Just some quick comments on previous posts for this past week, which seem to me very fruitful.
First, the relation between thinking and time that Arthur mentions. Suppose I say, “I think I know what time is.” I am really saying: “I think I know what time is when I am thinking.” That is not the whole story.
Arthur gives the example of being in a train and looking at the window: one thing passes, and then another. And in between . . . ? And our experience is like that. Suppose I am watching someone in the park. I watch for a while, and then I realize I haven’t been watching. There was a moment between my two moments of watching, when something else was happening. And how did I get from one to the next? And how did I get back? Think about beads on a string. How do I get from one bead to the next? Well, the string connects them. But what do beads know about string? Or (David now), what do jelly beans know about being eaten?
(Arthur: read and then exercise or exercise and then read: it’s up to you. We are always experimenting.)
Peter thinks of moments as a construct, like an instant. That is one way to think about it. But you could also think about a moment as lasting as long as your attention is fixed on one thing. More what Peter calls the macro-level, or a unity. Either way may lead to valuable insights. Just as when Peter writes that chopping up unities is something he does not want to do, but then he discovers something very interesting: this “bubbling” of the gaps in between. He asks, is this fantasy, or experience, or thought? It doesn’t matter so much. It’s a discovery. And the resistance and confusion that follow: those are confusions too.
Moments as a construct: that seems to be Chistopher’s experience too: the observer makes the moment. I have a similar sense. Sticking more closely to time, the previous moment doesn’t become a moment until the next moment makes into “the previous” moment. But then, where does the next moment get its identity from. I think I already mentioned Augustine’s famous quote (condensed): “I know what time is until you ask me.” Perhaps this is what was going on for him: discovering that there really is no linear time until we make it (up).
Jack