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Single Idea 14007

[filed under theme 27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / h. Presentism ]

Full Idea

Presentists have a difficulty with how they can help themselves to the notion of 'earlier than' without having to invoke real relata, and how presentism can distinguish the past from the future.

Gist of Idea

How can presentists talk of 'earlier than', and distinguish past from future?

Source

Craig Bourne (A Future for Presentism [2006], 2.IV)

Book Ref

Bourne,Craig: 'A Future for Presentism' [OUP 2006], p.51

A Reaction

The obvious response is to infer the past from the present (fossils), and infer the future from the present (ticking bomb). But what is it that is being inferred, if the past and future are denied a priori? Tricky!

The 14 ideas from 'A Future for Presentism'

14007 How can presentists talk of 'earlier than', and distinguish past from future? [Bourne]
14008 The redundancy theory conflates metalinguistic bivalence with object-language excluded middle [Bourne]
14010 All relations between spatio-temporal objects are either spatio-temporal, or causal [Bourne]
14009 It is a necessary condition for the existence of relations that both of the relata exist [Bourne]
14011 Presentism seems to deny causation, because the cause and the effect can never coexist [Bourne]
14013 Special Relativity allows an absolute past, future, elsewhere and simultaneity [Bourne]
14015 No-Futurists believe in past and present, but not future, and say the world grows as facts increase [Bourne]
14016 The idea of simultaneity in Special Relativity is full of verificationist assumptions [Bourne]
14017 Since presentists treat the presentness of events as basic, simultaneity should be define by that means [Bourne]
14018 Is Sufficient Reason self-refuting (no reason to accept it!), or is it a legitimate explanatory tool? [Bourne]
14019 Relativity denies simultaneity, so it needs past, present and future (unlike Presentism) [Bourne]
14003 Time is tensed or tenseless; the latter says all times and objects are real, and there is no passage of time [Bourne]
14005 B-series objects relate to each other; A-series objects relate to the present [Bourne]
14006 Time flows, past is fixed, future is open, future is feared but not past, we remember past, we plan future [Bourne]