64 ideas
| 19648 | Since Kant we think we can only access 'correlations' between thinking and being [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The central notion of philosophy since Kant is 'correlation' - that we only ever have access to the correlation between thinking and being, and never to either term considered apart from the other. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux's charge is that philosophy has thereby completely failed to grasp the scientific revolution, which has used mathematics to make objectivity possible. Quine and Putnam would be good examples of what he has in mind. |
| 19674 | The Copernican Revolution decentres the Earth, but also decentres thinking from reality [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The Copernican Revolution is not so much the decentring of observers in the solar system, but (by the mathematizing of nature) the decentring of thought relative to the world within the process of knowledge. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 5) | |
| A reaction: In other words, I take it, the Copernican Revolution was the discovery of objectivity. That is a very nice addition to my History of Ideas collection. |
| 19657 | In Kant the thing-in-itself is unknowable, but for us it has become unthinkable [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The major shift that has occurred in the conception of thought from Kant's time to ours is from the unknowability of the thing-in-itself to its unthinkability. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux is making the case that philosophy is alienating us more and more from the triumphant realism of the scientific revolution. He says thinking has split from being. He's right. Modern American pragmatists are the worst (not Peirce!). |
| 19675 | Since Kant, philosophers have claimed to understand science better than scientists do [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Ever since Kant, to think science as a philosopher has been to claim that science harbours a meaning other than the one delivered by science itself. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 5) | |
| A reaction: The point is that science discovered objectivity (via the mathematising of nature), and Kant utterly rejected objectivity, by enmeshing the human mind in every possible scientific claim. This makes Meillassoux and I very cross. |
| 19649 | Since Kant, objectivity is defined not by the object, but by the statement's potential universality [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Since Kant, objectivity is no longer defined with reference to the object in itself, but rather with reference to the possible universality of an objective statement. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux disapproves of this, as a betrayal by philosophers of the scientific revolution, which gave us true objectivity (e.g. about how the world was before humanity). |
| 19666 | If we insist on Sufficient Reason the world will always be a mystery to us [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: So long as we continue to believe that there is a reason why things are the way they are rather than some other way, we will construe this world is a mystery, since no such reason will every be vouchsafed to us. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Giving up sufficient reason sounds like a rather drastic response to this. Put it like this: Will we ever be able to explain absolutely everything? No. So will the world always be a little mysterious to us? Yes, obviously. Is that a problem? No! |
| 19656 | Non-contradiction is unjustified, so it only reveals a fact about thinking, not about reality? [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The principle of non-contradiction itself is without reason, and consequently it can only be the norm for what is thinkable by us, rather than for what is possible in the absolute sense. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: This is not Meillassoux's view, but describes the modern heresy of 'correlationism', which ties all assessments of how reality is to our capacity to think about it. Personally I take logical non-contradiction to derive from non-contradiction in nature. |
| 19663 | We can allow contradictions in thought, but not inconsistency [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: For contemporary logicians, it is not non-contradiction that provides the criterion for what is thinkable, but rather inconsistency. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: The point is that para-consistent logic might permit isolated contradictions (as true) within a system, but it is only contradiction across the system (inconsistencies) which make the system untenable. |
| 19664 | Paraconsistent logics are to prevent computers crashing when data conflicts [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Paraconsistent logics were only developed in order to prevent computers, such as expert medical systems, from deducing anything whatsoever from contradictory data, because of the principle of 'ex falso quodlibet'. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) |
| 19665 | Paraconsistent logic is about statements, not about contradictions in reality [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Paraconsistent logics are only ever dealing with contradictions inherent in statements about the world, never with the real contradictions in the world. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: Thank goodness for that! I can accept that someone in a doorway is both in the room and not in the room, but not that they are existing in a real state of contradiction. I fear that a few daft people embrace the logic as confirming contradictory reality. |
| 18739 | Three stages of philosophical logic: syntactic (1905-55), possible worlds (1963-85), widening (1990-) [Horsten/Pettigrew] |
| Full Idea: Three periods can be distinguished in philosophical logic: the syntactic stage, from Russell's definite descriptions to the 1950s, the dominance of possible world semantics from the 50s to 80s, and a current widening of the subject. | |
