Looking at Time - Wikipedia Style

There are two distinct views on the meaning of time according to the wikipedia:

One view is that time is part of the fundamental structure of the universe, a dimension in which events occur in sequence, and time itself is something that can be measured. This is the realist's view, to which Sir Isaac Newton subscribed.

A contrasting view is that time is part of the fundamental intellectual structure (together with space and number). In this structure, we sequence events, quantify the duration of events and the intervals between them, and compare the motions of objects. In this second view, time does not refer to any kind of entity that "flows", that objects "move through", or that is a "container" for events. This view is in the tradition of Gottfried Leibniz and Immanuel Kant in which time, rather than being an objective thing to be measured, is part of the mental measuring system.

The question, perhaps overly simplified and allowing for no middle ground, is thus: is time a "real thing" that is "all around us", or is it nothing more than a way of speaking about and measuring events?

Sky Blue Diamond

I want one of these!

Looking at Spacetime and Kant

I like to try to understand physics and look at how this intersects with what philosophers say.

Looking at the wikipedia today at the definition of spacetime:

In physics, spacetime is any mathematical model that combines space and time into a single construct called the space-time continuum. Spacetime is usually interpreted with space being three-dimensional and time playing the role of the fourth dimension.

In general relativity, space-time is assumed to be smooth and continuous- and not just in the mathematical sense. In the theory of quantum mechanics, there is an inherent discreteness present in physics. In attempting to reconcile these two theories, it is sometimes postulated that spacetime should be quantized at the very smallest scales.

Okay - hang with me, I am getting there.

Spacetime has taken on meanings different from the four-dimensional one given above. For example, when drawing a graph of the distance a car has travelled for a certain time, it is natural to draw a two-dimensional spacetime diagram. As drawing four-dimensional spacetime diagrams is impossible, physicists often resort to drawing three-dimensional spacetime diagrams. For example, the Earth orbiting the Sun is a helical shape traced out in the direction of the time axis. Immanuel Kant argued that space having 3 dimensions followed from the inverse square law of universal gravitation. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is recognized as one of the greatest works in the history of philosophy, and the essay Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment? is well-known, too.

Kant asserted that, because of the limitations of reason, no one could really know if there is a God and an afterlife. But, then again, he added, no one could really know that there was not a God and an afterlife. For the sake of society and morality, Kant asserted, people are reasonably justified in believing in them, even though they could never know for sure whether they are real or not.

Kant gives two expositions of space and time: metaphysical and transcendental. The metaphysical expositions of space and time are concerned with clarifying how those intuitions are known independently of experience. The transcendental expositions attempt to show how the metaphysical conclusions might be applied to enrich our understanding.

The first metaphysical expositions unfold by describing what both space and time really are. Five main points:

Space and time are not in themselves general concepts; rather, they are intuitions. Space is not in itself a concept because one can imagine things external to his or her self, and this feat of the imagination supposes a prior understanding of space. Therefore the internal representation of space can't be drawn from experience by the acquaintance with external sensations and establishing relations between them; rather, experiences with the external are themselves impossible unless they presuppose the ability to understand space. Similarly, the perception of co-existence and succession could not occur without first having an understanding of time.

Space is a necessary representation that is the foundation of all external experiences. We can never imagine anything without space. Time is also a necessary representation, but in a sense that is more powerful, since it underlies every intuition whatsoever.

For space, this a priori necessity is the foundation of all geometrical principles and the possibility of their a priori construction. As for time, it is by the same a priori necessity that we may also find the possibility of philosophical principles concerning time and its axioms.

Neither space nor time are general concepts. In effect, we can't initially imagine anything but one, unitary space and, when we talk about many spaces, we mean that those sub-parts occupy part of the same, unique space. The same reasoning forces the same conclusion for time: different times are just part of the same time. Moreover, the fact that space and time are not concepts can be demonstrated in that space and time are necessary and universal conditions for appearance in general, and so, must be intuitions.

Finally, space and time are both infinite (though this is not strictly true, as he explains later in the 'Antinomy of Pure Reason'.)

Kant's aim was to move beyond the traditional dichotomy between rationalism and empiricism. The rationalists had tried to show that we can understand the world by careful use of reason; this guarantees the indubitability of our knowledge but leaves serious questions about its practical content. The empiricists, on the other hand, had argued that all of our knowledge must be firmly grounded in experience; practical content is thus secured, but it turns out that we can be certain of very little. Both approaches have failed, Kant supposed, because both are premised on the same mistaken assumption.

Progress in philosophy, according to Kant, requires that we frame the epistemological problem in an entirely different way. The crucial question is not how we can bring ourselves to understand the world, but how the world comes to be understood by us. Instead of trying, by reason or experience, to make our concepts match the nature of objects, Kant held, we must allow the structure of our concepts shape our experience of objects.

That's it for Kant today. Next: Kant and Buddhism. For some reading for now go to American Buddhist Perspective blog.