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Shading Inc.

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Posts posted by Shading Inc.

  1. Can you define time?

    If "things moving presuppose time," then time should exist even when nothing is moving, correct? So, imagine that nothing in the universe, including yourself, was moving. Nothing at all is happening. Nobody is writing a forum post. Nobody's heart is pumping. The earth stopped rotating on its axis. The Sun stopped creating light. The entire universe shut down. What then is time? What does time mean in such a context?

    No, I can't define time. Not in a way that makes sense, that is. But can you?

    If you can imagine a universe where truly nothing happens, you could still also imagine a clock sitting 'next to' (that is, not within) this sad universe obediently ticking away time. Nothing is happening within the frozen universe, but thanks to the clock that's not a part of it, you still know that time is passing within it. What does time mean in this context? It means what it always does: The universe passing from time-state to time-state. There's just no way of knowing that this is happening, but that doesn't mean there is no time. You can still imagine that if there were a working clock in this frozen universe, you would be able to know that time was passing in it. Stopping all movement isn't going to stop time, it merely stops our being able to know that time passes.

    And consider this: If you imagine a universe, this universe should include you yourself as well. The universe is everything that is, after all. If every movement in the imagined universe is stopped, you could still know that time was passing in it. Just think "one, two" and you'll know. Thoughts take time. Then perhaps we should stop all thought as well? In that case you're not going to be able to know what a timeless universe is like, or whether it exists in the first place. Knowing takes time as well. At this point we're at the esse est percipi again, but I actually darenot flatout deny it at this point. In this context I can see where people advocating it are coming from.

  2. I beg to differ. Imagine a passage of time with literally, fundamentally, and absolutely no change. What would it mean, here, to say, "Time has passed"? In what way would this situation differ from a world in which there is no time at all? There would be no difference in any possible way, and "two" things which share all of the same properties are the same thing.

    I'm glad you put 'two' between quotation marks. You're supposing there're two worlds - now stick to it: They're not the same thing.

    And besides, I think there's a difference between a world with time and one without: The latter would not exist. My intuition is that time and being presuppose each other.

    I'm not sure there is such a huge difference. Then again, I'm not sure there is not such a huge difference. One might say, "Consider the comparison of length and height--you can't! One is essentially a separate dimension from the other, and you cannot commensurate distinct dimensions. If you measure length by anything it must be by measures of length--not height." On the other hand, time might have some unique property which makes it incommensurable in this regard. Perhaps the reversibility you mention would be relevant. I don't know, and it's not obvious.

    You'll have to agree with me that for example height and lenght are quite interchangable. If height becomes lenght and vice versa, you'll just have to tilt your head to get the old picture. I'd say there's no really fundamental difference between the three directions - but there is between spatiality and temporality. To me these really seem to be (two of?) the most fundamental 'axes' of our thinking, and I don't see how one of them might be reduced to the other, or how both of them might be reduced to something even more fundamental.

  3. Adam Smith was not much of a pre-Objectivist considering his largely utilitarian ideas in politics and Humean ideas in ethics. As for metaphysics, I'm not sure he has any thoughts at all on the subject. Moreover, his economics were--while duly impressive and laudable--flatly wrong and based on an essentially (and ironically) Kantian notion of value.

    Other thinkers who show a great deal of reason and spirit are Nietzsche's early- and middle-period writings, Spinoza, and obviously, Aristotle. Elements of Francis Bacon are quite enjoyable as well. Christopher Gustavus Tiedeman, Frederic Bastiat, John Locke, and Thomas Aquinas all come to mind. If you like, I may provide others as they occur to me.

    I'm not into Smith, nor into Tiedeman or Bastiat. Nietzsche, Spinoza, Aristotle, Bacon, Locke and Aquinas I can tell you however, are fundamentally incompatible with objectivism.

  4. That's not a very constructive question. You're effectively denying that the concept "choice" even exists, which you know isn't true. What you should do, instead, is identify clear referents of the concept, and try to identify what they have in common. What is it that you are integrating when you integrate this and that concrete situations into the concept "choice"? What are you excluding? Then show why the concept should be applied to cats and hammers.

