Thank you, Levinas. I've never heard it put so concisely or so well. You must be a teacher.
My question, which is certainly off topic (though metaphysical) is: okay, so what is time? I don't really understand it, and I don't understand how, if our physical reality is a time-space continuum, time is not a matter or physics rather than metaphysics.
That is a very difficult question to answer.
Since Aristotle time has been conceived as a series of changes, of things coming to be and passing away. Each point of time being somehow equivalent. 'Now' being the real, locked in between the past (which is no more) and the future (which is not yet). Actually Aristotle discusses time in the Physics, so he may well have considered it a matter of physics rather than metaphysics. This is because the changeable was 'down here' as opposed to the changeless God 'up there' (Aristotle's God was the unmoved-mover).
Newton hardly changes this conception of time. For him it is like space in the sense that it is a kind of container for things. It is that in which things move, but not in the sense of a change of location - as in space, but in the sense of change in aging, developing or duration. It is therefore conceived, not as dependent upon physical events, but as the backdrop against which they are understood. In the sense that it is studied by physics it is therefore physical. It is called absolute time and is objective and independent of our understanding or awareness of it.
This is opposed to Einsteinium time which is relative to the velocity of bodies, and in particular the speed of light. Here time, rather than being a container, is part of the fabric of things. So here - in so far as it is understood by physics - time is physical. But what we mean by 'physical,' and whether that is all there is, is itself a metaphysical question. (The 'space-time continuum' you refer to)
Those who conclude that only matter exist are called materialists. Others believe matter to be either unreal (Berkeley) or derivative from some more fundamental spiritual reality and these are called idealists. There are also those who accept that both coexist - dualists (Descartes). There are other positions here, but we need not stray too far.
Immanuel Kant conceived of time as not out there in the world - not objective - but as our way of organising what effects us by the senses (along with space) and what goes on in our thinking. It is a general form or condition for organising a world and thought, but it is essentially an ideal construction. This idea begins to locate time in terms of how we understand or experience it. This has the effect of making it less abstract and helps us to connect it to our existence.
The idea is taken up by thinkers like Henri Bergson who divided time into clock time - which was the measurable time of objects moving in space - and pure duration (la durée), which is time as we experience it (the time of our lives). The former, he argued, is homogenous and static, but the latter is mobile and diverse. He noted such phenomena as the fact that time slows down (as when reading this) or speeds up (when you're having fun) depending on how we are or what we are doing. So not all points of time are equivalent as they are in Aristotle.
Martin Heidegger also connects time (temporality) to our lives (he would say 'existence'). His view is very complex, but basically we are such beings as are oriented in our lives on the basis of the fact that we are heading toward a future - we are forward-looking. And time is structured around this mode of existence. So, again, not all points of time are on a par - some are more significant than others. Ultimately we are going to die and thus authentic temporality is time structured in such a way that we resolutely face up to this future and live our finite lives accordingly. Inauthentic existence flees this reality into the belief that death is not connected to my life but is just an event in the world. Heidegger was extremely influential on existentialist authors, particularly Sartre.
Sorry this was so long. It certainly didn't answer your question, but I hope you can see how time is philosophically controversial, even if it is not obviously a metaphysical problem.
Thanks Levinas. Once again I appreciate your taking the time to lay the issues out so clearly and concisely. I was considering reading Heidegger's Being and Time but suspected (now confirmed for me) that I needed more background. On a naive level (having not read enough about this), I'm struck by the modern abandonment of the idea of time as a (fully) objective phenomenon. That makes me wonder if things like science and technology (which require objective measurements of time) are not to some extent illusory--or at least only partially understandable in their current paradigm. I suppose relativity provides a quick fix for the problem, but I don't think that is the way our physics or metaphysics are headed in the 21st century. As I said, my appreciation of these matters is naive. In any case, thank you for your detailed response.
Last edited by Pompey Bum; 06-14-2015 at 09:27 AM.
Metaphysics is where people go when they cannot understand the physics.Originally Posted by Pompey Bum
Hello Pompey, the very word metaphysics is the abstract and sometimes sentimental thoughts about entity. It's pure fallacy sometimes, anyone can provide naturally sympathetic response to the world. For example, if I was a metaphysical detective from a cult film, the knowledge of a ravaging society makes me ponder of how condemned people become. The reality of humans and their persistence for joy and repressive idiocy with hypocrisy. Which lies in fatalism. These qualities moves towards attributes, aesthetical descriptions.