| From: Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R (Mathematical Methods in Philosophy [2014], 1) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] I've read elsewhere that the arrival of Tarski's account of truth in 1933, taking things beyond the syntactic, was also a landmark. |
| 18741 | Logical formalization makes concepts precise, and also shows their interrelation [Horsten/Pettigrew] |
| Full Idea: Logical formalization forces the investigator to make the central philosophical concepts precise. It can also show how some philosophical concepts and objects can be defined in terms of others. | |
| From: Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R (Mathematical Methods in Philosophy [2014], 2) | |
| A reaction: This is the main rationale of the highly formal and mathematical approach to such things. The downside is when you impose 'precision' on language that was never intended to be precise. |
| 18744 | Models are sets with functions and relations, and truth built up from the components [Horsten/Pettigrew] |
| Full Idea: A (logical) model is a set with functions and relations defined on it that specify the denotation of the non-logical vocabulary. A series of recursive clauses explicate how truth values of complex sentences are compositionally determined from the parts. | |
| From: Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R (Mathematical Methods in Philosophy [2014], 3) | |
| A reaction: See the ideas on 'Functions in logic' and 'Relations in logic' (in the alphabetical list) to expand this important idea. |
| 19677 | What is mathematically conceivable is absolutely possible [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: We must establish the thesis that what is mathematically conceivable is absolutely possible. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 5) | |
| A reaction: The truth of this thesis would permanently establish mathematics as the only possible language of science. Personally I have no idea how you could prove or assess such a thesis. It is a lovely speculation, though. 'The structure of the possible' (p,127) |
| 19659 | The absolute is the impossibility of there being a necessary existent [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: We maintain that it is absolutely necessary that every entity might not exist. ...The absolute is the absolute impossibility of a necessary being. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: This is the main thesis of his book. The usual candidates for necessary existence are God, and mathematical objects. I am inclined to agree with Meillassoux. |
| 18740 | If 'exist' doesn't express a property, we can hardly ask for its essence [Horsten/Pettigrew] |
| Full Idea: If there is indeed no property of existence that is expressed by the word 'exist', then it makes no sense to ask for its essence. | |
| From: Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R (Mathematical Methods in Philosophy [2014], 2) | |
| A reaction: As far as I can tell, this was exactly Aristotle's conclusion, so he skirted round the question of 'being qua being', and focused on the nature of objects instead. Grand continental talk of 'Being' doesn't sound very interesting. |
| 22919 | A thing which makes no difference seems unlikely to exist [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: It is a powerful argument for something's non-existence that it would make absolutely no difference. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 02 'Everything') | |
| A reaction: Powerful, but not conclusive. Neutrinos don't seem to do much, so it isn't far from there to get a particle which does nothing. |
| 19662 | It is necessarily contingent that there is one thing rather than another - so something must exist [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: It is necessary that there be something rather than nothing because it is necessarily contingent that there is something rather than something else. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: The great charm of metaphysics is the array of serious answers to the question of why there is something rather than nothing. You'll need to read Meillassoux's book to understand this one. |
| 19654 | We must give up the modern criterion of existence, which is a correlation between thought and being [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: It is incumbent upon us to break with the ontological requisite of the moderns, according to which 'to be is to be a correlate'. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: He blames Kant for this pernicious idea, which has driven philosophy away from realist science, when it should be supporting and joining it. As a realist I agree, and find Meillassoux very illuminating on the subject. |
| 19660 | Possible non-being which must be realised is 'precariousness'; absolute contingency might never not-be [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: My term 'precariousness' designates a possibility of not-being which must eventually be realised. By contrast, absolute contingency designates a pure possibility; one which may never be realised. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: I thoroughly approve of this distinction, because I have often enountered the assumption that all contingency is precariousness, and I have never seen why that should be so. In Aquinas's Third Way, for example. The 6 on a die may never come up. |
| 19671 | The idea of chance relies on unalterable physical laws [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The very notion of chance is only conceivable on condition that there are unalterable physical laws. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Laws might be contingent, even though they never alter. Chance in horse racing relies on the stability of whole institution of horse racing. |
| 18745 | A Tarskian model can be seen as a possible state of affairs [Horsten/Pettigrew] |
| Full Idea: A Tarskian model can in a sense be seen as a model of a possible state of affairs. | |
