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