Construction of cults, religion, living, food chain, cycle of life. The metaphysics has been explored many ways but are subtleties found anywhere you go. Much of this isn't shown clear, I am an empathetic person so I find many things out there and many things of their intuity. But I don't have advanced etiquettes with really cool wording, all I really think is behaviour which is the best word for me. It can also be considered in films like Full Metal Alchemist where it makes the subject Equivalent Exchange and Rebound. playing with fire sort of thing, also shows a clue about the imagining between alpha and omega-god and life.
Just pretend it's the 4th dimension of consciousness like 2D, 3D, and 4D which barely exists in reality but it's a proxy among all mindful things, it's a psychology construction, people become hippies and spiritual entrepreneurs of animals or that.
Last edited by Francis92; 09-21-2015 at 02:41 PM.
Welcome, Francis92! I hope to hear more about pretending and the 4th dimension. How do you become a spiritual entrepreneur of animals?
My blog: https://frankhubeny.blog/
What? Did you think I literal? Proclaimed animal interpreters are only trying to scam you. Not exactly, some being immersed in their, their own social relevance. As if they can talk to animals. For example Christianity. How did you think it started? Not as a peaceful communion of followers, it only had stories and complete lies and would a roman soldier see it as a cult? Christianity and religion were provisions in a time of wits and incompetent comedic disciples, impassioned by these entities in any way. Savior, what philosophy do you build over saviors? Much more internal righteousness and extrovert messages about a God. There were reunions to define what religion is, it would contribute to catholicism. 4D was just me in 3am trying to explain the necessity but thoughts of metaphysics.
I took it personally. . . . Metaphysics is a non survivalistic concept but a craft, c'mon it was like 3am when I was trying to give examples. Literature is what for you? A skill for scholars and writers? Emotion, metaphysics are part to part in concepts when your empathetically involved, which is why we include definitions of abstraction.
I see. It's animal interpreter, not entrepreneur. It's 10 pm now for me. I usually make more sense at 7 am. I don't know much about literature.
My blog: https://frankhubeny.blog/
There's different ways to describe metaphysics and what it is. Like, the persistency for knowledge and touch of sentimental fabrication for things. It's total fallacy, but it has qualities which no other subject has. Non survivalist intuition, it's what happens to arrogance, many do not feel the confliction. Then conflict arises, metaphysics is ultimate hypocrisy maybe. Like the Frog And The Ox.
Ah, the Frog and the Ox. That is sort of like me trying to get into a yoga position. Is non-survivalist intuition all that bad?
My blog: https://frankhubeny.blog/
Wikipedia says "meta" is Greek "after" or "beyond". Therefore after-physics or beyond-physics. I've been told, and it makes sense, meta as "above", therefore, above-physics. Above or higher than the physical.
As loosely as possible, metaphysics includes suspected aspects of reality we do not have the tools to even verify, let alone investigate, and/or where our tools are of only minimal use. If we develop or invent the tools, I think that part of metaphysics then becomes physics.
There is a very occult flavor to the word these days. When we believe something exists, or when we know something exists, but cannot find the cause, that is metaphysics, too.
I do not know if there is always a well defined line of demarcation whenever that line is crossed and metaphysics becomes physics. The idea of quantum tunneling probably began as a metaphysical idea to reach "beyond," and is now an accepted part of physics, though far from fully investigated. But there is verification. In a recent article I read that scientists forced a water molecule into beryllium and observed that the result, after quantum tunneling, was a new form of water, not liquid, not ice, inside the beryllium.
The leap from Newton to Einstein was a leap to a metaphysics. A meta-anything must include all the truths of its predecessor as merely a special case or subset of itself. We might age less when we travel fast, but the difference in our lifespans as a result is so minimal that it makes no difference if one is a jet pilot or has never been in anything faster than a horse and buggy. Local calculations are done with Newton's formulas and not Einstein's. Einstein applies at huge distances, so huge in fact that only Newtonian calculations were necessary for the entire Apollo 11 project.
As an analogy, consider some of the events in mathematics, and whether you believe they were examples of metamathematics.
1 Moving from the natural numbers to the whole numbers, a set containing only one additional element, zero?
2 Moving from the whole numbers to the integers, a set which contained all the negative numbers as well?
3 Moving from the integers to the rationals, a set which contained all the fractions that could be made of the integers as well?
