A concept of time

Ant_222 wrote:
<<No. As I said, the time is since 1979 till now (=the moment of speech).
And two changes of car are located withing this period. And they are both past actions.

For example, suppose my father changed the first car in 1988, and the second one in 2004.

Now they are both past actions, but:
«My father has changed two cars since 1979» and
«My father changed two cars sicne 1979 till 2005»>>

My reply:
Ultimately, "since 1979" is an unfinished time up to now. The action containing it is, as a whole, affected to be an unfinished action. And therefore it is expressed in Present Perfect. This is what I want to say.

The number of times within such an unfinished time are regarded as "sometimes, often, scarcely, etc". They are not regarded as past time, which you insist they are.

By the way, "My father changed two cars SINCE 1979 TILL 2005" is not a valid timing. It should have been "My father changed two cars FROM 1979 TO 2005". Now the action as a whole is finished, and therefore expressed in simple past.

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Your argument raises a similar nonsensical reasoning in the following example:
Ex: My father changes cars sometimes.
It is an unfinished action, in Simple Present. However, now you may be as well arguing, because he has changed cars, it is a finished action. You will do that, won't you?

But the truth is, by the said example I do admit he has changed cars. And yet as a whole, it is an unfinished action, and therefore expressed in Simple Present.

Now, my dear Ant_222, is "My father changes cars sometimes" a past action or a present action?

Ant_222, I notice your remarkable reasoning can falsify most present actions.

In "He goes to work every day", you may as well argue, the sentence implies he did go to work in the past, so it is a past action.
Strange, by the example I do admit he did go to work in the past.

In "Birds fly", you may as well argue that because it still implies birds have flown, it is a past action.
Strange, by the said example I do admit birds have flown in the past.

In this case, do we have a present action at all? We don't. May you tell us, how will you define a present action?

However, if you allow us to take the whole sentence as one action, "He goes to work every day" can be a present action, though he went to school in the past.

It follows that, in "My father has changed two cars since 1979", though he did change cars at times, the action including "since 1979" is, as a whole, not a finished action.

«I am grad you have defined the symbols. But please note that the moments above don't exist.»

Time is considered to have been existing always. If we want to denote all time moments before some moment T0, we say: the multitude of T, such that T<T0. In terms of time intervals that will look like this:
-inf<T<T0
The left boundary equal to -inf shows that T in not limited from the left.

«I am afraid that, if the basis is not correct, everything built on it is not correct.»

Ah, that's not true. Your conclusion should have been: everything built on an incorrect basis is not well reasoned. However, it may be both correct ant incorrect. That's mere boolean algebra: from a wrong premise true and false conclusions may follow.

«Now you have updated your symbols again. The new version seems to be a little bit hasty this time. Really, can we do without all the symbols?»

All my designations are within the classical math. It's strange, that you don't understand them.

They were invented to shorten mathematical texts. The ancients would write: «Sum of Eleven three divided by two». But now it's just (11+3)/2.

Try reading the works of Euclid. You'll be amazed at how long and confusing are his texts to the contemporary man. Euclid wrote everything in plain text, except for the designations of points A, B C, D,...

But yes, we can do without any symbolics. And I have posted such explanation above. Why haven't you ficused on it?

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But: at every fixed moment of time things are <freezed>.
[That is, the state of the universe is uniquely defined by the time]

The current moment of time is called <Now>.

Since things are changing, we know that <Now> is changing.

This is the flow of time: as <Now> goes through a series of time moments, the universe changes its states. That's like the film in a movie camera <captures> snapshots of its viewfield, 24 times a second. When we watch the movie, we see that sequense of snapshots. But at any given monent only one snapshot is projected onto the screen (like <Now>).

The moments, that <Now> has crossed (went through), belong to what we call <The Past (=Passed by <Now>)>.

The moments, that <Now> is still to go through, belong to what we call <The Future>.

The moment, that <Now> currently represents, we call <The Present>m or just <now>.

Every action occupies a time period.

If the time period occupied by an action consists of moments of <The Past> (is located to the left of <Now>), we call it a past action.

If the time period occupied by an action consists of moments of <The Fututre> (is located to the right of <Now>), we call it a future action.

If the time period occupied by an action consists of moments of both <The Past> and <The Fututre> (<Now> intersects the action's period, dividing the action into two parts), we call it a future action.

That's all.
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«Ultimately, "since 1979" is an unfinished time up to now. The action containing it is, as a whole, affected to be an unfinished action. And therefore it is expressed in Present Perfect. This is what I want to say.»

Many past actions are within this period. But that doesn't make them present actions. You are wrong. And you keep confusing between actions, time periods, and time momets, although I have pointed that out several times. Have you read me «ATTEMPT...» or not?