| From: Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R (Mathematical Methods in Philosophy [2014], 3) | |
| A reaction: I include this remark to show how possible worlds semantics built on the arrival of model theory. |
| 18747 | The 'spheres model' was added to possible worlds, to cope with counterfactuals [Horsten/Pettigrew] |
| Full Idea: The notion of a possible worlds model was extended (resulting in the concept of a 'spheres model') in order to obtain a satisfactory logical treatment of counterfactual conditional sentences. | |
| From: Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R (Mathematical Methods in Philosophy [2014], 4) | |
| A reaction: Thus we add 'centred' worlds, and an 'actual' world, to the loose original model. It is important to remember when we discuss 'close' worlds that we are then committed to these presuppositions. |
| 18748 | Epistemic logic introduced impossible worlds [Horsten/Pettigrew] |
| Full Idea: The idea of 'impossible worlds' was introduced into epistemic logic. | |
| From: Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R (Mathematical Methods in Philosophy [2014], 4) | |
| A reaction: Nathan Salmon seems interested in their role in metaphysics (presumably in relation to Meinongian impossible objects, like circular squares, which must necessarily be circular). |
| 18746 | Possible worlds models contain sets of possible worlds; this is a large metaphysical commitment [Horsten/Pettigrew] |
| Full Idea: Each possible worlds model contains a set of possible worlds. For this reason, possible worlds semantics is often charged with smuggling in heavy metaphysical commitments. | |
| From: Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R (Mathematical Methods in Philosophy [2014], 3) | |
| A reaction: To a beginner it looks very odd that you should try to explain possibility by constructing a model of it in terms of 'possible' worlds. |
| 18750 | Using possible worlds for knowledge and morality may be a step too far [Horsten/Pettigrew] |
| Full Idea: When the possible worlds semantics were further extended to model notions of knowledge and of moral obligation, the application was beginning to look distinctly forced and artificial. | |
| From: Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R (Mathematical Methods in Philosophy [2014], 5) | |
| A reaction: They accept lots of successes in modelling necessity and time. |
| 19651 | Unlike speculative idealism, transcendental idealism assumes the mind is embodied [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: What distinguishes transcendental idealism from speculative idealism is the fact that the former does not posit the existence of the transcendental subject apart from its bodily individuation. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: These modern French philosophers explain things so much more clearly than the English! The 'speculative' version is seen in Berkeley. On p.17 he says transcendental idealism is 'civilised', and speculative idealism is 'uncouth'. |
| 19647 | The aspects of objects that can be mathematical allow it to have objective properties [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: All aspects of the object that can give rise to a mathematical thought rather than to a perception or a sensation can be meaningfully turned into the properties of the thing not only as it is with me, but also as it is without me. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: This is Meillassoux's spin on the primary/secondary distinction, which he places at the heart of the scientific revolution. Cartesian dualism offers a separate space for the secondary qualities. He is appalled when philosophers reject the distinction. |
| 19652 | How can we mathematically describe a world that lacks humans? [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: How is mathematical discourse able to describe a reality where humanity is absent? | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: He is referring to the prehistoric world. He takes this to be a key question about the laws of nature. We extrapolate mathematically from the experienced world, relying on the stability of the laws. Must they be necessary to be stable? No, it seems. |
| 19668 | Hume's question is whether experimental science will still be valid tomorrow [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Hume's question can be formulated as follows: can we demonstrate that the experimental science which is possible today will still be possible tomorrow? | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Could there be deep universal changes going on in nature which science could never, even in principle, detect? |
| 22926 | In addition to causal explanations, they can also be inferential, or definitional, or purposive [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: Not all explanations are causal. We can explain some things by showing what follows logically from what, or what is required by the definition of a term, or in terms of purpose. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 05 'Limits') | |
| A reaction: Would these fully qualify as 'explanations'? You don't explain the sea by saying that 'wet' is part of its definition. |
| 19650 | The transcendental subject is not an entity, but a set of conditions making science possible [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The transcendental subject simply cannot be said to exist; which is to say that the subject is not an entity, but rather a set of conditions rendering objective scientific knowledge of entities possible. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux treats this as part of the Kantian Disaster, which made an accurate account of the scientific revolution impossible for philosophers. Kant's ego seems to have primarily an epistemological role. |
| 22932 | We don't just describe a time as 'now' from a private viewpoint, but as a fact about the world [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: In describing a time as 'now' one is not merely describing the world from one's own point of view, but describing the world as it is. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'Mystery') | |