    Not denying, merely saying that when it really comes down to it, we may me somehow be justified to believe that something is a choice - but that we can never really know for sure that this is a true belief.

    As such, if you want to be able to speak or think about anything at all, you're going to have to make concessions and identify propositions and the like you're going to take for granted, without being able to completely validate them.

  5. A watch is only accurate if its movement is in accord (proportionally) with the movement of the earth on its axis. A watch can be fast or slow, or it can stop--in relation to the earth's rotation. Your watch might be fast, but that doesn't mean it is tomorrow. It might be slow, but that doesn't mean it is yesterday. And your watch might even stop, like mine did last week, but that doesn't mean the universe has ceased functioning.

    You 're juggling with concepts. It's not very helpful. <_<

    That's not my point exactly. Time is not measured. It is, itself, a measurement--a measurement of motion.

    It really makes no difference. Either time is a measurement of motion, or motion is a measurement of time. Which is more basic? Motion, or time? Whatever be the case, it still leaves us with at least one incomprehensible factor.

    It might be helpful to compare the concept of time with the concept of weight, which is a measurement of mass (given a specific gravitational context). Hopefully, it is clear that without a body of matter, there could be no such thing as weight. What would it mean to speak of weight if there was no matter to be weighed? Likewise, there could be no such thing as time without a body of matter in motion. What would it mean to speak of time if there was no moving matter to be timed?

    I've said this before: Things moving presuppose time.

  6. A circumstance where visualizing time is especially helpful for me is during a chess game. When looking at the board, I find it a great deal more understandable if I see the pieces in terms of their potential movements. So a Bishop is an X on the board intersecting 4 pieces or edges. A Rook is a +, and so forth. Time is broken down into "turns" of course, but the principle is the same. I can effectively see the object exist through time as a number of positions relative to other pertinent objects. Incidentally, on a broader scale, this works with martial arts, as well. That is how I "access" the concept mentally.

    I think that this is how any sane person would access the concept mentally, when giving the matter some serious thought, but still - it explains nothing. Knowing what time looks like (as in, somehow having perceptions of it) isn't the same as knowing what it is.

  7. I've just finished the assigned reading for my public speaking class in a book entitled Between One and Many. The first few chapters were pretty predictable; how to get over speech anxiety, how to organize a speech, how to pick a good topic... And then, out of nowhere, a chapter entitled "Ethical Speaking".

    Quoting philosophers is very flashy of course. Gives a book an intellectual touch - to laymen, that is. You should treat these quotations not as actual content, but as mere figures of speech; empty rhetorics. What do writers of 'public speech course books' think they know of philosophy anyway? And even if they know about it, what business do they have displaying it in non-philosophical works? :nerd:

  8. Personal skepticism/cynicism can be a bridge to later philosophical skepticism, is what I'm saying: you develop a very nihilist/malevolent universe sense of life, so that when you encounter philosophical skepticism you "feel" it is correct. It matches your subconsciously-held view of life and reality as, basically, a bunch of B.S.

    Of course, but I was talking about philosophical skepticism, not about feeling skeptical, or having a skeptical sense of life.

  9. No it doesn't. Consider another dimension - length. The concept of length requires two entities of different lengths - the entity to measure by and the entity being measured. You can't measure anything without something to be measured, something to be measured by, and someone doing the measurement. Before there were people around, the four dimensions still existed, but the concepts describing their various properties did not.

    Compairing time with lenght might not be a good idea, length being spatial, time not. There's a huge difference there. I have access to all the six basic directions of the universe: I can climb up, or jump down, and take steps forward, backward, to the right and to the left. I can turn my senses to any of these directions as well. But I can't move around in time, nor can I turn my senses towards the future or the past. (Yes, I have memories and I have expectations about what's going to happen next, but this is not something I do by turning my eyes or any other of my senses towards this or that direction.) In contrast to my freedom within the three spatial dimensions, I seem to be locked up within some sort of eternal now. As such, time isn't much of a dimension, taking dimension to mean a being (= verb) extended in two opposite directions. As I said, compairing time with length may be kind of confusing.

