The Philosophy Thread

[Louanne Learning]

Could be, or if nothing else no less logical than the light side.

I was thinking of people who choose the dark side over the light side. In my own life, I refuse to let go of the light. I'm not sure of the mind process that allows people to let go of the light. Is it too much pain?

 

[GrahamLewis]

Time is a dimension, not unlike distance. The differemce is our limited perception. We are aware of past and future but we cannot perceive them directly, only abstractly. Our perception of time is limited to the present which is elusive. For us it is always the present so we are not able to perceive time as distance. We see the evidence of it all around us but we can't experience it, which is frustrsting. Because, in reality the moment doesn’t really exist. As soon as you perceive it, it becomes past. The present exists but the moment does not. This is a paradox that we have to live with. But it doesn't mean that time doesn't exist. It only means that our perception of it is underdeveloped.

Not sure I wholly agree.

We are sort of aware of the past, but only in the stories we tell ourselves about what we remember happening, memories colored by our minds, limited range of experience, and wishes and fears. We are hardly aware of the future, because it is an unwritten set of stories, the most we can be aware of is what we expect to happen based on what we seem to remember. I suggest the present does exist, but we can't hold on to it, and, as you point out, as soon as we memorialize it is part of the past, quickly vanishing into the well of tainted memory. To say our perception is underdeveloped seems to suggest that we can someday develop a way to truly perceive it; I don't believe we ever can. The best we can do, and it is a lot, is let go of the past, not seriously anticipate the future, and experience the present as it happens. "If we live in the present," writes Sri Swami Sathinidananda, "even though the whole world might blow up in a minute, it won't bother us. . . . . To be happy in this minute is in our hands."

 

[Louanne Learning]

We are sort of aware of the past, but only in the stories we tell ourselves

Speaking as a widow, I can attest that my entire body feels the loss of my husband. I don't mean in the poetic sense, I mean in the physical sense. My entire body - not just my mind - actually feels different since I lost the man who I had an incredible connection to. I can feel the yearning in my limbs, and a feeling of incompleteness ... It manifests in all parts of me. I can't say I understand it, but it is real.

 

[Riddley Walker]

I'm not sure if this follows well from what you posted,

The present is like a point on a line. It exists but it occupies no space. The present exists in time but there is no actual passage of time. It is simply the transition between past and future, it's instantaneous and then it's gone. There is nothing to perceive. What we perceive is what we call a "moment" but it's actually a memory of the present that is already in the past. This is a paradox. We understand that we are in the present but we can't actually perceive it as the present.

 

[Schism]

I was thinking of people who choose the dark side over the light side. In my own life, I refuse to let go of the light. I'm not sure of the mind process that allows people to let go of the light. Is it too much pain?

Well using my last protags as an example.

In Two-Headed Shadow, No-Name protagonist is in his conflict with his dark side. If he wraps around to the light, in a vague sense, he stumbles upon that thought because of tragedies that happen before novel starts and during, which cause him to seek help from those that he for a long time kinda despises.

Granite Cradle focuses on Sean, who spends most of the previous novel being a trickster to his best friend Blake, settles into maturity during his quaint Maine life after having lost his son. He finds solace in his wife Brooke and daughter Caroline. I have a three novel exploration of Sean, and he leads a (at points anyway there are some victories to be sure) tragic life, yet maintains a sense of optimism. Or some spiritual center. His tale is one unto itself and is bound by its own laws.

I don't judge them. They exist in their own worlds, though in some ways two sides of the same coin.

 

[Heartlet Happer]

incompleteness

Well, this is a philosophy thread. If it helps, I'd look at having someone in life, having time together, to be not a norm, but a luxury. In whole eternity, we have, by chance, unexplained gift. And we choose to look at this chance as entitlement.

I have lost my cousin, got divorced, most of my older relatives died. If I start thinking about these losses as a source of suffering, I will get ruined. In face of this sort of things I am some helpless child, who lost mittens in freezing night and does not know how to not make grownups angry at you. I don't know how to cope, so I take rate of losses as a norm of life.

 

[Rath Darkblade]

I've heard it said that the present is a gift and that's why it's called "the present".

Facetiousness aside, can Time truly be said to exist? We (i.e. humankind) cannot touch it or perceive it (like the postman or the dog). We believe that it exists, but does it? Where is it? There are no numbers in the sky. There's no giant writing that says "THIS IS 2026 CE". We invented calendars and clocks so we could cut time down to size and measure it and make laws for it, but Time is a slippery customer.

So perhaps Time only exists because humanity believes that it exists. But does Time exist for florae or faunae, or for celestial bodies? Yes? How can we tell? The first line of the Bible is famously, "In the beginning..." but the beginning of what? And what came before? Chaos? Nothingness? The yawning void of the Ginnungagap? We don't know.

