A concept of time

Future Tense does have a time relation with other tense, especially often indicating an action behind a Simple Present action:
Ex: Go there and you MAY FIND him.
Ex: Try and you WILL SUCCEED.

Ex: It is easy to open a stock market, but the challenge is really how to enforce the law so that it WILL PROTECT also the people and its investors.
== Law PROTECTS people and investor alike. However, here WILL PROTECT throws a time contrast with the main action IS.

Ex: God permits this to happen so that we MUST GO back to reality and thirst for Him.

Ex: It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it WILL BE as easy as possible for your family.

Ex: The proceeding at the trial level is already very scrupulous so that it MAY SATISFY the object of the lawsuit.

<<«I will watch "The Battleship Potemkin" tomorrow» - what additional info do you need? Does the lack of explicit context cause any vagueness here? >>

My reply:
Which tomorrow? No vagueness? If you don't say clearly what is Today, there will be a vagueness in Tomorrow.

If this year is 2006, you may say 2010 is a future time. However, in some other future time, in 2020 for example, will you say 2010 is a future time? Of course not. Therefore, I have noticed that only a definite past time will always be a past time, so it can be a reference point of time for us to choose other tenses such as Present Perfect or Simple Present.

Because the time is flowing towards the past, there is no definite future time.

«By the way, what is "debug"?»

Debug is the process of getting rid of bugz. Bugz are problems, mistakes, errors and so on. Try wikipedia for details.

You said I use the one-sentence basis.
«I will watch "The Battleship Potemkin" tomorrow.»

But that was an example of implied context. At the moment of speech the speaker declared that he/she would watch the movie the next day, relative to the current day (the day when he/she said that).

The you argued (about the "Battleship Potemkin" example):
«Which tomorrow? No vagueness? If you don't say clearly what is Today, there will be a vagueness in Tomorrow.»

Well, without additional context, it is clear that it is the day next to the day of speech which was meant by «tomorrow». If you don't believe me, ask anybody on this forum or somewhere else... That is why providing context is not always necessary.

Of course, given no context, no examples will make sense. But the point is that a context always exists: either it is implied or given with the example. That is a commonplace also.

On the same example:
«People don't even know whether it is a present action or a future action!! No vagueness here?»

Ha! They don't need to! All they need to know is that the action was a future one by the moment of speech. Only relative time, which is clear from the example, matters in the use of tenses. No vagueness, at least such that would create problems with English.

In the movie «Brasil» in the very beginning the write: «Sometime in the 20th century». And what? The undetermined time causes no problems with English... Why? Because only relative time matters!

«As time concepts are not enough, one has to start to borrow unrelated Meanings (like "DEBUG") for help, breaking the agreement that tense is used to explain time.»

I didn't use «debug» for that purpose. And I agree that tense is used to express time.

«If this year is 2006, you may say 2010 is a future time. However, in some other future time, in 2020 for example, will you say 2010 is a future time? Of course not...»
Right.

«Therefore, I have noticed that only a definite past time will always be a past time...»

Definite future won't be a future time for ever.
Definite prersent is a present time for only one moment.
Definite past wasn't always past.

Asolute addressing won't do. Relative addressing (see above) rules.

«...so it can be a reference point of time for us to choose other tenses such as Present Perfect or Simple Present...»

Reference point of time must be a moment of time, no the choice of a tense...

«...Because the time is flowing towards the past, there is no definite future time.»

I wrote it in the beginning of this endless thread:
The future is the time interval from NOW (not including NOW) till eternity:
(0, +inf)
The past: (-inf, 0)
Now is 0 — the boudary between the past and the present.

In NOW is moving towards future, constatly converting the future into the past.

And I contend, that's also a commonplace!

I wonder, if some antimooners visit this thread, who do they think we are?
Maniacs?
Insanes?
...

<<You said I use the one-sentence basis.
«I will watch "The Battleship Potemkin" tomorrow.» But that was an example of implied context. At the moment of speech the speaker declared that he/she would watch the movie the next day, relative to the current day (the day when he/she said that).>>

My reply:
That is what I meant. The sentence in itself is vague. There is a time relation implied in it. As you say, it was Tomorrow for "he/she" (him/her). Was it also a Tomorrow for you when you posted it?

