Philosophy Now Forum

We literally live in the past. Everything we sense has already happened before we sensed it. Everything we experience is the tail end of a casual chain already allocated to future obscurity.

Even when we make a decision, we are only aware of it after it has already been made.

existence is in the present

reflexive behaviors are in the present

most mental processing of events are afterthoughts...

-Imp

Advocate wrote: ↑Wed Jun 29, 2022 6:31 am We literally live in the past. Everything we sense has already happened before we sensed it. Everything we experience is the tail end of a casual chain already allocated to future obscurity.

The delay is minuscule, barely detectable, only when testing your reaction time, it seems the perception gap is maybe half a second, however, all our actions are performed to take that gap into account, and so we catch up to the present in a way.

I would call that gap, the relative perception gap.

But, there is a different sense of living in the present, as opposed to the past, which is being lost in memory, or the future, which is imagining a future. To live in this present, is to receive the senses, not to anticipate them, but to receive them like one receives water from a shower.

That is what some people mean by living in the present.

Memory only exists in the present. Living in the past is when memory causes actions inappropriate to a present situation. Living in the past is what causes fist fights at weddings.

Advocate wrote: ↑Wed Jun 29, 2022 6:31 am We literally live in the past. Everything we sense has already happened before we sensed it. Everything we experience is the tail end of a casual chain already allocated to future obscurity.

Increase the time lag and as everyone knows, the vastness of the universe has taught us to infer that what we see out there may not now exist.

Thus, you have resurrected a fundamental enquiry, namely:

Does inference define existence?

Eventually, after a nod to Descartes’ theory, this enquiry leads to Jiddu Krishnamurti’s provocative conclusion: We exist only in relationship.

To that I’ll add that we exist only in relationship to a person, place, thing, thought, or sensation. Whatever is not directly experienced with the senses is an inference, which is a mind sense contributing to awareness. When pratyahara removes all of these from consciousness … there is no existence until existence returns as the singular trinity of being-consciousness-bliss*, made possible through the shedding of the superfluous when non-existent.

* google satchitananda for more precise words

[quote=Walker post_id=581581 time=1657022711 user_id=11599]
Thus, you have resurrected a fundamental enquiry, namely:

[i]Does inference define existence?[/i]

Eventually, after a nod to Descartes’ theory, this enquiry leads to Jiddu Krishnamurti’s provocative conclusion: [i]We exist only in relationship.[/i]

To that I’ll add that we exist only in relationship to a person, place, thing, thought, or sensation.
[/quote]

We don't need any Eastern mysticism to recognize that we each have a unique embodied perspectively on the universe.

Advocate wrote: ↑Thu Jul 14, 2022 6:40 am
We don't need any Eastern mysticism to recognize that we each have a unique embodied perspectively on the universe.

What do you need in order to see past your ignorant attitude?

Advocate wrote: ↑Wed Jun 29, 2022 6:31 am We literally live in the past. Everything we sense has already happened before we sensed it. Everything we experience is the tail end of a casual chain already allocated to future obscurity.

This is a premise unsupported by reasoning.
What you need is some reasoning to support your premise.

You see, this is how it's done in the West, and the East. You present a premise, then when you fail to support it, we either support it with reasoning, or we refute it with reasoning.

Your time would be better spent to find some reasoning that supports your premise, rather than take the lazy way and spend your days rebutting the refutation of your premise, or making declarations without reasoning that don't amount to a rebuttal.

Here's reasoning that refutes your premise.
I could have also supported your premise, but why should I do that?

*

We exist only in relationship with the present experience, based on the following reasoning.

- The present experience is the experience of energy. The present is not the origin of the energy emission that begins the possibility for the experience of energy.
- The past exists as a present inference based on physical evidence and memory.
- We are born in the present, we are not born in the past.
- We die in the present, we do not die in the past.
- We are ignorant in the present, we are not ignorant in the past.

