Hi Triad, and thanks for considering my thoughts.
I appreciate your questions because they motivate me to find better ways of expressing my ideas. I must admit that I find it pretty hard to be precise and concise here, so I´d like to ask you for some patience when I don´t succeed.
'Now' is at the very least a perception, of what is current, or the present
I highly doubt that we perceive something as "now". I tend to think that "now" is an abstraction, and a pretty sloppy concept, which is no problem as long as you don´t use it for purposes that it´s not meant to serve.
— anything other than that which has already occurred or been experienced and that which has not yet occurred or been experienced.
Yes, I agree. The concept is abstracted ex negativo (what it isn´t) rather than ex positivo (what it is).
'Now' refers to the moment you are aware of and operate in, and are in control of. The past and the present do not fit these descriptions.
"Now" is a very flexible concept. It varies extremely, depending on the context and a (unmentioned or hypothetical) "as opposed to...". Now can be this second (as opposed to something that happened a second ago), it can also mean something like "in this century" (as opposed to ancient times) or, if used in the context of evolution it can even be thousands of years. These are examples as to how "now" is usefully and practically used. I highly doubt that it has come into being for the purpose of being the subject or the tool of philosophical considerations.
I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, allowing you some latitude with reality vs. illusion.
That´s generous of you, but it´s you who asks a question, and I have to assume that you have a purpose in asking it: you want to know something. Thus, it makes no sense for you to allow me this latitude, because that is likely to lead away from what you actually want to know. If it were my question, yes, then I would be the one to define the parameters by means of which I want to explore it.
See: Your question makes no sense to me. I am assuming it makes sense to you. In order to understand what
your question actually is I need
you to frame it. If
I determine the frame, the parameters, the definition of the operational terms it will become
my question, which most likely won´t have anything to do with yours, and on top a question I don´t even have.
I assumed that you would agree that reality falls somewhere within the realm of the state of being without respect to varying perceptions, whereas illusion can provide varying perceptions.
I have a very unusuual and weird philosophical conceptualization of "reality" that actually renders the concept "illusion" obsolete. I´m sure it is not yours, and if exploring the concept "now" by means of my conceptualizations, you would first have to follow, understand and accept it for purposes of this thread.
I don´t expect you to do this, and it would be unreasonable. It is your question, and I want you to help answering it on
your terms. If you have a question, I must understand
your question and your conceptual framework.
Besides, my concept of reality can´t serve the purpose of determining the length of "now", anyways.
But for the sake of argument, we can set certain parameters and say that some things are apparent illusions, in that they behave sporadically and vary according to the agent perceiving them. We can at least attempt to categorize some things either as reality or illusion based on humanity's imperfect collective observation.
Well, if that´s what you want to do, and if you feel it helps with answering your question, go ahead. I´ll try to follow. I must admit that I have no idea how you hope to file an entirely abstract concept into this dualistic model, but then again I do not even really know what you mean when saying "the now".
The simplest approach, btw., would be to define reality as everything we can perceive with our senses (physical reality), and everything else as illusion. This would render "now" an illusion. Your question would be clearly answered, but probably not on your terms, and you would be dissatisfied. See what I mean? It´s
your question,
you have to do the framework. Else you won´t get what you want.
It's potentially useful to approach it that way because humans tend to think linearly, and humans typically perceive 'now' as having some value or definition.
I must admit that I have no idea whether humans typically perceive "now" as having some value or definition (as an entity). I certainly don´t, and I suspect that if people do that, they have become victim of one of the erroneous strategies of conceptualization that I have attempted to list in my previous post.
It seems a reasonable association considering our basic thought processes.
Not to me. This concept "now" as an entity is alien, a complete miracle to me. Honestly. I can´t relate. Don´t take it the wrong way, but I think that you don´t have it either. You have merely been trapped by the common misconception that words force meaning into existence. Just because we can make a noun of an adverbial doesn´t mean that suddenly there is a thing "now" that can be measured, described, quantified.
I was presenting the ideas in question form and allowing for revision. The entire question revolves around whether or not 'now' is real, or solely a product of perception.
It is neither. It is a conceptual frame for our perception, and an extremely loose and flexible one at that.
I can't put the answer to it in my premise because that is the question I want to explore. In other words, my question is: What is the definition of 'now'? I can't very well define that term prior to investigating the question itself.
