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Full Idea
The B-theoretic description of the world is completely adequate except that it leaves out information about which time is present.
Gist of Idea
The B-theory is adequate, except that it omits to say which time is present
Source
Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 4.6)
Book Ref
Sider,Theodore: 'Four Dimensionalism' [OUP 2003], p.94
A Reaction
This strikes me as a pretty basic deficiency. How could there a time which lacked a present moment? The present is when things happen. How would it qualify as time at all if it lacked past, present and future?
13713 | Quine holds time to be 'space-like': past objects are as real as spatially remote ones [Quine, by Sider] |
15193 | The new tenseless theory offers indexical truth-conditions, instead of a reductive analysis [Le Poidevin] |
15066 | B-theorists say tensed sentences have an unfilled argument-place for a time [Fine,K] |
22938 | To say that the past causes the present needs them both to be equally real [Le Poidevin] |
22940 | If the B-universe is eternal, why am I trapped in a changing moment of it? [Le Poidevin] |
22939 | The B-series doesn't seem to allow change [Le Poidevin] |
14734 | The B-series involves eternalism, and the reduction of tense [Sider] |
14736 | The B-theory is adequate, except that it omits to say which time is present [Sider] |
22901 | The B-series needs a revised view of causes, laws and explanations [Bardon] |
22896 | The B-series is realist about time, but idealist about its passage [Bardon] |
22903 | The B-series adds directionality when it accepts 'earlier' and 'later' [Bardon] |
23007 | The B-series can have a direction, as long as it does not arise from temporal flow [Baron/Miller] |