Or is it still a Tomorrow for me when I discuss it now? I hope you can see there is the vagueness in it.

<<Well, without additional context, it is clear that it is the day next to the day of speech which was meant by «tomorrow». If you don't believe me, ask anybody on this forum or somewhere else... That is why providing context is not always necessary.>>

My reply:
I believe you. But it is not a tomorrow when we discuss it today. Will you believe me?

Ant_222 wrote:
<<Of course, given no context, no examples will make sense. But the point is that a context always exists: either it is implied or given with the example. That is a commonplace also.>>

My reply:
This is a wonderful conclusion I have heard thousands times in decades of discussions. Everyone has to finally rely on 'the context' as the ultimate explanation. You should have noted this important point when you asked the following:
<<«I will watch "The Battleship Potemkin" tomorrow» - what additional info do you need? Does the lack of explicit context cause any vagueness here?>>

The context is important, but do you know that just a couple of sentences, preferably with different tenses, are enough for explaining tense? Merely two sentences can form a time relation in them. And the true use of English tense is to express this kind of time relation.

As I have repeated for many times, Time comes from contrast. If we want to use tense to express Time, we have to use at least two sentences to materialize the contrast.

Any discussion about tense will, if getting rid of personal attacks, eventually come to the same conclusion: we have to use at least two sentences to form a time relation that demonstrates the use of tense.

Ant_222 wrote:
<<I wrote it in the beginning of this endless thread:
The future is the time interval from NOW (not including NOW) till eternity: (0, +inf)
The past: (-inf, 0)
Now is 0 - the boudary between the past and the present.>>

My reply:
Did you want to say:
1. "Now is 0 - the boudary between the past and the present"?
Or
2. "Now is 0 - the boudary between the past and the future"?

I really don't know. I guess you wanted to say #2, judging from your (0, +inf) and (0, -inf). I will not talk of #1, as it has mentioned both Now and the present, yet missing the future.

As I have explained, however, if this boundary of Now exists (between past and future), it will be so instantaneous that no one will be aware of it.

My logic is: The present is same as the future; they are overlapped, both throwing a contrast with the past.

The overlap theory is very true and endures scrutiny. Even to be the most precise, in a timeline we can only cut into two parts, the past and the non-past:
---------------+----------------
The shortest past instant is to the left, while the shortest present and the shortest future instants are overlapped to the right.

Viewed broadly, therefore, the present overlaps the future, both throwing a contrast with the past.

Being not aware of the overlap theory, people in various forums cannot define between the present time and the future time.

Even today, I have a thread in another forum discussing the difference between present and future. They have agreed that next decade, or year, or month, or day, or hour, or minute, or even next millisecond belong to the future. Then I asked, what then is the present? They came to a (temporary) halt.

The future time is overlapped with the present time.
NEXT WEEK is overlapped with THIS MONTH.
NEXT TEN YEARS is overlapped with THIS CENTURY.
Then why do we have two concepts of time separated? It is because their actions are different. A future action is different from a present action. Please note that this difference is not for English tense only, but also for our earthly concept of time.

A future action is regarded as a possibility.
A present action is regarded as a fact.
They both are of the same time, but of different certainty.

It follows that Ex1 and Ex2 in the following are of different kinds of time implication:
Ex1: I am going to see "The Da Vinci Code" tomorrow. (a present action, and thus a kind of present tense)
Ex2: I will see "The Da Vinci Code" tomorrow. (a future action, and thus a kind of future tense)

As for Ex1, since I have a (present) habit of going to see movies, I can't explain why the next movies I see is regarded as a future action. It is just a part of a present habit. This is just a kind, not the only kind, of explanations why it is a certainty.

As for Ex2, I don't usually see movie. But since "The Da Vinci Code" is argumentative, I want to see it before making any comment. Using auxiliary verb, I imply it is only a possibility. This is just a kind, not the only kind, of explanations why it is a possibility.

Because there have been many grammar books teaching that, as in Ex2, we are using the Future Tense in Will or Shall, I don't think it is an absurdity for me to keep the name of the tense. Rather, it is absurd for some people merely claim Will/Shall is not the Future Tense, but they fail to theorize whether it is past tense or present tense.