Exactly. If that happens something has gone wrong. It happens when you operate with empty concepts (non concepts). Your question floats freely around, without any frame of reference that makes it meaningful.
I will try to learn about these. I am unfamiliar with these terms, but I do appreciate you outlining them even though I'm not on the same page.
Caveat: I´m not a native English speaker, and I´m not sure that these are the technical terms in English. The process they are referring to is the one I have already described: We observe a an action/a process/a quality/a property and they are described by verbs and adjectives. Unfortunately, you can make a noun of every verb or adjective. Frequent use of this noun suggest the understanding that there must be an entity that it refers to. The power of language (as opposed to the power of perception, as you argued above). We observe red things, we create the noun „redness“ – which does not refer to a perception, but an abstraction – and at some point we operate with the term as if there were an entity „redness“. People hate each other, we form the noun hatred, and at some point in time people will ask philosophical questions about hatred as if it were an entity.
I'll grant that we must make assumptions about anything. I will always argue that our knowledge of anything is incomplete. However, I wouldn't characterize such a process as pretending, so long as the person making the assumption is aware that it's an assumption.
I´m sorry, but we must have a misunderstanding here. I wasn´t arguing against assumptions (and by „pretending“ I certainly didn´t mean purposeful deception). I was arguing against not being aware of the limitation of concepts. Their frame of reference is part of them. They die if we take it away.
While discussing something's existence or non-existence, it doesn't generally seem necessary to delve into the semantics of the term 'existence'.
I couldn´t disagree more. If I asked you to discuss something´s dfjsgfieur or non- dfjsgfieur, I am sure you would point out that you have no idea what I am actually asking, and in the interest of a meaningful discussion you would ask me to define the term.
In many instances, however, we can assume that our definitions are sufficiently congruent (unfortunately it often later turns out that they weren´t – a neverending source for frustration in verbal communication).
For the sake of argument on the level we're discussing, we can be satisfied either saying that it is or it isn't.
I can´t. The fact that you want to explore „now“ by means of the categories „existence“ or „non-existence“ tells me that our concepts of these terms are very different, and hence I need definitions. (Above I have made a proposal how we could define the terms „reality“ and „illusion“ in order to find a simple answer. Now I propose to define „existence“ as a synonym for „reality“ and „illusions“ as non-existent. Result: The statement „Now is non-existent.“ Case closed. But probably not in a way that satisfies you.)
Most of us here would probably agree that lines, rectangles, circles and triangles do not exist (or are not real), but are instead concocted representations. If you disagree with this, perhaps we need to take a step backward first.
I don´t disagree with this. It´s exactly what I am talking about.
I wouldn´t call them „illusions“ though.
And I'm asking for the same to be asked of 'now'. Am I still missing something in the equation?
No. „Now“ is a conceptual model, that´s exactly what I meant.
Next step would be to ask: What purposes does this conceptual model serve. I have tried to answer this above. What do we use geometric figures for (for mathematics). Precision is an essential of them and actually their very purpose. Without being precise they are useless.
What do we use „now“ for? For making unprecise statements in every day life. If trying to make it precise it becomes useless.
[edited to add:
Here are two more points on geometric figures.
Firstly, although being abstract and actually concepts, they can be visualized. We can "see" a circle before our inner eye. The model is comparatively concrete. We have this visualized model and can compare a physical entity to it, thereby determining: This thing is a circle.
With "now" this is different. However, if you will, we can ask ourselves "Is this now?" and compare it to our concept, and astonishingly we come to the conclusion that "now" is always there (which would make it pretty long). Within this frame "now" would be permanent.
Secondly, and more important: Above I said that geometric figures are precise. This is not the whole story. They are precise in those conceptual properties that are their purpose, their conceptual essence, but they are flexible in others. The conceptual essence of a rectangle are the right angles (and the resulting parallelity and equal length of the opposing sides) . Whereas "What is the length of the shorter sides of a rectangle?" is the wrong question (although, logically, a side must have a length). That´s not the purpose of the concept rectangle.]
If you still believe I am asking the wrong questions about 'now', what questions would you suggest be instead asked?
Huh?
„Who is your favourite classical guitarist (and do you think you like him or your idea of him)?“
I mean, why would I invent questions for you? I thought you were out to explore your concepts, and I was asked you to help you with that. ‚
I have no problems with the term „now“ and the concept I have attached to it. I use it in a frame of reference in which it perfectly serves my purposes in conceptualization and communication.
