62 ideas
14001 | People who use science to make philosophical points don't realise how philosophical science is [Markosian] |
Full Idea: When people give arguments from scientific theories to philosophical conclusions, there is usually a good deal of philosophy built into the relevant scientific theories. | |
From: Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 3.9) | |
A reaction: I love this remark, being thoroughly fed up with knowledgeable scientists who are naïve about philosophy, and think their current theory demolishes long-lasting aporiai. They are up to their necks in philosophy. |
13991 | Presentism has the problem that if Socrates ceases to exist, so do propositions about him [Markosian] |
Full Idea: Presentism has a problem with singular propositions about non-present objects. ...When Socrates popped out of existence, according to Presentism, all those singular propositions about him also popped out of existence. | |
From: Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 2.1) | |
A reaction: He seems to treat propositions in a Russellian way, as things which exist independently of thinkers, which I struggle to grasp. Markosian offers various strategies for this [§3.5]. |
15186 | In the tenseless view, all times are equally real, so statements of the future have truth-values [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: The tenseless stance is quite clear: all times are equally real, so there are truth-makers for the future-tense statements, which consequently have determinate truth-values. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Intro to 'Questions of Time and Tense' [1998], Intro) | |
A reaction: The tenseless view is linked to the B-series view, and to eternalism. This seems to mean that Aristotle took a tensed A-series view of time. |
22919 | A thing which makes no difference seems unlikely to exist [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: It is a powerful argument for something's non-existence that it would make absolutely no difference. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 02 'Everything') | |
A reaction: Powerful, but not conclusive. Neutrinos don't seem to do much, so it isn't far from there to get a particle which does nothing. |
14002 | Possible worlds must be abstract, because two qualitatively identical worlds are just one world [Markosian] |
Full Idea: Possible worlds are just abstract objects that play a certain role in philosophers' talk about modality. They are ways things could be. That's why there are no two abstract possible worlds which are qualitatively identical. They count as one world. | |
From: Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 3.10) | |
A reaction: Brilliant! This looks like the best distinction between concrete and abstract. If two concreta are identical they remain two; if two abstracta are identical they are one (like numbers, or logical connectives with the same truth table). |
15207 | We want illuminating theories, rather than coherent theories [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: Don't ask, which theory is more coherent? Ask, which theory is more illuminating? | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense [1998], 5) |
22926 | In addition to causal explanations, they can also be inferential, or definitional, or purposive [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: Not all explanations are causal. We can explain some things by showing what follows logically from what, or what is required by the definition of a term, or in terms of purpose. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 05 'Limits') | |
A reaction: Would these fully qualify as 'explanations'? You don't explain the sea by saying that 'wet' is part of its definition. |
14000 | 'Grabby' truth conditions first select their object, unlike 'searchy' truth conditions [Markosian] |
Full Idea: We can talk of 'grabby' truth conditions (where an object is grabbed before predication) and 'searchy' truth conditions (where the object is included in what is being asserted). | |
From: Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 3.8) | |
A reaction: [He credits Tom Ryckman with the terminology] I am inclined to think that the whole of language is 'searchy', even when it appears to be blatantly 'grabby'. Even ostensive reference is an act of hope rather than certainty. |
22932 | We don't just describe a time as 'now' from a private viewpoint, but as a fact about the world [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: In describing a time as 'now' one is not merely describing the world from one's own point of view, but describing the world as it is. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'Mystery') | |
A reaction: If we accept this view (which implies absolute time, and the A-series view), then 'now' is not an indexical, in the way that 'I' and 'here' are indexicals. |
6866 | It is disturbing if we become unreal when we die, but if time is unreal, then we remain real after death [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: For the A-theorists called 'presentists' the past is as unreal as the future, and reality leaves us behind once we die, which is disturbing; but B-theorists, who see time as unreal, say we are just as real after our deaths as we were beforehand. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.174) | |
A reaction: See Idea 6865 for A and B theories. I wonder if this problem is only superficially 'disturbing'. Becoming unreal may sound more drastic than becoming dead, but they both sound pretty terminal to me. |
15190 | Evil can't be an illusion, because then the illusion that there is evil would be evil [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: The view that evil is an illusion is self-refuting: that is, if there is no evil, the illusion that there is evil is certainly evil. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Intro to 'Questions of Time and Tense' [1998], 2) | |