4 Moving from the rationals to the reals, a set which contained all the points on a number line that are not rational (cannot even be located with a fraction)?
5 Moving from the reals to the complex, a set which included the reals as a subset of itself where the complex part simply equaled zero.
Strange to think, isn't it, that to our most advanced ancient ancestors, zero was an absurdity when it came to calculation, an art they had been practicing for centuries?
How strange to us now that our ancestors had been calculating for thousands of years before they accepted the idea of a negative number. Zero and negative numbers were counter-intuitive to them, as non-Euclidian geometry is counter-intuitive to us?
6 Moving from Euclidian geometry to non-Euclidian, for which the curved space of Einstein is a general example?
It is not too strange to us that no one ever thought of this one before. It seems more strange that anyone ever did think of it. It seems simply amazing to me that anyone was insightful or smart enough to question Euclid's simple statement that two parallel lines will never meet in the first place. Yet the proposition bothered a host of great mathematcians through the ages until the invention of geometries where parallel lines did meet. The excitement was confined to only mathematics for a while. When Einstein came along, the geometry of his universe was already developed, but without it great application, which he supplied.
* * * * *
Complex numbers were once unflatteringly called imaginary numbers by Descartes, and the term stuck for a good while. Acceptance among even great mathematicians was a slow process taking a couple centuries and finally completed by Gauss, who loved to settle tough arguments forever.
To my own way of thinking, all of the jumps I listed were jumps into metamathematics. I imagine once upon a time an apprenctice could have gotten his face slapped for asking what seven minus seven was.
I do not think all such leaps are eqaul. It has been proposed that undecidable problems under Godel might be resolved in a metamathematics. That would be a very long leap from where we stand. Taken in stages until we are closer seems more likely.
In physics I have not thought about the same thing nearly as much. I could not make a good list of jumps, other than Einstein/Newton.
When talking about mathematics and metamathematics, I assume that in this context mathematics has been objectified and stripped of any meaning that a model might assign to it. All that remains are symbols and rules for transformation that a computer could perform and reach "decisions", assuming we told the computer to bother, on whether a string of symbols or statement can be derived form previous strings of symbols.
The metamathematics is the part that requires human intelligence or subjectivity. That would mean that all of the examples from the natural numbers to non-Euclidean geometry are metamathematics since they are part of a model. They provide meaning to the underlying manipulated strings verified by a computer.
Each of the examples I cited enabled the asking and the answering of questions not attainable under the previous number system. In the natural number system 6-6 and 6-7 are undefined, like dividing by zero is to us. But 6-6 is attainable under the whole numbers, and 6-7 is attainable under the integers.
Quantum computing is likely to take care of some unsolved problems and open many new avenues. Einstein became a symbol for an overnight revolution in physics. I doubt that a mathematical revolution will have as much public appeal.
It may be that current mathematicians are making headway in researching consciousness, ESP and other estoeric fields. I don't know what their models are capable of simulatiing or producing. I know they use matrices which are eight miles long on a side when each entry is given one inch of space, and the matrices are in more than three dimensions. As you point out, it has to be an encoded computer model because no human would be able to calculate in it.
What I expect eventually is the discovery of human shortcuts to trans-human states that are more effective forms of meditation and self-hypnosis, chanting and incantation, because they will be extractions from a more exact and much richer code, in effect these very models or their decendants.
Some headway made into psi phenomena has come from Dean Radin. I think he is mainly using statistical methods. Here is an incomplete list of references Radin assembled justifying psi phenomena: http://deanradin.com/evidence/evidence.htm
If we are going to accept the scientific method, we need to accept psi phenomena. What the presence of psi phenomena implies is a broader question. For example, I think it implies that we will never be able to be downloaded into a computer, because we are not as individualistic as we would like to believe and our subjectivity is shared.
Einstein doesn't impress me as much after reading Canales' "The Physicist and the Philosopher". I will have to read Bergson.
When I hear the word "metamathematics", it means to me what people normally mean by mathematics, but in the context of metamathematics, symbolic mathematics is a collection of objective statements and rules of transformation. These objective statements in themselves have no meaning and can be viewed as strings of bits that computers manipulate. People don't think using those strings of bits comprising symbolic mathematics. Those strings exist so a computer can manipulate them and they are an attempt to dump mathematics into a computer.
Last edited by YesNo; 05-26-2016 at 07:21 AM.
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