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you do not know that, there is no method to prove. For practical purposes we can have 'time'. But it does not mean it exists. Look, it is uneasy concept, I know

you do not know that, there is no method to prove. For practical purposes we can have 'time'. But it does not mean it exists. Look, it is uneasy concept, I know. But it is not Kantian at all. The thing is that we build tools to augment our limited senses, but we cannot build tools to augment depth of our understanding. If the language has no word for phenomena, it cant be explained or exposed. But its reality is undeniable. Ever had something you know but you cant explain? It does not mean the thing you know does not exist, right? Such is the uneasy truth that there is no 'time' or 'self'.

danbruc 11y ago
There is solipsism, the idea that nothing but your mind exists. And it is a valid idea because you can not be sure that anything exists. The entire universe, everything you think you see, hear, smell or feel might just be an illusion created by your mind. The idea that things change with time or that time exists, that you can move your body through space or that space exists or you have a body to begin with, all this may just be an illusion of your mind. But while this is an interesting idea to ponder about it is also not very helpful. If true you are lost and there is nothing you can ever learn about the world. Maybe you can explore the illusion created by your mind but even this only if your mind behaves nicely and does not randomly decide to completely change the illusion or whatnot. It seems to make a lot more sense to assume not everything is just an illusion, believe that there is a real world accessible by your senses and then explore this world. And once you have decided that there is a real world it no longer makes sense to ascribe a special role to you or your mind because that is part of the position you just left behind. it is made from neural correllates of consciousness. Your brain basically runs this gfx. This is also inconsequential - you say that time is an illusion created by your brain but that still requires that your brain exists in some reality and that it is doing things which prerequisite time because doing means change over time. It might of course be the case that there is a time in the real world that allows things to happen and your mind might create an internal representation of that, the thing we call time, that is a poor representation of the true nature of time, but that does not mean time does not exist, it means there is the real thing and the thing we perceive. And this may actually be the likely scenario because there are hints in physics that neither time nor space are fundamental things but are the result of something more fundamental in a similar way that atoms are made out of quarks and electrons.
- ommunist 11y ago
  The point is you cannot distinguish between reality and illusion even if your model accurately describes reality. In the absence of mind everything else exists, but there is no one to _know_ about that and exploit that knowledge. It reminds me classy 5th form physics lesson, when our teacher explained limitations of Newtonian mechanics before lesson on basics of electrodynamics. For those kinds of "physics" time is parameter, coordinate, models make sense. But Einstein came and here we are. And we are not even in the beginning of understanding what "spacetime" _really_ is. That is why I everywhere state in this discussion that we can have 'time' for practical purposes only. Yes, there is the real thing. But we lack tools and senses to perceive it.

danbruc 11y ago

There is solipsism, the idea that nothing but your mind exists. And it is a valid idea because you can not be sure that anything exists. The entire universe, everything you think you see, hear, smell or feel might just be an illusion created by your mind. The idea that things change with time or that time exists, that you can move your body through space or that space exists or you have a body to begin with, all this may just be an illusion of your mind. But while this is an interesting idea to ponder about it is also not very helpful. If true you are lost and there is nothing you can ever learn about the world. Maybe you can explore the illusion created by your mind but even this only if your mind behaves nicely and does not randomly decide to completely change the illusion or whatnot. It seems to make a lot more sense to assume not everything is just an illusion, believe that there is a real world accessible by your senses and then explore this world. And once you have decided that there is a real world it no longer makes sense to ascribe a special role to you or your mind because that is part of the position you just left behind. it is made from neural correllates of consciousness. Your brain basically runs this gfx. This is also inconsequential - you say that time is an illusion created by your brain but that still requires that your brain exists in some reality and that it is doing things which prerequisite time because doing means change over time. It might of course be the case that there is a time in the real world that allows things to happen and your mind might create an internal representation of that, the thing we call time, that is a poor representation of the true nature of time, but that does not mean time does not exist, it means there is the real thing and the thing we perceive. And this may actually be the likely scenario because there are hints in physics that neither time nor space are fundamental things but are the result of something more fundamental in a similar way that atoms are made out of quarks and electrons.

ommunist 11y ago
The point is you cannot distinguish between reality and illusion even if your model accurately describes reality. In the absence of mind everything else exists, but there is no one to _know_ about that and exploit that knowledge. It reminds me classy 5th form physics lesson, when our teacher explained limitations of Newtonian mechanics before lesson on basics of electrodynamics. For those kinds of "physics" time is parameter, coordinate, models make sense. But Einstein came and here we are. And we are not even in the beginning of understanding what "spacetime" _really_ is. That is why I everywhere state in this discussion that we can have 'time' for practical purposes only. Yes, there is the real thing. But we lack tools and senses to perceive it.