In the present, we infer that we were born.
- In the present, we infer that we were ignorant.
- If we infer that we were not born and that we were not ignorant, that is a present inference based on evidence and/or belief.
- If we infer that we were born and that we were ignorant, that is a present inference based on evidence and/or belief.

We experience star-energy in the present, even though we infer the star no longer exists.
We experience sound-energy in the present, even though we infer the tree already fell in the past.
Star energy exists in the present.
Sound energy exists in the present.

Like the past, inferences about the origins of star energy and sound energy do not define the experience of energy which defines the existence of starlight phenomenon and sound phenomenon, with inferred beginnings that indicate the probable past existence of a star and a tree making contact with the ground. The probability is less than certain because you may be waking up in a planetarium with drool running from your mouth, and your eyes opening to pinpoints of light in the curtain of darkness, before memory of situation returns to restore order in the universe in order to again imagine that you are living in the past.

[quote=Walker post_id=583349 time=1657781397 user_id=11599]
[quote=Advocate post_id=583338 time=1657777250 user_id=15238]

We don't need any Eastern mysticism to recognize that we each have a unique embodied perspectively on the universe.
[/quote]
What do you need in order to see past your ignorant attitude?
[/quote]

A reason to believe there's anything of value in the area of inquiry. I'm sufficiently familiar with the genre of Eastern philosophical thought and there's typically nothing in it. As far as i've found, never anything not already available from enlightenment or other Western sources that don't have a layer of mystical garbage riding along.

The connection to the mystical is in fact the most prominent (and prevalent) attribute of Eastern thought, IMO. It's nearly ubiquitous. Only the Dalai Llama seems to have his head above the clouds. Even the Krishnamurtis are just word salad, but the Chopras are evil incarnate.

[quote=Walker post_id=583357 time=1657787067 user_id=11599]
[quote=Advocate post_id=580480 time=1656480695 user_id=15238]
We literally live in the past. Everything we sense has already happened before we sensed it. Everything we experience is the tail end of a casual chain already allocated to future obscurity.
[/quote]
This is a premise unsupported by reasoning.
What you need is some reasoning to support your premise.

You see, this is how it's done in the West, and the East. You present a premise, then when you fail to support it, we either support it with reasoning, or we refute it with reasoning.

Your time would be better spent to find some reasoning that supports your premise, rather than take the lazy way and spend your days rebutting the refutation of your premise, or making declarations without reasoning that don't amount to a rebuttal.

Here's reasoning that refutes your premise.
I could have also supported your premise, but why should I do that?

*

We exist only in relationship with the present experience, based on the following reasoning.

- The present experience is the experience of energy. The present is not the origin of the energy emission that begins the possibility for the experience of energy.
- The past exists as a present inference based on physical evidence and memory.
- We are born in the present, we are not born in the past.
- We die in the present, we do not die in the past.
- We are ignorant in the present, we are not ignorant in the past.

In the present, we infer that we were born.
- In the present, we infer that we were ignorant.
- If we infer that we were not born and that we were not ignorant, that is a present inference based on evidence and/or belief.
- If we infer that we were born and that we were ignorant, that is a present inference based on evidence and/or belief.

We experience star-energy in the present, even though we infer the star no longer exists.
We experience sound-energy in the present, even though we infer the tree already fell in the past.
Star energy exists in the present.
Sound energy exists in the present.

Like the past, inferences about the origins of star energy and sound energy do not define the experience of energy which defines the existence of starlight phenomenon and sound phenomenon, with inferred beginnings that indicate the probable past existence of a star and a tree making contact with the ground. The probability is less than certain because you may be waking up in a planetarium with drool running from your mouth, and your eyes opening to pinpoints of light in the curtain of darkness, before memory of situation returns to restore order in the universe in order to again imagine that you are living in the past.
[/quote]

The understanding that surpasses West and East is that there is a casual chain. Literally everything ever tested proves causality. It takes time for the outer world to get through our senses into our brain, this is undeniable and ridiculous to oppose. In regards to internal-only experience, the experience is the end of the chain. The case i make is prima facae.

I'm surprised you didn't know that.