Consider that there are healings now done on time manipulation–the physical effects of an event on our body. By going back in time to when we were healthy, and reliving the event in a different way, or even erasing the event, so to say, there is a major difference in the effects:

http://www.tapintoheaven.com/2huna/hunaproces.shtml
http://www.matrixenergetics.com

This concept is *big* in engineering, accounting, law, AI, and document management as well as in the internals of serious database management and transaction control systems, by the way.

We have standard laws and causal constraints that describe how the past relates to the future in linear time, where are the rules that describe the two dimensional equivalent?

Case in point – Event E occuring roughly at cosmological time t1 has has aspect A with value (or meaning) a1 at (cosmological,phenomelogical) time ordered pair (t1, t1), and a series of different values at time pair (t1, t1 + delta) where delta is the difference between the phenomenological time and the cosmological time.

So what rules govern the transformation? In other words what conditions “nearby” cosmological line of CT = t1 from the past or future of t1 govern or relate to the change in value from (CT,PT) = (t1,t1) to (CT,PT) = (t1, something else)?

And in particular, given that this is a realistic model (i.e. A(CT,PT) is determinate), what causal effect does A(CT,PT) where CT != PT have on the future? If it has no causal effect then it appears to be superfluous, an abstraction of ideality, rather than something genuinely real, a thing whose properties/values actually have an effect of significance to the future or to the past.

And suppose that A(t1,t1 + delta) has an effect on the cosmological future. Isn’t it the most likely constraint that t1 + delta is the earliest possible cosmological time for a change manifest at phenomenological time t1 + delta to take place? Otherwise we would have the most bizarre backward causation, voluntary events in the future causing determinate effects in the past.

So it seems rather likely that phenomenological time is all in our heads, that an phenomenological event at cosmological time t2 has effects at exactly time t2, not forward or backward causal at all, and the past really is fixed, just its “appearance” has changed.

Now

Truth as correspondence cannot be received, it can only be learned, where truth as knowledge is something plausible to be received. We talk about truth in this quasi-substantial sense in the Church all the time – we speak of “great truths”, for example. In other words, the D&C 93 definition of truth is somewhat more propositional and perceptive than relational per se.

If this definition were not a straightforward transformation of truth as correspondence (a property of propositions), rather than a set of true propositions or acquaintance with reality, then we would have something to be worried about.

I think any conception of truth that is compatible with a robust realism (especially as to spiritual things) is reasonably compatible with this scripture. A pure subjectivism on the other hand is theologically deadly, leveling the very idea of necessary morality, and a long list of fundamental doctrines, notably the necessity of a suffering atonement.

So maybe if I don’t feel the wrongness in the right way, I can’t repent?

Well, ok.

For what it’s worth, I’m not convinced that we’re all constructed to feel things in the same ways, varied creatures that we are of chemistry and acculturation.

But I can still change for the better. I think there’s moral value to that, even if it doesn’t fit the definitions.

First, philosophical phenomenology is not about perceptions. Though one can do a phenomenology of perception, not all phenomenology is about perception. Neither is it about mental states. It is, instead, about the way that things show themselves. It is about what was classically called “appearances,” which are not logically the same as “perceptions.” Obviously the two are related. That is not in question. But the question is how do we understand the appearing of things, not how do we understand our perceptions of things.

So my claim that the past can change is not a claim about semantics or our interpretations or perceptions. It is a claim about the past itself. But how does the past exist in the present? I think that H-G Gadamer’s argument (Truth and Method) that it exists only in its effects is correct. Those effects are not reducible to our perceptions, etc. The usual way of talking about those effects is to talk about meaning, something that is also not reducible to subjective states of affairs even though there are no meanings without subjects. (Example, there is no mathematics without subjects, but mathematics is not subjective.)

I’m not sure why Mark refers to philosophy that is founded in doubt rather than argument. I think I don’t understand the point he is making. However, phenomenological philosophy offers arguments, not merely doubts, and—of course—it tries to begin with widely accepted intuitions. In this case, I’ve offered an argument for the changeability of time, using the my intuition about rhythm, which I don’t think can be reduced to perception. (Those wishing to see that argument can find it in the link at comment #26.) Rhythm is another phenomenon that doesn’t exist without a subject, but isn’t reducible to the subject’s perceptions. “Objective” is a very slippery word with more than one meaning, but I think that rhythm qualifies as objective in the sense that Mark is using the word. I argue that the past moment in a rhythm changes its being depending on what happens in the moments that follow in the rhythm, including the present one. If my argument works, it shows that the present can change the past.

As for the D&C’s definition of truth: Mark refers to D&C 93:24 a couple of times—”truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come”—but that passage leaves as much to think about as it answers, if not more. For example, why does it define truth as knowledge rather than as the correspondence of a statement to a state of affairs? That is anything but a standard move in philosophy. And, of course, it leaves completely open the difficult question of what it means for something to be. We’ll know “for sure” what the D&C’s definition means when we know what it means for something to be and when we know why knowledge is truth-making rather than truth-corresponding.

So far I’ve ignored greenfrog’s question about sorrow. Luckily my answer is short: the scriptures consistently connect sorrow for sin with repentance, and I accept that connection, so I believe that repentance has an emotional component.

What does the sorrow of repentance require? I think Robert C is right that it doesn’t require regret. “Regret” is the wrong word. As part of changing behavior, I must recognize that my previous behavior was sin. The fact that it was should break my heart. I don’t think that broken-heartedness requires great chest-beating. It certainly doesn’t require depression and feelings of doom. Indeed, the scriptures describe the latter as sorrow unto death rather than unto repentance (2 Corinthians 7:10). So, yes, I think there is an emotional component to repentance. Perhaps the emotion that most closely corresponds to the sorrow unto repentance is humble submission.

Time may be viewed in two dimensions within the context of any given mind, but when two or more minds meet, perception must yield to agreement and agreement must converge to reality for the reality of the past to have any meaning.

In other words, the phenomenological account of the reality of the past of all competent knowers must converge to a single account, for the past to be considered real. Anything else about the past is subjective, and by definition un-real, as de-referenced.

I read the D&C 93 definition of the truth not but the way the past *really* was – including the knowledge of what the perceptions about the past was. So perception is not truth, but there is truth both in and about perception – “in” in terms of correspondence to reality, and “about” in terms of the real existence of the perceptions themselves, independent of their fidelity.

I think the knowledge of metaphysical axioms is a combination of experience, common sense, and inspiration, and that the best science and philosophy can do is reverse engineer them with inductive, not deductive arguments.

Deductivism is impotent so far as a knowledge of fundamentals (natural law, objective morality, identity, free will) is concerned. It can only be used to transform from one common sense based schema to another or to locate inconsistencies. I do not see how any philosophical argument can end without an appeal to intuition. The trick is to express arguments in terms of the most widely accepted ones.

I should add that I am not sufficiently well versed in the details of twentieth century philosophy to contribute effectively to many of the discussions at LDS-PHIL. I comment over at Mormon Metaphysics according to my level of understanding on a pretty regular basis though. My complaints are almost always foundational though, not based on a detailed acquaintance with many of the philosophers, mostly because I think it is pointless to pursue too far a schema founded in fundamental misconceptions, except as an exercise in historical and cultural understanding. I think it would be great if LDS-PHIL had open, linkable archives though.