KARL JASPERS FORUM

TA61 (Andemicael)

Commentary 2

WORKING SPACE-TIME
by Herbert FJ Müller
4 July 2003, posted 22 July 2003

<1>
ABSTRACT

A. Andemicael's paper brings up important questions on the topic of time, chiefly the one of subjective versus objective time. I am in agreement with AA's position that time flow is mind-inclusive, and suggest in this commentary that the use of working-ontology can be of help in understanding. "Time" refers to objectification and quantification of the flow of experience; the various conceptualizations, such as Minkowski's space-time, are best viewed in the context of a subject-inclusive view. This can avoid some conceptual dead ends.

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<2>
Discussions of time tend to suffer, more than that of many other concepts, from the Cartesian subject-object split, which for such topics needs a correction (this point is discussed in more detail in C2 to TA60). In practice, the main problem can be a tendency for the discussion to waver between a fictitious subject-in-itself and an equally fictitious object-in-itself, in attempts to decide which side we are on, or to get from one to the other. But although we may pretend to be on only side, we are always on both simultaneously. Both of these structures are created inside experience from no given structures (zero-derivation, 0-D), and with no primary division between them, only a secondary pragmatic one.

<3>
The time concept usually involves conceptualization with objectification and quantification of the flow of experience which never stands still, while concepts do - cf Zeno of Elea, who argued, as some present day philosophers still do (TA61[1]), that movement (with time flow) is an illusion because he assigned primary truth to static public concepts. This is related to the conclusion of some materialists that there is no such thing as subjective experience, because it cannot be objectified, or expressed as a (public) formula. But ongoing experience is, on the contrary, the origin of all concepts including time, no other model [2] is needed.

<4>
Time, like everything else, is thus, as AA says, mind-dependent, or more appropriately, mind-inclusive - it is subjective, but not only subjective. Experience encompasses all possible compartments within it, i.e., the subject as well as the universe and inter-subjectivity, etc. The structures and divisions within experience are secondary and pragmatic, not primary and MIR-ontological in the traditional sense. (MIR = mind-independently pre-structured reality; this is a feature of traditional static ontology, which should be replaced by working ontology, cf. TA57.) The time experience can be quantified (i.e., divided into entities like moments [5] and, by extension and instrumentalization of this procedure, into millenia or femto-seconds, and counted). But that too is a secondary procedure, which takes place inside experience.

<5>
Existence is a dynamic process [4] because it is produced from inside ongoing subject-inclusive experience (SE), which is dynamic because it goes on, flows. Persistence [10] in the flow of experience (i.e., in time) is one of the facets of existence, not its foundation; actually, existence (reality, truth) is established by the investment of trust, as warranted, in the reliability of the structures we create inside experience. (What is or is not warranted depends on beliefs, on the basis of widely differing evidence : research, authorities, intuition, revelation, and other sources. Consider, for instance, the reality of angels, witches, the great satan, the axis of evil, quarks, black holes, dark matter and energy, or the big bang, to name a few that are currently in vogue. The beliefs are also driven by forces such as adventure, fads, and economics, cf. the Harry Potter boom. {1} Which does not imply that under scrutiny all beliefs or sources are equally valid.)

<6>
A material entity, like a telephone pole, we say exists [5] because we know - i.e., we trust - that we can bump into it. But that time did not exist at or before the big bang is a misunderstanding. Time can neither exist nor not-exist mind-independently, because time is at any time an extrapolation from a structure formed inside the flow of experience, a tool we create for the purpose of handling the flow of experience. To suggest that existence (of material objects, I take it) depends on quantified time [6] is not helpful either, because the structures of both objects and time are created together inside experience. But because SE flows, experience (with or even without structuring) of anything implies ipso facto some duration (once we think about it), which then can but does not have to be transformed into as-if-MIR-time.

<8>
A notion that existence is more fundamental than persistence [8-10] might follow from the Parmenidan-Platonic assumption of MIR. But neither existence nor persistence are fundamental, both are secondarily formed within SE, and established as real by trust. An invalidation via t-0 [11,14] is not possible, because time is consequent to experience and to the processes of use and trust (in the existence, reality) of structures created inside it, not vice versa. Persistence as a type of motion [13] follows easily from the flow of SE; in contrast, it cannot be derived from a succession of postulated (MIR-fictitious) objective time points [14ff], which as you say [15,16] have no self-contained existence.

<9>
"A brick is temporally non-dimensional" [18] - ok, "brick" can be understood as devoid of experience beyond its specific meaning, a naked concept or word {2} (or if you prefer, an experience-free and static Platonic idea). We attach them to a particular kind of experience, which becomes verbally and conceptually structured in the process. This is here centered on other qualities of an object, not on the time flow aspect. (But how would you deal with a "clock", or other "time-pieces", as objects ?)

