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> Maybe time isn't real in the way we perceive it but I don't think the underlying nature of time is something undiscoverable. My take is: humans are just anot

by dakiol 3y ago

> Maybe time isn't real in the way we perceive it but I don't think the underlying nature of time is something undiscoverable. My take is: humans are just another living thing. Most (all?) living things don’t know everything about the underlaying “reality“ (e.g., my dog doesn’t know about electromagnetism). Hence, most likely, humans cannot be sure that what they know IS the underlaying reality (unless, of course, we think we are somehow special).

ivlad 3y ago
We seem to be special: we are the only (so far) known species having complex speech as well as ability to convey our thoughts to others, capability to build tools, and abstract thinking.
woodruffw 3y ago
This is an interesting way of thinking about it, but I’ll note: Kant absolutely believes that humans are special. His moral philosophy is grounded in the concept of a self-legislating agent, which in turn is more or less coextensive with a human being. Self-legislating agents are, in Kant’s view, the only type of thing that moral “oughts” impinge on. (That doesn’t mean he’s right, but I think it’s worthwhile to point out in an exegetical context.)
felipeerias 3y ago
We have models that attempt to describe the basic components of reality. So far, those models seem to work reasonably well, but we don't really know how far they are from actual reality. We have become used to science explaining the universe in ever increasing detail. The expectation that it will continue to do so indefinitely, or that eventually we will reach some sort of "final answer", is more a wish than a certainty. Maybe we will just arrive at a point where we can't go any further and a million questions remain forever unanswered. The universe doesn't care about our narratives.
galaxyLogic 3y ago
> humans cannot be sure that what they know IS the underlaying reality We can define the 'underlying reality" as the intersection of all people's beliefs, and what weight we give to each such belief. I don't know what it means to say something "is the underlying reality" or not. But we can give a definition to the term "underlying reality" and then talk about it.

by dakiol 3y ago

ivlad 3y ago

We seem to be special: we are the only (so far) known species having complex speech as well as ability to convey our thoughts to others, capability to build tools, and abstract thinking.

woodruffw 3y ago

This is an interesting way of thinking about it, but I’ll note: Kant absolutely believes that humans are special. His moral philosophy is grounded in the concept of a self-legislating agent, which in turn is more or less coextensive with a human being. Self-legislating agents are, in Kant’s view, the only type of thing that moral “oughts” impinge on. (That doesn’t mean he’s right, but I think it’s worthwhile to point out in an exegetical context.)

felipeerias 3y ago

We have models that attempt to describe the basic components of reality. So far, those models seem to work reasonably well, but we don't really know how far they are from actual reality. We have become used to science explaining the universe in ever increasing detail. The expectation that it will continue to do so indefinitely, or that eventually we will reach some sort of "final answer", is more a wish than a certainty. Maybe we will just arrive at a point where we can't go any further and a million questions remain forever unanswered. The universe doesn't care about our narratives.

galaxyLogic 3y ago

> humans cannot be sure that what they know IS the underlaying reality We can define the 'underlying reality" as the intersection of all people's beliefs, and what weight we give to each such belief. I don't know what it means to say something "is the underlying reality" or not. But we can give a definition to the term "underlying reality" and then talk about it.