So if Time (as a concept) is unknowable and unpredictable, it reminds me of a deity -- which, of course, is how Time was treated for a very long, well, time. Kronos/Chronos, the Norns, the Fates, the Morrigan, etc. etc.

But what happened before humans were aware of Time as a separate entity? I mean, when we were barely out of the trees and beginning to take our first upright steps -- before the Neolithic Age and the rise of agriculture. Were the Paleolithic people (or even the Pliocene or Miocene Epoch people, like Australopithecus), who were evolving but had not yet developed the capability to create and use stone tools ... were they aware of time, other than the day/night cycle? What did they think of it?

Obviously these early hominins were VERY different to the homo sapiens of today, or even homo habilis or homo erectus. But can we somehow deduce how they viewed time? (And yes, I know there can't be an answer to a question like that without lots and lots of conjecture!)

 

[GrahamLewis]

I do not care if there is a God, or not a God, or multiple gods, or any religion-oriented beliefs.

I suspect you can say this only because you don't believe there is a God -- or gods. If you did believe, you would care very much. I'm not saying there is or are, only that you have already postulated that there is or are none.

 

[Louanne Learning]

is in his conflict with his dark side. If he wraps around to the light, in a vague sense

This is an interesting way of phrasing it. Like, the light is always there with us, not in some undeterminable place in the future.

 

[Schism]

This is an interesting way of phrasing it. Like, the light is always there with us, not in some undeterminable place in the future.

Or if not always with us, there's a potential path to seeing it again. Even if that light is way off in the distance.

 

[Louanne Learning]

can Time truly be said to exist? We (i.e. humankind) cannot touch it or perceive it

Well, touching it and perceiving it are too different things. That I can note the passage of time implies I can perceive it.

That I can say, "Time flies." or that "Time drags." suggests that I can perceive it.

were they aware of time, other than the day/night cycle? What did they think of it?

we've been thinking about time not only in the measurable (duration) but also in the abstract (philosophical) for 1000s of years.

Aristotle got the idea that time means change (and hints at entropy) when he wrote -

“Time crumbles things; everything grows old under the power of Time and is forgotten through the lapse of Time.”​

 

[Username: required]

I suspect you can say this only because you don't believe there is a God -- or gods. If you did believe, you would care very much. I'm not saying there is or are, only that you have already postulated that there is or are none.

Almost, but not quite. I believe God is as simple as love. But we're not supposed to get too into religion, so... *innocently whistles*

 

[Riddley Walker]

can Time truly be said to exist? We (i.e. humankind) cannot touch it or perceive it (like the postman or the dog). We believe that it exists, but does it? Where is it? There are no numbers in the sky. There's no giant writing that says "THIS IS 2026 CE". We invented calendars and clocks so we could cut time down to size and measure it and make laws for it, but Time is a slippery customer.

So perhaps Time only exists because humanity believes that it exists. But does Time exist for florae or faunae, or for celestial bodies? Yes? How can we tell? The first line of the Bible is famously, "In the beginning..." but the beginning of what? And what came before? Chaos? Nothingness? The yawning void of the Ginnungagap? We don't know.

Entropy is the ultimate proof that time exists. We know that all things wind down. We see the evidence of time all around us: seasons, tides, erotion, the aging body. To perceive time, though, as a plane of existence, we would have to have a god-like view. It would be similar to our ability to perceive three dimensions when looking down on a flat painting. The painting can only represent the third dimension (depth) using perspective and vanishing points. It can't actually create depth since it exists in only two dimensions. We, however, looking from above, experience three dimensions and we can see the distance between ourselves and the painting itself.

We live in four dimensions but we can only see three of them. We do, however, see the evidence of the fourth dimension, as I've demonstrated above. A god-like view would see (or experience) this fourth dimension as past, present, and future all visible at once and happening simultaeneously.

 

[JLT]

Speaking as a widow, I can attest that my entire body feels the loss of my husband. I don't mean in the poetic sense, I mean in the physical sense. My entire body - not just my mind - actually feels different since I lost the man who I had an incredible connection to. I can feel the yearning in my limbs, and a feeling of incompleteness ... It manifests in all parts of me. I can't say I understand it, but it is real.

You know the feeling, then. It is real. Thanks for sharing that.
I wrote a poem about how the presence of my first wife still haunts me, thirty-some years after she died. I posted it on the last forum, but I don't know if I posted it on this one. It's in my blog:

Closure

©2017 by John LaTorre This a little different from my previous posts. You might call it an attempt at poetry, if it is indeed a poem. I...

jayeltee.blogspot.com

Facetiousness aside, can Time truly be said to exist? We (i.e. humankind) cannot touch it or perceive it (like the postman or the dog). We believe that it exists, but does it? Where is it? There are no numbers in the sky. There's no giant writing that says "THIS IS 2026 CE". We invented calendars and clocks so we could cut time down to size and measure it and make laws for it, but Time is a slippery customer.

