Is time just a line or something more?

Paradoxum · Mar 16, 2013

ThunderTongue said:
^ NICE!

A little "ahead of your years" aren't ya!

Me?

If so, how do you mean?

Ripheus27 said:
I think there's a difference, even in physics, between physical space and geometric space, at least insofar as the former is only one kind of structure (I guess), but geometry admits of infinite variations on the concept of space. To the extent that space and time are symmetrical notions, this geometric freedom in understanding space carries over to time.

I'm not totally sure of the distinction your are trying to make, and why it is important.

Now by Kant's lights, the proof of the law of cause and effect depends on the role of our minds in integrating all the successive moments of successive temporal perception. Succession, in time, is mapped purely by a straight line. So it is only the first dimension of time that corresponds to a minimal conception of physics as the strict domain of cause and effect. We often say of our emotions that they are "highs" and "lows," and music corresponds to ups and downs in our feelings, so it seems to me as if our emotions are our minds tracing lines up and down on a different axis of time than the axis of the succession line. Three-dimensional time is, I think, our ability to imagine things (we use the mirroring principle of space and time to represent a three-dimensional spatial manifold using our inner temporal consciousness).

I can't really comment much on Kant without properly reading what he has to say.

But the talk of emotional highs and lows is just a manner of speaking. Up/high is associated with heaven, and down/low is associated with hell. Emotions that feel nice are therefore said to be good or high, and vice versa. It seems to me that you are basing your philosophy on manners of speech that have naturally evolved through culture. That doesn't seem like safe ground to stand on.

I don't know what it means for emotions to go up or down in time, and I wonder if you know what it means either. As I said before, very abstract theories can very easily go wrong.

Couldn't you just as well say, "The laws of logic are just brain functions"? I mean, grant that this is the case. This doesn't say anything about why our brains function the way they do. Likewise, why do our brains interpret (some) sound waves as expressive of emotion?

I don't see why you think the laws of logic are comparable to music. 1+1=2 is quite different from, "that sounds nice". I think research has been done into music and why some sound good to use and why some sound bad.

Eg: Some sounds sound bad because they indicate something bad (eg: a baby crying, a scream). Perhaps it also has to do with how humans talk. Some voice frequencies express fear or malice, and others kindness and love.

I don't know alot about music and the brain though.

If at time t I can do a or fail to do a, then I have "the ability to do otherwise" at t. Whenever I do something wrong, it must've been possible for me to not do it (as, "You ought not do it," was true, and whatever ought to be the case can be the case), yet clearly it was also possible for me to do it (as if it hadn't been, then my doing it wouldn't've happened). So it seems to me as if when I do something wrong, I have "the ability to do otherwise."

Saying that you ought not to do X, in this usage of it, already assumes that you have free will, so you can't use it to prove free will. It is circular. You can't just say you ought to do X therefore it must be possible to do X. If in fact there were no free will someone could still say you ought to do X, but that wouldn't make it magically true.

Why can't an event (a) be undetermined by prior causes and effects and yet (b) done by me? Would that be a random event?

If it is done by you why did you do X rather than Y? If you can't based your reason on prior states, then it would seem you can have no reason why you chose to do X rather than Y. If there is no reason for it, what would you call it other than random?

Here's where the science-philosophy divide sends your reasoning down a questionable path, though. A psychological theory can be a metaphysical theory, and vice versa; so Arendt's theory can be understood as both psychological and metaphysical.

Actually, Arendt never says anything about higher-dimensional time, as far as I know. Citing her in this thread, all I meant was that her model of forgiveness makes sense from a +1D time standpoint. However, I think of time as at least as subjective as objective, wherefore all psychology must depend somehow on time (inasmuch as time is part of the way that we have mental states at all), so again, this standpoint, while metaphysical, is also psychological.

Perhaps you are right that the psychological can also be metaphysical, but in this case, it just involves making stuff up for no reason.

Off the top of my head, and as I claimed in a different thread, almost every major ethical philosopher has defended self-discipline as a good.

Well I have no problem with ethics.

As far as metaphysics goes, I would be straining the evidence at my disposal to claim that Kant's theories are, in general, basically identical to Plato's or Aristotle's, for instance. But if you look at the way that they look at reason/the intellect, you find out (or I think you find out) that they, among others, implicitly ground knowledge not in axioms per se but in the ability to ask questions. If you were going to delimit science from philosophy, you might even say that the limit has nothing to do with the answers involved on either side but on the relative emphasis on our erotetic power involved in the one compared to the other.

It's late, so I'm not really sure what to say to this.

There might be one in a way (at least, there might be a way to test Itzhak Bars' theory--I'm not sure, and I don't fully recall what it is he says on this subject, if anything). However, it seems like it would be difficult to empirically test a theory claiming the existence of things that are outside of the form of our empirical perception. For example, since we can't directly perceive space in higher-dimensional terms, all we can know about how many higher spatial dimensions there are is by inference from physics and so on grounded in lower-dimensional spatial intuition. Whether there are more than the 10 or so claimed by string theorists (or whoever) might be something of an unanswerable question.

