display all the ideas for this combination of texts
4 ideas
14991 | Space has real betweenness and congruence structure (though it is not the Euclidean concepts) [Sider] |
Full Idea: In metaphysics, space is intrinsically structured; the genuine betweenness and congruence relations are privileged in a way that Euclidean-betweenness and Euclidean-congruence are not. | |
From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 03.4) | |
A reaction: I note that Einstein requires space to be 'curved', which implies that it is a substance with properties. |
15021 | The central question in the philosophy of time is: How alike are time and space? [Sider] |
Full Idea: The central question in the philosophy of time is: How alike are time and space? | |
From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 11.1) |
20820 | Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus] |
Full Idea: Posidonius defined time thus: it is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed and slowness. | |
From: report of Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42 | |
A reaction: Hm. Can we define motion or speed without alluding to time? Looks like we have to define them as a conjoined pair, which means we cannot fully understand either of them. |
15024 | The spotlight theorists accepts eternal time, but with a spotlight of the present moving across it [Sider] |
Full Idea: The spotlight theorist accepts the block universe, but also something in addition: a joint-carving monadic property of presentness, which is possessed by just one moment of time, and which 'moves', to be possessed by later and later times. | |
From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 11.9) | |
A reaction: This seems better than the merely detached eternalist view, which seems to ignore the key phenomenon. I just can't comprehend any theory which makes the future as real as the past. |