2009.02.11 13:00 - "Man as a Cooperative Survival Machine"

The Guardian for this session was Genesis Zhangsun.  The comments below are hers.

InFree Fall: Thx for the tp
Wol Euler: hello gen, hello free
genesis Zhangsun: Sure!
InFree Fall: Hey
Wol Euler: and hello lia
genesis Zhangsun: Hey Wol!
genesis Zhangsun: hey Lia!
Lia Rikugun: hello everybody
Wol Euler: gen, which group does your "seminarist" tag come from?
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genesis Zhangsun: oops sorry
genesis Zhangsun: Philosophical Seminar
Wol Euler: ah, ty.
Lia Rikugun: ah cool this is in one hour
genesis Zhangsun: How is your visit to Piet's department going Lia?
Lia Rikugun: thank you very good

Time wiki

Lia Rikugun: i was writing someting about our perception of time
Wol Euler: mmm?
genesis Zhangsun: Yes...
genesis Zhangsun: would you like to say more?
Lia Rikugun: i am not sure i am confused myself
Wol Euler: :)
Lia Rikugun: we are planning on opening a wiki
Wol Euler: perhaps talking it over here will help you understand?
Lia Rikugun: ok
Wol Euler: it often works for me :)
Lia Rikugun: well.. lets see
Lia Rikugun: in our every day life
Lia Rikugun: we perceive time
Lia Rikugun: as something linear
Lia Rikugun: (as piet told me yesterday)
Lia Rikugun: past present future
Lia Rikugun: but we can nly be aware of what is happening now
Lia Rikugun: even our understanding of the past is something we have now
InFree Fall: There is a workshop on "trust" coming up at Brains stimulators I think.
Lia Rikugun: memories of the past are not hte past but ideas that are present now

Time and Trust

InFree Fall: It seems to me that trust is one of the ways we perceive time
InFree Fall: Do u see what I mean ?
Lia Rikugun: can you explein in free fall
InFree Fall: Sure
InFree Fall: If you trust someone, it means you are focused on some promises he has made or will make. In all cases, trust involves a projection into the future.
InFree Fall: And the past is what you search for clues to support trust or undermine it.
Wol Euler: hmmmmm
InFree Fall: Trust is actually the most practical and frequent relationship we have with time
Lia Rikugun: hm
InFree Fall: We are always planning things
InFree Fall: This is what we do
Lia Rikugun: i think it has to do with assumptions
InFree Fall: Living is planning
InFree Fall: Planning is impossible without trust
Lia Rikugun: in each and every moment you have assumtipons about hte world
InFree Fall: Yes but hardly ever in isolation
Lia Rikugun: and depending on those you react
InFree Fall: Our assumptions depend on what others tell us
Lia Rikugun: or what we self think
InFree Fall: And therfore are undergirded by trust relationships
Lia Rikugun: trust seems to be too subjective for me
InFree Fall: 99% of the assumptions we have is based on the reports of others
Lia Rikugun: actually i am not sure if i undertsnad
Lia Rikugun: yes ok
InFree Fall: Hence, 99% of what we think depends on some form of trust
InFree Fall: This is actually the most important role time plays in our life
Lia Rikugun: but usually you dont take 100% of what someone else tells you as true
InFree Fall: Sure
InFree Fall: But 99% of what you do hold as true has come from someone else
InFree Fall: and hence is based on trust
genesis Zhangsun: So are you suggesting InFree that my sense of time for example that there is a tomorrow and the sun will rise is a result of my trust in what others have told me?
InFree Fall: No
genesis Zhangsun: ok...
InFree Fall: But you seldom worry about these things
Wol Euler: no but I do plan using them
InFree Fall: Most of what you think about is not the sun or whether there is ground under your feet
genesis Zhangsun: indeed and the idea of a tomorrow of a future is within this linear notion of time
InFree Fall: Our head is filled with projects, duties, chores, hopes etc
InFree Fall: All of which rely on some kind of promises we have made or received
genesis Zhangsun: so time is very subjective in this view
InFree Fall: Hence our primary relationship with time is through promises.
genesis Zhangsun: but don't these all rely on the existence of a future?
InFree Fall: Sure
genesis Zhangsun: where does trust come into this aspect of time?
InFree Fall: But implicitly
InFree Fall: Trust is about promises. Promises are about the future.
InFree Fall: Future is time
genesis Zhangsun: well who promised me the sun would come up?
InFree Fall: Again, you dont really care about that every day
InFree Fall: But you do care about your next appointment at the dentise
InFree Fall: *dentist
InFree Fall: or about what you are going to do at work tomorrow

