Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Four Dimensionalism' and 'A Plea for Substitutional Quantification'

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10 ideas

9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 3. Three-Dimensionalism
Three-dimensionalists assert 'enduring', being wholly present at each moment, and deny 'temporal parts' [Sider]
     Full Idea: Three-dimensionalists say that things have no 'temporal parts', that they 'endure', and that they are wholly present at every moment of their careers.
     From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 3)
     A reaction: An obvious problem case for being wholly present would be the building and fitting of a large ship, where it might seem to be present before it was wholly present.
Some might say that its inconsistency with time travel is a reason to favour three-dimensionalism [Sider]
     Full Idea: Some might even regard inconsistency with time travel as an advantage of three-dimensionalism, as a vindication of a prior belief that time travel is impossible! I see no merit in these claims.
     From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 7.2)
     A reaction: I do! Sider cheerfully says that there are good reasons to believe that time travel is possible, and then use this possibility to support his four-dimensional view, but I personally doubt his assumption. The evidence for time travel is flimsy and obscure.
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 4. Four-Dimensionalism
Four-dimensionalists assert 'temporal parts', 'perduring', and being spread out over time [Sider]
     Full Idea: Four-dimensionalists say that things have 'temporal parts', that they 'perdure', and that they are spread out over time.
     From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 3)
4D says intrinsic change is difference between successive parts [Sider]
     Full Idea: For four-dimensionalists intrinsic change is difference between successive temporal parts.
     From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 3.2)
     A reaction: This attempts a reply to the commonest criticism of four-dimensionalism - that you can't explain change if you don't have one enduring thing which undergoes the change. I get stuck of the question 'how big (temporally) is a part?'.
4D says each spatiotemporal object must have a temporal part at every moment at which it exists [Sider]
     Full Idea: Four-dimensionalism may be formulated as the claim that, necessarily, each spatiotemporal object has a temporal part at every moment at which it exists.
     From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 3.2)
     A reaction: If there were tiny quantum gaps between temporal parts, that would presumably ruin the story. On this view an object has to be a 'worm', to be the thing which has the parts.
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 5. Temporal Parts
Temporal parts exist, but are not prior building blocks for objects [Sider]
     Full Idea: My four-dimensionalism implies the existence of temporal parts, but not that those parts are more fundamental, nor that the object is 'constructed' from its parts, nor that identity over time is reducible to parts.
     From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 3.2)
     A reaction: That's a rather negative account of temporal parts, which makes you ask what their positive role could be. Do they contribute anything to our understanding of a temporally extended object?
Temporal parts are instantaneous [Sider]
     Full Idea: Unless otherwise noted, I will think of temporal parts as being instantaneous.
     From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 3.2)
     A reaction: This comes up against all the Augustinian worries about the intrinsic nature of time. How many temporal parts does a typical object possess? Is a third temporal part always to be found between any two of them? How do they 'connect'?
How can an instantaneous stage believe anything, if beliefs take time? [Sider]
     Full Idea: How can an instantaneous stage believe anything? Beliefs take time.
     From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 5.8)
     A reaction: Sider's four-dimensionalist answer is that the belief is embodied in the earlier counterparts, making belief a 'highly relational property'. I am not impressed by this answer to the very nice problem which he has raised. It's a problem for 3D, too.
Four-dimensionalism says temporal parts are caused (through laws of motion) by previous temporal parts [Sider]
     Full Idea: The sensible four-dimensionalist will claim that current temporal parts are caused to exist by previous temporal parts. The laws that govern this process are none other than the familiar laws of motion.
     From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 6.3)
     A reaction: I keep struggling with the instantaneous natural of temporal parts, and now I find that they have to do the job of being causal relata. When do they do their job? They've gone home before they've finished clocking in. Continuance requires motion?
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 9. Ship of Theseus
The ship undergoes 'asymmetric' fission, where one candidate is seen as stronger [Sider]
     Full Idea: The Ship of Theseus seems to be a case of 'asymmetric' fission (where one resultant entity has a stronger claim). Many see the continuously rebuilt ship as the stronger candidate, but each candidate, without the other, would be the original ship.
     From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 5.1)