil of appearances.

Cyracuz, my point was simply that our a priori "compulsions" to see the world in certain ways, e.g., logically and in terms of space and time, leads me to suspect at least that logic and space and time are not necessarily attributes of the world "out there", but properties of experience "in here" (our "construction materials").
Ultimately, I agree with you since our minds ARE part of the world.

Cyracuz wrote:



Yes, everything may happen at once, but not everything happens. I think an aspect of the 'constructions' JLNobody is talking about is assuming causal relations which are not taking place.

JLNobody wrote:



Part?

oops! Aspects?

Minds as 'aspects' of the world? In which way?