A reaction: [The idea comes from McTaggart, and Le Poidevin is quoting Dummett on it] |
6867 | Existentialism focuses on freedom and self-making, and insertion into the world [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: I take existentialism to be the focus on the freedom and self-making of the human being, and his or her insertion into the world. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.222) | |
A reaction: I take 'self-making' to be the key here. If neuroscientists somehow 'proved' that there was no free will, I don't see that making any difference to existentialism. 'Insertion' seems odd, unless it refers to growing up. |
22927 | The logical properties of causation are asymmetry, transitivity and irreflexivity [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: The usual logical properties of the causal relation are asymmetry (one-way), transitivity and irreflexivity (no self-causing). | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 05 'Great') | |
A reaction: If two balls rebound off each other, that is only asymmetric if we split the action into two parts, which may be a fiction. Does a bomb cause its own destruction? |
22922 | We can identify unoccupied points in space, so they must exist [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: If the midpoint on a line between the chair and the window is five feet from the end of the bookcase. This can be true, but if no object occupies that midpoint, then unoccupied points exist | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 03 'Lessons') | |
A reaction: We can also locate perfect circles (running through fairy rings, or the rings of Saturn), so they must also exist. But then we can also locate the Loch Ness monster. Hm. |
22924 | If spatial points exist, then they must be stationary, by definition [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: If there are such things as points in space, independently of any other object, then these points are by definition stationary (since to be stationary is to stay in the same place, and a point is a place). | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 03 'Search') | |
A reaction: So what happens if the whole universe moves ten metres to the left? Is the universe defined by the objects in it (which vary), or by the space that contains them? Why can't a location move, even if that is by definition undetectable? |
22923 | Absolute space explains actual and potential positions, and geometrical truths [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: Absolutists say space plays a number of roles. It is what we refer to when we talk of positions. It makes other things possible (by moving into unoccupied positions). And it explains geometrical truths. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 03 'Redundancy') | |
A reaction: I am persuaded by these, and am happy to treat space (and time) as a primitive of metaphysics. |
22928 | For relationists moving an object beyond the edge of space creates new space [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: For the relationist, if Archytas goes to the edge of space and extends his arm, he is creating a new spatial relation between objects, and thus extending space, which is, after all, just the collection of thos relations. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 05 'beyond') | |
A reaction: The obvious point is what are you moving your arm into? And how can some movements be in space, while others create new space? It's a bad theory. |
22931 | We distinguish time from space, because it passes, and it has a unique present moment [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: The most characteristic features of time, which distinguish it from space, are the fact that time passes, and the fact that the present is in some sense unique | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'Mystery') | |
A reaction: The B-series view tries to avoid passing time and present moments. I suspect that modern proponents of the B-series mainly want to unifying their view of time with Einstein's, to give us a scientific space-time. |
22917 | Since nothing occurs in a temporal vacuum, there is no way to measure its length [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: Since, by definition, nothing happens in a temporal vacuum, there is no possible means of determining its length. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 02 'without change') | |
A reaction: This is offered a part of a dubious proof that a temporal vacuum is impossible. I like Shoemaker's three worlds thought experiment, which tests this idea to the limit. |
22921 | Temporal vacuums would be unexperienced, unmeasured, and unending [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: Three arguments that a temporal vacuum is impossible: we can't experience it, we can't measure it, and it would have no reason to ever terminate. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 03 'Lessons') | |
A reaction: [summarised] The first two reasons are unimpressive. The interiors of black holes are off limits for us. The arrival of time into a timeless situation may actually have occurred, but be beyond our understanding. |
15195 | If the future is not real, we don't seem to have any obligation to future individuals [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: If the future is unreal, future individuals are ontologically problematic. Any apparent obligations towards them cannot, it seems, have an object. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Intro to 'Questions of Time and Tense' [1998], 5) | |
A reaction: I certainly 'feel' obligations to the future, but I am not sure whether I 'have' them. How far into the future do the extend? Should I care if homo sapiens is replaced by a different dominant species? |