«The number of times within such an unfinished time are regarded as "sometimes, often, scarcely, etc". They are not regarded as past time, which you insist they are.»

I don't think they are regarded as such. How do you know that

«By the way, "My father changed two cars SINCE 1979 TILL 2005" is not a valid timing. It should have been "My father changed two cars FROM 1979 TO 2005".»

I think you are wronmg again: my sentence is correct. Ask native speakers, if you want a proof.

«Your argument raises a similar nonsensical reasoning in the following example:
Ex: My father changes cars sometimes.
It is an unfinished action, in Simple Present. However, now you may be as well arguing, because he has changed cars, it is a finished action. You will do that, won't you?»

No, I won't.

This sentence means that a part of car changes is in the past and a part in the future, which makes the cosidered multitude of actions, when considered as a whole, a present action.

«In "He goes to work every day", you may as well argue, the sentence implies he did go to work in the past, so it is a past action.
Strange, by the example I do admit he did go to work in the past.»

A have explained it many times. See previous paragraph, for example.

«In this case, do we have a present action at all? We don't. May you tell us, how will you define a present action?»

As I have told you for about 222 times,

A present action is one whose time period contains the t-point (now) which divides it into two parts: the future and the past.

As I have recently told you:
----------
1. Finished action — a past action
2. An action that hasn't begun — a futurte action
3. Begun but not yet finished — a present action
----------
No dumb overlapping and stuff, by the way...

The above example meets condition #3, therefore it's a present action.

Ant_222 wrote:
<<If we want to denote all time moments before some moment......>>

My reply:
Please, one cannot denote all time moments. No one can denote all time moments. Who can haunt such a strange idea - denoting all time moments?

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<<Time is considered to have been existing always. If we want to denote all time moments before some moment T0, we say: the multitude of T, such that T<T0. In terms of time intervals that will look like this:
-inf<T<T0
The left boundary equal to -inf shows that T in not limited from the left.>>

My reply:
Didn't you notice you cannot find examples to support yourself? I want to see in what way you will denote all time moments.

Ant_222 wrote:
<<All my designations are within the classical math. It's strange, that you don't understand them.>>

My reply:
It is not strange at all, because you even cannot find web pages that talk about it.

Ant_222 wrote:
<<But: at every fixed moment of time things are <freezed>.
[That is, the state of the universe is uniquely defined by the time]
The current moment of time is called <Now>.
Since things are changing, we know that <Now> is changing.>>

My reply:
This is a very bad idea. If Now is changing with things, it cannot judge things as past, present, and future.

I have walked through the way you are now walking: trying to define the present time. I have repeated too many times how I failed to define the present time. I don't want to repeat it anymore.

Now look at the ways you talk about time:
"+inf is such time moment, that there is no later moments."
"-inf is such time moment, that there is no earlier moments."
"If we want to denote all time moments before some moment..."
"Since things are changing, we know that <Now> is changing..."
== To me, they are mission impossible.

I am afraid you have yet got the idea that our perception of time comes from contrast. There is no present time without comparing with past time, and vice versa.

Can you imagine how anxious I was in my youth in studying English tense? I came to such a complication that I suddenly realized children have no way in understanding what I say. That was the moment I knew I was walking in a wrong direction. I then dropped the whole complication.

Now I have come to such a simplicity:
"To us, in a paragraph, the use of the three tenses can be as simple as this:
-- Simple Present indicates present time.
-- Simple Past indicates past time.
-- Present Perfect indicates the time between past and present.
What else is simpler than this? Most important, we need only two notions of time, and dispense with many jargons."
== http://www.englishtense.com/newapproach/AtAGlance.htm

On the other hand, can you tell a young student to collect "all time moments" and see how "Now is changing"...? Can you really do it yourself?

Ant_222:
As you might notice in everyday speech people preferably use Present perfect, not past: have you seen the movie? I've never been to London. I've read it recently, have you, etc. It's because they're interested in result only.

Saying "My father has changed two cars since 1979" you express your attiditude toward your father's action. you possibly would stress the word cars: 'My father has changed two CARS since 1979!'- 'Why?' - 'who knows? May be he is a big spender?'
And definitely he still has one of those cars. And you're not so interested in the exact dates. The result - this is what you're talking about.

But saying "My father changed two cars from 1979 to 2005" you put stress on the certain amount of cars during a certain period time. May be today he doesn't possess a car at all - so what? It's not what you're talking about.

Ant_222 wrote:
<<If the time period occupied by an action consists of moments of <The Past> (is located to the left of <Now>), we call it a past action.

If the time period occupied by an action consists of moments of <The Fututre> (is located to the right of <Now>), we call it a future action.

