- Scott
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Re: Problems for Presentism
Mark wrote:
That’s a good point, but I’m not sure it’s fully analogous. Objects do not occupy different spatial point simultaneously, but Eternalism holds that people (and everything else) can exist simultaneously at different points in time. It’s the simultaneity I’m worried about.
Well, you can stop worrying. To what I hope is no one's surprise, no version of eternalism holds that different points in time exist at the same time.
(Not all versions even hold that persons endure or persist through time at all, i.e., that every individual person exists entirely at every moment of his existence. Eternalists who believe that persons have temporal parts, for example, would say that one bit of you exists at 10:00 this morning and another bit at 5:00 this afternoon, but that they're not one and the same bit.)
I may have more to say in a day or two in defense of John West's points if he doesn't get around to replying first. For now I'll just say (and I mean this respectfully) that your reply to me doesn't seem to indicate a very solid grasp of the issues either.
Last edited by Scott (9/21/2015 9:07 pm)
- Dennis
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Re: Problems for Presentism
That’s a good point, but I’m not sure it’s fully analogous. Objects do not occupy different spatial point simultaneously, but Eternalism holds that people (and everything else) can exist simultaneously at different points in time. It’s the simultaneity I’m worried about.
Well, you can stop worrying. To what I hope is no one's surprise, no version of eternalism holds that different points in time exist at the same time.
Well, Scott, I'll be the first to dash your hopes, if that's the case, I've clearly got a very wrong footing in this whole debate concerning the nature of time. But if this is not, then I've no idea whatsoever on what the debate is about.
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
I thought I was arguing that, not presupposing it. This hasn’t made for a productive discussion. So let’s try this another way: On any alternative view to presentism you care to defend, what is the present, and how does that differ from presentism?
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.
You like accusing me of presupposing things. It’s not a very charitable way of interpretation. I was making no assertions at all in that question, as far as I can tell. If I had, Dennis would be quite right that “This would, at least to me, be a very weird way to argue as to why Planck time is the measure of the present.” At any rate, what I meant to question was whether or not it’s a logical possibility for God to have created the present out of a certain measurement of time.
That question in itself presupposes a lot of things, wouldn't this necessarily imply, that there is something about that certain specific measurement of time? And if so, what is that?
Last edited by Dennis (9/22/2015 8:14 am)
- Scott
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Re: Problems for Presentism
Dennis: According to any version of eternalism whatsoever, there's a crucial difference between existing eternally and existing at a specific time; if there weren't, there would be no point to eternalism in the first place. An eternalist would presumably say that the events of the years 1066 and 1492 exist eternally, but none would ever say that they existed "at the same time" (or, in that sense, "simultaneously"); obviously they're "at" different times, namely 1066 and 1492. And from the point of view of the present moment, no eternalist would say those events exist now.
Last edited by Scott (9/22/2015 9:32 am)