15188 | If things don't persist through time, then change makes no sense [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: It would appear that any denial of the existence of continuants entails a denial of change. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Intro to 'Questions of Time and Tense' [1998], 1) | |
A reaction: [He cites Lowe for this view] Presumably we don't just accept change at face value, in that case. Indeed, views about temporal parts or time-worms give a different account of change (though perhaps a less convincing one). |
13990 | Presentism is the view that only present objects exist [Markosian] |
Full Idea: According to Presentism, if we were to make an accurate list of all the things that exist (within the range of our most unrestricted quantifiers) there would not be a single non-present object on the list. | |
From: Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 1) | |
A reaction: An immediate problem that needs examing is what constitutes an 'object'. It had better not range over time (like an journey). It would be hard to fit a description like 'the oldest man in England'. |
13992 | Presentism says if objects don't exist now, we can't have attitudes to them or relations with them [Markosian] |
Full Idea: If there are no non-present objects (according to Presentism), then no one can now stand in any relation to any non-present object. You cannot now 'admire' Socrates, and no present event has a causal relation to Washington crossing the Delaware. | |
From: Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 2.2) | |
A reaction: You can have an overlapping causal chain that gets you back to Washington, and a causal chain can connect Socrates to our thoughts about him (as in baptismal reference). A simple reply needs an 'overlap' though. |
13994 | Presentism seems to entail that we cannot talk about other times [Markosian] |
Full Idea: It is very natural to talk about times, ...but Presentism seems to entail that we never say anything about any such times. | |
From: Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 2.4) | |
A reaction: I'm beginning to think that Markosian is in the grips of a false notion of proposition, as something that exists independently of thinkers, and is entailed by the facts and objects of reality. This is not what language does. |
13995 | Serious Presentism says things must exist to have relations and properties; Unrestricted version denies this [Markosian] |
Full Idea: Mark Hinchliff distinguishes between 'Serious' Presentism (objects only have relations and properties when they exist) and 'Unrestricted' Presentism (objects can have relations and properties even when they don't exist). | |
From: Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 3.1) | |
A reaction: [Hinchliff 1996:124-6] Markosian votes for the Serious version, as being the only true Presentism. I think he is muddling language and reality, predicates and properties. |
13996 | Maybe Presentists can refer to the haecceity of a thing, after the thing itself disappears [Markosian] |
Full Idea: Some Presentists (such as Adams) believe that a haecceity (a property unique to some entity) continues to exist even after its object ceases to exist. A sentence about Socrates still expresses a proposition, about 'Socraticity'. | |
From: Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 3.4) | |
A reaction: [Adams 1986] This is rather puzzling. In what sense could a haecceity 'exist' to be referred to? Existence, but not as we know it, Jim. This smacks of medieval theology. |
13997 | Maybe Presentists can paraphrase singular propositions about the past [Markosian] |
Full Idea: Maybe Presentists can paraphrase singular propositions about the past, into purely general past- and future-tensed sentences. | |
From: Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 3.5) | |
A reaction: I'm not clear why Markosian worries about singular propositions, but is happy with general ones. Surely the latter refer as much as the former to what doesn't exist? Markosian objects that the paraphrase has a different meaning. |
13993 | Special Relativity denies the absolute present which Presentism needs [Markosian] |
Full Idea: The objection to Presentism from Special Relativity is this: 1) Relativity is true, 2) so there is no absolute simultaneity, 3) so there is no absolute presentness, but 4) Presentism entails absolute presentness, so 5) Presentism is false. | |
From: Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 3.9) | |
A reaction: I don't accept this objection. There may be accounts that can give Relativity one present (Idea 12689-90). Maybe Einstein was too instrumentalist in his account. Maybe we can have Presentism with multiple present moments. |
22934 | Time can't speed up or slow down, so it doesn't seem to be a 'process' [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: Processes can speed up or slow down, but surely the passage of time is not something that can speed up or slow down? | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'Mystery') | |
A reaction: If something is a process we can ask 'process of what?', but the only answer seems to be that it's a process of processing. So it is that which makes processes possible (and so, as I keep saying) it is best viewed as a primitive. |
15191 | At the very least, minds themselves seem to be tensed [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: A worry haunts the denial of tense: if tense is just mind-dependent, then minds at least themselves must be tensed. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Intro to 'Questions of Time and Tense' [1998], 2) |
15197 | Fiction seems to lack a tensed perspective, and offers an example of tenseless language [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: If we cannot coherently adopt a tensed perspective on events within fiction, then fictional discourse seems to provide an example of a tenseless language of before and after which is quite independent of the language of tense. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Intro to 'Questions of Time and Tense' [1998], 7) |