Well I would trust philosophical theories which don't unnecessarily fly off into other worlds and dimensions more. We should look for answers in things we understand first before thinking we need to go beyond this 3D world. The only things that may need to go beyond the physical universe to be explained are quantum theory, cosmology, and consciousness. For consciousness, I mean normal current science might not be able to explain it.

Ripheus27 · Mar 16, 2013

Paradoxum said:
I'm not totally sure of the distinction your are trying to make, and why it is important.

You said that God being inside of time, even a higher dimension of this, would make God into a physical object. But if we define physicality in terms of space-time causation, and limit this causation only to the order of events in time's first dimension, then for God to exist "outside" the first dimension of time, and yet still within some other form of time, would not render God physical. Now you also said something about physical interrelations between concepts like spacetime and physicality, so I brought up geometrical conceptions of space (and, by implication, time) to show how we can think of space without thinking of physical reality (unless, as some, e.g. Max Tegmark, have argued, to every conceivable abstract mathematical space there a priori corresponds some concrete physical object).

But the talk of emotional highs and lows is just a manner of speaking. Up/high is associated with heaven, and down/low is associated with hell. Emotions that feel nice are therefore said to be good or high, and vice versa. It seems to me that you are basing your philosophy on manners of speech that have naturally evolved through culture. That doesn't seem like safe ground to stand on.

The high-low/up-down metaphor is based on heaven and hell? Is that really true? Look at musical notation. It's a lot like a graph. But a graph of what? Of progress through time, for one.

I don't know what it means for emotions to go up or down in time, and I wonder if you know what it means either. As I said before, very abstract theories can very easily go wrong.

It's not that our emotions are these separate things inside us that move "up" and "down" inside of us. Our emotions just are patterns of our (psychological) motion. Phenomenologically speaking, emotions "present" or "seem" more like kinesthesia, for example, than sight (they seem that way to me, that is); and kinesthesia is part of (or just all of, I don't recall right now) our perception of our own position in space.

I don't see why you think the laws of logic are comparable to music. 1+1=2 is quite different from, "that sounds nice". I think research has been done into music and why some sound good to use and why some sound bad.

Are we discussing the same issue of musical expression? I wasn't talking about why we like or dislike certain kinds of music, but I'm not sure that's what you're talking about right now, either. In case you are, my question, though, has to do with, "Why does pure instrumental music evoke happiness or sadness or intensity or whatever?" Since these pieces of music have no words, it's not that their wording can evoke the relevant feelings. But from Douglas Hofstadter's work I got the impression that semantics depends partly or even altogether on similarities between referent and reference, so that even a word like "abstract" means abstract things in a way akin to how "woof" refers to a stereotyped dog's woofing.

You've indicated:

Eg: Some sounds sound bad because they indicate something bad (eg: a baby crying, a scream). Perhaps it also has to do with how humans talk. Some voice frequencies express fear or malice, and others kindness and love.

But I would have a hard time understanding in these terms the euphoria I feel listening to some music. It's not that no sound corresponds somehow to the feeling of euphoria, it's that the level of the feeling goes far beyond the level of correspondence.

Then again,

I don't know alot about music and the brain though.

And I'm not going to make any claims to superior knowledge on these counts, here, either.

Saying that you ought not to do X, in this usage of it, already assumes that you have free will, so you can't use it to prove free will. It is circular. You can't just say you ought to do X therefore it must be possible to do X. If in fact there were no free will someone could still say you ought to do X, but that wouldn't make it magically true.

This goes back partly to the "it depends on your definition of morality" remark I made. However, the definition in question is pretty thin--"a system for guiding actions based on the idea of overriding priority." That is, on this view, a moral claim is a claim meant to guide one's actions, even if those actions thereby conflict with something else in the order of one's priorities. It's a fairly small step from this notion of morality to the belief that you need the ability to act on moral claims in order for moral claims to make sense to us.

If it is done by you why did you do X rather than Y? If you can't based your reason on prior states, then it would seem you can have no reason why you chose to do X rather than Y. If there is no reason for it, what would you call it other than random?

Well, maybe there's another way to look at it. You do make your decision based on a prior state, but that state is itself indeterminate.

But no, "I did it for no reason," while random in a way, is not random in an unfree way, since you said the unfree form of randomness involved us standing back and passively watching ourselves act. There are two different types of being random at play in this context (to bring the topic up again, maybe this difference in types is relevant to the difference between chance and randomness?).

Perhaps you are right that the psychological can also be metaphysical, but in this case, it just involves making stuff up for no reason.

I don't think Arendt made up her theory for no reason, and I surely didn't make up my own for no reason.

We should look for answers in things we understand first before thinking we need to go beyond this 3D world.

I'm not sure what concrete value this sentence has. What are "things we understand"?

