All actions create a permanent etching upon reality
No, there is no evidence of that. Nothing in physics suggests that there is anything more than the present moment.
The state description of any physical system is instantaneous, past state does not influence future dynamics. Everything that the past can contribute to the future is embedded in the present.
There's a library that's lost when an old man dies.
I don't mean to say that actions are futile or anything. But it is important that we don't let things disappear or be forgotten over some poetic notions of time.
The past is not written into time, it is just forgotten if we don't collect and archive it. Erasure from history is a very real problem.
Like I can appreciate that it's tragic, and insisting the past does not physically exist is pouring salt into those wounds; but if people don't act it just keeps happening.
Languages are lost, cultures are lost, species go extinct, artifacts destroyed, books and documents get burned, people that know so much simply die without writing.
There is revisionism and co-opting of leftist leaders after their deaths for political ends; and even while people live their histories are distorted and fabricated.
It's maybe tedious referring to LGBTQ history here, (since there are countless peoples and cultures that suffer the same fate, and worse), but it's what I know and this Leslie Feinberg clip really gets the point across, see also subreddit.
Or perhaps closer to home, remember /r/ChapoTrapHouse was deleted; luckily archives exist, but these things should not be taken for granted.
I mean if you want to get poetic about it, "all those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain"; or borrowing from Greek mythology, the gods envy mortals because their actions have meaning, because there is so much to lose.
The idea of a permanent past is like an immortality, but our actions matter precisely because we are mortal; because we cannot live in the past, we can only live in the future, or indeed the present, that we create.
Great things that people have done are made legend, but we know the legends, that's what legends are: the memories we preserve.
If anything, capitalism gives people the illusion that actions don't matter, but to such an extent that people often don't bother to protect history, and live instead as consumers only in the present, ignoring the value of history to the future.
But I think our modern illusion of permanence comes more from the internet than from capitalism, where our actions are so often archived.
History is where we get theory, and is where trust comes from.
Time is more like a point, rather than linear, cyclical, or even helical.
Time as fourth dimension is a useful mathematical abstraction, but terribly misleading; there is only a fabric of space-time, in which time and space are inseparable.
Space can only exist through time; space is the time it takes for information to travel. This traveling of information is what relativity theory models by showing time as a fourth spatial dimension.
This world is more like a painting, than a road of time that we travel upon.
Sorry, I rant too much about these types of things.
oh I know, almost didn't post that, but I'm just really obsessive about getting these kinds of things correct.
much of ideology is knee-jerk ideas that people don't exactly examine but still accept in a vague kind of way.
like knowing something, but also forgetting it, or believing the opposite.
the beliefs people have are not consistent.
there is even a tangent here about the physical structure of the mind; that it exist in space-time, with separation between parts, so that consistency doesn't occur, because it is always a tapestry; rather than like a database or some abstract machine that can exist over and above the physical constraints of a neuronal network.
or putting it differently, nobody holds one ideology; we all operate on multiple simultaneously, cherry picking, updating.
i'm not addressing what you mean or believe, i'm addressing what you, or maybe others, also believe.
and i rant so much that i feel bad about deleting and not posting more.
see, I'm perhaps more perceptive than you thought; it's exactly this, so many people try to maintain two ideologies, one for reality, and one fantasy to keep them happy.
it's why I didn't want to just... leave you like that...
maybe I'm just odd, but this need to avoid reality is one I don't have anymore.*
like, so much of how we think about ideas is as things that give us comfort, it's such a roundabout way to get there.
perhaps what does much of the legwork for me is the simple notion that self-pity takes one problem and turns it into two problems.
now you're fucked and you're sad. but it's a choice. you don't have to be sad.
you clearly already know that your emotional response to reality and mortality is harmful to you; that's why you keep the fantasy.
you don't need the fantasy. or you can have just actual fantasy, where you don't believe, and don't pretend to believe, and don't worry about reality.
the conclusion that your innate emotional response (programmed by natural selection to demand as absolute survival of the organism, or at least the genetic material) is worthless, is enough.
the sensible thing to do is know the truth, accept the truth, and then ignore the emotion, and stop obsessing over the ideas that hurt you.
trying to stick with two stories, that are always fighting against each other, causing cognitive dissonance, and an obsession over it, is what causes you harm.
I'm not even saying you should ignore your emotions, fucking cry about it.
Just stop lying to yourself that it doesn't hurt. Or that this fantasy is actually helping with the existential crisis.
And then move on, put your attention elsewhere, because there's just nothing we can do about.
self-pity is shit, self-love or compassion is much better.
compassion gets us to self-deception, but self-love or self-respect doesn't stand for that. **
sorry for being so preachy, but i'm speaking from too much experience.
* should clarify that avoiding unpleasant images, traumatic stuff, or doom-scrolling are different from avoiding reality.
** if i can care enough about you to write this sappy shit, then you can do it too. >_<
I don't get why this appears so abstract to people.