15206 | It is the view of the future that really decides between tensed and tenseless views of time [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: It is crucially one's view of the status of the future that makes one a tensed or a tenseless theorist. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense [1998], 5) | |
A reaction: If you believe in the reality of the future, you are an eternalist and like the B-series. If you deny the existence of the future, you must opt for Presentism or the Growing Block (depending on the status of the past). |
15198 | In the B-series, time-positions are unchanging; in the A-series they change (from future to present to past) [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: The crucial distinction is that in the B-series positions in time are unchanging. Positions in the A-series, in contrast, do change: what is now present was once future and will be past. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense [1998], 1 (a)) | |
A reaction: So does A-series time consist of a property which things gain and then lose, or a location which things enter and then leave? Neither analogy seems to throw much light. |
15189 | Things which have ceased change their A-series position; things that persist change their B-series position [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: Events and objects that have ceased to exist change their A-series position (by becoming increasingly past), but persisting objects, in contrast, change their present B-series position. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Intro to 'Questions of Time and Tense' [1998], 1 n2) | |
A reaction: The second half seems to imply a 'moving spotlight' of the present. This distinction is important, as it creates problems for all theories. The asymmetry seems weird. |
6865 | A-theory says past, present, future and flow exist; B-theory says this just reports our perspective [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: The A-theory regards our intuitive distinction of time into past, present and future as objective, and takes seriously the idea that time flows; the B-theory says this just reflects our perspective, like the spatial distinction between here and there. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.174) | |
A reaction: The distinction comes from McTaggart. Physics seems to be built on an objective view of time, and yet Einstein makes time relative. What possible evidence could decide between the two theories? |
15192 | We share a common now, but not a common here [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: We appear to share a common now, but not a common here. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Intro to 'Questions of Time and Tense' [1998], 2) | |
A reaction: Personally I take this to be quite a strong argument against the simplistic view that there is just something called 'spacetime', with no distinction of dimensions. |
15187 | It is claimed that the tense view entails the unreality of both future and past [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: It has been argued that the tensed view of time is actually committed to the unreality, not just of the future, but of the past also. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Intro to 'Questions of Time and Tense' [1998], Intro) | |
A reaction: There seem to be strong and weak version here, since if you are committed to tenses, you are presumably committed to the possibility of truths about the past and future. The strong version (denying past and future) seems to make tenses pointless. |
15205 | Tensed theorists typically try to reduce the tenseless to the tensed [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: Tensed theorists typically seek to reduce facts about tenseless relations to tensed facts. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense [1998], 4 (b)) | |
A reaction: This presumably involves denial of tenseless truths like '2+2=4', which might become '2+2 is always 4'. I can't see an objection to that. Tooley 1997 is cited as an exception to this idea. |
15193 | The new tenseless theory offers indexical truth-conditions, instead of a reductive analysis [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: The new tenseless theory has given up Russell's attempt to reduce tensed statements (in terms of 'simultaneous with'), and instead give tenseless truth-conditions (in terms of indexicals). | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Intro to 'Questions of Time and Tense' [1998], 3) | |
A reaction: [compressed] |
22938 | To say that the past causes the present needs them both to be equally real [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: The causal connection between the past and the present seems to require that the past is as real as the present. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'First') | |
A reaction: Cause and effect need to conjoin in space, but their subsequent separation doesn't seem to be a problem. The idea that causes and their effects must be eternally compresent is an absurdity. |
22939 | The B-series doesn't seem to allow change [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: How can anything change in a B-universe? | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'Second') | |
A reaction: It seems that change needs time to move on. A timeless series of varying states doesn't seem to be the same thing as change. B-seriesers must be tempted to deny change, and yet nothing seems more obvious to us than change. |