Subjective v. Objective time

genesis Zhangsun: ok so your belief in time is completely subjectively bound then
genesis Zhangsun: you don't believe in any sense of time objectively
InFree Fall: I am not sure
genesis Zhangsun: what is your sense about this Lia?
genesis Zhangsun: Do you think time is entirely subjective?
Lia Rikugun: i cannot say anything about time
Lia Rikugun: i dont have a proof
Lia Rikugun: i am experimenting with my deas
Lia Rikugun: and leaving away assumtions
Lia Rikugun: and if i do that
Lia Rikugun: there is no time
Lia Rikugun: no past no future
Lia Rikugun: just now
Lia Rikugun: i cannot say anything about yesterday
InFree Fall: What I am trying to say is that the fabric of time is percieved by us through our relationship with others. ANd that particularly through promises. A person in isolation soon looses track of time.
Lia Rikugun: or one second ago
Wol Euler: mmmmmmm, I disagree.
Lia Rikugun: with who`?
Lia Rikugun: :)
Wol Euler: that our memories of that second converge and coincide suggests to me that we can prove that it happened, and what happened in it
InFree Fall: Our daily schedule is what makes us aware of time
Wol Euler: as would walking past a video surveillance camera
InFree Fall: And these schedules are based around promises we have made or received
Lia Rikugun: well i dont say anything is true or false
Lia Rikugun: i dont know
Wol Euler: the sun makes me aware of time, and the seasons, and the weather
genesis Zhangsun: so InFree and Lia perhaps as Infree says time is about trust, promises and when we drop all of those there is no time
Wol Euler: and being hungry or thirsty or tired
genesis Zhangsun: would you both (Lia and InFree) agree with that
InFree Fall: Every morning we wake up to go to work. ie to make good on a promise that we will be at a certain time and place
InFree Fall: Wol, this is not your primary perception of time I think.
InFree Fall: You have it of course, but only in passing

FeFonz joins us...

Fefonz Quan: Hello Wol, Lia, Gen, InFree :)
Lia Rikugun: hello fefonz
genesis Zhangsun: Yo Fonzie!
Lia Rikugun: nice to see you ;)
InFree Fall: Hi fonz
Wol Euler: fascinating. How do I primary percieve time?
Wol Euler: hello fefonz
InFree Fall: Wol, you remember that you have to be at this meeting in 5 minutes, then have to go pick up some clothes at the dry cleaners at 5pm and so on and so forth.
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InFree Fall: Our most intimate perception of time is this sequence of small events
InFree Fall: We notice the sun only every once in a while. Once a day perhaps. While we have to worry about hundreds of promise-related events each day.
Fefonz Quan: i thought our primary notion of time is the passing of things
InFree Fall: Our macro-perception, yes.
Fefonz Quan: no, micro
Fefonz Quan: tick-now,tock-now,tick...
InFree Fall: But we have a more fine grained perception every day in the sucession of mundane events that fills our schedules
InFree Fall: What I am trying to say is that we are used to think of time as something separate from our lives, like a scientist drawing the time axis on a phase diagram.
InFree Fall: But this is not actually like that we truly (phenomenologically) experience time.
Fefonz Quan nods
InFree Fall: Time is present in our lives as a sequence of small promises.
Fefonz Quan still find it hard why this promise is so basic.
InFree Fall: And big ones from time to time.
genesis Zhangsun: yes why are we naturally inclined to seek out this promise
Fefonz Quan: sitting alone, watching the sky, what promise is there?
genesis Zhangsun: or are we conditioned?
Fefonz Quan: and the fly of the bird - ah, it's time, something is moving
InFree Fall: Every animal is a survivl machine.
InFree Fall: *survival

