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Dedicated Loiterer

Aws10
thefluffygamer
I Refute Berkeley Thus
Xiam
The memories are there of actions previously done.

S'pretty much all I have for an answer.


How is that evidence?

You replied to a post someone typed out in the past. If that's not enough for you, you also responded based off of what you read, the information of which was stored in your mind from the past.


The post exists in the present, not the past.

But memory of the post allows you to respond to it. As you read each word, memory of that word becomes stored, and your mind pieces together the information. If there was no past, there would be no relation to each word you read, and this post you're reading right now would be complete gibberish.
thefluffygamer
Aws10
thefluffygamer
I Refute Berkeley Thus
Xiam
The memories are there of actions previously done.

S'pretty much all I have for an answer.


How is that evidence?

You replied to a post someone typed out in the past. If that's not enough for you, you also responded based off of what you read, the information of which was stored in your mind from the past.


The post exists in the present, not the past.

But memory of the post allows you to respond to it.


The memory exists in the present too.
I Refute Berkeley Thus
Common sense isn't evidence. These terms are meant to be unpacked and analyzed, not taken at face-value.


Except that it's not useful to do so, and leads to the same problem as most other philosophies of thought: that you must, at some point, admit to a "just-so" and assume an unprovable.

In the case of "the past," our frame of reference forces this, at the point where observation causes memory of an observation. This causation is one you already accept: after all, you cannot remember the sound that the tree made when it fell, if you didn't hear it.

However, you say that memories (being a present artifact) cannot be used as evidence of the past. We can take this a short step further and say that a memory is not evidence of its antecedent observation.

Thus, every time you rely on your memories, you are assuming that those memories have antecedents, despite the antecedents not existing in this world. When you confirm a guess, you are not just deciding whether your observation agrees with a memory of a guess, you are assuming that you ever made a guess, and using your memory of it as an anchor for that assumption.

Because speed is a change in position over time, using the ball's speed to predict its future position is likewise making several assumptions:
-That your memory of each position of the ball closer to me corresponds to an observation of this, despite the ball being halfway between us;
-That, collectively, your memory of the several positions forms a pattern;
-That this pattern will continue into "future" moments, in such a way that you can consciously react.

You don't think about this process most of the time. I'd guess that most of us hardly ever, IF ever, think about it this way. But as you can see, you make the same assumptions as everyone else. To reject them leaves no reason to accept causation or motion.
Sandokiri
You don't think about this process most of the time. I'd guess that most of us hardly ever, IF ever, think about it this way. But as you can see, you make the same assumptions as everyone else. To reject them leaves no reason to accept causation or motion.


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I Refute Berkeley Thus
In doing these investigations, I have lost faith in almost all commonsense notions of time, causation, categories such as "identity" and "existence," and so on. They simply don't hold up to scrutiny - these findings are in no way mystical; in fact, they're rather boring.
Sandokiri
I Refute Berkeley Thus
Common sense isn't evidence. These terms are meant to be unpacked and analyzed, not taken at face-value.


Except that it's not useful to do so, and leads to the same problem as most other philosophies of thought: that you must, at some point, admit to a "just-so" and assume an unprovable.

In the case of "the past," our frame of reference forces this, at the point where observation causes memory of an observation. This causation is one you already accept: after all, you cannot remember the sound that the tree made when it fell, if you didn't hear it.

However, you say that memories (being a present artifact) cannot be used as evidence of the past. We can take this a short step further and say that a memory is not evidence of its antecedent observation.

Thus, every time you rely on your memories, you are assuming that those memories have antecedents, despite the antecedents not existing in this world. When you confirm a guess, you are not just deciding whether your observation agrees with a memory of a guess, you are assuming that you ever made a guess, and using your memory of it as an anchor for that assumption.

Because speed is a change in position over time, using the ball's speed to predict its future position is likewise making several assumptions:
-That your memory of each position of the ball closer to me corresponds to an observation of this, despite the ball being halfway between us;
-That, collectively, your memory of the several positions forms a pattern;
-That this pattern will continue into "future" moments, in such a way that you can consciously react.

You don't think about this process most of the time. I'd guess that most of us hardly ever, IF ever, think about it this way. But as you can see, you make the same assumptions as everyone else. To reject them leaves no reason to accept causation or motion.


David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding ยง4 Part 2
My practice, you say, refutes my doubts. But you mistake the purport of my question. As an agent, I am quite satisfied in the point; but as a philosopher, who has some share of curiosity, I will not say scepticism, I want to learn the foundation of this inference. No reading no enquiry, has yet been able to remove my difficulty, or give me satisfaction in a manner of such importance


Hume on induction, but it applies to time here as well. I cannot help, when I don't think about it, viewing time as a unidirectional progression through moments. But again, I do not think these conclusions are actually warranted by the experience itself, so much as it is a matter of custom to believe it.

As with so many commonsense opinions, it falls to pieces if you press on it even a little.

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