Secondly, I'm not asserting, "Time is +1D," only as an explanation for other things; I'm claiming it as a way of understanding something we directly perceive (our emotions/imagination/related). In that sense, the assertion doesn't take us beyond the world we already know; it just redescribes part of this world.

The only things that may need to go beyond the physical universe to be explained are quantum theory, cosmology, and consciousness. For consciousness, I mean normal current science might not be able to explain it.

Maybe; but there are no other major questions you have about reality?

Ripheus27 · Mar 16, 2013

One of the things I'm saying is that the simplest explanation for music and emotion being in this special harmony is if they are geometrically isomorphic. Since we're not talking about spatial geometry, and since the only other concrete geometrical manifold we know of in experience is the order of time, then since the isomorphism here requires two-dimensional space, by the very same principle it requires two-dimensional time.

Ripheus27 · Mar 18, 2013

As far as Arendt is concerned (although I would rather cite her own words directly):

My discussion so far of Arendt's theory of action has stressed a number of features, chief among which is action's capacity to disclose the identity of the agent, to enable freedom to appear and be actualized as a worldly reality, to create and sustain a public space of appearance, and to make possible the generation of power. I have also emphasized the importance of narrative and remembrance, of the retrospective articulation of the meaning of action by means of storytelling and its preservation through a community of memory. In conclusion, I would like to examine two other features of action, namely, unpredictability and irreversibility, and their respective remedies, the power of promise and the power to forgive.

Action is unpredictable because it is a manifestation of freedom, of the capacity to innovate and to alter situations by engaging in them; but also, and primarily, because it takes place within the web of human relationships, within a context defined by plurality, so that no actor can control its final outcome. Each actor sets off processes and enters into the inextricable web of actions and events to which all other actors also contribute, with the result that the outcome can never be predicted from the intentions of any particular actor. The open and unpredictable nature of action is a consequence of human freedom and plurality: by acting we are free to start processes and bring about new events, but no actor has the power to control the consequences of his or her deeds.

Another and related reason for the unpredictability of action is that its consequences are boundless: every act sets in motion an unlimited number of actions and reactions which have literally no end. As Arendt puts it: “The reason why we are never able to foretell with certainty the outcome and end of any action is simply that action has no end” (HC, 233). This is because action “though it may proceed from nowhere, so to speak, acts into a medium where every action becomes a chain reaction and where every process is the cause of new processes … the smallest act in the most limited circumstances bears the seed of the same boundlessness, because one deed, and sometimes one word, suffices to change every constellation” (HC, 190).

Closely connected to the boundlessness and unpredictability of action is its irreversibility. Every action sets off processes which cannot be undone or retrieved in the way, say, we are able to undo a faulty product of our hands. If one builds an artifact and is not satisfied with it, it can always be destroyed and recreated again. This is impossible where action is concerned, because action always takes place within an already existing web of human relationships, where every action becomes a reaction, every deed a source of future deeds, and none of these can be stopped or subsequently undone. The consequences of each act are thus not only unpredictable but also irreversible; the processes started by action can neither be controlled nor be reversed.

The remedy which the tradition of Western thought has proposed for the unpredictability and irreversibility of action has consisted in abstaining from action altogether, in the withdrawal from the sphere of interaction with others, in the hope that one's freedom and integrity could thereby be preserved. Platonism, Stoicism and Christianity elevated the sphere of contemplation above the sphere of action, precisely because in the former one could be free from the entanglements and frustrations of action. Arendt's proposal, by contrast, is not to turn one's back on the realm of human affairs, but to rely on two faculties inherent in action itself, the faculty of forgiving and the faculty of promising. These two faculties are closely connected, the former mitigating the irreversibility of action by absolving the actor from the unintended consequences of his or her deeds, the latter moderating the uncertainty of its outcome by binding actors to certain courses of action and thereby setting some limit to the unpredictability of the future. Both faculties are, in this respect, connected to temporality: from the standpoint of the present forgiving looks backward to what has happened and absolves the actor from what was unintentionally done, while promising looks forward as it seeks to establish islands of security in an otherwise uncertain and unpredictable future.

Forgiving enables us to come to terms with the past and liberates us to some extent from the burden of irreversibility; promising allows us to face the future and to set some bounds to its unpredictability. As Arendt puts it: “Without being forgiven, released from the consequences of what we have done, our capacity to act would, as it were, be confined to one single deed from which we could never recover; we would remain the victims of its consequences forever.” On the other hand, “without being bound to the fulfillment of promises, we would never be able to keep our identities; we would be condemned to wander helplessly and without direction in the darkness of each man's lonely heart” (HC, 237). Both faculties, in this sense, depend on plurality, on the presence and acting of others, for no one can forgive himself and no one can feel bound by a promise made only to one's self. At the same time, both faculties are an expression of human freedom, since without the faculty to undo what we have done in the past, and without the ability to control at least partially the processes we have started, we would be the victims “of an automatic necessity bearing all the marks of inexorable laws” (HC, 246). [Maurizio Passerin d'Entreves, "Hannah Arendt," sec. 4.5]

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