Ok, so first of all the charge of incoherence was about denying the reality of change ..it wasn't about denying the privileged present so B-theorist could actually actually take present's privilege to be an inexplicable illusion ..that would be counter intuitive but not "incoherent" ..

Maybe my point was a bit tangential, prompted by one of the examples Callum was using. But I thought you were interested in denying the validity of the act/potency distinction completely, because no change of the relevant kind can exist on B-theory eternalism; e.g. all change is only of the at/at kind.

I think it is open to B-theory eternalists to say that the 'privilege of the present' is an illusion or something that exists only in the internal world of consciousness. I'm not sure this option is available to a B-theory eternalist who is also committed to excluding any possibility of arguing for the act/potency distinction though.

 

FZM wrote:

I think it is open to B-theory eternalists to say that the 'privilege of the present' is an illusion or something that exists only in the internal world of consciousness. I'm not sure this option is available to a B-theory eternalist who is also committed to excluding any possibility of arguing for the act/potency distinction though.

I am not sure what you are trying to say here , Act/Potency distinction collapses on B-theory because nothing ever goes from only possibly existing to actually existing..everything tenselessly exists actually..like when A hand moves a stone which moves a stick ..these are just some events ordered that way ..in B-relations ...due to some relation the earlier event could be called cause ..the later even could be called effect..but this is just analysis of relation between these events..the "thing" which is my hand won't cause the stone to move ...so their is no actualization of potentials in any relevant sense A-T requires. or so it seems to me..

Just like their is no objectively privileged "here" there is no Objectively privileged "Now" ..and no Act/Potency distinction is needed here...

FZM wrote:

Also, I had a chance to look at the relevant part of Feser's book 'Scholastic Metaphysics' last night.

The way I understood it, the argument that 4-dimensionalism plus temporal parts theory can't really account for the reality of change, producing the kind of problems Callum has been describing in relation to the possibility of inference, doing science etc., depends on their being a strong analogy drawn between temporal and spatial parts.

Feser argues that if there isn't this strong analogy, there is a question about the justification for positing the existence of temporal parts.

He also presents an interesting argument that analysing the persistence of an object through time in terms of temporal parts is incoherent because the temporal parts are less metaphysically fundamental than the object itself.

well I think none of these problems is particularly seems destructive,specially for stage theorists,as I replied to Callum. 

And Finally its not really clear that why B-theorist just have to be committed to existence of temporal parts..they can also offer endurantists solution to problem of change ..without endorsing presentism.. 
 

FZM wrote:

I think what I am trying to highlight is that if this also applies to all of our mind and consciousness (all of our thoughts and states of consciousness actually exist tenselessly), there isn't space for the privileged present to even exist as an illusion.

Why? Like I said it would be counter intuitive but its not "incoherent".

FZM wrote:

Again, I think to get rid of the act/potency distinction it may be necessary to get rid of any subjectively, internally privileged now, as well as any objective one. Otherwise the distinction seems to move from the external world into the internal world of our minds/consciousness.

I notice here a recourse to a spatial analogy as well, I think this makes the idea more readily comprehensible, up to the point where time as a dimension starts to have properties that have no clear analogy with spatial ones. This seems to be the case in the inference examples Callum raised earlier, where you seemed to say that special kinds of relation might exist between Fred, or a scientist, their earlier and later states when conducting scientific experiments or making logical inferences.

Again, I don't know what sort of difficulty is supposed to be with such an analogy or those relations ....what kind of properties you have in mind ? and what problem those relations are supposed to bring here? 
just like there is no fact of the matter about why you are conciously "Here' there is none about why you are conciously at "now"

FZM wrote:

As far as I can tell though, presentism is a somewhat different issue to the act/potency distinction. The act/potency distinction comes about via arguments about a Parmendian block universe with no change and only one object, or a Heraclitan one with no identity over time and no stable objects.

well what I meant in that comment you quote is that one could be both B-theorist/Eternalist and an endurantist( i.e Endurantism is compatible with B-theory)

and Besides I think Act/Potency distinction seems to absolutely require this view of time which combines A-theory with Presentism ..reject this and you collapse Act/Potency ...
 

