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Single Idea 14410

[filed under theme 9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 5. Temporal Parts ]

Full Idea

Your belief that you existed in the year 2000 is true; the belief of a segment of you that it then existed is false; so, by the indiscernibility of identicals, there must be two beliefs here.

Gist of Idea

You believe you existed last year, but your segment doesn't, so they have different beliefs

Source

Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 6.IV n20)

Book Ref

Merricks,Trenton: 'Truth and Ontology' [OUP 2007], p.141


A Reaction

Merricks may be begging the question here. But in the segment view there is nothing which can truly believe it existed a year ago, so therefore nothing here has continued existence, so the segments cannot be part of a single thing.


The 21 ideas with the same theme [things have parts in time, as they do in space]:

Temporal parts is a crazy doctrine, because it entails constantly creating stuff ex nihilo [Thomson, by Koslicki]
How can point-duration slices of people have beliefs or desires? [Thomson]
You can't have the concept of a 'stage' if you lack the concept of an object [Ayers]
Temporal 'parts' cannot be separated or rearranged [Ayers]
Stage theorists accept four-dimensionalism, but call each stage a whole object [Noonan]
Three-dimensionalist can accept temporal parts, as things enduring only for an instant [Fine,K]
Even a three-dimensionalist might identify temporal parts, in their thinking [Fine,K]
Temporal parts exist, but are not prior building blocks for objects [Sider]
Temporal parts are instantaneous [Sider]
How can an instantaneous stage believe anything, if beliefs take time? [Sider]
Four-dimensionalism says temporal parts are caused (through laws of motion) by previous temporal parts [Sider]
Stage Theory seems to miss out the link between stages of the same object [Hawley]
Stage Theory says every stage is a distinct object, which gives too many objects [Hawley]
The stages of Stage Theory seem too thin to populate the world, or to be referred to [Hawley]
Stages must be as fine-grained in length as change itself, so any change is a new stage [Hawley]
An isolated stage can't be a banana (which involves suitable relations to other stages) [Hawley]
Stages of one thing are related by extrinsic counterfactual and causal relations [Hawley]
We must explain change amongst 'momentary entities', or else the world is inexplicable [Haslanger]
If the things which exist prior to now are totally distinct, they need not have existed [Haslanger]
You believe you existed last year, but your segment doesn't, so they have different beliefs [Merricks]
Perdurantism imposes no order on temporal parts, so sequences of events are contingent [Mumford/Anjum]