tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post2286978296141801349..comments2024-03-29T05:55:32.588-07:00Comments on Edward Feser: Maudlin on time and the fundamentality of physicsEdward Feserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13643921537838616224noreply@blogger.comBlogger168125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-7700639418591170372013-08-14T06:07:36.734-07:002013-08-14T06:07:36.734-07:00Isn't "time" simply a measure of mot...Isn't "time" simply a measure of motion in space, and therefore a human construct? Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-89198735547885345402013-08-07T12:20:38.124-07:002013-08-07T12:20:38.124-07:00Scott: You may be conscious of all your spatial pa...Scott: <i>You may be conscious of all your spatial parts at once, but you're not conscious of them in the same place.</i><br /><br />Well, as I noted in a previous comment, that just isn't comparable to the way I experience my temporal parts, even accounting for being spread out, so I think the analogy fails. But you say that you don't think time is that analogous to space anyway, so perhaps I misunderstand what "eternal" time <i>is</i> supposed to be for you. (Also, Tyrrell's comment about a second dimension of time sounds more like the typical criticism of eternalism (or the flip side of it?), so perhaps the difference in views is not about the part I have problems with.)<br /><br />Anyway, thanks for the link, I'll check it out and see if that helps clarify where you're coming from.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-80833176478357615672013-08-05T14:55:45.272-07:002013-08-05T14:55:45.272-07:00I see from submitting my last reply that comment m...I see from submitting my last reply that comment moderation has been enabled for this thread, meaning that it's gone on long enough that Ed has to check the posts. So I suggest that, rather than trouble him further, we table this subject and revisit it in another thread if it becomes appropriate.Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11979532520761760862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-58655592846949829282013-08-05T14:54:02.957-07:002013-08-05T14:54:02.957-07:00@Mr. Green:
"[Y]our position is that tempora...@Mr. Green:<br /><br />"[Y]our position is that temporal relations are equivalent to — or completely analogous to — spatial ones, is it not?"<br /><br />Actually it's not; I agree that temporal relations are in some way irreducibly temporal (although I'm not sure all eternalists would grant as much). What I deny is that individual moments come into being out of nowhere and then just pass out of it again; indeed I claim that this can't be the case if temporal relations are <i>real</i>. (I've presented my argument briefly in this thread; a slightly longer, but still very short, version is available <a href="http://www.scholardarity.com/?page_id=3845" rel="nofollow">here</a>.) But I don't think temporal relations are equivalent or completely analogous to spatial ones (although I think they're partly analogous in some respects); I think that there's <i>some</i> reality "out there" that answers to the names of time and change, and that strict presentism just characterizes it wrongly.<br /><br />"But how does that consciousness ever 'get' to the next moment? Either it can't get anywhere (because eternally, everything is frozen as it is in each frame), or else it's already there — in which case I would be conscious of all my temporal parts at once, just as I am conscious of all my spatial parts at once. But that is not in fact what my consciousness experiences."<br /><br />I think this is a false alternative based on an incomplete analogy. You may be conscious of all your spatial parts <i>at once</i>, but you're not conscious of them <i>in the same place</i>. You feel your left leg as being on your left side, your right leg on your right side, and so on; your spatially consciousness is in some way "spread out" <i>spatially</i>. By analogy (to whatever extent it applies), your temporal consciousness should be in some way "spread out" temporally.<br /><br />As for "becoming," I don't claim to have a final account of it either, but I think it's misleading to think of consciousness as "getting" from one moment to the next. I tend to agree with Sprigge that each such moment of consciousness has a sort of "temporal feel" (my phrase, not his) and experiences itself as somehow leading into or pointing toward the next; at least, I think that's a less misleading way to put it.Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11979532520761760862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-65475075625474573512013-08-04T22:43:15.319-07:002013-08-04T22:43:15.319-07:00Scott: My point was that the "specialness&quo...Scott: <i>My point was that the "specialness" to which Mr. Green is referring seems to be the peculiar "presentness" of a moment of experience, [...] every moment of experience feels like "now" to itself.</i><br /><br />Perhaps I confused things by talking about experiences as though of a single moment. The problem isn't that each "frame" of time feels like "now", the way each position I'm in feels like "here" when I'm in it: the problem is how do I get from one "now" to the next... spatially, I get from "here" to another "here" by <i>changing</i>, i.e. this phenomenon is only possibly in spatial terms because of time. But then to explain the same thing temporally, you would need some kind of outer-time.<br /><br />As I was trying to get at in an earlier post, it's not any particular feeling or any particular aspect of one moment <b>by itself</b>, but the fact that "now" keeps changing. If my consciousness is always consciousness of a single moment, then yes, I can experience this single moment as "now", the eternal instant of a piece of toast halfway down my throat. But how does that consciousness ever "get" to the next moment? Either it can't get anywhere (because eternally, everything is frozen as it is in each frame), or else it's already there — in which case I would be conscious of all my temporal parts at once, just as I am conscious of all my spatial parts at once. But that is not in fact what my consciousness experiences. I experience a single moment of "now" that somehow <i>becomes</i> the next single moment. So it's not difference or memory or nowness or sequence that is the problem, but how the "in-frame" experiences of those things change, how I am able to be conscious of my experiential frames singly AND multiply, at the same, er, time. (Or rather, precisely <i>not</i> at the same time, because that's the only way to make it not a contradiction!)<br /><br /><i>I agree that it can't be explained by any arrangement of eternal things that doesn't include temporal relations.</i><br /><br />But it also cannot be explained by eternal things that include temporal relations — that isn't enough. Change cannot be explained by space, even though space includes spatial relations. And your position is that temporal relations are equivalent to — or completely analogous to — spatial ones, is it not?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-2827431999749074262013-07-31T14:20:57.432-07:002013-07-31T14:20:57.432-07:00@Jack "Vaughn" Bodie:
How is it not a c...@Jack "Vaughn" Bodie:<br /><br /><i>How is it not a contradiction for the same eternal instant of time to have different time co-ordinates? One moment split into different moments? Those might be questions more for Tyrrell McAllister but your positions seem aligned.</i><br /><br />I not aware of anyone who's spoken of an "eternal instant of time" that has "different time co-ordinates". I don't know what such a thing would be. Did I write something that seemed to you to be invoking a concept answering to this description?<br /><br />It is true, at each moment of time, to say that the other moments of time exist. But they exist <i>at their own times</i>, not at the time of the utterance.<br /><br />The eternalism says that the following claim is true right now:<br /><br />(*) For every moment <i>M</i> of consciousness, there exists a time <i>t</i> such that <i>M</i> exists at <i>t</i>.<br /><br />But no one I know is making the following claim:<br /><br />(**) There exists a time <i>t</i> such that, for every moment <i>M</i> of consciousness, <i>M</i> exists at <i>t</i>.<br /><br />Claim (**) is false. To infer (**) from (*) would be to commit an illicit quantifier shift.<br /><br />(After composing this reply, I saw that you're retracting at least some of your comment to reassess the arguments. I'll post this reply anyways, in the hope that it will still help to clarify the eternalist position.)Tyrrell McAllisterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03742116091097551615noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-24713490657622034302013-07-31T14:00:56.951-07:002013-07-31T14:00:56.951-07:00@Mr. Green:
I wrote that "Your Incredibles r...@Mr. Green:<br /><br />I wrote that "Your <i>Incredibles</i> rebuttal seems to me not to apply." Sorry for mixing you up with Jack "Vaughn" Bodie.Tyrrell McAllisterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03742116091097551615noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-18563649146648393072013-07-31T13:57:22.601-07:002013-07-31T13:57:22.601-07:00@Mr. Green:
(Continuing.)