Last edited by Calhoun (4/08/2017 8:44 am)

Calhoun wrote:

FZM wrote:

I think what I am trying to highlight is that if this also applies to all of our mind and consciousness (all of our thoughts and states of consciousness actually exist tenselessly), there isn't space for the privileged present to even exist as an illusion.

Why? Like I said it would be counter intuitive but its not "incoherent".

FZM wrote:

Again, I think to get rid of the act/potency distinction it may be necessary to get rid of any subjectively, internally privileged now, as well as any objective one. Otherwise the distinction seems to move from the external world into the internal world of our minds/consciousness.

I notice here a recourse to a spatial analogy as well, I think this makes the idea more readily comprehensible, up to the point where time as a dimension starts to have properties that have no clear analogy with spatial ones. This seems to be the case in the inference examples Callum raised earlier, where you seemed to say that special kinds of relation might exist between Fred, or a scientist, their earlier and later states when conducting scientific experiments or making logical inferences.

Again, I don't know what sort of difficulty is supposed to be with such an analogy or those relations ....what kind of properties you have in mind ? and what problem those relations are supposed to bring here? 
just like there is no fact of the matter about why you are conciously "Here' there is none about why you are conciously at "now"

FZM wrote:

As far as I can tell though, presentism is a somewhat different issue to the act/potency distinction. The act/potency distinction comes about via arguments about a Parmendian block universe with no change and only one object, or a Heraclitan one with no identity over time and no stable objects.

well what I meant in that comment you quote is that one could be both B-theorist/Eternalist and an endurantist( i.e Endurantism is compatible with B-theory)

and Besides I think Act/Potency distinction seems to absolutely require this view of time which combines A-theory with Presentism ..reject this and you collapse Act/Potency ...
 

Calhoun, i'll hopefully get to defending Hylemorphism without needing Act/Potency later (i'm interested to see if I can do it!) But a few quick comments while i'll I can. . .

- FZM seems to be saying that it seems to be problematic to have an eternal set of unchanging, actual conscious experiences which nevertheless have an illusionary privileged present which still experiences a change from earlier experiences to later ones. There may be no obvious, explicit contradiction or incoherence but the eternalist has to shoulder that burden of proof as to how you can have both.

- Regarding the temporal/spatial parts analogy that versions of eternalism rest on to explain change and identity, there are clear absurdities with an inference regarding spatial "change". As the analogy is a strong one, it seems the temporal parts also suffer fron the same absurdities. So the burden is on the B theorist to maintain a strong analogy that doesnt suffer from the absurdities or drop the analogy altogether.  . 

-also, i should point out that Endurantist-B-theorists accept the compatibility of temporal parts being in causal relation.

More later.

I'm a big fan of starting these kinds of discussions by drawing distinctions and defining terms:

The first distinction is between A-theorists and B-theorists. A-theorists think there is an absolute, objective present; B-theorists deny that there is an objective present.

The second is between endurantism, perdurantism, and exdurantism. If a duck endures, it's wholly present both waddling at t1 and flying at t2; if it perdures, it's a spacetime worm with a waddling part at t1 and a flying part at t2; if it exdures, it's a whole object waddling at t1 connected by an “I-relation” to a counterpart whole object flying at t2.

The third is between alterational and existential change. If the duck-waddling-at-t1 is one and the same as the duck-flying-at-t2, that duck has undergone alterational change; if the duck-waddling-at-t1 goes out of existence and is replaced by a duck-flying-at-t2, there has been a case of existential change. Aristotelians sometimes call alterational change accidental change and existential change substantial change.

A fourth is between temporal becoming and the passage of time. A-theorists think that temporal becoming (existential change) is an objective feature of reality; they, however, usually don't think that the passage of time is an objective of feature of reality (see here). B-theorists don't believe in temporal becoming.

I think it helps prevent miscommunications.