What do you mean by 'special metaphysical status'? Is it any different to what you mean when you say "we are beings that only experience one moment in time"? When else can we experience things except in the present moment? — Luke
With 'experience of passage' or with 'passage that is real'? — ChatteringMonkey
it's derived from special relativity... and explains human experience after the fact. — ChatteringMonkey
Okay, and I am pointing out some problems with it. — Luke
That's fine, and i'm just saying I don't think they are really problems for the eternalist. — ChatteringMonkey
If B-theorist eternalist are right, and we are beings that only experience one moment in time — ChatteringMonkey
Ouch. Under eternalism, we beings are worldlines, and experience every moment along that worldline. So iff I define 'me' to be my worldline, then I am present at some event in 1995 and also 2021, and I experience those events and all others. There is none of this 'privy to one moment', which again smacks of a preferred moment.we are only privy to one moment and so experience it as passage of time. — ChatteringMonkey
I'd say 'has equal ontological status'. There's a difference to us non-realists.The eternalist says that every point in time is equally real — ChatteringMonkey
They're interpretations actually, despite all the literature referring to them as theories. No, neither interpretation can be falsified since they do not make distinct empirical predictions. All attempts to discredit one or the other proceed along logical grounds, not scientific ones.Hate to butt in, however, these are all unproven theories? — Outlander
The spotlight defines a present (preferred) moment, which makes it presentism, just like all the other variants described in the OP. Eternalism asserts the lack of a present,and doesn't seem to have so many variants.If you perhaps fancy and have the time, could you explain in layman's terms. What differentiates eternalism from the moving spotlight theory?
Under eternalism, such words are only relations, like Earth, 1927 is in the future of Earth, 1925.Both have past, present, future.
Under eternalism, we beings are worldlines, and experience every moment along that worldline. — noAxioms
The objective world simply is, it does not happen. Only to the gaze of my consciousness, crawling upward along the life line of my body, does a section of this world come to life as a fleeting image in space which continuously changes in time. — Hermann Weyl, Philosophy of Mathematics and Natural Science (1949)
I disagree that presentism entails the reality of passage — sime
presentism can be understood as the following conjunction:
(PC) (i) Only present things exist,
&
(ii) What’s present changes.
Ouch. Under eternalism, we beings are worldlines, and experience every moment along that worldline. — noAxioms
If Presentism does not entail the reality of passage (i.e. the A-Theory), then are you arguing for the position of Presentism + B-Theory, i.e. that only present objects exist and that temporal passage is not real? I have never heard of this before. This is like the converse of the Moving Spotlight theory (Eternalism + A-Theory). I can only note this is at odds with the definition of Presentism given in most places, including the SEP article on Presentism:
presentism can be understood as the following conjunction:
(PC) (i) Only present things exist,
& — Luke
The reason why I call a perspectival interpretation of the B series "presentism", is due to the fact that tenses are treated as indexicals, where an indexical can be considered to be an act of pointing to something — sime
If that's how it works, it is still a form of presentism, with the consciousness (not part of the block) acting as the spotlight and defining a present. Dualism doesn't fit well at all with eternalism under which the entire worldline of a person is conscious. It would be rather absurd to say that the 1997 portionAll that is left to account for is the motion of one's consciousness crawling upward along the worldline. — Luke
Eternalism does not suggest that every state of a person along his worldline experiences every time in the worldline. That would be empirically quite different, wouldn't it?Or alternatively we are stages which are located at a single instant and experience only that one instant of time while other counterparts experience the others. You know, cause experiencing every moment has the whole obviously wrong thing going on with us experiencing only one moment. — Mr Bee
If that's how it works, it is still a form of presentism, with the consciousness (not part of the block) acting as the spotlight and defining a present. — noAxioms
It would be rather absurd to say that the 1997 portion of me is not conscious of the events of 1997. — noAxioms
The same way my thermostat turns on the heat in the winter despite the fact that it's warm in mid-May. No need for a 'measurment' spotlight to crawl up the thermostat's worldline in order to allow it to function.How does that work if your consciousness is not crawling up a worldline? — Luke
Eternalism does not suggest that every state of a person along his worldline experiences every time in the worldline. That would be empirically quite different, wouldn't it? — noAxioms
OK, then it works the same way that my thermostat turns on the heat in the winter despite the fact that it's warm in mid-May.
I'm very sorry that you seem totally incapable of understanding an alternate point of view. I cannot help you with that. Not asking you to change your beliefs, but you have no argument for or against one side or the other of any philosophical issue if you don't have even a rudimentary understanding of both points of view. — noAxioms
Ouch. Under eternalism, we beings are worldlines, and experience every moment along that worldline. — noAxioms
Or alternatively we are stages which are located at a single instant and experience only that one instant of time while other counterparts experience the others. — Mr Bee
Does this imply that there's a stage of you, e.g. tomorrow, that is having its experience now (from our perspective here today)? Or do we need to wait until tomorrow for that stage of you to 'light up', i.e. to have its experience? — Luke
You can think of stages like counterparts of yourself who experience their own moment parallel to yours. Since there are infinite instants in your life, then there are infinite versions of "you" so to speak.The stages don't light up, nor will you become those other stages via. the passage of time, for obvious reasons. — Mr Bee
It's unclear why the stages are parallel to me. Aren't they stages of me? — Luke
Also, does this imply that each individual stage is on eternal repeat, replaying over and over again?
Is there an account of why we experience time sequentially instead?
Or alternatively that they just stay where they are. We are talking about a static view after all. — Mr Bee
For the record, I only brought up the stage view as a way to account for the limited contents in our experience. Less accounting for what we do experience, but more about what we don't. I'll leave it to the eternalists in general to address that question. — Mr Bee
A-Theory: Time passes; the passage of time is real
B-Theory: Time doesn't pass; the passage of time is not real — Luke
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