Perhaps I can put it l...@Mr. Green:<br /><br />(Continuing.)<br /><br /><i>Perhaps I can put it like this: I may be mistaken about thinking I see a green thing, but I can't be mistaken about greenness itself. There may be no green thing that is causing me to experience seeing something green (e.g. maybe it's something funny going on in my brain); but it makes no sense to say there is no such thing as greenness, because then I couldn't have the experience at all. Likewise, it might be possible that the present moment is not caused by a changing thing, but "becomingness" still must be something real for me to experience it, even mistakenly.</i><br /><br />I agree with all of this. Nor do I mean to entertain radically skeptical scenarios, such as that nothing actually is green. I believe that my arguments go through in the "everyday world" in which our perceptions are accurate perceptions of things "out there". <br /><br />However, while greenness is a real thing, and things out there really are green, our interpretation of what greenness is can be mistaken. Likewise with becoming.<br /><br /><i>Just as greenness cannot be explained by any sequence or arrangement of sounds, neither can becomingness be explained by any arrangement of eternal things. So if there is no real change, how could we even have the idea or illusion of it in the first place?</i><br /><br />Here I disagree. Eternalism explains becoming (and our perceptions of it) to my satisfaction. (Obviously eternalism doesn't entirely explain how it is possible for us to be perceiving beings, but it does as much as can be expected from a mere theory-of-time.)<br /><br />In contrast, A-theoretical accounts of becoming just seem incoherent to me. I honestly don't even know how to understand what it is that A-theorists are saying is missing from B-theoretical accounts of time. Whenever I really try to pin it down, I find myself imagining a second dimension of time, like this:<br /><br />*---------<br />-*--------<br />--*-------<br />---*------<br />----*-----<br />-----*----<br />------*---<br />-------*--<br />--------*-<br />---------*<br /><br />In this picture, the usual time dimension increases horizontally from left to right, and the "second" time dimension increases vertically from top to bottom. Each horizontal line represents the entire history of my life, and the asterisk within each horizontal line represents the "spotlight of consciousness", the special moment of time that is singled out as "the present" with respect to "that moment" in the "second dimension of time". (This is a picture of my understanding of the "moving spotlight" theory. The "growing block" theory would get a similar picture, except that the part of each horizontal line to the right of the asterisk would be missing, so that the whole diagram would be a triangle instead of a rectangle.)<br /><br />But this is <i>obviously</i> not what A-theorists mean, since the result is just a more-complicated kind of eternalism. So I am just left puzzled.Tyrrell McAllisterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03742116091097551615noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-45221466601008464452013-07-31T13:56:17.362-07:002013-07-31T13:56:17.362-07:00@Mr. Green:
Sorry, another two-parter.
Well, whe...@Mr. Green:<br /><br />Sorry, another two-parter.<br /><br /><i>Well, when I talk about "perceiving change" I don't mean standing back and looking at some perceptions and saying, "Aha, that's a perception of change!"</i><br /><br />Right. That is exactly the distinction that I was making by introducing the terminological distinction between "change" and "change-prime". When you are "perceiving change", you are doing just that, perceiving change <i>sans</i> prime. When you stand back and look at <i>a perception of</i> change, you are "perceiving change-prime".<br /><br /><i>The catch is that my consciousness is not arbitrary or symmetrical in that way.</i><br /><br />I am puzzled by this claim. Consider a moment of your consciousness at time <i>t</i>₁ and another moment of consciousness at time <i>t</i>₂. Then there is <i>at least</i> a lack of symmetry in the sense that the moment at <i>t</i>₁ does not remember the times <i>t</i> such that <i>t</i>₁ < t < <i>t</i>₂, while the moment at <i>t</i>₂ does (or at least has been causally influenced by them, even if it doesn't remember them).<br /><br />Did you mean for this asymmetry, at least, to be part of your film strip? Could not the film strip contain, in addition, all subjective qualitative experiences that each moment of consciousness is experiencing, with each of these subjective qualitative experiences appearing only within the respective frames in which they occurred? (This movie was filmed to vibrant Qualia-Scope, you see, brought to you by the inventors of Technicolor and CinemaScope.)<br /><br />Although such a film technology is far in advance of anything that we call film today, the concept of such a film is entirely consistent with the eternalist picture of time. Or does the idea of a film like this simply seem incoherent to you?<br /><br />Let me hasten to add that Reality is not <i>just</i> such a film, even under eternalism. The "frames" of Reality really cause one another (asymmetrically). In Reality, whatever is happening at <i>t</i>₁ plays some role in causing what is happening at <i>t</i>₂. But the frames in the Qualia-Scopic film would not be causing one another, any more than a picture of a rock colliding with a window causes the subsequent picture of the window after it had been broken. The film might be a completely accurate and precise <i>description of</i> reality, but a description is not the thing described. The thing described is <i>something that fits the description</i>, which the description itself is not. Analogously, the metalanguage is not the object language.<br /><br /><i>There definitely is something special about the present moment, but eternalism has no preferred frame of reference (to coin a phrase), so how can there seem to be one?</i><br /><br />As Scott said, there is something special about the present moment, <i>to the present moment of consciousness</i>. Your <i>Incredibles</i> rebuttal seems to me not to apply. If every student is "the special-ist student in the class", then, yes, no one is special. But if every student is "the special-ist student in a <i>distinct</i> class", then everyone is, in a sense, special. For example, suppose that seven students study seven subjects, with each subject studied in its own classroom, and each student is the best among the seven students at one of the seven subjects. Then each student can be "the best" <i>in a distinct class</i>.<br /><br />Analogously, you have numerous moments of consciousness that occur at equally numerous moments of time, and each moment of consciousness has a special relationship to its own moment of time. Thus each moment is special, <i>to a distinct moment of consciousness</i>.<br /><br />(To be continued.)Tyrrell McAllisterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03742116091097551615noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-66088397103585797572013-07-30T08:57:37.511-07:002013-07-30T08:57:37.511-07:00@Jack "Vaughn" Bodie:
And thanks to you...@Jack "Vaughn" Bodie:<br /><br />And thanks to you for the opportunity to clarify. If you want to scroll way up and have a peek at the first reply in this combox, you'll find a short initial statement of my own view.<br /><br />(I'm tempted to follow up with some remarks about where I disagree with Sprigge, but I'll let that pass. I will say, however, since it's relevant, that where he seems to take himself to be defending the C series, I think the view he actually develops and states is best regarded as a version of B-theory.)Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11979532520761760862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-52724865173362956622013-07-30T08:45:49.847-07:002013-07-30T08:45:49.847-07:00Hi Scott
Thanks for being so clear. It's pos...Hi Scott<br /><br />Thanks for being so clear. It's possible I'm confusing myself by conflating the "roving spotlight of present" with your "all lights on at once" meaning everywhere is "now."<br /><br />In particular you're quite right here:<br /><br /><i>And I don't think even any theistic eternalist has ever contended that God's "eternal now" is an "eternal instant of time."</i><br /><br />Rather a howler on my part. I'll re-read your to-and-fro with Mr Green with the clarifications front of mind.Jack "Vaughn" Bodiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08077819454982265896noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-67799512964582650552013-07-30T08:30:58.806-07:002013-07-30T08:30:58.806-07:00Sorry: "Brodie" should be "Bodie.&q...Sorry: "Brodie" should be "Bodie."Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11979532520761760862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-29977539509647349832013-07-30T08:26:30.796-07:002013-07-30T08:26:30.796-07:00@Jack "Vaughn" Brodie:
"Should hav...@Jack "Vaughn" Brodie:<br /><br />"Should have written: Your view that the simultaneous and instantaneous experience of discrete memories <b>and sense knowledge</b> explains 'becoming' <b>because of their content</b> is an example of what Dr. Feser talks about as a noticeable bump in the rug made by all the dirt you've swept under it."<br /><br />Thanks for the emendation, but as neither Tyrrell McAllister nor I (nor any other eternalist of whom I'm aware) has ever tried to explain "becoming" by the "simultaneous and instantaneous experience of discrete memories and sense knowledge," I still don't see any bump in our rug.<br /><br />In my own case, I've repeatedly acknowledged that temporal relations <i>are real</i>, just as spatial relations are (though I'm not at all saying they're the same thing!). I've even argued that the very reality of those relations <i>entails</i> that the reality behind what we call "time" must, contrary to some views of the nature of time (mainly some forms of presentism) involve some sort of eternal existence. My toothache of yesterday really does come <i>before</i> my pain-freeness of today, and <i>for that very reason</i> the time series must in some way exist eternally.<br /><br />In other words, I've never even argued for the <i>existence</i> of a "simultaneous and instantaneous experience of discrete memories and sense knowledge," let alone invoked it to "explain" anything.Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11979532520761760862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-43290046701755734772013-07-30T08:15:20.583-07:002013-07-30T08:15:20.583-07:00@Jack "Vaughn" Bodie:
"Pixar got t...@Jack "Vaughn" Bodie:<br /><br />"Pixar got this right in The Incredibles:<br /><br />HELEN: Everyone's special, Dash.<br />DASH: [muttering] Which is another way of saying no one is."<br /><br />My point was that the "specialness" to which Mr. Green is referring seems to be the peculiar "presentness" of a moment of experience, and that since (according to pretty much any version of eternalism) <i>every</i> "present moment" has that sort of "presentness" eternally, there's nothing further to explain. To put it roughly, <i>every</i> moment of experience feels like "now" to itself.<br /><br />So yes, in a sense that means that no particular "present moment" is "special"—the sense being "unusual." But that's not because we don't really have anything in mind by "special"; it's because we do have such a feature in mind and it really is possessed by all present moments equally. The disanalogy with the line in (the brilliant) <i>The Incredibles</i> is, I hope, clear.<br /><br />"How is it not a contradiction for the <i>same</i> eternal instant of time to have <i>different</i> time co-ordinates?"<br /><br />Why would the <i>same</i> eternal instant of time have two different time co-ordinates? I don't think any eternalist in the world has ever contended that noon yesterday is the same instant <i>of time</i> as noon today; obviously it's not. (Nor, as Tyrrell McAllister has said, does it follow from eternalism <i>per se</i> that "you" occupy some point of view outside of time and experience all your moments "at oncer," as it were. And I don't think even any <i>theistic</i> eternalist has ever contended that God's "eternal now" is an "eternal instant <i>of time</i>.")<br /><br />"By the same light, wouldn't you just be wrong to say something like, 'I don't have a toothache,' if you had had one at any time in the past?"<br /><br />I don't see why. Eternalism doesn't collapse time to a single point any more than it does space, and I think I've been tolerably clear in acknowledging that temporal relations <i>are</i> real—indeed, in arguing that their reality counts in <i>favor</i> of eternalism. Why is saying I don't have a toothache <i>now</i> even though I had one <i>yesterday</i> any more problematic than saying I don't have a car <i>here</i> even though I have one <i>at home</i>?<br /><br />"Actually, given your version of eternalism, there just isn't a last week so you'd still be wrong."<br /><br />I'm puzzled as to why. I see no reason why my (or any) version of eternalism would entail that there isn't a last week; on the contrary, the point of eternalism is pretty much that there <i>is</i> a last week, in a way that doesn't reduce to last week's existing <i>now</i>. It's presentism, not eternalism, that seems committed to denying the existence of last week.Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11979532520761760862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-61683225225542988572013-07-30T06:17:01.501-07:002013-07-30T06:17:01.501-07:00Hi again Scott
I mangled a sentence in the previo...Hi again Scott<br /><br />I mangled a sentence in the previous comment. Should have written: Your view that the simultaneous and instantaneous experience of discrete memories <b>and sense knowledge</b> explains “becoming” <b>because of their content</b> is an example of what Dr. Feser talks about as a noticeable bump in the rug made by all the dirt you’ve swept under it.<br /><br />Sorry for the mistake.Jack "Vaughn" Bodiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08077819454982265896noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-11088460911475903392013-07-30T06:03:09.229-07:002013-07-30T06:03:09.229-07:00Hi Scott
Because there's something special ab...Hi Scott<br /><br /><i>Because there's something special about </i>each<i> present moment.</i> <br /><br />Pixar got this right in <i>The Incredibles</i>:<br /><br />HELEN: Everyone’s special, Dash.<br />DASH: [muttering] Which is another way of saying no one is.<br /><br />The point is you have merely gainsaid what Mr Green said. You haven’t explained why your understanding of B-theory doesn’t commit you to playing statues with Parmenides. Sprigge doesn’t disagree with McTaggart’s conclusion about the unreality of time, only his argument. Your view that the simultaneous and instantaneous experience of discrete memories explains “becoming” is an example of what Dr. Feser talks about as a noticeable bump in the rug made by all the dirt you’ve swept under it. How is it not a contradiction for the <i>same</i> eternal instant of time to have <i>different</i> time co-ordinates? One moment split into different moments? Those might be questions more for Tyrrell McAllister but your positions seem aligned.<br /><br /><br /><i>A key point in Sprigge's argument for eternalism, in fact, is that if that very specialness were something that simply passed out of existence, I'd just be </i>wrong<i> to say things like "I had a toothache last week."</i><br /><br />By the same light, wouldn’t you just be wrong to say something like, “I don’t have a toothache,” if you had had one at any time in the past? Actually, given your version of eternalism, there just isn’t a last week so you’d still be wrong.Jack "Vaughn" Bodiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08077819454982265896noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-82314477051216226332013-07-29T12:20:38.611-07:002013-07-29T12:20:38.611-07:00@Mr. Green:
"There definitely is something s...@Mr. Green:<br /><br />"There definitely is something special about the present moment, but eternalism has no preferred frame of reference (to coin a phrase), so how can there seem to be one?"<br /><br />Because there's something special about <i>each</i> present moment. A key point in Sprigge's argument for eternalism, in fact, is that if that very specialness were something that simply passed out of existence, I'd just be <i>wrong</i> to say things like "I had a toothache last week." A toothache just isn't a toothache without that sense of "presentness," and if that presentness winked out of existence when the moment "passed," there wouldn't be anything for my statement to be true <i>about</i>.<br /><br />(And although I wasn't going to post again just to correct an obvious typo in my previous post, since I <i>am</i> posting again, let me just say: Ooooops. Of course "theroists" should be "theorists.")Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11979532520761760862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-52664842945387039172013-07-29T12:12:57.524-07:002013-07-29T12:12:57.524-07:00@Mr. Green:
"[I]t might be possible that the...@Mr. Green:<br /><br />"[I]t might be possible that the present moment is not caused by a changing thing, but 'becomingness' still must be something real for me to experience it, even mistakenly."<br /><br />And so it is. It's only our ordinary, allegedly "common sense" <i>understanding</i> of it that needs work. As I've suggested (and briefly argued), the reality of temporal relations <i>entails</i> some sort of eternalism; on the very view that "becoming" is real, it <i>can't</i> simply be that one moment passes into existence and then out of it again.<br /><br />"Just as greenness cannot be explained by any sequence or arrangement of sounds, neither can becomingness be explained by any arrangement of eternal things."<br /><br />I agree that it can't be explained by any arrangement of eternal things that doesn't include temporal relations. But then those very relations must themselves obtain eternally, and whatever they imply about the reality of change must be understood in a way that is consistent with their eternality.<br /><br />The point here—and I do wish that more eternalists were clear about it; even Sprigge doesn't go far enough for me in acknowledging it—is that B-theorists are not really saying time, change, and becoming are just <i>unreal</i>, full stop. (McTaggart did say that, but he wasn't a B-theorist, and people who <i>are</i> B-theroists have rejected his argument for the sole reality of the C series.) They're saying that what in reality answers to those terms, though real, is not what many of us ordinarily take it to be.Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11979532520761760862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-85430550359569187782013-07-28T21:59:35.315-07:002013-07-28T21:59:35.315-07:00Tyrrell McAllister: At any rate, change and change...Tyrrell McAllister: <i>At any rate, change and change-prime both seem to me to make sense within the the B-Theory, and even to be predicted by the B-Theory for beings like us, as I said in my previous comment. Would you be willing to state your case to the contrary while making the distinction between change and change-prime?</i><br /><br />Well, when I talk about "perceiving change" I don't mean standing back and looking at some perceptions and saying, "Aha, that's a perception of change!" (Or any other aspect <i>about</i> my experience of change.) It's the experience itself... not as any particular moment, or as the sum of all my experiences — those I think can be viewed perfectly coherently from an eternal perspective; it's the way one moment "turns into" the next, whether I am paying attention to it or not. It's not any particular content, and it's not "awareness of change" meaning "awareness of difference" (as in "can you spot what's changed between these two pictures?"). I am prepared to accept that the difference you mean between "change" and change-prime" can be explained on eternalism. <br /><br />What I'm trying to get at is the "bias" or lack of symmetry in the way I experience becoming. That is, on an eternalist view, my life is (sort of) like a film, laid out in a series of frames. The frames don't actually "become" anything; but they do form an ordered, progressive sequence. There's no such thing as <i>"the"</i> present — "now" is a word like "here", that can be used to refer to some particular frame as a shorthand in some context, but there's no frame that is the "real, absolute present" any more than there is a place that is the real, absolute "here". The catch is that my consciousness is not arbitrary or symmetrical in that way. There definitely is something special about the present moment, but eternalism has no preferred frame of reference (to coin a phrase), so how can there seem to be one?<br /><br />Perhaps I can put it like this: I may be mistaken about thinking I see a green thing, but I can't be mistaken about greenness itself. There may be no green thing that is causing me to experience seeing something green (e.g. maybe it's something funny going on in my brain); but it makes no sense to say there is no such thing as <i>greenness</i>, because then I couldn't have the experience at all. Likewise, it might be possible that the present moment is not caused by a changing thing, but "becomingness" still must be something real for me to experience it, even mistakenly. Just as greenness cannot be explained by any sequence or arrangement of sounds, neither can becomingness be explained by any arrangement of eternal things. So if there is no real change, how could we even have the idea or illusion of it in the first place?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-12868912830005411962013-07-26T18:08:49.229-07:002013-07-26T18:08:49.229-07:00"The continent of Australia isn't in my p..."The continent of Australia isn't in my past light cone (presumably), but I still have reasons to believe that it exists."<br /><br />Why do you say the continent of Australia isn't in your past light cone? Do you mean Australia as it is "now" (which requires some assumption about simultaneity), as opposed to all times prior to the tiny fraction of a second ago when its world-tube exited your past light cone? All the evidence you could possibly have of its existence (photos, memories of previous trips, etc.) must have come from the part of Australia's world-tube that is in your past light cone. You can of course *predict* that it continues beyond the boundary of your past light cone, but your "reasons to believe" that it exists beyond that boundary will always be just that: a prediction, not something you have direct evidence for (just like the prediction that Australia will still be there 10 years from now).JesseMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09993568347649474812noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-775711115911012072013-07-23T08:07:17.213-07:002013-07-23T08:07:17.213-07:00The continent of Australia isn't in my past li...The continent of Australia isn't in my past light cone (presumably), but I still have reasons to believe that it exists.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-16642593305117298522013-07-19T11:59:58.497-07:002013-07-19T11:59:58.497-07:00And one more brief point while I still have Intern...And one more brief point while I still have Internet access: surely there's a sense in which God's knowing something to be so actually <i>constitutes</i> its being so. If that's the case, then if God's knowledge is eternal, then so is its object.<br /><br />At any rate, if all of time is present to God "at once," as it were, as part of a divine "eternal now," then it must exist "all together" in some eternal manner or mode.Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11979532520761760862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-73362544021616016592013-07-19T11:14:57.828-07:002013-07-19T11:14:57.828-07:00@Anonymous @July 19, 2013 at 7:59 AM: This seems ...@Anonymous @July 19, 2013 at 7:59 AM: <i>This seems that it would require constant mental activity. There would need to be a constant comparison going on in my mind/brain.</i><br /><br />The perception of change is a perception of something that is always true, as I've described. But the perception of change/becoming <i>as such</i> isn't always happening. In the terminology of my last couple of comments, all things change, but not all perceptions are change-prime.<br /><br />Taking explicit note of the phenomenon of becoming/change seems to me to be the kind of thing that you might not do if you were tired or distracted. And taking note <i>that</i> you've noted change is more uncommon still.<br /><br />Similarly, you might not notice that a given ball is green, even when you look right at it, provided that you are sufficiently distracted or fatigued. And <i>noticing that</i> you noticed the greenness of the ball might require that you be even more "on the ball", as it were. You would have to be more self-conscious and reflective than you probably normally are.Tyrrell McAllisterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03742116091097551615noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-48031247023191556492013-07-19T10:31:17.376-07:002013-07-19T10:31:17.376-07:00@Mr. Green:
"God's knowledge of what hap...@Mr. Green:<br /><br />"God's knowledge of what happened (or what will happen) is perfectly solid foundation for any claims about the past (or even the future)."<br /><br />Only if there's something for God to know—something that makes that knowledge <i>true</i>. If the present moment winks into existence and then winks back out again and that's all there is to it, then God's supposed knowledge of that moment would be false at all other moments. If God's knowledge is eternal, so must its object be eternal. <br /><br />And again, in order for temporal relations like "before" and "after" to obtain at all, there must be <i>some</i> sense in which both terms of such a relation coexist. If that weren't the case, there just wouldn't be two terms to relate at any given moment. To say that A comes "before" B just <i>is</i> to acknowledge that there's some eternal sense in which both terms are "there" for that relation to obtain between them.<br /><br />That doesn't mean temporal relations are unreal; just the opposite. It means that in order for temporal relations to obtain at all, time itself must be in some manner eternal.<br /><br />@Tyrrell McAllister:<br /><br />"I'm not sure about Scott, but this at least was not the response that I made."<br /><br />I'm sure about Scott, and it wasn't the response I made either.Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11979532520761760862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-274886875059431472013-07-19T07:59:30.435-07:002013-07-19T07:59:30.435-07:00"On this view, the sensation that A-theorists..."On this view, the sensation that A-theorists call "becoming" arises from the fact that each moment M of consciousness can compare its store of memories to what M remembers was the store of memories available to previous moments of consciousness. Each moment of consciousness can observe that stores of memories coming from later times include memories that are missing from stores of memories available to earlier times. Roughly speaking each moment of consciousness can look in its own memories and see that moments of consciousness from later times remember more events than do moments of consciousness from earlier times."<br /><br />This seems that it would require constant mental activity. There would need to be a constant comparison going on in my mind/brain. Consciously, of course, I'm not constantly comparing the memory of one moment to the memory of another moment. Even if I tried, I think I would get mentally fatigued/bored/distracted real quick. Wouldn't these comparisons have to be sub-conscious?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com