<10>
The mind can become an entity [19] under the same conditions as we can make a brick an entity, namely by trust in the working reliability (including persistence) of the created structure (but see <12> below). Experience (the mind) endures because it flows, goes on. Duration (time) is thus one of the aspects of SE. I agree that "now" is not an entity [20] in case you mean it to refer to the center of ongoing SE, since under this condition it cannot be defined in an as-if-MIR way.

<11>
Quote : "The "present" and the "nows" that make up the timeline are … aspects of subjective, mental time." [20] This whole argument in Part I is quite an effort to convert objective to subjective and vice versa, a thankless undertaking because it first pre-supposes a fictitious primary (or traditional-ontological) subject-object split and then tries to bridge it, and this procedure is further elaborated in Part II [25-37]. Such attempts to explain the present (ongoing) flow of experience in terms of a fictitious absolute time-line cannot succeed because they would require an impossible inversion of the relation between primary ongoing SE and its secondary (inside & outside) tools such as concepts, objects, or time-lines.

<12>
The mind, so long as it means ongoing SE, cannot be defined in an MIR-sense, nor even in an as-if-MIR way. Actually, in case one does define mind, consciousness, awareness, subject, identity, etc., in an as-if-MIR-way [20] these words have different functions. For instance I can say "I am so-and-so", as a tool (name or function, etc) available for communication, for structuring, self-definition in relation to others, etc. Or consciousness can be defined as a clinical state with a number of criteria. And one can do that with "now" as well, for instance by making it a point on a time graph, a thinking tool. In shopping centers you can find maps with arrows telling you "you are here", implying "now" as well, and furthermore other "yous" that may be looking, and the universe (of the shopping center).

<13>
The overall result of such reflections (<7 to 12> above) is that the words per se cannot be a guarantee of distinction between subject-exclusive and subject-inclusive meaning, in contrast to what is suggested in Parts II to IV (e.g., [43,46]). It is necessary in each instance to be aware of whether the naïve-MIR meaning is erroneously implied, or else a pragmatic working-MIR where the terms are used with the understanding that MIR is only an as-if shortcut for the subject-inclusive meaning within SE. For instance the "present-itself" [21] has no duration since it is a Platonic-type idea (an MIR-fiction) and it is not a part of ongoing experience; it can not exist as a trusted structure inside experience. On the other hand, a lived present is a segment of the flow of experience. In summary, time passes [24] because experience flows.

<14>
Part III [38-46] discusses space. I would say space is the result of structuring and quantifying the extension aspect of experience, and like time, it can be made, by investment of trust, to exist as a working structure, but a static space [45] is MIR-fiction. The difference from time, in practical or Gestalt terms, is that it needs not one but three dimensions, in case you want to illustrate it on a piece of paper, or in a model.

<15>
Einstein's twin paradox [42] indicates that your (and your clock's) counting is affected by fast travel in space. Quantifying space and quantifying time have historically started out as separate procedures, but both are involved in speed (of movement, including that of light, for instance). The measurements of time and of space automatically affect each other in case speed of light is constant (as it was pre-supposed, voraus-gesetzt, by Einstein {3}, because he wanted to arrive at a "simple and contradiction-free" theory - thus the constancy was posited, not discovered. But should the twin paradox not be considered a contradiction ?)

<16>
Thus the paradox is built into the pre-supposition. Space and time would not need to affect each other in that way in case speed of light could suitably vary (the twins might then for instance construct different personal times, not that defined by one universal space-time). From a working-ontology view this is easy to understand (we make up working structures, such as concepts and theories, as we need them), but not in a traditional MIR-ontology framework, which causes problems here as everywhere else. Since relativity theory has by and large worked well for physics (by eliminating the notion of absolute rest) it will not likely be changed. But relativity is not absolute either, and who knows, maybe someone will come up with a variable-speed-of-light (and subject-inclusive) theory, using some other anchor point for stability.

<17>
By referring only to rigid bodies (coordinate systems), clocks, and electromagnetic processes {4}, Einstein explicitly excluded the subject (such as the observer of the speed of light) in his theory from the beginning - presumably he wanted to make certain that his argument was exclusively objective {5}. Thus while, as a pre-supposition for his theory, he eliminated absolute rest, time and space, he nevertheless wanted to maintain the notion of MIR more generally, which implies absolute existence. This is also clear from his later statements concerning particle physics, for instance in discussions with Niels Bohr. (One might counter-propose that what matters is not mind-independence of objects, time, etc., but rather what one (subject, observer) does, using the procedures which the theory outlines; cf. TA45[8c].)