  10. This guys flawed thinking is the fact that he doesn't make the effort to think. Exposure to the right ideas can inspire a person to think. I would define the "right" idea as thinking for oneself. If a person is irrational, meaning they make no effort to think, most, if not all of their ideas come from their environment. So assuming a person is not rational, and is not exposed to the "right" ideas, he is bound to believe any ideas set forth.

    Alright then. So "exposure to thinking for oneself can inspire a person to think". What on Earth does that mean? :)

  11. Time is a measurement of motion. Without something that moves, there can be no measurement of motion--no time. If the earth did not rotate on its axis, there would be no such thing as a day, nor hours, nor minutes, nor seconds, which are all based on the motion of the earth upon its axis. And if the earth did not revolve around the sun, there would be no such thing as a year, nor a decade, nor a century, nor a millennium.

    Who needs the Earth rotating on its axis or revolving around the sun nowadays? We got watches right? But I get your point, time is measured by reference to a (preferably) stable and continuous motion: Time depends on motion. But then again, the exact opposite holds as well: Motion depends on time.

    Or as I like to say (not sure the origin), "Time keeps everything from happening all at once."

    "Things happening" presupposes time. I think it'd be more correct to say that time keeps things from not happening at all.

    That's not entirely true. The image would exist in time, but the [edit:intesional object] of the image would not.

    As another example, imagine there were in existence only three unconscious spheres. Would there be three things? Certainly we want to say "yes", no? Yet if there are no conscious entities, there would be nothing to count the spheres and so what would be left in the meaning of saying that there are three things?

    Are you saying that esse est percipi? Because I won't buy into that. And what's the intensional object of something that doesn't exist, by my reckoning couldn't even exist, in the first place?

    The meaning would be this: I just told you there are three unconscious spheres, so ex hypothesi there are three spheres, and while I am a conscious entity counting the spheres contained in my own hypothetical situation, I am real and not included in my hypothetical situation. That I count them does not mean that the counting or the consciousness has somehow "reached into" and become a part of the ontology of my hypothetical situation.

    In the same way, while I may think of a timeless existence and then stop, this in no way "injects" a time into the hypothetical situation.

    But that's not what I was thinking. If I imagine a universe and then delete time from it, my first intuition would be to say that everything in this universe freezes, but does this really mean that in this universe there's no time anymore? I don't think so. It is merely the case that because everything has frozen still, it has become impossible to measure time - but if something can't be measured, does that necessarily mean it doesn't exist? You'll have to agree with me on grounds of simple logic that that's not a sound inference.

    Even granting the above point, though, we should still admit that time is axiomatic since it is nothing more than change (not motion, since a thing could change color while in place, and it is only through very complex and distinctly non-axiomatic science--in the sense that the science taken as a whole is not itself an axiom--that we believe some kind of locomotion occurs in any change of color), and vis-a-vis memory we know that at least one moment from the past is distinct from the present moment.

    Change is the only evidence we have of this thing we refer to as time, but I think we shouldn't mistake our perceptions with the thing these perceptions are about.

  12. 1. I'm unhappy

    2. All the reasons people tell me why I'm unhappy or should be happy make no sense

    3. Actually, most things that people tell me make no sense.

    4. Probably, nothing makes any sense.

    While this may be a fine description of your own bouts of scepticism and those of a lot of other people, it doesn't hold for philosophical scepticism: It's not as easy as you make it seem.

    I would say a large part of this problem is just lack of exposure to the right ideas.

    In that case the people who don't hold objectivist points of view don't exactly choose not to do so: You're blaming their 'flawed thinking' on their environment.

  13. I tend to disagree with you, if only out of long familiarity with the genre. Heroes of any stripe are, to some extent, larger than life: even James Bond stretches the bounds of realism considerably. If you read The Romantic Manifesto, you'll notice that Ayn Rand says this is a good thing. The larger the hero, the broader the abstraction they represent, the more applicable they are to your life and the more likely it is that the work of art will have meaning.

    Fantasy (and super-hero comic books, etc.) is particularly well-suited to dealing with huge, world-shaking abstractions simply because it is completely blown out of proportion. I think this is the reason that romanticism has survived in fantasy art to the extent that it has. The presence of heroes in fantasy literature should be taken as a sign that the fantasy genre is incredibly resilient, especially at serving the actual functions of art, not that it is some kind of backwater.