| A reaction: If we accept this view (which implies absolute time, and the A-series view), then 'now' is not an indexical, in the way that 'I' and 'here' are indexicals. |
| 22927 | The logical properties of causation are asymmetry, transitivity and irreflexivity [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: The usual logical properties of the causal relation are asymmetry (one-way), transitivity and irreflexivity (no self-causing). | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 05 'Great') | |
| A reaction: If two balls rebound off each other, that is only asymmetric if we split the action into two parts, which may be a fiction. Does a bomb cause its own destruction? |
| 19667 | If the laws of nature are contingent, shouldn't we already have noticed it? [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The standard objection is that if the laws of nature were actually contingent, we would already have noticed it. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux offers a sustained argument that the laws of nature are necessarily contingent. In Idea 19660 he distinguishes contingencies that must change from those that merely could change. |
| 19670 | Why are contingent laws of nature stable? [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: We must ask how we are to explain the manifest stability of physical laws, given that we take these to be contingent? | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Meissalloux offers a very deep and subtle answer to this question... It is based on the possibilities of chaos being an uncountable infinity... It is a very nice question, which physicists might be able to answer, without help from philosophy. |
| 22922 | We can identify unoccupied points in space, so they must exist [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: If the midpoint on a line between the chair and the window is five feet from the end of the bookcase. This can be true, but if no object occupies that midpoint, then unoccupied points exist | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 03 'Lessons') | |
| A reaction: We can also locate perfect circles (running through fairy rings, or the rings of Saturn), so they must also exist. But then we can also locate the Loch Ness monster. Hm. |
| 22924 | If spatial points exist, then they must be stationary, by definition [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: If there are such things as points in space, independently of any other object, then these points are by definition stationary (since to be stationary is to stay in the same place, and a point is a place). | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 03 'Search') | |
| A reaction: So what happens if the whole universe moves ten metres to the left? Is the universe defined by the objects in it (which vary), or by the space that contains them? Why can't a location move, even if that is by definition undetectable? |
| 22923 | Absolute space explains actual and potential positions, and geometrical truths [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: Absolutists say space plays a number of roles. It is what we refer to when we talk of positions. It makes other things possible (by moving into unoccupied positions). And it explains geometrical truths. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 03 'Redundancy') | |
| A reaction: I am persuaded by these, and am happy to treat space (and time) as a primitive of metaphysics. |
| 22928 | For relationists moving an object beyond the edge of space creates new space [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: For the relationist, if Archytas goes to the edge of space and extends his arm, he is creating a new spatial relation between objects, and thus extending space, which is, after all, just the collection of thos relations. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 05 'beyond') | |
| A reaction: The obvious point is what are you moving your arm into? And how can some movements be in space, while others create new space? It's a bad theory. |
| 22931 | We distinguish time from space, because it passes, and it has a unique present moment [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: The most characteristic features of time, which distinguish it from space, are the fact that time passes, and the fact that the present is in some sense unique | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'Mystery') | |
| A reaction: The B-series view tries to avoid passing time and present moments. I suspect that modern proponents of the B-series mainly want to unifying their view of time with Einstein's, to give us a scientific space-time. |
| 22917 | Since nothing occurs in a temporal vacuum, there is no way to measure its length [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: Since, by definition, nothing happens in a temporal vacuum, there is no possible means of determining its length. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 02 'without change') | |
| A reaction: This is offered a part of a dubious proof that a temporal vacuum is impossible. I like Shoemaker's three worlds thought experiment, which tests this idea to the limit. |
| 22921 | Temporal vacuums would be unexperienced, unmeasured, and unending [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: Three arguments that a temporal vacuum is impossible: we can't experience it, we can't measure it, and it would have no reason to ever terminate. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 03 'Lessons') | |
| A reaction: [summarised] The first two reasons are unimpressive. The interiors of black holes are off limits for us. The arrival of time into a timeless situation may actually have occurred, but be beyond our understanding. |
| 22934 | Time can't speed up or slow down, so it doesn't seem to be a 'process' [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: Processes can speed up or slow down, but surely the passage of time is not something that can speed up or slow down? | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'Mystery') | |
