In article <43t41q$mh5@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, sedquis@aol.com (Sedquis) writes:
> Bo writes:
> 
>>>>I don't debate the fact that time may, like corporeal things, be very 
> complex, require study, be not completely understood, etc.. However, we
> must admit that it is as it appears, or, as I said, we are back to
> doubting
> our own perceptions, with all that that implies.<<<
> 
> I don't see at all why admitting that something may be other than it
> appears means "doubting our own perceptions".  Why can't it mean
> understanding them and putting them in perspective?

   I suppose I ought elaborate a bit then...

   Suppose we perceive a thing as X, where X is a set of perceptions
(redness, hardness, roundness, this_place_ness, etc, etc;).  We know,
also that each of these perceptions can each be reduced in turn
to their own natures (ie, what makes roundness round, what makes hardness
hard, etc..).  The simple perception is what I call the phantasm, and the
full nature, the species.  Either way, we have the perceptible nature X,
and the species is in no way contradictory to the phantasm; (the species
contains what redness means, and redness is derivable from it).

   Now, what you are suggesting is a species which contradicts the phantasm.
For this to be true, some simple perception, such as "nowness" would have
had to be reduced to some notion which would not derive nowness (or
temporality).  Since the species would have to be derived from the phantasm
to be known (knowledge through perception), and the species is also not the
phantasm, we would have the case where the phantasm does not derive the
phantasm, and the species is not the species of the phantasm.

  To say it another way, we know that the species of nowness must exist, or
else it cannot BE anything (much less the nature of nowness).  To suggest that
the nature of nowness is an illusion, or something other than the nauture of
nowness, is to deny the nature of the phantasm of nowness itself.  Moreover,
to suggest that somehow the phantasm of nowness isn't even what IT appears
is to further doubt the ability of the senses to bring in the phantasm of
nowness.  Now, since causality requires temporality (for there to be cause,
there must first be a thing one way, and then a thing being another way, and
by 'then' we mean in time), and the senses work through causality (the phantasm
is an effect on the senses which is brought into the mind).....

> 
>>>>  As an example, we can agree that "redness" is really complicated. 
> The
> play of light on matter, reflecting energies, impossible speeds of roving
> tachyon beams (hahahah.. anyway!), but when it's all said and done, unless
> redness is at it appears, we cannot even trust all the perceptions we rely
> upon to discover all the other things.<<<
> 
> I don't think "redness" is really complicated at all  As you say, it is
> just as it appears, pretty much by definition.  Here again, word usage is
> causing the problem of confusing the word with the thing for which it
> stands.  What you're talking about being complicated is what causes
> redness, not redness itself.  (And BTW, using the word "itself" does not
> prove that there is an existent of redness...in fact, there isn't.)

   That's an interesting point.  Can we not say though that the species of
the phantasm includes it's causes and effects?  Since redness is an effect,
wouldn't it's full nature have to include it's cause (the play of light)
and it's effect (on the eye). It would seem so, else we aren't really 
understanding the nature of redness at all.  

> 
> 
> sedquis@aol.com
> 
> Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
> "But who will guard the guards themselves?"---Juvenal

    - Bo
  (Aquinas was right)