    Still, theoretically speaking, James Bond could be, while practically everything in the fantasy genre could never be.

    What's the use of dreaming about the absolutely unreachable?

  14. It gets worse. Look at this comment I refused to publish:

    If this is the gist of it, they're not denying existence is self-evident. Rather, they're (or at least the person you quote is) denying that reality is what we (that is, most people) think it is: In quoting Berkeley, St. Augustine and Descartes this person is not saying that existence isn't self-evident, but that material reality isn't. Which for all I know it actually really isn't.

    Denying the self-evidence of existence would be to say that Descartes' cogito-argument is false. If anything Descartes (and St. Augustine too I believe) explicitly confirm that existence (of oneself) is self-evident, and I don't doubt Berkeley held similar ideas.

  15. I don't know Goodkind's exact motives for choosing the fantasy genre, but mine are to use the dragons an an accentuation of what man should and can be. By using a non-human species as my illustration of what man should be I can accentuate the image of what man should and can be. Dragons fit better into fantasy, so I chose fantasy.

    Cool, I'd like to be a dragon! Can you teach me?

    If I understand Kendall correctly he means that because right now so few real people are heroes, you have to go out of your way to find them by reading (for example) fantasy novels. When heroic men are widespread in your world, there would be no need to look at fantasy for this anymore, you could just admire someone that actually exists.

    I think there're plenty of people to be admired in this world. I don't think a lack of heroes (or at least a lack of admirable people) is a sufficient explanation for the abundance and popularity of heroes in literature (and comics, etc.).

  16. Well, the concept of magic as best used as possible would entail it having an identity, and being bounded. Even if one must suspend belief in the mechanism as long as it can't simply be a placeholder for omniscience or omnipotence, then it's fine. But then one wonders why use it as a device at all, since a bounded supercharged human goes through the same sorts of conflicts as a normally bounded human. Same for super hero powers.

    The hero may somehow be unique in his powers, and therefore more interesting than any common man would be in his stead.

    I personally think that the fantasy genre, and the super hero craze of comic books are a compensation for the anti-hero mentality of today's culture. Only someone who is "beyond man" could be heroic. Someday, those genres will fall out of favor (except among the young) because depictions of man as hero will be abundant. But I could be wrong about that. still, give me the heroes of AS or TH or Sparrowhawk anyday.

    It's not like hero's in popular culture are a very modern phenomenon. People have liked to have something to dream about for ages.

    Btw, it's not all about having something to dream about. As Nietzsche put it: Um den Helden herum wird Alles zur Tragödie... As in, who doesn't like a good story?

  17. I got some silly comments about existence on my blog the last couple of days. The gist of them is that existence isn't self-evident. I just shook my head at this and decided to to publish them (I have comment moderation on). I also had a comment about the "greyness" of human existence. I read this as A is b, C, D, or maybe even F in relation to human existence, as if the Law of Identity is somehow inapplicable to us.

    I simply decided not to publish it. I was wondering, out of curiosity (I often get curious), what would Objectivists do? (I am only a student of Objectivism.) Comments from non-Objectivists are also welcome, but if you aren't one please specify that you aren't.

    Kindly point out that the continued existence of silly comments isn't self-evident either.

  18. I have a question. It is mainly an attempt to find out what others think. The question is this: do you think it is okay for a book in the fantasy genre to have magic in it? And if so in what way?

    EDIT: Furthermore, could you please say whether or not you are an Objectivist, Objectivist student, or non-Objectivist? I am curious to know how the answers will differ over the three categories.

    I'd like to know what you take 'magic' to mean.

    In my book, 'magic' may be taken to mean either 'some kind of miracle', or 'some trait of a (fantasy-) world that our universe doesn't have'.

    My definition of 'miracle' is something that can't be causally explained.

    In our world, Jezus walking on water and multiplying a couple of fishes to feed thousands are miracles; but in other worlds, where other natural laws hold sway, they may not be miracles, but just natural occurances like any other. However, I'd still call these events magical, because they are governed by laws that don't exist in our universe.

    But this is all rather stuffy of course. Writers may take 'magic' to mean whatever suits them.