Linear time is the shape time takes when you base your society on infinite growth.
deleted by creator
No, there is no evidence of that. Nothing in physics suggests that there is anything more than the present moment.
The state description of any physical system is instantaneous, past state does not influence future dynamics. Everything that the past can contribute to the future is embedded in the present.
There's a library that's lost when an old man dies.
deleted by creator
longpost about time
I don't mean to say that actions are futile or anything. But it is important that we don't let things disappear or be forgotten over some poetic notions of time.
The past is not written into time, it is just forgotten if we don't collect and archive it. Erasure from history is a very real problem.
Like I can appreciate that it's tragic, and insisting the past does not physically exist is pouring salt into those wounds; but if people don't act it just keeps happening.
Languages are lost, cultures are lost, species go extinct, artifacts destroyed, books and documents get burned, people that know so much simply die without writing.
There is revisionism and co-opting of leftist leaders after their deaths for political ends; and even while people live their histories are distorted and fabricated.
It's maybe tedious referring to LGBTQ history here, (since there are countless peoples and cultures that suffer the same fate, and worse), but it's what I know and this Leslie Feinberg clip really gets the point across, see also subreddit.
Or perhaps closer to home, remember /r/ChapoTrapHouse was deleted; luckily archives exist, but these things should not be taken for granted.
I mean if you want to get poetic about it, "all those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain"; or borrowing from Greek mythology, the gods envy mortals because their actions have meaning, because there is so much to lose.
The idea of a permanent past is like an immortality, but our actions matter precisely because we are mortal; because we cannot live in the past, we can only live in the future, or indeed the present, that we create.
Great things that people have done are made legend, but we know the legends, that's what legends are: the memories we preserve.
If anything, capitalism gives people the illusion that actions don't matter, but to such an extent that people often don't bother to protect history, and live instead as consumers only in the present, ignoring the value of history to the future.
But I think our modern illusion of permanence comes more from the internet than from capitalism, where our actions are so often archived.
History is where we get theory, and is where trust comes from.
Time is more like a point, rather than linear, cyclical, or even helical.
Time as fourth dimension is a useful mathematical abstraction, but terribly misleading; there is only a fabric of space-time, in which time and space are inseparable.
Space can only exist through time; space is the time it takes for information to travel. This traveling of information is what relativity theory models by showing time as a fourth spatial dimension.
This world is more like a painting, than a road of time that we travel upon.
Sorry, I rant too much about these types of things.
deleted by creator
oh I know, almost didn't post that, but I'm just really obsessive about getting these kinds of things correct.
much of ideology is knee-jerk ideas that people don't exactly examine but still accept in a vague kind of way.
like knowing something, but also forgetting it, or believing the opposite.
the beliefs people have are not consistent.
there is even a tangent here about the physical structure of the mind; that it exist in space-time, with separation between parts, so that consistency doesn't occur, because it is always a tapestry; rather than like a database or some abstract machine that can exist over and above the physical constraints of a neuronal network.
or putting it differently, nobody holds one ideology; we all operate on multiple simultaneously, cherry picking, updating.
i'm not addressing what you mean or believe, i'm addressing what you, or maybe others, also believe.
and i rant so much that i feel bad about deleting and not posting more.
deleted by creator
see, I'm perhaps more perceptive than you thought; it's exactly this, so many people try to maintain two ideologies, one for reality, and one fantasy to keep them happy.
it's why I didn't want to just... leave you like that...
maybe I'm just odd, but this need to avoid reality is one I don't have anymore.*
like, so much of how we think about ideas is as things that give us comfort, it's such a roundabout way to get there.
perhaps what does much of the legwork for me is the simple notion that self-pity takes one problem and turns it into two problems.
now you're fucked and you're sad. but it's a choice. you don't have to be sad.
you clearly already know that your emotional response to reality and mortality is harmful to you; that's why you keep the fantasy.
you don't need the fantasy. or you can have just actual fantasy, where you don't believe, and don't pretend to believe, and don't worry about reality.
the conclusion that your innate emotional response (programmed by natural selection to demand as absolute survival of the organism, or at least the genetic material) is worthless, is enough.
the sensible thing to do is know the truth, accept the truth, and then ignore the emotion, and stop obsessing over the ideas that hurt you.
trying to stick with two stories, that are always fighting against each other, causing cognitive dissonance, and an obsession over it, is what causes you harm.
I'm not even saying you should ignore your emotions, fucking cry about it.
Just stop lying to yourself that it doesn't hurt. Or that this fantasy is actually helping with the existential crisis.
And then move on, put your attention elsewhere, because there's just nothing we can do about.
self-pity is shit, self-love or compassion is much better.
compassion gets us to self-deception, but self-love or self-respect doesn't stand for that. **
sorry for being so preachy, but i'm speaking from too much experience.
* should clarify that avoiding unpleasant images, traumatic stuff, or doom-scrolling are different from avoiding reality.
** if i can care enough about you to write this sappy shit, then you can do it too. >_<
deleted by creator