Competition is cooperation

InFree Fall: Man is a cooperative survival machine
genesis Zhangsun: in the latter view the idea of dropping the conditioning as you said Lia works but what if there is nothing to drop it is just naturally what we are?
InFree Fall: Promises are what we exchange btw ourselves to help us mutually survive
genesis Zhangsun: sometimes man doesn't seem so cooperative
InFree Fall: There is no cooperation without promise
genesis Zhangsun: we seem quite competitive in fact
genesis Zhangsun: competing for the world's resources so much that we are destroying it
InFree Fall: Competition is a form of cooperation.
Wol Euler: what?
InFree Fall: Sure
InFree Fall: Look at an auction for instance
InFree Fall: Competition is not the same as violence
InFree Fall: Or chaos
Fefonz Quan: but wouldn't i feel time all by myself?
InFree Fall: Maybe but you will never know
InFree Fall: Because you will never be alone for long
Fefonz Quan: what won't i know?
Lia Rikugun: but now we are talking about the perception of time, subjectively
InFree Fall: Because you will never be alone in your whole life for more than a few days.
genesis Zhangsun: :)
Wol Euler: bollocks, pardon my french
Fefonz Quan: still time won't vanish from my experience during those days
InFree Fall: Who has ever spent a month totally alone ? I mean totally.
Fefonz Quan: m-o-n-k-s
InFree Fall: You dont know that
Lia Rikugun: hello buddha
InFree Fall: Time wil probably not vanish
genesis Zhangsun: Hey Buddha
InFree Fall: But your perception of it would certainly change a lot
Fefonz Quan: just in time Buddha :)
buddha Nirvana: Hi genesis, hi all :)
genesis Zhangsun: So Wol...let me get this straight you believe that there is some sort of absolute time?
InFree Fall: Time is even present as promise in epistemology
genesis Zhangsun: separate form ourseleves?
Wol Euler: hello buddha
InFree Fall: What is a paradigm if not a bundle of promises
InFree Fall: When you say that a theory is validated by an experiment, you are making a statement about a promise which was fulfilled after some time.
InFree Fall: Science itself is based around the idea of promise.
InFree Fall: Theoreticians make promises to experimenters
InFree Fall: Who then test them