| A reaction: If something is a process we can ask 'process of what?', but the only answer seems to be that it's a process of processing. So it is that which makes processes possible (and so, as I keep saying) it is best viewed as a primitive. |
| 22938 | To say that the past causes the present needs them both to be equally real [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: The causal connection between the past and the present seems to require that the past is as real as the present. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'First') | |
| A reaction: Cause and effect need to conjoin in space, but their subsequent separation doesn't seem to be a problem. The idea that causes and their effects must be eternally compresent is an absurdity. |
| 22939 | The B-series doesn't seem to allow change [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: How can anything change in a B-universe? | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'Second') | |
| A reaction: It seems that change needs time to move on. A timeless series of varying states doesn't seem to be the same thing as change. B-seriesers must be tempted to deny change, and yet nothing seems more obvious to us than change. |
| 22940 | If the B-universe is eternal, why am I trapped in a changing moment of it? [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: What in the B-universe determines my temporal perspective? I can move around in space at will, but I have no choice over where I am in time. What time I am is something that changes, and again I have no control over that | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'Second') | |
| A reaction: The B-series always has to be asserted from the point of view of eternity (e.g. by Einstein). Yet an omniscient mind would still see each of us trapped in our transient moments, so that is part of eternal reality. |
| 22947 | An ordered series can be undirected, but time favours moving from earlier to later [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: A series can be ordered without being directed (such as the series of integers), …but the passage of time indicates a preferred direction, moving from earlier to later events, and never the other way around. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'Hidden') | |
| A reaction: I wonder what 'preferred' means here? It is not just memory versus anticipation. The saddest words in the English language are 'Too late!'. It is absurd to say that being too late is an illusion. |
| 22952 | If time's arrow is causal, how can there be non-simultaneous events that are causally unconnected? [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: An objection to the Causal analysis of time's arrow is that it is surely possible for non-simultaneous events to be causally unconnected. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'Seeds') | |
| A reaction: I suppose the events could be linked causally by intermediaries. If reality is a vast causal nexus, everything leads to everything else, in some remote way. It's still a good objections, though. |
| 22951 | If time's arrow is psychological then different minds can impose different orders on events [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: If the Psychological account of time's arrow is correct …then there is nothing to prevent different minds from imposing different orders on the world. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'The mind's') | |
| A reaction: All we need is for two people to disagree about the order of some past events. The idea that we are psychologically creating time's arrow when everyone feels they are its victims strikes me as a particularly silly theory. |
| 22948 | There are Thermodynamic, Psychological and Causal arrows of time [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: The three most significant arrows of time are the Thermodynamic (the direction from order to disorder), the Psychological (from perceptions of events to memories), and the Causal (from cause to effect). | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'Three') | |
| A reaction: It would be nice if one of these explained the other two. Le Poidevin rejects the Psychological arrow, and seems to favour the Causal. Since I favour taking time as a primitive, I'm inclined to think that the arrow is included in the deal. |
| 22949 | Presumably if time's arrow is thermodynamic then time ends when entropy is complete [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: One consequence of the Thermodynamic analysis of time's arrow is that a universe in which things are as disordered as they could be would exhibit no direction of time at all, because there would be no more significant changes in entropy. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'Three') | |
| A reaction: And presumably time would gradually fizzle out, rather than ending abruptly. If entropy then went into reverse, there would be no time interval between the end and the new beginning. Entropy can vary locally, so it has to be universal. |
| 22950 | If time is thermodynamic then entropy is necessary - but the theory says it is probable [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: The Second Law of Thermodynamics says it is overwhelmingly probable that entropy will increase. This leaves the door open for occasional isolated instances of decrease. But the thermodynamic arrow makes the increase a necessity. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'Three') | |
| A reaction: Le Poidevin sees this as a clincher against the thermodynamic explanation of the arrow. I'm now sure how the Second Law can even be stated without explicit or implicit reference to time. |
| 22953 | Time's arrow is not causal if there is no temporal gap between cause and effect [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: If there is no temporal gap between cause and effect, then the causal analysis of time's arrow is doomed. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'simultaneous') | |