If the time period occupied by an action consists of moments of both <The Past> and <The Fututre> (<Now> intersects the action's period, dividing the action into two parts), we call it a future action.

That's all.>>

My reply:
Actually, that is far from "all". You haven't started anything about Present Perfect yet. Even you define past, present and future very correctly, you cannot tell the time for Present Perfect. And then you will have to use Meaning to explain it.

I can tell you this: if not for Present Perfect, no one will talk about tense. There will be few questions about tense if Present Perfect is dispensed with.

No one can pass Present Perfect without knowing the tense-changing process. And no one can explain tense-changing process with knowing the categories of time adverbials. And then, one still has to learn how to put tenses together in a paragraph. Comparatively, the basic time concepts of past, present, and future are noting at all.

Sorry, Guest above is me.

Ant_222 wrote:
<<Since things are changing, we know that <Now> is changing.>>

My reply:
I am afraid you have confused present tense with present action. They are not the same.

Past action is not same as past time
Present action is not same as present time.
Future action is not same as future time.
== http://www.englishtense.com/newapproach/3_1.htm#3_1_10

J wrote:
<<As you might notice in everyday speech people preferably use Present perfect, not past: have you seen the movie? I've never been to London. I've read it recently, have you, etc. It's because they're interested in result only.>>

My reply:
I am afraid this is not true. Nearly in every forums readers agree that Simple Past is used much more frequently than Present Perfect. Having noticed this, an English native teacher in one forum tried to pay attention in one day to see how frequently people use Present Perfect, and he shared the result with us: "Present Perfect is next to extinct".

If one wants to relate a series of actions, one has to use Simple Past, rather than Present Perfect:
Ex: "A drunkard walked to me and asked me to pay him to drink. I gave him ten bucks. But he asked me if I could pay him thirty bucks, because it was his birthday. I had to give him thirty bucks and said happy birthday."
== Only can Simple Past link up a series of actions.

In contrast, using Present Perfect to do so would be incorrect:
Ex: *"A drunkard has walked to me and asked me to pay him to drink. I have given him ten bucks. But he has asked me if I could pay him thirty bucks, because it has been his birthday. I have had to give him thirty bucks and said happy birthday."
== An example to illustrate the wrong use of Present Perfect.

In light of a series of actions, which are usual in conversation, Simple Past is used much more often than Present Perfect. On the other hand, there is another more important reason: Using Simple Past <past form> is always simpler than using Present Perfect <has/have + past participle>. People may want to choose a simpler tense in this hasty world.

But I didn't say people don't use Present Perfect anymore. In writing English, Present Perfect is still a necessary tense in English.

My humble opinion.

J wrote:
<<Saying "My father has changed two cars since 1979" you express your attiditude toward your father's action. you possibly would stress the word cars: 'My father has changed two CARS since 1979!'- 'Why?' - 'who knows? May be he is a big spender?'>>

My reply:
You may stress on anything you want, but you will use Present Perfect with "since 19xx". The structure says a present action.

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<<But saying "My father changed two cars from 1979 to 2005" you put stress on the certain amount of cars during a certain period time. May be today he doesn't possess a car at all - so what? It's not what you're talking about.>>

My reply:
You may stress on anything you want, but you will use Simple Past with "from 1979 to 2005". The structure says a past action.

Ant_222 wrote:
<<But: at every fixed moment of time things are <freezed>.
[That is, the state of the universe is uniquely defined by the time]
The current moment of time is called <Now>.
Since things are changing, we know that <Now> is changing.>>

My reply:
I am afraid you have confused present time with present things. However, I didn't spot this instantly. This is my weakness.

Present time and present action are different. Now is fixed, and is as you said "freezed" or frozen. With Now being as a viewpoint, one may watch present things or actions changing. But Now itself will not change together with changing actions. It is just like the ruler and the thing it measures cannot move together. Either the action or Now moves, but not both. Since the ruler Now has to measure many actions at the same time, it is preferably said that Now is fixed and actions are changing.

However, you may very soon choose another point Now as a new viewpoint to judge things again. But this doesn't mean Now is floating together with things.

On the other hand, every action is at first regarded as a past action. We cannot argue that before one judges the action, it has no time tagged to it. Even before we can judge, an action is already a past action - comparing with the time we judge. (Our time perceptions come from contrasts.)
-- Now as the past action is not finished, we call it a present action, an action "now not yet finished".
-- Now if the past action is finished, we let it alone and it is still regarded as a past action.
This is how we judge an action whether past or present, as I have already referred to the following link:
http://www.englishtense.com/newapproach/3_1.htm#3_1_10

It follows that it is quite possible for a present action to have a past characteristic, since a present action is basically a past action. However, this conclusion has surprised many readers, I don't know why. Still, it can be proven by most examples for present actions:
Ex: He walks to work sometimes.
== He did walk to work in the past. A present action does embrace a characteristic of the past action. It is a present action because the action is "not yet finished now".

