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Single Idea 23023

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

Full Idea

If Presentism is true, how do we manage to travel from this moment to the next moment, a moment that is, at present, a future and hence non-existent moment?

Gist of Idea

How can presentists move to the next future moment, if that doesn't exist?

Source

Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 8.3.1)

Book Ref

Baron,S/Miller,K: 'Introduction to the Philosophy of Time' [Polity 2019], p.213

A Reaction

The reply would have to be that the metaphor of 'travel' is inappropriate for the movement through time. Travel needs a succession of existing places. The advancement of time is nothing like that. Nice question, though.

The 30 ideas with the same theme [only the present moment exists]:

20819 The past and the future subsist, but only the present exists [Chrysippus, by Plutarch]
5979 If the past is no longer, and the future is not yet, how can they exist? [Augustine]
8167 If Presentism is correct, we cannot even say that the present changes [Dummett]
15188 If things don't persist through time, then change makes no sense [Le Poidevin]
14409 I am a presentist, and all language and common sense supports my view [Bigelow]
14724 Presentists must deny truths about multiple times [Sider]
14756 For Presentists there must always be a temporal vantage point for any description [Sider]
4473 'Presentism' is the view that only the present moment exists [Moreland]
14026 Presentists can talk of 'times', with no more commitment than modalists have to possible worlds [Crisp,TM]
14406 Presentists say that things have existed and will exist, not that they are instantaneous [Merricks]
14407 Presentist should deny there is a present time, and just say that things 'exist' [Merricks]
14411 Maybe only presentism allows change, by now having a property, and then lacking it [Merricks]
14007 How can presentists talk of 'earlier than', and distinguish past from future? [Bourne]
14011 Presentism seems to deny causation, because the cause and the effect can never coexist [Bourne]
14017 Since presentists treat the presentness of events as basic, simultaneity should be define by that means [Bourne]
14938 A fixed foliation theory of quantum gravity could make presentism possible [Ladyman/Ross]
13990 Presentism is the view that only present objects exist [Markosian]
13992 Presentism says if objects don't exist now, we can't have attitudes to them or relations with them [Markosian]
13994 Presentism seems to entail that we cannot talk about other times [Markosian]
13995 Serious Presentism says things must exist to have relations and properties; Unrestricted version denies this [Markosian]
13996 Maybe Presentists can refer to the haecceity of a thing, after the thing itself disappears [Markosian]
13997 Maybe Presentists can paraphrase singular propositions about the past [Markosian]
13993 Special Relativity denies the absolute present which Presentism needs [Markosian]
22974 Presentists lack the materials for a realist view of change [Price,H]
19041 Presentists explain cross-temporal relations using surrogate descriptions [Vetter]
22994 Erzatz Presentism allows the existence of other times, with only the present 'actualised' [Baron/Miller]
22998 How do presentists explain relations between things existing at different times? [Baron/Miller]
23017 Presentism needs endurantism, because other theories imply most of the object doesn't exist [Baron/Miller]
23023 How can presentists move to the next future moment, if that doesn't exist? [Baron/Miller]
22610 It is difficult to handle presentism in first-order logic [Ingthorsson]