08 Jun 10
2 edits
There is no one-to-one correspondence between tense and time and the two should not be conflated. One is fixed in the realm of syntax, the other in semantics.
Understood. But I am wondering to what extent our syntax reflects the semantics, whether or not that’s done by tensed verbs or adverbs or some other syntactical means. I do not think that your examples are “atemporal”, though you have used a different syntactical means to express the temporality (and I appreciate your point in that). If I express a present action, by whatever syntactical means, that is not atemporal: the present is not atemporal. The temporality in your examples is clearly understood--and, again, I appreciate that such temporality can be expressed by different “language games”: point well-taken on that.
My point is that our syntax, I think, follows our understanding (as it has developed over time and existential context); language does not develop in a vacuum. In a language of tensed verbs, those tensed verbs are used precisely to express time (granted, per your example, that other languages might use different syntactical means).
To go further, I am not sure that we don’t think our thoughts according to some grammar--though that grammar may vary across individuals and domains of thought (e.g., mathematics). If that grammar is not adequate, then how can we arrange our own thoughts so that we understand ourselves, let alone being able to express those thoughts to someone else?
Again, I don’t agree that your alternative constructions express atemporality; they simply express temporality alternatively.
I might well be wrong about all this (I’m following Wittgenstein here, though I am only part way into the Philosophical Investgations). I’ve been thinking as I’m writing this: I guess the crux is that I see your comment in terms of the possibility of being bewitched by our syntax (the fact that we can use words that may really have no signification in a properly grammatical construction) into thinking that the semantics is really there. Maube that’s what you meant. But, if that is the case, it is because we generally (rightly) expect that our syntax and our semantics are not divorced: the former derives from--and is expected to reflect--the latter.
Thanks for pressing me on this: I'm sure it will help me to clarify my own thinking.
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08 Jun 10
3 edits
Originally posted by vistesdUnderstood. But I am wondering to what extent our syntax reflects the semantics, whether or not that’s done by tensed verbs or adverbs or some other syntactical means. I do not think that your examples are “atemporal”, though you have used a different syntactical means to express the temporality (and I appreciate your point in that). If I express a present action, by whatever syntactical means, that is not atemporal: the present is not atemporal. The temporality in your examples is clearly understood--and, again, I appreciate that such temporality can be expressed by different “language games”: point well-taken on that.
[b]There is no one-to-one correspondence between tense and time and the two should not be conflated. One is fixed in the realm of syntax, the other in semantics.
Understood. But I am wondering to what extent our syntax reflects the semantics, whether or not that’s done by tensed verbs or adverbs or some other syntactical means. I do not think that ...[text shortened]... atter.
Thanks for pressing me on this: I'm sure it will help me to clarify my own thinking.[/b]
I quite accept that present action is not atemporal. My argument, however, is that present tense does not necessarily express any temporal meaning. Take these four sentences, all syntactically well-formed:
1) I am writing.
2) I am writing now.
3) All squares have four sides
4) All squares have four sides now.
All these sentences are well-formed. I think we can accept that. However, there is something extremely problematic about 4). The adverb 'now' jars with me and I expect you would share this intuitive feeling. Perhaps the adverb 'now' has some implicature that things were different at some prior time (suggesting, impossibly, that a square did not have four sides)
But even if we try to discard that implicature, something still seems strange about that sentence.
Of course, it is logically possible to say sentence 4), providing that we do not endorse any inadvertent implicatures that squares once had a different number of sides. It is true that squares at this moment have four sides. Why I would find this utterance strange is because I cannot see why a person would say 4) at all. I can't imagine any context for 4). The most plausible motivation for 3) would be that the speaker wants to convey a fact that is atemporal and universal (that squares, irrespective of time, have four sides.) It is for that reason that I would not give any present meaning to it, as in 4). Even if logically coherent, 4) would probably have no motivation -- who would ever want to express the fact that squares at this particular moment have four sides?
For this reason, it would be equally strange to interpret 3) as if 4). 4) is strange enough, with its implicature that there was once a time when squares did not have four sides. So assigning 3) any temporal meaning would seem completely unmotivated because why would anyone ever want to say that squares at the time of speaking had four sides? It seems much easier, and much more motivated, to interpret 3) as atemporal.
My point is that our syntax, I think, follows our understanding (as it has developed over time and existential context); language does not develop in a vacuum. In a language of tensed verbs, those tensed verbs are used precisely to express time (granted, per your example, that other languages might use different syntactical means).
