Hi Craig, Platt, and welcome back Micah --
[Craig says to Micah]:
> I don't see the past as a "human mental concept". The concept of the past
> might be a human mental concept, but not the past itself. Nor do I see
> the
> past as existing. Whatever existed in the past might not exist now.
[Micah responds]:
> Isn't the above contradictory? You don't see the past as existing, but the
> "past itself" (implying existence) is not a concept?
[Craig]:
> I don't see this as one of my premises. Some aspects of time might be
> independent of man ("Time and tide wait for no man"); some aspects might
> not be. We know in what way time is independent of man in the same way
> we know in what way it isn't.
[Micah]:
> Again, contradictory. We know time exists with man, we do not know what
> exists without man. Knowing implies man.
[Platt]:
> The existence of time is undeniable by anyone born of a woman.
Micah almost always has a valid point, but in his own inimitable way,
conceals the reasoning behind it. This can be very frustrating.
By way of clarification, let me suggest that "what exists" is "the
appearance of phenomena" in time and space. In order for appearance to
exist, there must be a subject (the perceiver or knower) and an object (the
phenomena manifested in appearance). Micah is right that "we do not know
what exists without man". Knowledge is man's understanding of phenomena as
it "appears" to him. Since time and space are the perceived dimensions of
appearance, what is manifested now is intellectualized as the point of a
continuum that has a "past" and a "future" associated with it. Such
intellection also infers that what happens today will affect what happens
tomorrow and, also, that what happened at some point called "the beginning"
has affected what we experience now. This is the law of cause-and-effect
upon which scientific empiricism is based.
Difference begins with two, and I think it is metaphysically significant
that the parameters of existence, like the extremes of morality, are
dualistic. Consider the fact that we have a subject looking at an object
in.two dimensions. Time is viewed as running from past to future. Space is
seen as extending from here to there. Life is a birth to death experience.
Value is a measure of goodness or badness, pleasure or pain, magnificence or
triteness, love or cruelty, brightness or darkness, strength or weakness,
etc., etc. In a real sense, man stands at the focal center of a polarized
universe and "is the measure all things", as I thanked Micah for quoting
Pythagoras some time ago.
In fact, the only phenomenon that doesn't really fit our definition of an
"existent" is the individual subject. We know him or her as an identifiable
organism, of course, but we don't know his or her subjectivity. We can't
measure it, localize it, or experience it. Descartes concluded: "I think,
therefore I am." But was that proof of his existence?
So perhaps, instead of asking "Does time exist?" we should start by asking
"Do WE exist?"
(Just a thought in passing.)
Regards to all,
Ham
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