| | Back on January 10th (Post 106), I wrote, "Time IS the measurement of motion in the sense that when you say that a person has existed for a certain period of time -- e.g., for five years -- you're saying that he has existed for five revolutions of the earth around the sun. You're taking the motion of the earth around the sun as your standard or unit of measurement and calculating the duration of the child's existence in relation to it."
On January 23, (Post 139), Claude Shannon replied to me in a post that I overlooked. His reply is interesting, well written and civil enough that I think it deserves a response.
He wrote, And motion IS the measurement of time, in the sense that when you say that the earth has revolved around the sun once, or twice, or thrice, it is a fully distinguishable thing called "time" that permits you to distinguish the first revolution from the second revolution from the third. The very words "first" "second" "third" imply the prior concept "sequential time." Right, but only because you already have the concept of motion or change; without the latter, the concept of time wouldn't exist. "First," "second" and "third" in temporal succession necessarily involve motion and change. We call the second revolution of the earth around the sun, "the second," because it occurs when the motion of the first revolution is completed. We observe a change. Without any motion or change, there would be no temporal succession.
But I don't think you can say that motion IS the measurement of time. As you acknowledge elsewhere in your post, you can have motion without the measurement of time. But time does require relating one motion to another. You could say that we measure time by the motion of a clock, but you wouldn't have time without motion or change, so that ultimately what you're measuring is motion or change by means of a standard of motion or change, just as you measure weight by means of a standard of weight, such as a balancing scale.
I wrote, "[Time]is a measure of motion in the following sense. When we ask, how much time something takes, we're asking how many units of a particular kind of motion it takes to be completed. For example, if I ask, how much time in days it takes for someone to finish a job, I'm asking for the relationship between the motions (or work) required for its completion and the number of rotations of the earth on its axis." Shannon replied, You can't have it both ways. Either time is used to measure motion, or motion is used to measure time. Time is used to measure motion, in the sense that a certain motion (such as a job) can be said to take a certain amount of time, say two days. But the time it takes (the two days) is simply another motion, which involves the rotation of the earth on its axis. And motion can, in turn, be used to measure time, in the sense that the rotation of the earth on its axis serves as a standard of motion by which the amount of time that it takes to finish a job is measured. So we can say that in one respect, time is used to measure motion, and that in another, motion is used to measure time. But, of course, you can't have it both ways using these terms in exactly the same respect. If I have a sack of potatoes and I want to know, "How heavy is it?", I put it in an old-fashioned scale and stack unit weights on the other side until a certain number of unit weights and the sack of potatoes balance. I am using the WEIGHTS to measure the SACK (not the sack to measure the weights). Right, but you are using one weight to measure another, just as in regard to time, you are using one motion to measure another. If I ask of someone, "How much time will the job require?", I wish to know the number of unit revolutions of a clock, unit revolutions of the earth about its axis, or unit revolutions of the earth about the sun. Analogous to the sack of potatoes above, I use the MOTION to measure the TIME (not the time to measure the motion). Well, you can ask how much time it takes to do the job, and if the answer is two days, then you're measuring the job by the time it takes to complete it (namely two days). In that respect, you're using time to measure motion (the motion of the job). By the same token, you can use a unit of motion (e.g., one rotation of the earth on its axis) to measure time -- to measure how much time it takes to complete the job. In that respect, you're using motion to measure time. Rand’s error here might not be an error at all if we understand that there are two ways of using the preposition “of” in the sentence at issue. For example, in the phrase “the leadership of children” we might be implying that it is the children who are being led by someone else; or we might be implying that it is the children themselves who are leading others (“of” has the meaning of “by” here). We need more context to decide. In the sentence “time is a measure of motion”, the meaning could be that it is the motion that is doing the measuring of time; or it could mean that the motion is being measured by time. Hard to say without more context. I don't think either is a correct interpretation. The definition of time as the measure of motion (or of change) doesn't simply say that motion is doing the measuring of time, nor does it say that motion is being measured by time. As I understand that definition -- which was also Aristotle's -- it simply says that time IS the measurement of motion by means of a standard of motion, just as weight IS the measurement of gravitational force by means of a standard of gravitational force.