Yes. Granted. In lectures I have heard a number of linguists express disatisfaction at the the predominantly Chomskian approach to language. In its worst form it focuses exclusively on syntax and disregards semantics and pragmatics as non-linguistic baggage. Languages do have functional purposes; they are certainly not a system of arbitrary signs which have little relation to the society and culture of their users. Undoubtedly therefore the tense-system emerged because speakers needed to distinguish priority of time.
I am only suggesting that tenses may convey additional non-temporal information. Present tense may locate an event in the time of speaking; it may also, however, suggest something atemporal and outside of time (or, at least, not particular to any time, however you want it.) Tense may also simply indicate the vividness of the action. I might be narrating an event and inadvertently slip into the present tense -- "I was going shopping and met this guy and then he says to me...". The tense-shift conveys no temporal information, simply the vividness of the action in my mind (this, I notice, happens very often and very unconsciously in many speakers and writers alike.)
I get your point that we might be deceived by syntax and I think very likely that sentences like 'God sees' may dupe people. The syntactic well-formedness lets them think that something coherent has been said (by the way, I think that this confirms that syntax and semantics are not so closely bound). All I am saying, however, is that if the speaker has sorted out carefully beforehand what he means to convey by his use of the present tense, nothing is necessarily incoherent. He might for example say 'God saw' only for the sake of narrative consistency, as in "God saw all these things which happened in the days of Noah". The past tense of 'saw' here might only be used because present tense would disrupt the flow of the sentence.
08 Jun 10
Originally posted by AgergThanks, that description seems relatively clear to me.
It's something I've being playing around with for a while (and surely needs work or shown to be untenable) to reconcile the theist notion of "timeless" god whose entire existence is not reduced to a singular temporal point.
My motivation for this being nothing other than a test of feasibility - I don't believe in God!.
The basic idea (and I can only talk ...[text shortened]... istence is instantiated on precisely one timeline and the usual arguments apply.
Here would be my initial thought regarding it (and otherwise I am still trying to sort out what I make of it). Let's suppose something like this is the case. I agree with you that this would represent a case where God can be causally active and get stuff done and yet appear timeless from our perspective. But it wouldn't show that it is coherent to think that a causal agent can exist independently of temporal relations. This appearance to us of God's timelessness here would just be a false one: God is not, at the end of day, timeless in this scenario (although He may fully appear that way from our perspective and it may be true to say that He is timeless with respect to our dimension of time) because He is still subject to temporal relations, just in another dimension(s) that would be unaccessible to us. (And in the end, taken at face value, I would have to think this state of affairs fails to satisfy at least one of the two properties for eternality that Plantinga outlined.)
So, when you say that "then the timeless property of God makes sense", I believe you are not claiming that this would represent an instance of a causal agent who is timeless. (Because you acknoweledge that God is not in fact timeless here: He has his own timeline(s) and is subject to temporal relations.) Rather, you are saying that this may be a case where you have a causally active God who is timeless with respect to, and from the perspective of, our dimension of time; and a case where we could perhaps justifiably excuse one for thinking that He is timeless altogether because that is essentially how is ought to appear from our perspective. Is that about right?
Also, this reminds me of a discussion I had with a theist who claimed that God is eternal. Part of being "eternal" in his view is that God is "outside time". This theist is also committed in many ways to God's being causally active. So I asked him how it could be that God is causally active and yet "outside time". He replied and clarified that perhaps God is outside "our time" and yet subject to some series of events "in eternity". But then God is actually in time after all (just not "our" time), and perhaps something like what you describe is also something like what this theist has in mind. At bottom, I'm not really sure what to make of any of it; but it is worthwhile thought experiment. Supposing it succeeds, it could perhaps make sense of the idea of a causal agent outside "our time" or effectively oustide our dimension of time; relatedly, it could perhaps make sense of the idea of a causal agent that would always appear from our perspective timeless; but it would not succeed in making sense of the idea of a causal agent outside temporal relations altogether. Do you agree?
Thanks again for your thoughts.
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08 Jun 10
LemonJello,
I just wanted to add a couple of thoughts. I think we lack the ability to reconcile god as an agent with god as atemporal because all of our agent concepts are dependent on action in time. But this no more limits the function of the god concept in religion than the idea of an ancestor without a body (and hence sense organs) who can nonetheless see us. In fact, it probably helps.
I agree that ideas about higher dimensions of time simply reintroduce a form of time for god in order to deal with the dissonance created by the idea of an atemporal agent.
