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27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / e. Tensed (A) series

[A-series, with the present as a distinctive moment]

12 ideas
The present moment is obviously a necessary feature of time [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: It is manifest that if time were not, the now would not be either, and if the now were not, time would not be.
     From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 219b33)
     A reaction: I take this to be Aristotle's commitment to the A-series view, which needs a moving present moment. Despite Einstein and B-series eternalism, I remain in agreement with Aristotle. B-series fans struggle like theologians to explain 'now'.
The Hopi have no concept of time as something flowing from past to future [Whorf]
     Full Idea: A Hopi has no general notion or intuition of time as a smooth flowing continuum in which everything in the universe proceeds at an equal rate, out of a future, through a present, into a past.
     From: Benjamin Lee Whorf (An American Indian model of the Universe [1936], p.57)
     A reaction: If true, this would not so much support relativism of language as the view that that conception of time is actually false.
'Thank goodness that's over' is not like 'thank goodness that happened on Friday' [Prior,AN]
     Full Idea: One says 'thank goodness that is over', ..and it says something which it is impossible which any use of any tenseless copula with a date should convey. It certainly doesn't mean the same as 'thank goodness that occured on Friday June 15th 1954'.
     From: Arthur N. Prior (Changes in Events and Changes in Things [1968]), quoted by Adrian Bardon - Brief History of the Philosophy of Time 4 'Pervasive'
     A reaction: [Ref uncertain] This seems to be appealing to ordinary usage, in which tenses have huge significance. If we take time (with its past, present and future) as primitive, then tenses can have full weight. Did tenses mean anything at all to Einstein?
The past, present, future and tenses of A-theory are too weird, and should be analysed indexically [Smart]
     Full Idea: The main objections to the A-theory are due to the metaphysical mysteriousness of the A-theory ideas of past, present and future, and also tenses, and to the greater plausibility of analyzing them as indexicals.
     From: J.J.C. Smart (The Tenseless Theory of Time [2008], 3)
     A reaction: When it comes to time, every theory that has ever been though of is deeply weird, so the basic objection doesn't bother me. Analysing as indexicals just seems to be a technical way of denying reality to the present.
It is claimed that the tense view entails the unreality of both future and past [Le Poidevin]
     Full Idea: It has been argued that the tensed view of time is actually committed to the unreality, not just of the future, but of the past also.
     From: Robin Le Poidevin (Intro to 'Questions of Time and Tense' [1998], Intro)
     A reaction: There seem to be strong and weak version here, since if you are committed to tenses, you are presumably committed to the possibility of truths about the past and future. The strong version (denying past and future) seems to make tenses pointless.
We share a common now, but not a common here [Le Poidevin]
     Full Idea: We appear to share a common now, but not a common here.
     From: Robin Le Poidevin (Intro to 'Questions of Time and Tense' [1998], 2)
     A reaction: Personally I take this to be quite a strong argument against the simplistic view that there is just something called 'spacetime', with no distinction of dimensions.
Tensed theorists typically try to reduce the tenseless to the tensed [Le Poidevin]
     Full Idea: Tensed theorists typically seek to reduce facts about tenseless relations to tensed facts.
     From: Robin Le Poidevin (Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense [1998], 4 (b))
     A reaction: This presumably involves denial of tenseless truths like '2+2=4', which might become '2+2 is always 4'. I can't see an objection to that. Tooley 1997 is cited as an exception to this idea.
There is one ordered B series, but an infinitude of A series, depending on when the present is [Maudlin]
     Full Idea: Given events ordered in a B series, one defines an infinitude of different A series that correspond to taking different events as 'now' or 'present'. McTaggart talks of 'the A series' when there is an infinitude of such.
     From: Tim Maudlin (The Metaphysics within Physics [2007], 4.3 n11)
     A reaction: This strikes me as a rather mathematical (and distorted) claim about the A series view. The A-series is one dynamic happening. Not an infinity of static times lines, each focused on a different 'now'.
A-theorists, unlike B-theorists, believe some sort of objective distinction between past, present and future [Zimmerman,DW]
     Full Idea: To be an A-theorist is to believe in some sort of objective distinction between what is present and past and future. ..To be a B-theorist is to deny the objectivity of our talk about past, present and future.
     From: Dean W. Zimmerman (The Privileged Present: A-Theory [2008], 2)
     A reaction: The A/B distinction originates with McTaggart. All my intuitions side with the A-theory, certainly to the extent that the present seems to be objectively privileged in some way (despite special relativity).
Time flows, past is fixed, future is open, future is feared but not past, we remember past, we plan future [Bourne]
     Full Idea: We say that time 'flows', that the past is 'fixed' but the future is 'open'; we only dread the future, but not the past; we remember the past but not the future; we plan for the future but not the past.
     From: Craig Bourne (A Future for Presentism [2006], Intro III)
     A reaction: These seem pretty overwhelming reasons for accepting an asymmetry between the past and the future. If you reject that, you seem to be mired in a multitude of contradictions. Your error theory is going to be massive.
The A-series says a past event is becoming more past, but how can it do that? [Bardon]
     Full Idea: In the dynamic theory of time the Battle of Waterloo is become more past. If we insist on the A-series properties, this seems inevitable. But how can a past event be changing now?
     From: Adrian Bardon (Brief History of the Philosophy of Time [2013], 4 'Reasons')
     A reaction: [He cites Ulrich Meyer for this] We don't worry about an object changing its position when it is swept down a river. The location of the Battle of Waterloo relative to 'now' is not a property of the battle. That is a 'Cambridge' property.
The A-series has to treat being past, present or future as properties [Baron/Miller]
     Full Idea: One of the limitations of the A-series is that temporal passage then presupposes the existence of properties of being present, being past and being future.
     From: Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 2.1)
     A reaction: Metaphysicians happily talk about 'properties' all the time, and most of them never grasp how ambiguous and obscure that concept is. The idea that my recent scratching of my chin first acquired the 'present' property and then lost it is incoherent.