Re: [Wittrs] Contra Hawking
- From: kirby urner <kirby.urner@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2011 07:58:31 -0700
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Lenval A.Callender" <wittrs@...> wrote:
<< snip >>
> This was first pointed out by St. Augustine...He said that
> time was a property of the universe that God created, and
> that time did not exist before the beginning of the universe."
Greetings sir. I didn't see your posting at first as I'm but a
pending member on Yahoo's Wittrs, known as Plus in some
circles.
We experienced a recent "renaming" of Yahoo lists, which
I think our systems architect Sean sees as a simple relabeling,
but which one could see as complete annihilation and rebirth,
i.e. the old Yahoo! lists are gone forever, and I'm but a
Pending Member (not yet reborn) on one of the two new
ones (or so says the GUI interface).
Ergo, I miss some messages until I check the board.
I bring this up because the logic of cyberspace is part of the
new analytics (what analytic philosophy types need to
contend with as a part of their new logical environment --
Sean is well ahead of the pack in doing all this inter-list
plumbing, a good role model for the hyper-specialists).
It's well that you finger St. Augustine, as Wittgenstein chooses
him in particular to debate in his opening quote in Latin,
regarding the guy's theory of language -- which LW treats
as representative of how many still think of language even
today: mistakenly and/or superstitiously as it turns out,
with lots of imaginary "mental processes" that "must" be
there -- because imagined -- and then subsequently reified
by neuroscience as hypothetical "brain circuits" or
"neurological events").
I'm speaking of 'Philosophical Investigations' of course, which
disentangles "meaning" from such lazily indulged daydreams
of "internal wheels turning". Not that we don't imagine stuff
of course, it's just that "understanding" and/or "meaning" is
only gratuitously projected as some "private internal process"
by those given to idle and specious talk, versus taking the
trouble to actually investigate the use of these ethnic concepts
in actual practice).
Regarding Kant, I don't know how much difference it would make
if those speaking of a "multi-verse" in Hawking's circle, i.e. those
cosmologists into "branes" (vs. "brains"), were to change their
nomenclature and proclaim that the universe itself (expanded
meaning) was possibly eternally regenerative.
Would that impact the Kantian argument one way or the other?
[ We're still "beings in time" (Heidegger) are we not? Nothing
changes about human nature, as cosmologies come and go,
right? Likely wrong. Isn't cosmology intrinsic to ethnicity and
therefore identity? What do Existentialists think? ]
You needn't go back to some hypothetical "big bang" to get
a sense of that Land Before Time. Your own personal existence
(likewise mine) will only have commenced a few years ago,
and that's a far better analogy for the locality of a sense of
"time" I should think, i.e. it's only in our culture that "time"
has the meaning we make of it.
Not every civilization before or after will invest in a meaning
of "time" the same way you or I do. Ethnography enters in.
That was a big contribution of the Wittgenstein era. Philosophers
could no longer take their ethnicity for granted. The 113 year
span of the Anglo empire ended around the same time -- not
coincidentally I don't think.
When did "time" begin?
In its modern sense, probably around the time of accurate timekeeping
devices, along with calendars (so a long time ago). Before that,
time had a different flavor, I would suggest more caught up with
space. A journey from here to there would be considered in terms
of time (how many moons). You can't divorce distance from the
time it takes to cover it.
That started to change with the idea of "instantaneous time" (time
the same everywhere, with instantaneous action at a distance). This
notion may have reached its apogee within Newtonian physics.
We no longer have the sense of it being "the same time everywhere"
in the universe. Finding out that light had a top speed, putting an
upper limit on the speed of information dispersion, helped create
the Hawking universe of partially overlapping "light cones" (hour-
glass shaped -- bow-ties around "now moments").
"Instant universe" in general has had to take a back burner position,
now that Relativity rules. No one reference frame has privileged
access to the "one true time" that determines chronology and
causality. No one has a monopoly on the "one telling" of history.
That might have been disruptive to Kant's thinking too, I don't know.
Too late to ever know I suppose.
Thanks for contributing.
Your posting reminded me of a time when philosophers were
more often than not professionally concerned with the
"existence" versus "non-existence" of some God.
For many today, that's no longer an interesting debate (it's not
that either side "won" -- it's more that the grammar of "existence"
(egg-zist-ance) was vastly over-sold (who cares if some sorry
God "egg zists" or not?)).
[ Actually, even in the Middle Ages, some philosophers averred
that "existence" was a property of mere creatures and that
God could not partake of existence as that would make God
just another time-space bound creature like we are. ]
Anyway, it's good to be reminded of one's heritage.
Kirby
_______________________________________________
Wittrs mailing list
Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://undergroundwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/wittrs_undergroundwiki.org
Other related posts:
