Single Idea 16199

[catalogued under 9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 4. Four-Dimensionalism]

Full Idea

The mass of an object is the sum of its nonoverlapping parts. Analogy would suggest that a persisting banana has, atemporally speaking, a mass that is the sum of all the masses of the 100g temporal parts, a worryingly large figure.

Gist of Idea

If an object is the sum of all of its temporal parts, its mass is staggeringly large!

Source

Katherine Hawley (How Things Persist [2001], 2.1)

Book Reference

Hawley,Katherine: 'How Things Persist' [OUP 2004], p.38


A Reaction

This is an objection to the Perdurance view that an object is the sum of all of its temporal parts. Their duration tends towards instantaneous, so the aggregate mass tends towards infinity. She says they should deny atemporal mass.