|
23000
|
Vicious regresses force you to another level; non-vicious imply another level [Baron/Miller]
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|
Full Idea:
A regress is vicious if the problem at level n can only be solved at level n+1; it is non-vicious if it can be solved at n, but the solution forces another level n+1, where the problem can be reformulated.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 2.3.2)
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|
A reaction:
So in a vicious regress you chase the apparent solution, but never attain it. In the non-vicious you solve it, but then find you have a new problem. I think.
|
|
23024
|
A traveller takes a copy of a picture into the past, gives it the artist, who then creates the original! [Baron/Miller]
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|
Full Idea:
Suppose an art critic travels back in time with a copy of an artist's masterpiece, gives the artist the copy, and the artist copies it. The copy of the copy turns out to be the original mastepiece. The artwork seems to come from nowhere.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 8.6)
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|
A reaction:
Lovely thought. Is the example possible (even with time travel)? How would the critic possess the copy before making the time journey? What if the critic decided not to travel back in time? Can a picture exist if no one has imagined it first?
|
|
16554
|
Activities have place, rate, duration, entities, properties, modes, direction, polarity, energy and range [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
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|
Full Idea:
Activities can be identified spatiotemporally, and individuated by rate, duration, and types of entity and property that engage in them. They also have modes of operation, directionality, polarity, energy requirements and a range.
|
|
From:
Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 3)
|
|
A reaction:
This is their attempt at making 'activity' one of the two central concepts of ontology, along with 'entity'. A helpful analysis. It just seems to be one way of slicing the cake.
|
|
16562
|
We understand something by presenting its low-level entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
|
|
Full Idea:
The intelligibility of a phenomenon consists in the mechanisms being portrayed in terms of a field's bottom out entities and activities.
|
|
From:
Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 7)
|
|
A reaction:
In other words, we understand complex things by reducing them to things we do understand. It would, though, be illuminating to see a nest of interconnected activities, even if we understood none of them.
|
|
16555
|
Functions are not properties of objects, they are activities contributing to mechanisms [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
|
|
Full Idea:
It is common to speak of functions as properties 'had by' entities, …but they should rather be understood in terms of the activities by virtue of which entities contribute to the workings of a mechanism.
|
|
From:
Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 3)
|
|
A reaction:
I'm certainly quite passionately in favour of cutting down on describing the world almost entirely in terms of entities which have properties. An 'activity', though, is a bit of an elusive concept.
|
|
16528
|
Mechanisms are not just push-pull systems [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
|
|
Full Idea:
One should not think of mechanisms as exclusively mechanical (push-pull) systems.
|
|
From:
Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 1)
|
|
A reaction:
The difficulty seems to be that you could broaden the concept of 'mechanism' indefinitely, so that it covered history, mathematics, populations, cultural change, and even mathematics. Where to stop?
|
|
16553
|
Our account of mechanism combines both entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
|
|
Full Idea:
We emphasise the activities in mechanisms. This is explicitly dualist. Substantivalists speak of entities with dispositions to act. Process ontologists reify activities and try to reduce entities to processes. We try to capture both intuitions.
|
|
From:
Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 3)
|
|
A reaction:
[A quotation of selected fragments] The problem here seems to be the raising of an 'activity' to a central role in ontology, when it doesn't seem to be primitive, and will typically be analysed in a variety of ways.
|
|
16559
|
Descriptions of explanatory mechanisms have a bottom level, where going further is irrelevant [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
|
|
Full Idea:
Nested hierachical descriptions of mechanisms typically bottom out in lowest level mechanisms. …Bottoming out is relative …the explanation comes to an end, and description of lower-level mechanisms would be irrelevant.
|
|
From:
Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 5.1)
|
|
A reaction:
This seems to me exactly the right story about mechanism, and it is a story I am associating with essentialism. The relevance is ties to understanding. The lower level is either fully understood, or totally baffling.
|
|
16564
|
There are four types of bottom-level activities which will explain phenomena [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
|
|
Full Idea:
There are four bottom-out kinds of activities: geometrico-mechanical, electro-chemical, electro-magnetic and energetic. These are abstract means of production that can be fruitfully applied in particular cases to explain phenomena.
|
|
From:
Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 7)
|
|
A reaction:
I like that. It gives a nice core for a metaphysics for physicalists. I suspect that 'mechanical' can be reduced to something else, and that 'energetic' will disappear in the final story.
|
|
22602
|
Over several centuries a set of eight main liberal values was established [Dunt]
|
|
Full Idea:
Over the centuries liberal values were established: freedom of the individual, reason, consent in government, individual rights, the separation of powers, protection of minorities, autonomy, and moderation.
|
|
From:
Ian Dunt (How to be a Liberal [2020], 13)
|
|
A reaction:
What's not to like? 'Moderation' might be a sticking point, for anyone who thinks that very large social changes are needed.