Ant_222 wrote:
<<I wrote it in the beginning of this endless thread:
The future is the time interval from NOW (not including NOW) till eternity: (0, +inf)
The past: (-inf, 0)
Now is 0 - the boudary between......>>

My reply:
It is wonderful of you to use "0" to stand for Now, the present time. Indeed, if the present time exists between the past and the future, it is actually zero, nothing.

However, does your modification of Now match with our concept of things or dates we call it "present"? Is "the present epoch" a zero? I don't think so.

If Now is 0, does anyone notice it at all?

Forgive me as I'm coming in late here and have missed some of the earlier discussion. However, I can't help but note a couple of things:

"If we want to use tense to express Time, we have to use at least two sentences to materialize the contrast."

Er, no we don't. Someone bursts into the room and exclaims:

"I lost my wallet!"

One sentence providing a clear use of the past tense with no ambiguity.

Also, English verbs have incomplete pieces of tense: a past tense and a partial present tense.* There's no future tense. Of course there's clearly past, present and future time but that's not exactly the same thing.

Naturally, it all does depend on your interpretation of the term "tense."

* That "-(e)s" at the end of the third person singular to indicate a "simple present indicative." Even the verb "be" only has three present tense forms: am, are, is.

D6233RS:
Try reading several posts in the beginning, in the middle and in the end of the thread.
They're all the same... This thread is isotropic!


engtense:
«It is wonderful of you to use "0" to stand for Now...»

Yes, it's better to call it N(t).
Past=(-inf, N(t))
Future=(N(t), +inf), where t is the current time.

Actually, N(t) may considered equal to t (on the corresponding scale).

The boundary is moving.

«However, does your modification of Now match with our concept of things or dates we call it "present"? Is "the present epoch" a zero? I don't think so.»

Present epoch is:
(N(of our Lord 1), N(t))

As you see, the right boundary of the present epoch is Now, which is moving, and the left one is motionless.

For a day:
(N(beginning of the day), N(beginning of the day+24 hours))

«If Now is 0, does anyone notice it at all?»

Of course yes, because Now determines the state of the Universe. Different moments — different states. If Now was motionless, the Universe would be freezed in a constant state, nothing would be changing.

And we all live in Now, that is, our consciousness is located in Now. That's because the Universe doesn'contain explicit information about the future and the present. It's just «calculating» its states one by one, in series.

Typo:
«...the Universe doesn'contain explicit information about the future and the present.» should have been:
«...the Universe doesn'contain explicit information about the future and the past.»

I wrote: "If we want to use tense to express Time, we have to use at least two sentences to materialize the contrast."

D6233RS commented:
<<Er, no we don't. Someone bursts into the room and exclaims:
"I lost my wallet!"
One sentence providing a clear use of the past tense with no ambiguity.>>

My reply:
You have indeed missed a lot of what we have been talking. As you say, it is the function of the sentence, letting us know you lost your wallet. But we are talking about the tense/time of the sentence.

If you are aware that English grammars do have a reputed ambiguity between Simple Past and Present Perfect, the tense in "I lost my wallet!" is ambiguous. On one-sentence basis, you cannot tell its difference from "I have lost my wallet!"

Should you go back to our thread, you know I have clearly separated the function of the sentence from that of the tense. I have pointed out many English users will confuse the two uses. One may burst into the room and exclaim "I have this kind of confusion also!!"

D6233RS wrote:
<< Also, English verbs have incomplete pieces of tense: a past tense and a partial present tense.* There's no future tense. Of course there's clearly past, present and future time but that's not exactly the same thing.>>

My reply:
Then you are also the one who cannot define what is the future time. As I say, people cannot define the future, so they claim there is no Future Tense.

As Ant_222 reminded you correctly, "Try reading several posts in the beginning, in the middle and in the end of the thread. They're all the same... This thread is isotropic!"

To be fair, however, though I have only mentioned and repeated the concept of time here, as is the title of the thread, it is a new approach of explaining tense you cannot find the same elsewhere.

Ant_222 wrote:
<<Yes, it's better to call it N(t).
Past=(-inf, N(t))
Future=(N(t), +inf), where t is the current time.>>

My reply:
I am afraid I can no longer follow your symbols.