- Mark
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Re: Problems for Presentism
John West wrote:
Hi Mark,
The point was that it's arbitrary to select anything but the smallest possible unit of time as the part that exists on presentism. Since continuous quantities are infinitely divisible, admitting a smallest possible unit of time would entail that time is not continuous, but discrete. It wasn't an epistemological question; clearly I know that a moment isn't a day, or a week, or even a year.Also, doesn’t the objection work against B theorists and growing-block theory as well?
No, because neither the growing block nor the block are committed to only a present moment existing, and the objection turns on that fact..
I must misunderstand the objection? Everyone agrees that the present exists, and everyone agrees that the present has exactly the same qualities; where they differ is the qualities of the past and future. You're issue is that to define the present we either have to pick anarbitrary length of time or say time is discrete. Arbitrariness is bad, discreteness is unintuitive... so what follows? You seem to want to say that it shows the present is not unique in its reality. It seems though that the conclusion should rather be that the present isn't a legitimate tense.If we can't make sense of the present in the terms you've requested, then we should remove it from our langauge (is how I take the argument). If that arguement works, then that's a problem for everybody. It might seem at first glance to be a much bigger problem for the presentist because he has much more riding on the present than everyone else, but I'm actually unconvinced. If the present isn't a legitimate tense, then we would have difficulty saying what the past and future are (since they are both relative to now). That seems to cause non-presentists views to make even less sense of every human's presentist perspective.
- John West
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Re: Problems for Presentism
Hi Mark,
I must misunderstand the objection? Everyone agrees that the present exists, and everyone agrees that the present has exactly the same qualities; where they differ is the qualities of the past and future.
I hate to be pedantic about this first part, but for the presentist there are no claims about the qualities of the past and future, the past and future simply don't exist.[1]
You're issue is that to define the present we either have to pick anarbitrary length of time or say time is discrete. Arbitrariness is bad, discreteness is unintuitive... so what follows?
The goal of the argument that presentism implies a temporal atom—a now that can't be divided—is to demonstrate counterintuitiveness:
But we don't experience time as discrete—everything seems to flow smoothly—and, I think, this should be an embarrassment for a view that prides itself on upholding our common sense intuitions.
Presentism banks on its upholding our common sense intuitions. If it doesn't do that, that's a blow to the reasons for upholding presentism.[2]
I'm not sure why you think some of the other stuff. Eternalism in particular just says that time is a big, continuous quantity from the beginning of time, to its end.
[1]Daniel has privately pointed me to this excellent looking defense of the old Moving Spotlight Theory, which holds that the past and future exist, but that the present is still unique. It's usually assumed that McTaggart's argument confutes the Moving Spotlight Theory but, like Daniel, I think we may be too quick to dismiss it.
[2]Scott's argument is also interesting in this regard.
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Thread Starter- Scott
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Re: Problems for Presentism
That book Daniel suggested does look very good. From the table of contents and a quick search, though, it doesn't appear to address Sprigge's argument (or my completely-not-famous slight modification of it) about the peculiar "presentness" of subjectivity/experience. (Not that every book has to; I'm just mentioning this for the purposes of the thread.)
Last edited by Scott (9/16/2015 7:57 pm)
- Mark
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Re: Problems for Presentism
I hate to be pedantic about this first part, but for the presentist there are no claims about the qualities of the past and future, the past and future simply don't exist….
I'm not sure why you think some of the other stuff. Eternalism in particular just says that time is a big, continuous quantity from the beginning of time, to its end.
We study time in a metaphysical way and also in a way linked to our perspective. From our perspective, (which is where our intuitions tend to arise from), there is a difference between past, present, and future: namely, that we have experienced, are experiencing, and have yet to experience them each respectively. So when I said that “everyone agrees that the present has exactly the same qualities; where they differ is the qualities of the past and future” I of course didn’t mean that the Presentist holds that the past and future have different qualities metaphysically (since they’re not existent) but that they have different qualities relative to our perspective. It seems pretty uncontroversial that the quality of our experience of the past and future is different from that of the present.