  19. Right, I don't mean to imply that any imagining would exist if there were no time, so I'm taking advantage of existence as it actually is, by imagining what it would mean for there to be existence but no time. A solid block of everythingness, or something along those lines. I'm not opposed to the idea that "time" is implicit in the concept "existence", I just am not certain that it is.

    Well take a look at like this: 'Being' and 'existing' are verbs. Verbs are words that describe what the thing they predicate of does. When there's no time, there's nothing one can do, really. Not even just being or existing, I'd say. I think this is of fundamental importance. I am not at all being controversial when I claim that to say what something is, is to describe its function and to describe how it functions - that is, to describe what it does, and how it works. It's important that I'm talking about functions and functions here, because that stresses that teleology is at work here. Fits the Aristotelian picture, and the objectivistic one too, I think. Please correct me if I'm wrong. :)

  20. Imaginarily-imagine, I suppose, but it would be boring. Nothing would be happening, so it would be a totally different kind of existence. No movement, so why go on living (oh, right, "go on" presupposes time)? Another way to look at is is, "No, I can't", because it would be about as different as if I were to imagine that there is no existence, or that everything is two-dimensional.

    One's imagining takes time as well, so any imagination of existence without time would not really be an image of existence without time. The only correct image of timeless existence then, would be to imagine 'nothing', but imagining is always about 'something'. My conclusion'd be that time is just as basic a given as is existence.

    But wait, I'm not here to say what I think: I wanted to know some objectivistic points of view. I'll not hold it against you if you don't try to refute me. Not even mentioning that I don't want to bore you. :)

  21. The world will stay Balkanized to some extent until there is a reason for it to unite. The only reason I can foresee is a threat from outside (a la Independence Day).

    Think about this: people will always want to maintain a "way out". If there is no "somewhere else", they will have nowhere to go. This need for an escape route cuts across all lines in society.

    How about a threat from the inside: Tectonic uproar, climatic catastrophes, a pandemic of some kind of really nasty disease, Matrix-become-real... :)

    As if nowadays there's a way out of civilization. Hardly. However, one can always hide one's head in the sand. Internet, and computer games are excellent contemporary ways of doing so I think, especially in combination. And we're still only seeing the beginning of this new era of digitalization...

  22. Start with the concept "universe", and a couple of quotes to establish the Objectivist position (not "objectivistic" in English). So: ‘Because the concept "existence," at least the way I use it, is in a certain way close to the concept "universe"—all that which exists.’ (ITOE 241) and ‘The universe is really the sum of everything that exists.’ (ITOE 273). Axiomatically, time exist. Therefore it is part of the universe.

    Basically, you're saying that time presupposes existence, right?

    But how about the other way around? Can you imagine Existence without time?

    But can you understand the notion of location in space, if you don't have the notion of location in space? See ITOE p. 256, for the "Time" discussion of axiomatic concepts, especially p. 259.

    I'll try to look that up some time.

  23. What do you mean by being non-volitional? People are always choosing one way or another. I do not understand how someone could lack the ability to choose. At most they lack knowledge of some particular alternatives. Not the ability to choose, per se.

    Well of course people always choose one thing or another. In my mind it is impossible for something to do nothing. That is, nothing is not something that can be done - or to put it differently, we (things that are) always do something. Now, I can imagine myself doing a lot of things tomorrow; there're truly more paths of action for me to take than I can conceive of, yet I am not God and will end up taking only one such path. And this is how it goes with everything that is something: We can imagine a great lot of things to happen to any given entity, but in the end it will end up taking but a single course of action (for as far as I know, at least).

    One could say that thus everyone (or even everything) chooses its course of action, but then you're missing a fundamental issue. Choosing (being volitional) means that the origin of starting or ceasing movement in a certain direction (towards a certain goal) lies solely within the choosing entity. That is, the choosing entity is forced to take a certain action by nothing but itself - and in order to be worthy of the predicate volitional, this entity should also have been able to choose not to take the action.

    To get down to earth: How many people do know who, when deciding on what course of action next to take, are influenced by nothing but their own rationality and volition? Mind you, drugs, other people's opinions and environmental conditioning, although they do reside in your body somewhere (I think), are not part of of your rationality or your volition.

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