3. The Past Hypothesis and Knowledge of the External World

After Physics ◽  
2015 ◽  
pp. 71-88
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
The Past ◽  
Past Hypothesis

Cosmic inflation and the past hypothesis

Synthese ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 162 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-165
Author(s):  
Peter Mark Ainsworth
Keyword(s):  
Cosmic Inflation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Past Hypothesis

scholarly journals Evidence for the Default Network's Role in Spontaneous Cognition

2010 ◽  
Vol 104 (1) ◽  
pp. 322-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica R. Andrews-Hanna ◽  
Jay S. Reidler ◽  
Christine Huang ◽  
Randy L. Buckner
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Medial Temporal Lobe ◽  
External World ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Default Network ◽  
Considerable Variability ◽  
Major Focus ◽  
The Past ◽  
Cortical Regions

A set of brain regions known as the default network increases its activity when focus on the external world is relaxed. During such moments, participants change their focus of external attention and engage in spontaneous cognitive processes including remembering the past and imagining the future. However, the functional contributions of the default network to shifts in external attention versus internal mentation have been difficult to disentangle because the two processes are correlated under typical circumstances. To address this issue, the present study manipulated factors that promote spontaneous cognition separately from those that change the scope of external attention. Results revealed that the default network increased its activity when spontaneous cognition was maximized but not when participants increased their attention to unpredictable foveal or peripheral stimuli. To examine the nature of participants' spontaneous thoughts, a second experiment used self-report questionnaires to quantify spontaneous thoughts during extended fixation epochs. Thoughts about one's personal past and future comprised a major focus of spontaneous cognition with considerable variability. Activity correlations between the medial temporal lobe and distributed cortical regions within the default network predicted a small, but significant, portion of the observed variability. Collectively, these results suggest that during passive states, activity within the default network reflects spontaneous, internally directed cognitive processes.

Counseling Hume

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 28-38
Author(s):  
Elliot D. Cohen ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Anxiety Disorder ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Generalized Anxiety Disorder ◽  
David Hume ◽  
External World ◽  
Sense Perception ◽  
Generalized Anxiety ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future

David Hume is well known for his philosophical doubts about such things as whether there is an external world beyond our sense perception, and whether there are any rational grounds for believing that the future will resemble the past. But what would it be like to entertain such doubts in the context of one’s everyday life? In this paper, a fictional dialogue is provided in which a descendent of David Hume who brings such skeptical doubts to life, and consequently suffers from Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), is counseled by a Logic-Based Therapy practitioner.

Facing Time and the Absurd

2019 ◽  
pp. 83-106
Author(s):  
Inka Stock
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Frames Of Reference ◽  
The Past ◽  
Informed Decisions ◽  
The Future ◽  
In Transit

This chapter changes the perspective and focuses on migrants’ image of themselves when stuck in Morocco. It describes the experience of being stuck in transit as an existential dilemma and analyses migrants’ efforts to resynchronize their temporal frames of reference with those of the external world. Through the stories of migrants I interviewed, I show how people become disconnected from the past and the future and struggle with a meaningless life in the present. This places them in a situation which they themselves conceive as absurd or senseless. This existence “out of time” can affect their capacity to take informed decisions about their life, to plan for the future and to care for their relations with families back home.

Skeptical theism and Skepticism About the External World and Past

2017 ◽  
Vol 81 ◽  
pp. 55-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Law
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Skeptical Theism ◽  
The Past ◽  
Evidential Argument ◽  
Argument From Evil ◽  
Evidential Problem Of Evil

AbstractSkeptical theism is a popular - if not universally theistically endorsed - response to the evidential problem of evil. Skeptical theists question how we can be in a position to know God lacks God-justifying reason to allow the evils we observe. In this paper I examine a criticism of skeptical theism: that the skeptical theists skepticism re divine reasons entails that, similarly, we cannot know God lacks God-justifying reason to deceive us about the external world and the past. This in turn seems to supply us with a defeater for all our beliefs regarding the external world and past? Critics argue that either the skeptical theist abandon their skeptical theism, thereby resurrecting the evidential argument from evil, or else they must embrace seemingly absurd skeptical consequences, including skepticism about the external world and past. I look at various skeptical theist responses to this critique and find them all wanting.

