So I remember this quote today concerning time.
In trying to tell the specific time right now. The future is already becoming the present and the present is already becoming the past, therefore one cannot establish the precise time at any given moment because as doing such it is no longer valid. Therefore there is no present. Since there is no present is there any such thing as time?
im driving. In trying to tell my location right here. The road in front of my wheels is already becoming the road under the wheels and the road under my wheels is becoming the road behind the wheels therefore one cannot establish the precise location of my car because as doing such it is no longer valid. Therefore there is no road under the wheels. Since there is no road under the wheels is there any such thing as road?
Ha, I figured it out. Stop the car! [H]
As for the time thing.. Woooah man, totally rad. [8-)]
I would agree that stopping your car would prove there is a road and is something achievable. Though due to Zeno’s paradox, you would never get to where you actually want to go.
a liebniz-ninja could do it!
you might as well stay home
Our measurements being slightly inaccurate (due to the continuous nature of time) doesn’t invalidate the concept. Time, much like space, exists whether we can measure it or not. For instance, just because I may not have any way of determining where I am does not mean that there’s no such thing as location.
I think that is a crappy defense but be troubled not for I just developed an argument. According to Einstein, time is a relative concept and being agent relative means only that it matters to an individual in question therefore I can define time in a manner that befits my outlook
What’s wrong with it? If something can’t be measured or raises troubles measuring it one cannot therefore conclude it doesn’t exist. That’s a non sequitur.
Well time would need to exist in some format in order to measure it or even experience it since we cannot even ‘apriorize’ in a vacuum. You can’t assume the existence of something in order to prove it exists.
Didn’t you answer your own question by mentioning “experiencing” it as sufficient for knowing it exists? Not everything you experience is easily measurable (even if it is in principle measurable.) BTW this
would support the argument he made, wouldn’t it?
One assumes the existence of phenomena in the physical sciences when trying to experimentally falsify it.
If one is a logical positivist.
Well I never denied the existence of time. I merely stated that I remember a quotation in which the speaker deduced that time doesn’t exist because it is constantly moving and therefore the future is the present and the present is the past. Then I posed the question [ in the topic title ] : Does time exist? I thought about it for a day and developed an argument this morning while singing in the shower.
Actually, hypothetico-deductive.
To assume the existence of something you are trying to disprove is a performative contradiction and at the very least idiocy.
I would also like to state that since the physical sciences are empiricalist, you would need to experience what you are trying to disprove exists and such experience demands existence of the entity therefore in order to disprove the existence of something empirically it in fact has to existence in the first place.
The speaker’s deduction is bizarre to say the least. All you could really say is the present becomes the past/future so quick that it can’t even be measured.
No it isn’t. What one does is take a bold hypothesis, assume that it exists, and then look for the phenomena that would result from the bold hypothesis. If the data does not match the hypothesis, then one has falsifie the hypothesis. It involves no idiocy, nor a performative contradiction - its just the sucessfulscientific method for one cannot test a hypothesis without assuming it to be the case.