Talk:Specious present

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No discussion of merge

I see no previous discussion of merging this article into Time perception. That article is mostly about psychology. This article (or what was of it) treats the idea more philosophically--JimWae (talk) 20:37, 10 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dead link

Andersen, Holly; Rick Grush (pending). "A brief history of time-consciousness: historical precursors to James and Husserl" (PDF). Journal of the History of Philosophy. Retrieved 2008-02-02.

Tony (talk) 05:21, 20 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Criticism

Doesn't make clear why it's specious. By the way, the term as such comes from a nobody, a retired cigar salesman who took up philosophy and influenced James and thru him others. It's specious because the normally perceived human present isn't experienced as an instant but that is what the present is. In common experience, Now is an interval but the Present is an instant a point in time relative to local past and future. 98.4.112.204 (talk) 09:06, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It is not the present as such that is specious, it is our judgment and grasp of what actually really exists in that pointlike present that is. Fortunately, as cosmologists assure us, a consistent foliation of spacetime is possible. That is not quite the same as a stack of subsequent presents, but the best we can do. 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:CD8F:42F0:E3BC:97F3 (talk) 08:43, 15 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

How does Special Relativity theory affect your concept of what "now" is? 2600:8801:BE31:D300:4177:732B:EFB7:4373 (talk) 22:22, 5 March 2022 (UTC) James.[reply]

SR binds the point-like "now" he was talking about to a point-like "here". Thus there is necessarily an associated "specious here" because we have spatial extension. Luckily, we are not Superman, whose fists travel at half the speed of light when he punches (Supe experiences failure of simultaneity within his own body!) nor are we the size of Betelgeuse (a conscious entity the size of Betelgeuse would have to think very slowly, at least at its most global level, in order that the various components of its thoughts remain coherent)... 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:CD8F:42F0:E3BC:97F3 (talk) 08:40, 15 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Significance wrt apparent simultaneity

It is a remarkable fact of physics (well known to physicists but perhaps not to students of philosophy) that a signal can only be assigned to the right now if it is either also right here or has made its way to right here at infinite speed (which is, as is equally well known, impossible). Worse, as far as we can tell right now and right here are to be thought of as point-like, although we suspect a better theory of spacetime will have to have some sort of granularity at the smallest scales. We are also not point-like... However -- and this is where the specious present comes in, and very annoyingly turns out to be quite instrumental in how we regard the world around us -- signals that reach us within a span (much) smaller than that of the specious present can usually safely be treated as if having reached us infinitely fast. This is why we usually think of ourselves and everything that is in the room with us as occupying the same present now (even though physics tells us this is not true, strictly speaking). Thus there is a kind of specious simultaneity that is conditioned by our specious present, and therefore as specious or unspecious as your personal philosophy judges the specious present to be. This specious simultaneity can be usually be extended to everything we see when we look out the window. Except when we happen to be looking at the Moon, or anything further away than the Moon. 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:CD8F:42F0:E3BC:97F3 (talk) 08:36, 15 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"seemingly paradoxical problems"

It is not necessary to say paradoxical problems, since all paradoxes are understood to constitute some sort of problem.

Likewise, the sense of seeming is already contained in the generally accepted meaning of the term paradox. (Although here we can leave a bit of wiggle room, since there are examples of paradoxes that have been well-resolved, but with various philosopher/crackpots refusing to accept the resolution and insisting the antinomy is absolute.)

A seemingly paradoxical problem is there for, simply and briefly, just a paradox. 2A01:CB0C:761:5B00:102:94E4:953A:7073 (talk) 08:48, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]