The very fact that we have to invent clocks and calendars is an indication that time exists. (Of course, some of us invent gods of every description and regulate our lives in accordance to what they dictate, but that's a different thing, because not all constructs are true constructs.) The elapsing of time is something we are all aware of, because this moment isn't precisely like the last moment. I think animals are aware of that was well, especially those who are hunters, because they rely on sensing motion in their prey, and motion is the precise change in their environment from moment to moment.

If time didn't exist, then E=MC squared would have no validity, since C is the speed of light, which is measured in units of seconds, or years, or whatever. If those units had no meaning, then the equation doesn't make sense. But we know it does, because we can measure its effects and consequences.

So perhaps Time only exists because humanity believes that it exists. But does Time exist for florae or faunae, or for celestial bodies? Yes? How can we tell? The first line of the Bible is famously, "In the beginning..." but the beginning of what? And what came before? Chaos? Nothingness? The yawning void of the Ginnungagap? We don't know.

That's where physics and theology come together, in contemplation of what there was before the beginning. I doubt if any sentient being worries about it other than humans.So if Time (as a concept) is unknowable and unpredictable, it reminds me of a deity -- which, of course, is how Time was treated for a very long, well, time. Kronos/Chronos, the Norns, the Fates, the Morrigan, etc. etc.

But what happened before humans were aware of Time as a separate entity? I mean, when we were barely out of the trees and beginning to take our first upright steps -- before the Neolithic Age and the rise of agriculture. Were the Paleolithic people (or even the Pliocene or Miocene Epoch people, like Australopithecus), who were evolving but had not yet developed the capability to create and use stone tools ... were they aware of time, other than the day/night cycle? What did they think of it?

Of course they were. They could see how plants grow, and seasons change, and companions grow old and die and women become pregnant and give birth. But whether they could take advantage of these things or prepare for them is something we don't know.

 

[Louanne Learning]

I wrote a poem about how the presence of my first wife still haunts me, thirty-some years after she died. I posted it on the last forum, but I don't know if I posted it on this one. It's in my blog:

Oh JLT, I am so sorry for what you must have gone through, and how it must still impact on you. Sometimes I rail at the randomness of this life, at the unfairness, but that is the dish we are served. Sometimes it makes us so sick at heart, but it's at those times when I really really need to focus on the good stuff, knowing all the while that the ache is still there, and I just have to learn to live with it.

I am glad you were able to capture your experience in that poem.

 

[takadote26]

My favourite philosophy is the "brain in a vat" scenario, along with the temporal 'mind-swap' trope- mainly because they have such quirky questions such as "am I truly me if I mindswap?", "Does the brain know that it is in a jar, instead of reliving its memories (VR, lol)?", "What happens to the mind when the mindswapped person tries to speak" (do they hear their voice, or the swapped person's voice)?
NOTE: Yes, I played Fallen Hero (choicescript game), why do you ask? xD

 

[Riddley Walker]

You know the feeling, then. It is real. Thanks for sharing that.
I wrote a poem about how the presence of my first wife still haunts me, thirty-some years after she died. I posted it on the last forum, but I don't know if I posted it on this one. It's in my blog:

Closure

©2017 by John LaTorre This a little different from my previous posts. You might call it an attempt at poetry, if it is indeed a poem. I...

jayeltee.blogspot.com

I think grief changes us permenantly. I was going to say, especially if it is an unexpected death. But on reflection, it's not fair to say that because grief is a very personal thing, and if it is someone you are very close to, a spouse, a parent, a child, the loss is like losing part of yourself that you can never regain. I have a brain-injured son, who is still alive, but he isn't the same person that he was. It took me a long time to allow myself to grieve for the son I lost. Now I have a different son.. I love him deeply. I wrote a book about him. But I also miss the son I lost.

 

[Louanne Learning]

"brain in a vat"

had to look it up. Interesting thought experiment. Apparently the inspiration for The Matrix movie

One question it raises is - "How skeptical can we be about reality?"

But we have no choice but to live as if our reality is real?

It kind of ties in with the concept of "subjective truth" too.

But what else but subjective truth defines our lived experiences and our world?

 

[Louanne Learning]

It took me a long time to allow myself to grieve for the son I lost.

being caregiver to my disabled husband caused me to grieve, too, for the active husband I had before he got sick.

 

[JLT]

being caregiver to my disabled husband caused me to grieve, too, for the active husband I had before he got sick.

I'm kind of going through that right now. My wife is dealing with cancer and the aftermath of a stroke and a heart attack which left her unable to do more than stand up for a few seconds. Now she's walking again with a walker and fetching snacks from the kitchen, but she has a long way to do. I think that a lot of her old friends are shying away from her because she's not the same person she was a year ago.

She's going through chemo again this week, her third go at it. The previous two were derailed after some effects of the treatment turned up. We're hoping that the third time's the charm.