RE: Let us go back to "cold" hard logic."Time"
November 5, 2017 at 4:33 pm
(This post was last modified: November 5, 2017 at 4:36 pm by Edwardo Piet.)
I agree the future doesn't exist before it exists. That doesn't even make any sense. The future is by definition not something that exists (present tense) presently. Only the present is.
The future is by definition what WILL exist, or in other words, what will be present/the present. It does not exist. It WILL exist but when we say it will exist all we really mean is that it will become present. The future describes something that by definition does not exist yet.
Likewise, the past does not exist but did previously exist, but all we mean by that is that it existed and was present at the time when it was the present.
And the amount of times relativistic theories about science and all times existing equally is brought up is an annoying red herring (Not to mention that saying the past and future exist now just as much as the present is identical to saying that all there is is the present (if the past and future really exist now then they're not the past and the future they're the present. The past has definitionally already passed and the future is definitionally yet to come)). Science only deals with the observable phenomenal world and tests our experience of time: science cannot and doesn't test Kant's thing-in-itself. The philosophy of time is about time itself whereas science only deals with our experience of time.
The future is by definition what WILL exist, or in other words, what will be present/the present. It does not exist. It WILL exist but when we say it will exist all we really mean is that it will become present. The future describes something that by definition does not exist yet.
Likewise, the past does not exist but did previously exist, but all we mean by that is that it existed and was present at the time when it was the present.
And the amount of times relativistic theories about science and all times existing equally is brought up is an annoying red herring (Not to mention that saying the past and future exist now just as much as the present is identical to saying that all there is is the present (if the past and future really exist now then they're not the past and the future they're the present. The past has definitionally already passed and the future is definitionally yet to come)). Science only deals with the observable phenomenal world and tests our experience of time: science cannot and doesn't test Kant's thing-in-itself. The philosophy of time is about time itself whereas science only deals with our experience of time.