<18>
Concerning Part IV [47-55] : I agree that subject-inclusive time flows, it is dynamic [48] and can be as-if-objectified in a timeline. Static time [49] is in contrast a traditional static MIR-fiction, including some interpretations of Minkowski's space-time, which can lead to perplexing conclusions such as a block-universe (see TA57, and R5 of TA57). I also disagree with the statement [50ff] that an individual "perceives concrete, 3-dimensional slices", because it implies pre-structured reality : the experience is first and can then be structured in this - or some other - manner.

<19>
Simultaneity is relative [52] because it implies transmission by light or a similar transmitting agent, which travels at a limited speed. This transmission is needed to coordinate two persons' time flows [53]. Two people's time streams happen (exist) independently of each other [54] except for such coordination. The four-dimensional space-time reality [54-55] can serve as an as-if-MIR reference, if one keeps its limitations in mind, that is, discards its absolute-validity aspect. {6}

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NOTES AND REFERENCES

{1} Lavine Marc, Bewitching, Bewildered, Believable. Review of Roger Highfield, "The Science of Harry Potter. How Magic Really Works". Science 300, p.1880, 20 June 2003.

{2} Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus - as Umberto Eco wrote in "The Name of the Rose" (1980). He referred to a medieval monk as the source of this hexameter (Postscript, 1983).

{3} Einstein eliminated the notion, until then implied in parts of physics theory (and in the popular image of physical reality), that rest (and thus time and space) were absolute. He based his theory on two postulates, absence of absolute rest, and a new absolute or constant, the speed of light as a stabilizing point. But he maintained the notion of mind-independent reality, excluding subjects, see {4} below.

"… Beispiele ähnlicher Art, sowie die mißlungenen Versuche, eine Bewegung der Erde relativ zum "Lichtmedium" zu konstatieren, führen zu der Vermutung, daß dem Begriffe der absoluten Ruhe nicht nur in der Mechanik, sondern auch in der Elektrodynamik keine Eigenschaften der Erscheinungen entsprechen, sondern daß vielmehr für alle Koordinatensysteme, für welche die mechanischen Gleichungen gelten, auch die gleichen elektrodynamischen Gesetze gelten, wie dies für die Größen erster Ordnung bereits erwiesen ist. Wir wollen diese Vermutung (deren Inhalt im folgenden "Prinzip der Relativität" genannt werden wird) zur Voraussetzung erheben und außerdem die mit ihm nur scheinbar unverträgliche Vorasussetzung einführen, daß sich das Licht im leeren Raume stets mit einer bestimmten, vom Bewegungszustande des emittierenden Körpers unabhängigen Geschwindigkeit V fortpflanze. Diese beiden Voraussetzungen genügen, um zu einer einfachen und widerspruchsfreien Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper zu gelangen unter Zugrundelegung der Maxwellschen Theorie für ruhende Körper." - Einstein Albert, Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper. Annalen der Physik 17, p.891-2, 1905.

{4} "Die zu entwickelnde Theorie stützt sich - wie jede andere Elektrodynamik - auf die Kinematik des starren Körpers, da die Aussagen einer jeden Theorie Beziehungen zwischen starren Körpern (Koordinatensystemen), Uhren und elektro-magnetischen Prozessen betreffen." - ibidem, p.892

{5} Einstein's view was exclusive objectivity, used by modern science, without subjects (a view from nowhere, in Nagel's words). The term "modern science" here refers approximately to the time from Descartes and Newton to about 1930. "Post-modern science" would then mean the somewhat hesitant attempts, in recent decades, to re-include the subject.

{6} The 0-D principle applies not only to cognition but also to action and ethics. Consider for instance the following statement. "During her years of human rights work, Laber gradually lost her belief that evil is the work of a few monstrous individuals. The capacity for cruelty, she concludes … exists everywhere, perhaps in every person, and only laws and punishments can keep it in check." (Moorehead Caroline, A watch on torture. Review of "The Courage of Strangers, Coming of age with the human rights movement" by Jeri Laber (2002); in Times Literary Supplement, 13 June 2003, p.28.) This conclusion contrasts in particular with the prevalent self-satisfaction in Western nations in the century before the First World War, a kind of collective intoxication resulting from successes in science, culture, industry, commerce, colonialism and, last not least, a feeling of superiority based on the idea of possession of truth plus virtue (which some politicians still claim). A 0-D start, with only temporary working truths, might be more promising, because it shows everybody's uncertainty and responsibility.

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Herbert FJ Müller