| A reaction: A number of recent commentators have rejected the sharp distinction between cause and effect, seeing it as a unified process (which takes time to occur). |
| 22943 | Instantaneous motion is an intrinsic disposition to be elsewhere [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: Being in motion at a particular time can be an intrinsic property of an object, as a disposition to be elsewhere than the place it is. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 09 'in present') | |
| A reaction: This needs an ontology which includes unrealised dispositions. People trapped in boring meetings have a disposition to be elsewhere, but they are stuck. I think 'power' is a better word here than 'disposition'. The disposition isn't just for 'elsewhere'. |
| 22945 | The dynamic view of motion says it is primitive, and not reducible to objects, properties and times [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: According to the dynamic account of motion, an object's being in motion is a primitive event, not further analysable in terms of objects, properties and times. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 09 'Zeno') | |
| A reaction: [The rival view is 'static'] Physics suggests that motion may be indefinable, but acceleration can be given a reductive account. If time and space are taken as primitive (which seems sensible to me), then making motion also primitive is a bit greedy. |
| 22937 | If the present could have diverse pasts, then past truths can't have present truthmakers [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: If any number of pasts are compatible with the present state of affairs, and it is only the present state of affairs which can make true or false statements about the past, then no statement about the past is either true or false. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'First') | |
| A reaction: He suggests an explosion which could have had innumerable different causes. The explosion could have had different origins, but not sure that the whole of present reality could. Presentists certainly have problems with truthmakers for the past. |
| 22925 | The present is the past/future boundary, so the first moment of time was not present [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: The present is the boundary between past and future, therefore if there was a first moment of time, it could not have been present - because there can be no past at the beginning of time. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 05 'Limits') | |
| A reaction: How about at the start of a race the athletes cannot be running. How about 'all moments of time have preceding moments - apart from the first moment'? |
| 22944 | The primitive parts of time are intervals, not instants [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: Intervals of time can be viewed as primitive, and not decomposable into a series of instants. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 09 'in present') | |
| A reaction: Given that instants are nothing, and intervals are something, the latter are clearly the better candidates to be the parts of time. Is there a smallest interval? |
| 22942 | If time is infinitely divisible, then the present must be infinitely short [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: Assuming time to be infinitely divisible, the present can have no duration at all, for if it did, we could divide it into parts, and some parts would be earlier than others. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 09 'in present') | |
| A reaction: I quite like Aristotle's view that things only have parts when you actually divide them. In modern physics fields don't seem to be infinitely divisible. It's a puzzle, though, innit? |
| 22946 | The multiverse is distinct time-series, as well as spaces [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: The multiverse is not just a collection of distinct spaces, it is also a collection of distinct time-series. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 11 'Objections') | |
| A reaction: This boggles the imagination even more than distinct spatial universes. |
| 22941 | How could a timeless God know what time it is? So could God be both timeless and omniscient? [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: Could a timeless being now know what the time was? If so, does this show that there must be something wrong with the idea of God as both timeless and omniscient? | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 09 'Questions') | |
| A reaction: This is a potential contradiction between the perfections of a supreme God which I had not noticed before. Leibniz tried to refute such objections, but not very successfully, I think. |
| 19653 | The ontological proof of a necessary God ensures a reality external to the mind [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Since Descartes conceives of God as existing necessarily, whether I exist to think of him or not, Descartes assures me of a possible access to an absolute reality - a Great Outdoors that is not a correlate of my thought. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: His point is that the ontological argument should be seen as part of the scientific revolution, and not an anomaly within it. Interesting. |
| 19658 | Now that the absolute is unthinkable, even atheism is just another religious belief (though nihilist) [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Once the absolute has become unthinkable, even atheism, which also targets God's inexistence in the manner of an absolute, is reduced to a mere belief, and hence to a religion, albeit of the nihilist kind. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: An interesting claim. Rather hard to agree or disagree, though the idea that atheism must qualify as a religion seems odd. If it is unqualified it does have the grand quality of a religion, but if it is fallibilist it just seems like an attitude. |