I think there is a tension between realising the consequences of god being formally beyond the bounds of possible human knowledge and god's role in religion but this doesn't hinder religion in practice.
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08 Jun 10
1 edit
Conrau,
Wouldn't "God saw all these things which happened in the days of Noah" be equivalent to "All squares have four sides now"?
Although you might argue that nothing necessarily incoherent has been said, isn't the reason that people don't raise an eyebrow at the former likely to be that the majority of cognition on supernatural agents triggers commonsense inferences that we use to deal with agents in daily life?
There was another thread in which you offered a superb non cognitivist account of religious propositions while in dialogue with bbarr. I think this applies here.
08 Jun 10
1 edit
Am I correct in thinking that all atemporal things are necessarily static from our point of view?
If I was in a character in a novel then I would see the author as a static entity, all his actions would be atemporal to me.
If God is atemporal, then his timeline is orthogonal to ours, so he is atemporal to us and we are atemporal to him.
Does this rule out any 'cause - effect' type interactions?
I cannot interact with a novel, without rewriting bits and thus essentially rendering the original either non-existent, or creating copies.
08 Jun 10
Originally posted by avalanchethecatto avalanchethecat
You seem awfully sure of your data there Vishvahetu. Any doubts in there at all?
hey,sorry i took so long to respond, i didnt see the question.
well its like this, as long as a person is conspiring to support the mystical potencys of god, then it is difficult to fail in calling it like it is.
cheers vishvahetu
08 Jun 10
Originally posted by LemonJelloGod in His eternalness has no beginning and no end. Time of course is irrelevant to Him. I would say that yes, all is present to Him since He is outside of time. As temporal creatures we have no way to understand, we can only tag the term eternal and offer a less than adequate explanation.
For theists on this site who hold that God is "eternal", could you please describe what exactly this means to you?
I was reading an essay by Alvin Plantinga, and here is how he describes it (or roughly outlines it):
[b]"Many theists, however, hold that God is eternal, and that this eternity involves at least the following two properties. F ...[text shortened]... o reconcile the above -- for example, alternative accounts regarding causation.
This explains the statement, "the lamb slain at the foundation of the earth". To Him, Adam's fall is the same event as the redemption. The Lord was present with me and my sin prior to conversion just as He is present with me now and will be present in my future. He does not need to look down a tunnel of time to see events but rather He can declare the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end since He is present in both.
08 Jun 10
Originally posted by twhiteheadIf all reality was book like I'd agree with you; however, again back to the
Am I correct in thinking that all atemporal things are necessarily static from our point of view?
If I was in a character in a novel then I would see the author as a static entity, all his actions would be atemporal to me.
If God is atemporal, then his timeline is orthogonal to ours, so he is atemporal to us and we are atemporal to him.
Does this rule ...[text shortened]... ting bits and thus essentially rendering the original either non-existent, or creating copies.
notion of "will" we either have one or we do not. I'm of the opinion our
wills have boundaries placed upon them so "freewill" is something I think
I'm not completely sure I'd by off on. Boundaries would be our desires,
our lusts, our physical limitations, the universes puts limitations upon us
too I’d like to dunk a basketball but gravity ignores my will/desire to do so.
So given the confines of our reality, we can choose to do as we will,
and in some cases God has made offers to help and gave warnings about
other choices too, unlike a book within this time frame we find ourselves
in God can and does interact with us and God does so by mainly limiting
His own actions giving us power to do as we will and we either suffer due
to our choices or recieve benifits from them.
Kelly
08 Jun 10
1 edit
Originally posted by Conrau K[/b]Okay, gotcha. I was far too general--careless, in fact. All my usages expressed action.
[b]Understood. But I am wondering to what extent our syntax reflects the semantics, whether or not that’s done by tensed verbs or adverbs or some other syntactical means. I do not think that your examples are “atemporal”, though you have used a different syntactical means to express the temporality (and I appreciate your point in that). If I express a pr might only be used because present tense would disrupt the flow of the sentence.
For the case of the “inadvertent slip” in narration…I would say that the sentence is not grammatically well-formed, but that it is still possible to understand that the event is being recalled from the past. There are cases, however, in which a sentence can be so badly formed as to generate confusion--perhaps I stumble over my words, in excitement, say, to such an extent that you have no idea at all what I am trying to say. Where confusion results from ill-formed sentences, clarification can in principle be had by asking questions.