scholarly journals DECADENCE-LITERATURE: THE IMAGERY SPECIFICITY

2017 ◽  
pp. 34-39
Author(s):  
B. E. Nosenok
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
General Phenomenon ◽  
Great Role ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
The Past ◽  
Visual Elements ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Hermeneutic Approach ◽  
Life Path

This article is devoted to the imagery problem of the decadence-literature (as a general phenomenon that periodically repeats itself) and of the literature of the decadency (as an oeuvre of crisis developments in art of the late 19th and early 20th century). The decadence-literatureis a manifestation of the irreducibility. It is proposed to analyze the imagery based on the context of the modernist interpretation of the image / icon. Before the image was considered together with its mimetic foundation – as an imitation of the external world. But here the image is freed from its mimetism, and it turns into a kind of "immediate ontology" (it is the Gaston Bachelard’s term). The classical structure of the image (plot, storyline, composition) ceases to play a leading role, and gives way to a writing. The decadence-literature image lets visual elements into literature. Therefore,there is a displacement from the ontology of the image to the image as an ontology in the research of imagery. It is also important to use the methodology proposed by Georges Didi-Huberman and Paul Virilio: the combination of the hermeneutic approach in the philosophy of image with elements of psychoanalysis, and the method of dromology, which is the connection of special aspects of the physics, mathematics and philosophy. The methodology of the School of Sociology of Imagination is also appropriate. The image of the decadence-literature is marked by symbolism, imaginism (it isalso known the same direction in literature – with the same name). There is also the "genres-werewolves" when a work is called, for example, poetry in prose. A personality of the writer-author plays a great role here: the decadence-literature is saturated with a psychology and a biography that is turned insideout. It is the expression of the world of unforgiven, restless personalities, which is explained by the principle of creation from an absence, emptiness, depressive and melancholic states (nostalgia, fatigue, sweet melancholy). It's interesting that decadent moods contribute to creation here. Distinctive features of the authors of decadence-literature: soreness, tenderness, hypersensitivity, a difficult life path and an unstable world. The imagery that is generated by creativity of these individuals is marked by a special attitude to time and space, it is also directed to the past in an attempt to find a lost paradise - that existed before the crash.

External World Skepticism and Inference to the Best Explanation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanna Rinard
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Central Problem ◽  
The Past ◽  
Principle Of Indifference ◽  
External World Skepticism ◽  
Physical Objects ◽  
Past Experiences ◽  
Over Time

The chapter presents three problems for IBE responses to skepticism. First, that the external world skeptic should also be a skeptic about the past. IBE responses that appeal to features of our experiences over time—such as their continuity or regularity—will be dialectically ineffective against such a skeptic, since they suspend judgment on propositions about their past experiences. Second, the chapter raises doubts about the claim that postulating external, mind-independent physical objects is the best way to explain our experiences. It is suggested that an idealist alternative may constitute an even better explanation. Finally, the chapter outlines what is, in the author’s view, the central problem for IBE responses to skepticism by formulating a principle in the spirit of the principle of indifference, and using it to make a case for the claim that explanatory goodness is not a guide to the truth.

The Unreality of Time: A Critical Analysis

Ensemble ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-64
Author(s):  
Sadiya Afrin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Critical Analysis ◽  
External World ◽  
Present Moment ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Absolute Time ◽  
The Past ◽  
Experience Of Time ◽  
The Future ◽  
Metaphysics Of Time ◽  
Zeno's Paradox

The problem of the metaphysics of time is whether the time is real or unreal. This paper will introduce some of the major positions and arguments concerning the unreality of time. We all know the external world is constantly changing. ‘Change is the only constant in life’. We get trapped in the illusion of time and space. But in reality, the past isn’t here anymore, the future yet to be seen, only the present moment seems to be real. But present time also flies or passes away very rapidly. Whenever we try to grasp it, it slips away. Before discussing the unreality of time, it is necessary to mention that we will deal with the ‘experience of time’ in this chapter. The mathematical or physicist concept of absolute time would not be discussed here. Firstly, ‘Motion is impossible’ would be discussed from Zeno’s paradox, followed by an effort to connect it with McTaggert’s argument on ‘Unreality of Time’. Then presentism and eternalism would be discussed in reference to the unreality of time.

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