Up@dawn 2.0

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Time - Group 4 Section H1

Group Members: Yusra M., Erin P., Larissa W., Keaton D., and Evan L.

Author: Evan Lester

Today's discussion was about time. Did I just write that sentence in the present, or was it in the past. But wait did I write that sentence in the future? The main discussion by Mellor in Philosophy Bites was the use of tenses to describe time. However, I believe the group had the consensus of that time should only be concerned when it deals with what is the concrete past, present, and future. Even Mellor said, "I'm not sure they [the tenses of time] do matter very much." To throw in my opinion, I believe that it doesn't matter about the tenses in which we describe the time as long as the past is the past, the present is here and now, and the future is coming up. I also said that we should learn from the past and better ourselves in the future. Also, we need to live in the present. We shouldn't concern ourselves about things way out in the future. Those things are useless to think about if they are going to be a long time from when we start to think about them. Things change, sometimes for the better or sometimes for the worst. However, there is always some good that comes from the misfortunes or evil (reference to Zadig by Voltaire).

Keaton also brought up the discussion of how not properly utilizing the past here in the present only hurts us in the future. Also, (I believe it was Keaton again but I may be wrong) it was said that the past is hefty and the present is just a small amount of time moving along (Keaton or whoever in the group can expound on this if they like).

Last but not least, we talked about YOLO - You Only Live Once. I believe this does relate to the time discussion by saying that yes, we do need to take advantage of our time wisely, but I do not agree with the actions that people do that are crazy and say YOLO right after it. YOLO shouldn't be an excuse to do crazy or dumb acts. This should be a reminder that we need to cherish the time we have and make the most of our time. If we do not, then who knows what would happen.


DQ: Do you think the mind influences the body? Why or why not?

FQ: Who said, "I think action is mental because it's intentional, in the sense that it's directed on to something other than itself"?

A: Tim Crane

Link: In response to YOLO, SNL - Saturday Night Live - did a skit on YOLO with Adam Levine by making a music video that relates to my opinion on YOLO. I think it is pretty funny myself!

6 comments:

  1. This is a cool topic! I agree with yalls group about utilizing time to our advantage. We should allow the past to affect (for the better) how we act today. But, we should live in the moment. This is something that I've found to be very important. Today in our busy world it's really easy to get caught up in rushing from here to there and not really living life in between. Especially in high school when it seemed that everyone was only concerned with graduation. Everyone wanted to get out and move on with their lives. But by worrying so much about the future, we lost some of the quality moments of our lives. This reminds me of a quote from Diane Ackerman: "I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.” Definitely something to live by!

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  2. 3/21- Time
    Nice summary Evan! Thursday’s topic was kind of a mind boggling one. The past being the present and the future at the same time confused me for a bit, but I understood what he meant with his analogy of betting on the race horse. But still. You would have HAD to bet on the horse in order to get the money (never mind that at the time you were betting on said horse he was already “chosen” by the universe to win). If you HAD NOT bet on the horse in the past, then you WOULD NOT have won and collected the money in the future. It is still kind of iffy in my mind, but I think it is kind of an irrelevant topic, and even Mellor himself said so! Sorry to any philosophers out there that have dedicated their whole careers on the topic!! But … What is time? I think it’s just a mechanism to correlate when certain events happened/happen/will happen. I don’t think its relevant if the past is the future and the future is the present. I think YOLO is the perfect attitude to have towards time. You DO in fact only live once, for a restricted amount of time. I think all that is important is to make use of that time during every aspect of your life. When we were younger, today as your typing your response on CoPhil, and tomorrow when you wake up. Carpe diem! Because the day WILL be in the past, there is no way you can go back and live it again if you waste precious time!

    FQ: Hugh Mellor said that the whole argument about whether time is past, present and future at the same time is irrelevant
    A:True

    DQ: Do you think this question of time is important or not?

    Link: Here’s the infamous Sweet Brown. Man as funny as she is, you have to give her credit- she doesn’t want bronchitis to hinder her living out the potential of her days! (:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGxwbhkDjZM

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  3. While I agree that thinking too much about the future is a bad thing, it’s also important to plan ahead. For instance, right now we’re about to register for classes. You really have to plan ahead and make sure you’re taking the right classes to get you to where you need to be. You have to look into the future. There isn’t a way around it. I think the difference is when the future stresses you out, or becomes more important than the actual process of getting where you need to be. Yes, it will probably be somewhat stressful, but you can’t let it define everything you do. People always say that you need to set goals for yourself. I feel like most people have that “what happen now?”mentality. We’re always waiting for the next thing and the next thing that we forget that maybe that “thing” is now.
    “Sometimes you will never know the value of moment until it becomes a memory” – Dr. Seuss.

    FQ: What is the mind?
    A: “People have the capacity to think, to act, to feel, and to have emotions and to be conscious: all these mental capabilities are the things that I would classify together as the mind.”

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  4. This was an interesting topic. I do not completely see the importance of rebuffing our classifications of time. "Past, present, and future" seems to have worked just fine for the past forever, so I see no need to try and change it. They're easy terms to use and allow us to view our lives in a simple manner.

    I do believe we should respect the time that is incessantly flowing past us, never to return. We do not have much of it, so we need to decide how we are going to use it in the best way possible. Am I going to spend it serving only myself? Or treating people poorly? Or being depressed for silly reasons? It does not matter what we call time; it's what we do with it. YOLO on earth. Don't waste your one shot!

    DQ: Think about the area of your life in which you spend the most time. Are you satisfied?

    FQ: Who thinks "mental states and processes have real physical effects in the physical world"?
    FA: Tim Crane

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  5. Erin Paul10:24 PM CDT

    This topic was interesting to discuss because time and the past, present, and future are things we are so used to that we really don't put much thought into it. I think my favorite thing we talked about is how infinitely tiny the present is. Especially in contrast to how huge the past and present are! I have never really thought about the present being just the time you are in right now. It's crazy to think about!! Time is one of those topics that is kind of hard to completely wrap your mind around. But I agree with everyone else saying it is kind of an irrelevant topic to dwell on. When we were talking about it, I honestly found myself thinking, "Who cares?" and "Why does it matter?" I think putting too much thought into the tenses is the same as dwelling in the past and not living for now. I believe there needs to be a balance between all 3 tenses in order to live a satisfying life, but the main one should be living in the present. And of course, I agree with everybody cherishing and valuing the time you have because we never know when we're going to run out.

    FQ: Phenomenology is the study of what?
    Appearances

    DQ: In your opinion, what is the relationship between the mind and the body?

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