Science as promise v. science as observation

Wol Euler: funny, I thought science was based on observation.
InFree Fall: Yes but the observation cannot be made if a promise was not made before
Wol Euler: nonsense. I can observe by opening my eyes, even if I am alone.
InFree Fall: An obsevation, in science, is always the test of an earlier promise
InFree Fall: Yes Wol, but this is not science
Fefonz Quan: well, galileo through the rock from Pizza tower with no need for a promise
InFree Fall: Oh yes
Fefonz Quan: Pisa*
InFree Fall: He "promised" that both stones would reach the ground at the same time. And they did.
InFree Fall: The whole point was to check the promise
Fefonz Quan: no, i tried to see what would happen
Wol Euler: that does violence to the meaning of the word "promise", free.
Wol Euler: he proposed a theory which he tested. There was no promise.
InFree Fall: No fonz.
Fefonz Quan: i don't agree.
InFree Fall: The tower of Pisa experiment was a public demonstration
InFree Fall: Galileo had claimed earlier that he would do it and what the outcome would be.
Fefonz Quan: many theories in physics started with a phenomena that jumped unplanned, that sent people to the drawing boards
InFree Fall: The actual experiment was to validate this claim
genesis Zhangsun: You are talking about Popper's idea of falsifiability
genesis Zhangsun: ?
Fefonz Quan: that ws an example, i gave the more general claim now
InFree Fall: Yes fonz. It is when promises fail that we search for new ones.
Fefonz Quan: no, i disagree
InFree Fall: Ok
Fefonz Quan: you look at the sky, using your new telescope, and suddenly - wow, there are rings around saturn!
Fefonz Quan: what promise was broken? "there are no rigns around planets"
InFree Fall: That is the exception
Fefonz Quan: this takes out the whole meaning of the word
InFree Fall: A really new observation like that is very rare
Fefonz Quan: disagree again
InFree Fall: What scientists do 99% of the time is check claims made by others.
Fefonz Quan: it's rare today, after a few very successful scientific centuries
InFree Fall: Or make claims of their own, to be checked by others
InFree Fall: It has always been rare. Gallileo had 3 or 4 moments like that in his whole life. Not more
InFree Fall: Ditto Newton
Fefonz Quan: yes, but as a child, the first time you see a bird fly and wonder how comes, which promise was there before hand?
InFree Fall: None.
InFree Fall: But you are not a child anymore
InFree Fall: I am talking about adult life
Fefonz Quan: well, 3 or 4 are more then enough, 1 i good enough as counter-example, takling science herer :)
InFree Fall: Ok
InFree Fall: Fine
InFree Fall: But we were talking about "time" and how to characterize it.
Fefonz Quan: i don't argue with you promises, future planning etc. is a very important part of our time perception
InFree Fall: I believe that if you try to do so and yet overlook promises/trust, you forget about what occupies the most space in our lives.
Fefonz Quan: i just claim it's not all of it, and maybe not the basic one
InFree Fall: And hence your concept of time cannot be correct if you do so.
InFree Fall: "basic" is difficult to define
Fefonz Quan: i wouldn't insult this forum with easy tasks ;-)
InFree Fall: I think it is more productive to focus on what is the most massive.
InFree Fall: What occupies the most space.
InFree Fall: What we are involved with the most
Fefonz Quan: coming from science, taht approach can be quite misleading
Fefonz Quan: most of the time we move at speeds of 1-10000 meters per hour
InFree Fall: We were trying to define "time" in general. Not only in the context of science ...
Fefonz Quan: no relativity needed for that
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Fefonz Quan: we can drop what i said about science)
Fefonz Quan: but that is an example when what happens mostly cannot show you the nature of things.
Fefonz Quan: iron is mostly solid, always whe no techn ology around.
InFree Fall: You still believe one can know the "nature of things" ?
Fefonz Quan: still the essence of iron is its molecular structure, not its solidity
Fefonz Quan: i would appreciate not clinging to my word perce
Fefonz Quan: nature in the way a molecule is more basic than a football
InFree Fall: Well, it is smaller.
InFree Fall: But it is less useful
Fefonz Quan: i use a lot of oxygen molecules,
InFree Fall: Most of the time, people who have to work with iron do not worry about its molecular structure, but only its tensile strength, malleability etc.
InFree Fall: They just read a label on a crate with those informations written on it and leave it at that
Fefonz Quan: right, but here we try to investigate, not to learn how to organize our schedule
InFree Fall: In essence, they trust a promise made to them by the manufacturer
Fefonz Quan: (though it might help :))

The next sentence made the most sense to me in this whole conversation...

InFree Fall: Yes but if your subject of inquiry is "time", you have to consider what you actually do in relation to it most of the time. Otherwise, the picture you get is distorted
Fefonz Quan: i think we shell leave it with some disagreement, but thaks for the discussion :)
genesis Zhangsun: well thank you for a great discussion but it is time for Gilles's seminar now
InFree Fall: yw
Fefonz Quan: (there is a meeting on 2pm SLT, nned to get there_
InFree Fall: Bye everyone. I have to go.
Wol Euler: yes, I must be moving on. Goodnight all, take care.
genesis Zhangsun: bye InFree
Lia Rikugun: byebye
genesis Zhangsun: Bye Wol
Fefonz Quan: night Wol :)
genesis Zhangsun: Bye Lia
genesis Zhangsun: thanks everyone
genesis Zhangsun: Bye Fonz
Wol Euler: Lia, it was nice meeting you, I hope you get your piece written
Fefonz Quan: bye gen
Lia Rikugun: :)
Lia Rikugun: thank you gen
Wol Euler: bye gen, bye fefonz