|
|
22596
|
No government, or the whole nation, can control an individual beyond legitimate scope [Dunt]
|
|
Full Idea:
When a government of any sort puts a threatening hand on that part of individual life beyond its proper scope, …even if it were the whole nation, except for the man it is harassing, it would be no more legitimate for that.
|
|
From:
Ian Dunt (How to be a Liberal [2020]), quoted by Ian Dunt - How to be a Liberal 4
|
|
A reaction:
The obvious question is what counts as 'proper scope' - and who gets to define it? If the individual can define that, then criminals can appeal to this principle. The state must be persuaded of it, then asked to stick to it during conflicts.
|
|
22603
|
Laissez-faire liberalism failed to give people the protections and freedoms needed for a good life [Dunt]
|
|
Full Idea:
Laissez-faire liberalism failed, because it did not offer people protections and real freedom - against discrimination, insecure work, educational disadvantage, lack of social respect, absence of representation. It was cold, distant, and ineffective.
|
|
From:
Ian Dunt (How to be a Liberal [2020], 13)
|
|
A reaction:
A very nice summary, which I take to be correct.
|
|
23011
|
Modern accounts of causation involve either processes or counterfactuals [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
The two major contemporary theories of causation are process theories and counterfactual theories. …Process theories treat it as something to be discovered. …Counterfactual theories ignore processes, and treat it in terms of truth and falsity.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 6.1)
|
|
A reaction:
I take the counterfactual theory to be a specialised branch of the project of analytic metaphysics, which seeks the logical form of causation sentences, using possible worlds semantics. In the real word its processes or nothing.
|
|
23013
|
The main process theory of causation says it is transference of mass, energy, momentum or charge [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
According to contemporary process theories of causation it consists of the transference of a 'mark', which is always some conserved quantity. Candidates (from science) are mass, energy, momentum and electric charge.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 6.2.2)
|
|
A reaction:
Given my commitment to physicalism, this is my preferred theory of causation. It began with the suggestion of energy-transfer, but has broadened into the present idea. It is an updated version of the Newton view, as the meeting of objects.
|
|
23014
|
If causes are processes, what is causation by omission? (Distinguish legal from scientific causes?) [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
Process theories of causation face a serious problem, such as killing a plant by failing to water it - a cause by omission. …Defenders of the theory propose two concepts of causation: one for legal and one for scientific contexts.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 6.2.3)
|
|
A reaction:
Not much of a problem, I think. Clearly the scientific concept has priority. The plant died of dehydration, resulting from the consumption and evaporation of the available water. The human causes of that situation are legion.
|
|
16558
|
Laws of nature have very little application in biology [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
|
|
Full Idea:
The traditional notion of a law of nature has few, if any, applications in neurobiology or molecular biology.
|
|
From:
Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 3.2)
|
|
A reaction:
This is a simple and self-evident fact, and bad news for anyone who want to build their entire ontology around laws of nature. I take such a notion to be fairly empty, except as a convenient heuristic device.
|
|
23009
|
There is no second 'law' of thermodynamics; it just reflects probabilities of certain microstates [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
According to contemporary statistical mechanics the second law of thermodynamics is not really a law at all, but merely reflects to probabilities of certain microstates, conditional on local boundary conditions having certain properties.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 5.6.1)
|
|
A reaction:
A nice illustration of how metaphysicians have been seduced by the 'laws' of nature into falsely inferring all sorts of natural necessities. Entropy is normally assumed to be totally inevitable, because of some natural force. It's just a pattern.
|
|
23002
|
In relativity space and time depend on one's motion, but spacetime gives an invariant metric [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
While spatial and temporal distances in relativity depend on one's relative state of motion, spatiotemporal distances within Minkowski spacetime do not. It therefore provides an invariant metric for describing the distances between things.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 4.2)
|
|
A reaction:
I doubt whether this solves all the worries which philosophers have, about relativity giving an account of time which contradicts our concept of time in every other area of our understanding.
|
|
22991
|
How can we know this is the present moment, if other times are real? [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
According to the spotlight and growing block views, there is a single objectively present moment, and also other objectively existing moments. But then how do persons in those different moments know which one is present?