22940 | If the B-universe is eternal, why am I trapped in a changing moment of it? [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: What in the B-universe determines my temporal perspective? I can move around in space at will, but I have no choice over where I am in time. What time I am is something that changes, and again I have no control over that | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'Second') | |
A reaction: The B-series always has to be asserted from the point of view of eternity (e.g. by Einstein). Yet an omniscient mind would still see each of us trapped in our transient moments, so that is part of eternal reality. |
22953 | Time's arrow is not causal if there is no temporal gap between cause and effect [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: If there is no temporal gap between cause and effect, then the causal analysis of time's arrow is doomed. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'simultaneous') | |
A reaction: A number of recent commentators have rejected the sharp distinction between cause and effect, seeing it as a unified process (which takes time to occur). |
22947 | An ordered series can be undirected, but time favours moving from earlier to later [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: A series can be ordered without being directed (such as the series of integers), …but the passage of time indicates a preferred direction, moving from earlier to later events, and never the other way around. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'Hidden') | |
A reaction: I wonder what 'preferred' means here? It is not just memory versus anticipation. The saddest words in the English language are 'Too late!'. It is absurd to say that being too late is an illusion. |
22952 | If time's arrow is causal, how can there be non-simultaneous events that are causally unconnected? [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: An objection to the Causal analysis of time's arrow is that it is surely possible for non-simultaneous events to be causally unconnected. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'Seeds') | |
A reaction: I suppose the events could be linked causally by intermediaries. If reality is a vast causal nexus, everything leads to everything else, in some remote way. It's still a good objections, though. |
22951 | If time's arrow is psychological then different minds can impose different orders on events [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: If the Psychological account of time's arrow is correct …then there is nothing to prevent different minds from imposing different orders on the world. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'The mind's') | |
A reaction: All we need is for two people to disagree about the order of some past events. The idea that we are psychologically creating time's arrow when everyone feels they are its victims strikes me as a particularly silly theory. |
22948 | There are Thermodynamic, Psychological and Causal arrows of time [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: The three most significant arrows of time are the Thermodynamic (the direction from order to disorder), the Psychological (from perceptions of events to memories), and the Causal (from cause to effect). | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'Three') | |
A reaction: It would be nice if one of these explained the other two. Le Poidevin rejects the Psychological arrow, and seems to favour the Causal. Since I favour taking time as a primitive, I'm inclined to think that the arrow is included in the deal. |
22949 | Presumably if time's arrow is thermodynamic then time ends when entropy is complete [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: One consequence of the Thermodynamic analysis of time's arrow is that a universe in which things are as disordered as they could be would exhibit no direction of time at all, because there would be no more significant changes in entropy. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'Three') | |
A reaction: And presumably time would gradually fizzle out, rather than ending abruptly. If entropy then went into reverse, there would be no time interval between the end and the new beginning. Entropy can vary locally, so it has to be universal. |
22950 | If time is thermodynamic then entropy is necessary - but the theory says it is probable [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: The Second Law of Thermodynamics says it is overwhelmingly probable that entropy will increase. This leaves the door open for occasional isolated instances of decrease. But the thermodynamic arrow makes the increase a necessity. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'Three') | |
A reaction: Le Poidevin sees this as a clincher against the thermodynamic explanation of the arrow. I'm now sure how the Second Law can even be stated without explicit or implicit reference to time. |
22943 | Instantaneous motion is an intrinsic disposition to be elsewhere [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: Being in motion at a particular time can be an intrinsic property of an object, as a disposition to be elsewhere than the place it is. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 09 'in present') | |
A reaction: This needs an ontology which includes unrealised dispositions. People trapped in boring meetings have a disposition to be elsewhere, but they are stuck. I think 'power' is a better word here than 'disposition'. The disposition isn't just for 'elsewhere'. |
22945 | The dynamic view of motion says it is primitive, and not reducible to objects, properties and times [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: According to the dynamic account of motion, an object's being in motion is a primitive event, not further analysable in terms of objects, properties and times. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 09 'Zeno') | |