You’re suggesting that there’s something difficult with defining what counts as the present metaphysically. Either we pick an arbitrary measurement of time to count as the present, or we say time is discrete (neither of which is desirable). Either way, the issue is coming up with a good metaphysical account which accords with our experiential account. The Eternalist agrees with the Presentist that we have the experience of the present, even if he denies that metaphysically the present differs in reality from the other tenses. But if that’s the case, why is Presentism in any worse position than Eternalism with regards to how it defines the present? If there’s no non-arbitrary or counter intuitive way to understand our experience of the present, why should that tell only against Presentism? You seem to think that it’s especially bad for Presentism because Presentism claims to be founded on our common sense. But I’m not sure that it’s a big issue if it’s a problem for everyone (‘what tells against all tells against none’), especially when Presentism still gives an account far more common-sensical in other areas (e.g. why don’t I experience all points of my reality simultaneously since all are equally real).
Also, I’m still not sold that any non-discrete time frame would be arbitrary. If God said “Planck time is the measure of the present” would that still be unsatisfying/arbitrary?
- Scott
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Re: Problems for Presentism
Presentism still gives an account far more common-sensical in other areas (e.g. why don’t I experience all points of my reality simultaneously since all are equally real).
I don't want to get too engaged in this discussion right now owing to various sorts of busy-ness in my offline life*, but I have to disagree with this statement. Eternalism (of any sort) has no more trouble explaining why I don't "experience all points of my reality simultaneously since all are equally real" than it has explaining why two different spatial locations don't collapse into one just because they're equally real.
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*Including starting RCIA this evening, so prayers are welcome. For the instructor. 
- Dennis
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Re: Problems for Presentism
Also, I’m still not sold that any non-discrete time frame would be arbitrary. If God said “Planck time is the measure of the present” would that still be unsatisfying/arbitrary?
This would, at least to me, be a very weird way to argue as to why Planck time is the measure of the present.
- John West
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Re: Problems for Presentism
Hi Mark,
Unfortunately, you still haven't dropped the idea that I'm talking about giving an epistemic account of our experience of the present. It's baldly presupposed in every paragraph in your reply except the last. I don't think we can make any progress until that part is corrected.[1]
Also, I’m still not sold that any non-discrete time frame would be arbitrary. If God said “Planck time is the measure of the present” would that still be unsatisfying/arbitrary?
This can be rephrased: "If God arbitrarily selects a unit of time, is that arbitrary?" But God wouldn't arbitrarily select a unit of time in the first place. So, what you've done here is presupposed that it's a non-arbitrary "moment", and smuggled it in without supporting reasons.
[1]Scott's argument in the second post of the thread is, of course, an independent argument. Though, it's worth mentioning that your first paragraph falls foul of it.
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Thread Starter- Johannes
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Re: Problems for Presentism
To me, the situation is very simple:
Presentism describes reality from the viewpoint of man.
Growing block describes the state of the human intellect, to the extent that it keeps (partial and fading) memories from the past.
Eternalism describes reality from the viewpoint of God, Who Is outside time and for Whom all time is eternally present (*).
(*) Assuming of course the conception of God of classical theism.
Last edited by Johannes (9/17/2015 3:25 pm)
- Dennis
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Re: Problems for Presentism
To me, the situation is very simple. . .
I don't mean ill will, but it isn't that simple to me. What would you say to the presentist who argues that to think of the past, as though it exists, seems to be nonsensical, for the past is by virtue of what it is, a definition of what once was, but no longer is. So the reason why a presentist such as I would say, that time travel is impossible, is because for time travel to happen, the past must exist in the present, in some way or the other, in order for it to be possible. If a tenseless theory of time is true, where the past, present and the future, share in the same sort of existence, then I don't see how I could, myself, use such an argument against time travel.
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Re: Problems for Presentism
What would you say to the presentist ...
That I fully agree with him, being myself a presentist.
Which is consistent with my previous statement that presentism is the correct description of reality from the viewpoint of man (or of any creature living in time), and with the fact that I am a man.