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.6)
|
|
A reaction:
[compressed example] This sceptical thought leads either towards Presentism (we know we are present because that's all there is), or Eternalism (there is no present moment, so no problem). A good objection to spotlight and growing block.
|
|
22992
|
If we are actually in the past then we shouldn't experience time passing [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
If the past really exists, and we are in it, rather than in the present, then we should rationally conclude that we are not experiencing the passage of time. …But then we have no basis for arguing that time is dynamic.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.6)
|
|
A reaction:
[compressed] It is certainly difficult to conceive how past times and entities could be real in every way, except that the experience of time passing has been removed. But if past people experience passing, they must believe they are present…
|
|
22994
|
Erzatz Presentism allows the existence of other times, with only the present 'actualised' [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
The 'erzatz presentism' view is that either the past and present exist, or all times exist, but only the present is 'actualised'. Standard Presentism says no times exist other than the present.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.7.2)
|
|
A reaction:
Ersatz presentism is obviously a close relative of the moving spotlight and growing block views. No account seems possible of the distinction between 'exists' and 'actualised' (other than the former being a mere abstract concept).
|
|
23017
|
Presentism needs endurantism, because other theories imply most of the object doesn't exist [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
Presentism is more naturally paired with endurantism, since if we pair it with perdurantism or transdurantism we have to say that most of any persisting object does not exist, and while that is not incoherent it is not very attractive.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 7.2.2)
|
|
A reaction:
(I think perdurance is time slices, and transdurance is the complete time worm). My preferred combination is this one: all that exists is the complete objects at the present moment. It also needs strong commitment to the truth of tensed verbs.
|
|
23023
|
How can presentists move to the next future moment, if that doesn't exist? [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
If Presentism is true, how do we manage to travel from this moment to the next moment, a moment that is, at present, a future and hence non-existent moment?
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 8.3.1)
|
|
A reaction:
The reply would have to be that the metaphor of 'travel' is inappropriate for the movement through time. Travel needs a succession of existing places. The advancement of time is nothing like that. Nice question, though.
|
|
22995
|
Most of the sciences depend on the concept of time [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
Without time it is hard to make sense of historical research, evolutionary biology, psychology, chemistry, biology, cosmology, social science, archaeology, practical reason, evidence, human agency and causation.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.8)
|
|
A reaction:
[compressed] I do find it extraordinary that relativistic physicists cheerfully embrace an eternalist theory of time which seems to render nearly all of the other sciences meaningless.
|
|
23001
|
The error theory of time's passage says it is either a misdescription or a false inference [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
According to the cognitive error theory of the passage of time, …it is either our misdescription of our temporal phenomenology, or some mechanism of our brain infers that the phenomenology is caused by time actually passing.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 3.3.1)
|
|
A reaction:
[compressed] I think I have some sympathy with the misdescription view. If you imaginatively gradually remove all the changing events in your experience, that doesn't end with a raw experience of pure time, because there is no such thing.
|
|
22986
|
The C-series rejects A and B, and just sees times as order by betweenness, without direction [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
The C-series sees times not as directed, but as unchanging, and ordered in terms of the betweenness relation. The C-theory also asserts that the A-series and B-series do not exist.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.2)
|
|
A reaction:
This is McTaggart's idea. Compare this with A-series ordering by past, present and future, and B-series ordering by earlier-than, later-than and simultaneous. The main point is that A and B have a direction, but C does not.
|
|
23003
|
Static theories cannot account for time's obvious asymmetry, so time must be dynamic [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
One argument for the dynamic theory of time is that time is, obviously, asymmetric, and as static theories can't account for this asymmetry, we ought to posit temporal passage to explain it.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 5)
|
|
A reaction:
The B-series view (unlike the C-series) asserts that there is an order from past to future, but it offers no explanation of that fact. Physicists love to tell you the order could be in either direction, But why an 'order' at all?
|
|
23005
|
The kaon does not seem to be time-reversal invariant, unlike the rest of nature [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
The laws of nature are time-reversal invariant, with the small exception of the kaon (a type of sub-atomic particle)
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 5.3.2)
|
|
A reaction:
If that fact about the kaon were very secure indeed, then that would mean the collapse of the claims about the time-invariance of the laws. Since time-invariance is still routinely asserted, I assume it is not secure.
|
|
22989
|
Static time theory presents change as one property at t1, and a different property at t2 [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
The static theory of time appeals to an 'at-at' notion of change, which analyses change as objects or events having one property at time t1, and a different property at t2. (The worry about this is that it describes variation, but not real change).
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.4)
|
|
A reaction:
I suppose observing a different property at t2 is observing the result of a change, rather than the process. But then the process might be broken down into micro-gradations of properties. Maybe only results can be observed.
|
|
22987
|
The past (unlike the future) is fixed, along with truths about it, by the existence of past objects [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
It is the existence of past objects that explains why the past is fixed, and why there are truths about the past, and it is the non-existence of future objects that explains why the future is malleable.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.3)
|
|
A reaction:
The authors label this view 'EntityNowandThenism', and it comes in a section on the 'Temporal Ontology'.
|
|
22990
|
The moving spotlight says entities can have properties of being present, past or future [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
The moving spotlight theorist maintains that there are special temporal properties that entities possess, namely the properties of being present, being past and being future.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.5.3)
|
|
A reaction:
Are these thought to be intrinsic properties of the objects, or (more plausibly) relational properties, between objects and times? Either view is weird. Does some godlike part of time scurry along, illuminating things, like a mouse under a carpet?
|