A reaction: [The rival view is 'static'] Physics suggests that motion may be indefinable, but acceleration can be given a reductive account. If time and space are taken as primitive (which seems sensible to me), then making motion also primitive is a bit greedy. |
22937 | If the present could have diverse pasts, then past truths can't have present truthmakers [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: If any number of pasts are compatible with the present state of affairs, and it is only the present state of affairs which can make true or false statements about the past, then no statement about the past is either true or false. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'First') | |
A reaction: He suggests an explosion which could have had innumerable different causes. The explosion could have had different origins, but not sure that the whole of present reality could. Presentists certainly have problems with truthmakers for the past. |
13998 | Objects in the past, like Socrates, are more like imaginary objects than like remote spatial objects [Markosian] |
Full Idea: Maybe putative non-present objects like Socrates have more in common with putative non-actual objects like Santa Claus than they have in common with objects located elsewhere in space, like Alpha Centauri. | |
From: Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 3.7) | |
A reaction: We can see Alpha Centauri, so we need an example beyond some 'event horizon'. He credits Arthur Prior with this line of thought. He seems to me to drift towards a Descriptive Theory of Reference (shock!). Does the nature of reference change with death? |
13999 | People are mistaken when they think 'Socrates was a philosopher' says something [Markosian] |
Full Idea: People sometimes think that 'Socrates was a philosopher' expresses something like a true, singular proposition about Socrates. They're making a mistake, but still, this explains why they think it is true. | |
From: Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 3.8) | |
A reaction: A classic error theory, about our talk of the past. Personally I would say that the sentence really is true, and that needing a tangible object to refer to is a totally bogus requirement. 'I wonder if there are any scissors in the house?' |
22925 | The present is the past/future boundary, so the first moment of time was not present [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: The present is the boundary between past and future, therefore if there was a first moment of time, it could not have been present - because there can be no past at the beginning of time. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 05 'Limits') | |
A reaction: How about at the start of a race the athletes cannot be running. How about 'all moments of time have preceding moments - apart from the first moment'? |
22944 | The primitive parts of time are intervals, not instants [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: Intervals of time can be viewed as primitive, and not decomposable into a series of instants. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 09 'in present') | |
A reaction: Given that instants are nothing, and intervals are something, the latter are clearly the better candidates to be the parts of time. Is there a smallest interval? |
22942 | If time is infinitely divisible, then the present must be infinitely short [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: Assuming time to be infinitely divisible, the present can have no duration at all, for if it did, we could divide it into parts, and some parts would be earlier than others. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 09 'in present') | |
A reaction: I quite like Aristotle's view that things only have parts when you actually divide them. In modern physics fields don't seem to be infinitely divisible. It's a puzzle, though, innit? |
22946 | The multiverse is distinct time-series, as well as spaces [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: The multiverse is not just a collection of distinct spaces, it is also a collection of distinct time-series. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 11 'Objections') | |
A reaction: This boggles the imagination even more than distinct spatial universes. |
15196 | God being inside or outside of time both raise a group of difficult problems [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: Is God within, or outside time? How can God causally interact with the universe? How are 'all times present to God'? If the future is not real, can God not know the future? How would he then be omniscient? Does God know the truth of tensed assertions? | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Intro to 'Questions of Time and Tense' [1998], 6) | |
A reaction: This lot constitutes one of the main reasons why I cannot believe in God. In brief, the concept is incoherent. The metaphysical convolutions needed to reconcile these problems smack of the absurd aspects of medieval theology. |
22941 | How could a timeless God know what time it is? So could God be both timeless and omniscient? [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: Could a timeless being now know what the time was? If so, does this show that there must be something wrong with the idea of God as both timeless and omniscient? | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 09 'Questions') | |
A reaction: This is a potential contradiction between the perfections of a supreme God which I had not noticed before. Leibniz tried to refute such objections, but not very successfully, I think. |
1513 | The Egyptians were the first to say the soul is immortal and reincarnated [Herodotus] |
Full Idea: The Egyptians were the first to claim that the soul of a human being is immortal, and that each time the body dies the soul enters another creature just as it is being born. | |
From: Herodotus (The Histories [c.435 BCE], 2.123.2) |