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Full Idea
It seems that presentism cannot accommodate causation at all. In a true instance of 'c causes e', it seems to follow that both c and e exist, and it is widely accepted that c is earlier than e. But for presentists that means c and e can't coexist.
Gist of Idea
Presentism seems to deny causation, because the cause and the effect can never coexist
Source
Craig Bourne (A Future for Presentism [2006], 4)
Book Ref
Bourne,Craig: 'A Future for Presentism' [OUP 2006], p.109
A Reaction
A nice problem. Obviously if the flying ball smashed the window, we are left with only the effect existing - otherwise we could intercept the ball and prevent the disaster. To say this cause and this effect coexist would be even dafter than the problem.
Related Idea
Idea 1902 Since Socrates either died when he was alive (a contradiction) or died when he was dead (meaningless), he didn't die [Sext.Empiricus]
| 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] |