Therefore, I have explained to them: Don't be surprised if a present action pairs with a definite past time adverbial:
Ex: He has walked to work in the past three years.
It only means a present action starting in a certain past year, just like "since 19xx".

Should we know grammars have failed to explain why a pattern of definite past time adverbials, "in the past xx years", can stay with Present Perfect, so they would hide these difficult time adverbials from their books, I have solved a big problem in English tense and released the time adverbials from concealment.

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Now if one points out that, in "My father has changed two cars since 1979", there are some past characteristics (two times of changing cars), it doesn't surprised me at all. It is within my recognition. A present action does have a past characteristic. The point is, the action is "now not yet finished" which is indicated by 'since 1979', so it is regarded as a present action. The number of times (of changing cars) within 'since 1979' can only be interpreted as Sometimes, Often, Scarcely, etc. and cannot nullify the function of Since.

engtense:

«It is not strange at all, because you even cannot find web pages that talk about it.»

They are common math designations for a multitude and an interval/section. I said you didn't understand them. I explained the meaning. If you need a web page for some reason, find it yourself. It's better fo you to look into any book on mathematical analisys.

«This is a very bad idea. If Now is changing with things, it cannot judge things as past, present, and future.»

Of course Now (= current time moment) is changing. How can that hinder us from determining what is behind now and what is in front of it?

«<Since things are changing, we know that <Now> is changing.>>

My reply:
I am afraid you have confused present tense with present action. They are not the same.»

I didn't mention neither present tense, nor present action in that quotation.
And it's you who really are confusing them, and I have shown it you.

As to me, I have given clear definitions of past, present and futurer actions and time. Should I repeat them again?

«<<But: at every fixed moment of time things are <freezed>.
[That is, the state of the universe is uniquely defined by the time]
The current moment of time is called <Now>.
Since things are changing, we know that <Now> is changing.>>

My reply:
I am afraid you have confused present time with present things. However, I didn't spot this instantly. This is my weakness.»

Time flows. The Universe goes through a series of states. The state is a single-valued function of time. Since we observe that things change, the time moment from which we observe it, is changing. This time moment is now.

«But Now itself will not change together with changing actions. It is just like the ruler and the thing it measures cannot move together.»

1. They can move together.
2. Since you proposed such analogy, you understand nothing of what I want to say. Now cannot be a ruler. It's rather a reference point.

«However, you may very soon choose another point Now as a new viewpoint to judge things again.»

Is there another now than this one in which we all live ;) ?

«On the other hand, every action is at first regarded as a past action. We cannot argue that before one judges the action, it has no time tagged to it. Even before we can judge, an action is already a past action - comparing with the time we judge. (Our time perceptions come from contrasts.)»

That's nonsense. Everything happens in time. Therefore, every action occupies a certain time period, which can be classified as past, future or present (intersected by now).

«...since a present action is basically a past action»

This very unnatural and therefore hard to learn.

«Should we know grammars have failed to explain why a pattern of definite past time adverbials, "in the past xx years", can stay with Present Perfect, so they would hide these difficult time adverbials from their books, I have solved a big problem in English tense and released the time adverbials from concealment.»

I have explained it for several times above, and i can explin it once more.

«...in the past n years» defines the following time period:
[t - n, t)
I.e, the period since the date n years before the current date till the current date (and time).
The example expresses that the past part of the action in question reaches up until now. Therefore, it can be a present action. No problems.

So, I think you didn't solve any real problem. But you have solved a lot of problems that you created.

«The number of times (of changing cars) within 'since 1979' can only be interpreted as Sometimes, Often, Scarcely, etc. and cannot nullify the function of Since.»

I repeat, that I don't see any reason to interpret them in such way.

J:
«But saying "My father changed two cars from 1979 to 2005" you put stress on the certain amount of cars during a certain period time»

«since 1979»
and «from 1979 to 2005» differ only in time period. So, I think it doesn't depent only on what I put stress on...

Ant_222 wrote:
<<As I have told you for about 222 times,
A present action is one whose time period contains the t-point (now) which divides it into two parts: the future and the past.>>

My reply:
It is very deep. What do you mean here?
1. Does Now divide a present action into the future action and the past action?
2. Or does Now divide a present action into the future time and the past time?
I don't know.

If #1 is true, will the present action disappear, leaving the future action and the past action?
If #2 is true, how can possibly a present action turn into time - the future and the past?

On the other hand, in the present action where exactly is this "t-point"? I don't know. Very deep.

I can never get this straight. 222 times are clearly not enough for stupid me. Perhaps I am too old for this. Young students may accept it without questions.