I get your point that we might be deceived by syntax and I think very likely that sentences like 'God sees' may dupe people. The syntactic well-formedness lets them think that something coherent has been said (by the way, I think that this confirms that syntax and semantics are not so closely bound).
Again, point well-taken. I would say that is just the loosening of the relationship between syntax and semantics that causes confusion: there is supposed to be coherent semantic content there, and so I might believe that there is, there “must be”.
All I am saying, however, is that if the speaker has sorted out carefully beforehand what he means to convey by his use of the present tense, nothing is necessarily incoherent. He might for example say 'God saw' only for the sake of narrative consistency, as in "God saw all these things which happened in the days of Noah". The past tense of 'saw' here might only be used because present tense would disrupt the flow of the sentence.
But, in this case, do we really have any idea what is (or is supposed to be) going on behind that concession to narrative consistency? And how do I know that the use of past tense means something else: what are the textual cues, if any?
And how does that get us any closer to comprehending what atemporality can possibly mean--that is, how it could be described--for a subject “observing” events? And, following twhitehead, can it be said that, from such an atemporal perspective (again, whatever that might mean) anything is happening at all? How would one describe that? And, following on Lord Shark’s question, what can it possibly mean to say that a case in which action is taking place is similar to “all squares have four sides”? Or: what sense could we possibly be making if we treat the two kinds of expression as equivalent?
Seriously, I really have no idea what state could possibly be being described by saying that God’s knowledge or actions are, “from the point of view of God”, atemporal--or that God “sees everything ‘all at once’”.
I know that it’s a bold move to suggest that, because I don’t understand what is meant, the speaker might not either--but I think that is the “Wittgensteinian” point here. (I should have said “trying to follow Wittgenstgein”, by the way: I’m really using this discussion to help myself grapple with it as I go, test-driving, so-to-speak.) Wittgenstein stresses that there are no problems with ordinary language itself, but when it is used for what it cannot be used for in such a way that we have only a pretense of sense that is deceptive.
I came across a phrase in the PI last night that I think might be on point: using a “form of expression [that] seems to have been tailored for a god, who knows what we cannot know…” (PI, 426) And: “Here it is easy to get into that dead end in philosophizing where one believes that the difficulty of a problem consists in our having to describe phenomena that evade our grasp…”. (PI, 436) And (to my question about whether or not the speaker really understands what s/he is trying to say): “One wants to say: a sentence that makes sense is one which one can not merely say, but also think.” (PI, 511)
Again, thank you, old friend, for working with me on this--and straightening me out!
08 Jun 10
Originally posted by vishvahetuAh I see. Personally I hope for a cleaner creator, one without paradoxes.
to avalanchethecat
hey,sorry i took so long to respond, i didnt see the question.
well its like this, as long as a person is conspiring to support the mystical potencys of god, then it is difficult to fail in calling it like it is.
cheers vishvahetu
08 Jun 10
Originally posted by Lord SharkI agree that ideas about higher dimensions of time simply reintroduce a form of time for god in order to deal with the dissonance created by the idea of an atemporal agent.
LemonJello,
I just wanted to add a couple of thoughts. I think we lack the ability to reconcile god as an agent with god as atemporal because all of our agent concepts are dependent on action in time. But this no more limits the function of the god concept in religion than the idea of an ancestor without a body (and hence sense organs) who can nonethel ...[text shortened]... sible human knowledge and god's role in religion but this doesn't hinder religion in practice.
Yep, that is basically what I was getting at.
Your other points are well-taken too.
08 Jun 10
Originally posted by twhiteheadIf God is atemporal, then his timeline is orthogonal to ours, so he is atemporal to us and we are atemporal to him.
Am I correct in thinking that all atemporal things are necessarily static from our point of view?
If I was in a character in a novel then I would see the author as a static entity, all his actions would be atemporal to me.
If God is atemporal, then his timeline is orthogonal to ours, so he is atemporal to us and we are atemporal to him.
Does this rule ...[text shortened]... ting bits and thus essentially rendering the original either non-existent, or creating copies.
Does this rule out any 'cause - effect' type interactions?
Picking up with that, let's suppose we have a view of causation where the causal relata (cause and effect) are both in the category of event. So, in other words, we have event 1 in the role of cause and event 2 in the role of effect. Would it make any sense to say that we could have event 1 situated in His timeline and event 2 in our orthogonally oriented timeline? Of course the causal relata are related, but how must they relate?