The Illusion of Time (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Tuesday, September 14, 2010, 08:10 (5183 days ago) @ xeno6696

BALANCE_MAINTAINED: I have said that Time is a linguistic construct that humans need to express an idea that we do not yet fully understand. I am not claiming to fully understand it myself, and by default I am left having to use the same literary constructs as everyone else. That does not mean it exists, it just means that our way of thinking and language are closely interwoven with that concept.-We have linguistic constructs for all the things we do not yet fully understand: consciousness, life, love, beauty, dark energy, imagination, will....That may not mean they exist, but it certainly doesn't mean they don't exist. You and Matt have explained the non-existence theory very clearly, and I'll switch to Matt's post on the subject, so that I can combine the two. But first, please don't apologize, Matt, for intervening! These discussions are open, and I find it immensely helpful to get these multiple viewpoints. -MATT: Our language helps preserve "now" in our memories, but they are only memories. [..] The present moment that was recorded in your memory cannot be reclaimed. [...] Time is nothing more than a ruler we use to mark events.-I have no problem at all with this, but I'm stubbornly reluctant to allow philosophy to take over from pragmatism, so I will argue my case so that you can both enlighten me with yours. What you have shown is that the past has no reality, and in a flash the present also loses its reality. The future has no reality anyway. But although they have no reality, we all assume (and why should we not?) that our memories ... even though they can't capture the reality of what was once fleetingly real ... nevertheless relate to something that WAS real. I don't want to get sidetracked into issues of subjective interpretation here, so let's take a solid, material example. You and I are looking at a building. What we see will be our personal perception of it, but we do not doubt its reality, and if there were a million people standing there with us, they too would testify to the reality of the building. Through the mere fact that it is standing there in our present, we would all agree that it must have been built in the past. Each such perception of the present (immediately turning into memory) ... whether linked to material things or experiences or history or evolution ... testifies to the once-reality of the past. In other words, there has been an onward movement in which present has become past. We don't understand it, and as you say, it's a ruler we use to mark events, but "nothing more than a ruler" seems to me to miss out on the fact that the onward flow continues, and the records of the no-longer-real ... abstract as well as material ... are evidence of the reality of the movement. I would argue, then, that time is not the present, past and future, but the flow that links them. And so if you claim that time does not exist, you will have to convince me that there is no onward flow.