Nature of Time, Mind, and Matter

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sciborg2

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« Reply #15 on: May 03, 2019, 03:08:04 pm »
Yeah, I'm a big fan of metaphysically neutral examination of structure. Of course the "Why" of the structure would be a mystery, but I think there is ultimately either an appeal to God-as-Ground or Natural-Regularities-as-Ground no matter what metaphysics one accepts...though only the former could be shown to philosophically necessary and only the latter have been suggested by deep examination of reality via science...

On "confounding" part might be, that "time" as the experiantial thing we generally refer to, is not what Time, as General Relativity informs us it seems to be.  The "trouble" is, of course, that we are not really made to think in terms of 4D non-Euclidean sapcetime, because, well, it's really at practical at all.  So, Time, as experienced, is actually a category of Mind.  "Proper time" is a whole different, confusing beast, and again, maybe shows us why that is not how our brain "works."

I think, I guess, maybe, that something balanced is the right way to go, but what is the "proper" balance between science and metaphysics?

Re: the Time stuff...above my brain's pay grade I'm afraid!

On the proper balance I think it goes back to being reasonable. For example I just cannot believe materialism is true, but for me to then pick a religion and try to legislate its tenets into American law seems quite a leap to me.


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« Reply #16 on: May 03, 2019, 03:29:34 pm »
Re: the Time stuff...above my brain's pay grade I'm afraid!

On the proper balance I think it goes back to being reasonable. For example I just cannot believe materialism is true, but for me to then pick a religion and try to legislate its tenets into American law seems quite a leap to me.

Time is a real confusing thing, even in the physics sense.  This short video series does decently trying to explain it simplistically, but the mathematical nature of it all, plus that fact that it is specifically unintuitive, means it often does not make "sense." (Not to mention the causality part he gets in to.)

On the other point, it's generally people's "instinct" that morality and legality should be tied, even though, were you to question them, they would actually not agree with that at all.  So, the position is really not a reasonable one at all, even for the people who advocate it.  I don't even think a "hard Materialist" would necessarily agree to that, so I'm not sure there is anything "metaphysical" about that sort of position.
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sciborg2

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« Reply #17 on: May 03, 2019, 04:13:52 pm »
Re: the Time stuff...above my brain's pay grade I'm afraid!

On the proper balance I think it goes back to being reasonable. For example I just cannot believe materialism is true, but for me to then pick a religion and try to legislate its tenets into American law seems quite a leap to me.

Time is a real confusing thing, even in the physics sense.  This short video series does decently trying to explain it simplistically, but the mathematical nature of it all, plus that fact that it is specifically unintuitive, means it often does not make "sense." (Not to mention the causality part he gets in to.)

On the other point, it's generally people's "instinct" that morality and legality should be tied, even though, were you to question them, they would actually not agree with that at all.  So, the position is really not a reasonable one at all, even for the people who advocate it.  I don't even think a "hard Materialist" would necessarily agree to that, so I'm not sure there is anything "metaphysical" about that sort of position.

Ah I was thinking of applying one's position on science/metaphysics, which does get tricky. I think there's enough Mystery for people to accept they can be wrong in their beliefs...this starts getting us into morality though...

On the question of how much do you lean to arguments from philosophy vs empiricism, I guess it depends on what lines of argument/evidence one finds compelling.

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« Reply #18 on: May 06, 2019, 02:21:18 pm »
Ah I was thinking of applying one's position on science/metaphysics, which does get tricky. I think there's enough Mystery for people to accept they can be wrong in their beliefs...this starts getting us into morality though...

On the question of how much do you lean to arguments from philosophy vs empiricism, I guess it depends on what lines of argument/evidence one finds compelling.

I was watching a video with physicists talking about time and one of them put it in an interesting way, something like, that time is not really a thing-in-itself, rather, time is the concept, the sort of category we use to talk about, think about, relate the state of the universe.  So, I'd think it's sort of "all about" relative motion, in that sense.  So, if nothing ever moved, nothing ever changed, then of course, there would never be anything like time.

Indeed though, if time is sort of "about" motion, than it makes "sense" to me that space and time being "one thing" is, of course, a fact.  Although, time, as experienced, seems to almost certainly be, in my mind, just that, something of the mind.
I am a warrior of ages, Anasurimbor. . . ages. I have dipped my nimil in a thousand hearts. I have ridden both against and for the No-God in the great wars that authored this wilderness. I have scaled the ramparts of great Golgotterath, watched the hearts of High Kings break for fury. -Cet'ingira