I wrote, "We don't look to Newton's first law of motion to explain biological reproduction, but that doesn't mean that biological reproduction isn't a physical process." Nothing about biological reproduction violates Newton's laws. If we were interested in the kinematics of sperm, then we could very easily apply Newton's laws. Additionally, nothing about biological reproduction violates thermodynamics. Nothing about biological reproduction violates quantum mechanics. Conversely, mind in no way functions according to these laws, or can be reduced to them, or can be specified by them. Right, but that's because a consciously generated action is goal-directed; it is not an action that is passive or reactive. Newton's laws don't apply to the process of initiating actions, only to actions that constitute a reaction to previously generated forces. But that doesn't mean that goal-directed action is not a function of material entities. It's simply a different principle of action that characterizes a different class of material entities.
I wrote, “All I was saying is that we have no evidence that mind or consciousness exists apart from living organisms. Are you honestly disputing this?” Lack of evidence is not evidence of lack. I agree, but you are not entitled to assert the existence of something for which you have no evidence. I dispute your claim that to make such an assertion involves a logical contradiction. It's a logical contradiction, because it violates the necessary preconditions of awareness. Awareness must always have a certain character; an entity must be aware in some manner or form, which is determined by its organs of perception. The awareness needn't take the form of one of our five senses. It's certainly possible for a species to have a different perceptual apparatus than ours, but it would have to possess some form of awareness. A pure, disembodied consciousness, however, would have no sensory organs, in which case, there is literally no way in which it could perceive reality. We also have no evidence, despite your assertions about the “incontrovertible” findings of neuroscience (which you no doubt would have posted had they actually existed), that consciousness is “inside” the brain in the same way that a liquid or a gas is “inside” a solid container. And in any case, even if this were the case, it would hardly follow that consciousness is a property of the brain. Coca-Cola is not a property of the glass bottle or aluminum can in which it is contained. Consciousness is not inside the brain in the same way that a gas or liquid is inside a solid container. It is “inside” the brain, only in the sense that conscious experiences are localized within the brain and nervous system of the person or animal possessing them. In a similar vein, one could ask: Where is the activity of running located? Is it “inside” the legs of the animal that's performing it? Not in the same way that a gas or a liquid is “inside” a container. But that doesn’t mean that running has no physical location. It is located in the same place as the legs of the animal that is doing the running. In the same way, perception is located in the same place as the sense organs, brain and nervous system of the animal that is doing the perceiving. Neuroscience does tell us that certain mental processes are manifestations of a particular kind of brain activity – that if that part of the brain is diseased, damaged or destroyed, the corresponding mental processes are themselves disabled or destroyed. Finally, it occurred to me that though we might have no evidence of a consciousness existing apart from a living biological organism, we also have no evidence of living biological organisms that do not have at least some degree of consciousness; all living organisms are aware of reality to some degree. I disagree with this – unless you are using “awareness” so broadly as to include any form of sensitivity to the external environment, such as the movement of a plant’s leaves toward the sun. I would confine consciousness to animal life, but this disagreement isn't crucial to the issue at hand. If you were to agree with me, you could make the same point by saying that we have no evidence of consciousness existing apart from animal life. Consciousness appears not to exist without living biological organisms; living organisms appear not to exist without consciousness. [or Consciousness appears not to exist without animal life; animal life appears not to exist without consciousness.] One is not the “property” of the other. The most we can say is that they accompany each other; two realms that intersect. The capacity for pain appears not to exist in non-vertebrates, and vertebrates appear not to exist without the capacity for pain, but that doesn’t mean that vertebrates and the capacity for pain are two intersecting “realms." On the contrary, vertebrates can be said to possess the capacity to experience pain, which means that that capacity is one of their attributes or characteristics. Similarly, animals can be said to possess consciousness, which means that consciousness is one of their attributes or characteristics, but animals and consciousness are not two intersecting realms. In order for two things to intersect, each must be capable of existing independently of the other. For example, two circles can be said to intersect, but only because they are capable of existing as separate figures. But attributes do not "intersect" with entities. When a person dies, his physical body remains, but his consciousness goes out of existence. There is, however, no such thing as his body's going out of existence, while his consciousness remains. Whereas after he dies, his body is capable of existing without a consciousness, his consciousness is not capable of existing without a body. Not only do we have no evidence of the soul's surviving death; by the nature of consciousness, it's a sheer, logical impossibility.
- Bill
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