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@aeniug2 @commodorecrazycommanderofthe1stroyalbrigadeofspiceracksandcheese @toksyuryel so where was I? Um.. I guess you could say there is no 'next' moment or 'previous' moment. There's just our perception of any given moment as it relates to us, and that moment may be infinitely long or short.. For whatever purpose, we can only perceive one moment at a time (what's known as the present), and our perception of that moment happens to take place on what we perceive as a timeline. We're wise to consider our perception flawed however because experience tells us that, where there are gaps, our minds fill in the blanks and try to make sense of what is or isn't. It is because of flawed perception that I opened my mind to the possibility that time doesn't exist, and, when I delved further into introspection I found that, while I possess memories, I have no guarantee that my memories are real, and, while I have expectations for the future, I have no guarantee that they are real either.
Sunday, 18-Mar-12 09:43:10 UTC from web-
@aeniug2 @commodorecrazycommanderofthe1stroyalbrigadeofspiceracksandcheese @toksyuryel So without any real prrof that I "was" or "will be" I'm only left with my perception of the present, that I "am."
Sunday, 18-Mar-12 09:45:17 UTC from web -
@pony That only relates to personal perception and in that I agree- our perception is flawed and there's not much we can do about that. However, observation of the world around us has revealed consistent patterns that cannot be explained away so easily, and it is with these that the existence of time can be justified- the physical evidence for it is overwhelming, and it exists independently from our own flawed perceptions.
Sunday, 18-Mar-12 09:47:01 UTC from web-
@toksyuryel Well there's the rub again.. We have /memories/ of patterns, but all we really /know/ is what we in the current moment perceive. I'm not saying that our preception of our memories is altogether unreliable, but it's still not absolute.
Sunday, 18-Mar-12 09:51:29 UTC from web-
@pony your current understanding of your memories is subject to the memories themselves. Unless you are able to accurately cross reference your memories with those of every other relevant person, it is possible that what you remember never happened.
Sunday, 18-Mar-12 09:53:17 UTC from web -
@pony You're talking in circles now. I've already acknowledged that our perception of self is flawed. It is in that which is outside of ourselves- outside of the flaws in our perception- where we find the evidence for time.
Sunday, 18-Mar-12 09:54:50 UTC from web-
@toksyuryel In the things that are not dependent on your understanding. Things that can and have been observed by numerous others and accepted as universal fact. Not to say that all theories about dinosaurs never existing are false, but simply that the fossils ARE here, and we can observe them, and based on our current collective understanding of the universe, they can be used to confirm the concept of time.
Sunday, 18-Mar-12 09:57:13 UTC from web-
@aeniug2 Yes, exactly ☺
Sunday, 18-Mar-12 09:58:13 UTC from web
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@toksyuryel But what if the moment that I'm currently focused on (including that moment's place in a timeline) is just a snap shot, and, for all I know, my awareness of that moment could completely disappear and be replaced with something inconceivable? ... (Here I'm acknowledging a change and therefore time, but I mean to do so on a higher dimension, like if a higher level of myself were able to move in and out of any given state of being)
Sunday, 18-Mar-12 10:07:20 UTC from web-
@pony I'm a bit too tired to think what you said through all the way... But, on a larger scale, are you essentially saying 'how do we know that everything doesn't completely change every X measure of time?'
Sunday, 18-Mar-12 10:09:10 UTC from web-
Sunday, 18-Mar-12 10:10:25 UTC from web
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@pony To put this another way: no matter what my memories may say about what I wrote down on a piece of paper, all I need do is look at the piece of paper to know for sure what was written on it. In the same way, we can overcome our own limitations to find evidence of many things by looking to the things that aren't affected by those limitations.
Sunday, 18-Mar-12 09:57:15 UTC from web
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@pony Good point. We automatically fill in the blanks with content based on our personal experiences. And by opening ourselves up to alternate options, we gain more accurate content with which to fill the blanks... In fact... Following this, wouldn't we just continue to add additional information to our repository of things to fill blanks with until eventually we had gathered enough additional understanding so as to fully and accurately full the blank? so... All knowledge is good knowledge, and the more of it we gather the more accurate our understandings will be...
Sunday, 18-Mar-12 09:50:39 UTC from web-
@aeniug2 Unfortunately the incompleteness theorem being true precludes the blank being filled in both fully AND accurately- you could get one or the other, but not both at the same time. A tricky problem to solve.
Sunday, 18-Mar-12 09:52:43 UTC from web -
Sunday, 18-Mar-12 09:53:00 UTC from web
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