Well this was literally the first sentence of your OP:

Following from this and other discussions at this site, I wanted to lay out my view of why Eternalism logically precludes motion. — Luke

But yeah, I don't really care about metaphysical speculation. I'm only interested in eternalism because it seems to fit with our understanding of physics.

But the problem with metaphysical speculations and qualifications should be evident from this. If 1) B-theories are defined by the absense of the passage of time, and 2) Eternalism is a B-theory, but 3) the passage of time is not a meaningfull thing to talk about in eternalism… then maybe something is off with the whole qualification sceme.

Like, instead of insisting on using the qualifications and definitions you set out in the OP, and God forbid trying to logically proof something from them about eternalism, maybe you should be asking the question if they make sense to begin with. That's what I meant with engaging with the ideas, and not merely the pre-defined labels.

Yes i'm talking about eternalism, as per titel of the thread... and what we where talking about in most of the thread. Why are you switching to talking about B-theories in general?

Time doesn't pass according to the B-theory. That's it's defining aspect. Temporal passage was the first thing I defined in the OP and the thing I have had to keep repeating to you throughout this discussion. It also marks the difference between Eternalism and the Moving Spotlight theory, which was the intended topic of this discussion. But you seem to have wanted to talk about something else. — Luke

That's not its defining aspect, it's the lack of preferred moment, or a question of what exists. Time passing as you seem to use it doesn't make sense in an eternalist view, which is why I kept asking you what you actually meant with it.

To re-iterate, it's not that temporal passage does not exists in eternalism, it's that it's not a meaningfull thing to say.

Please enlighten me as to the difference between Eternalism and the Moving Spotlight theory. — Luke

Moving spotlight (and pretty much the rest of your list) has a preferred moment. Eternalism does not.

You seem to be implying that temporal passage is possible under Eternalism? How so?. - Luke

I implied no such thing. I said there is movement. I made no reference to temporal passage, which again is a term only meaningful to views that posit a preferred moment. — noAxioms

The fact that I don't subscribe to it, is evidence that I don't understand it?

And what do you think entertaining another perspective is?

Here's a quote from the only eternalist that posted in this thread, who said much of the same things I said :

In that case, my question is: when does motion occur according to Eternalism?
Somewhere between noon and 1 obviously (in my example). Every moment of it in fact, since at no time is any object actually stationary, what with Earth spinning and accelearting and all. — noAxioms

But believe what you want, I'm done.

Baden, probably true... it just seemed like the warning was out of place in a thread where everything seemed to be allowed. Now, I don't know what you actually already moderated out it of it, or what your history is with Chester, so maybe I don't have the full picture.

A case for that can't be made, assuming the baiting posts involved were in the systematic racism topic. What am I missing? — praxis

I think the warning pushed his buttons... not that he needed a lot of pushing probably, but still it seemed out of place to me in a thread that was not moderated at all it seems.

The gesture would seem much nobler if the high principled would at least wait for someone a bit better than Chester to be banned. Shouldn't have to wait long. — praxis

It isn't about Chester, it's about the modding. He was baited. The warning for excessive use of labels was ridiculously out of place considering all the labels that had already been thrown around, including and especially by the mods. It was an obvious abuse of power. Chester knew it... and flipped. Yes that's poor impulse controle on his part and he should be banned for that... but that's not the point. The point is that it's probably not a good idea to have mods baiting people into suicide by mod.

Do you believe that future events become present and then past? That's the passage of time; the thing you seem to have trouble to comprehend. If you believe in this, then you believe in temporal passage. This is what B-theorists do not believe. It's that simple. — Luke

Like I said I don't subscribe to any metaphysical theory of time. Strictly speaking the only thing I observe is things changing/moving. All the rest is I think a matter of convention. We measure change in units of time because it's useful for our purposes.... and we talk about past, present or future because we remember things that happened earlier. That is how we choose to split up things for utility purposes, but I don't think that necessarily says anything about the nature of things... I think we just don't know.

The Eternalist needs to account for how one moves from t1 to t2 if temporal passage is not real. — Luke

I don't see how that follows, one moves via all the intervals between t1 and t2.

Look, you said that "In 4d spacetime an object exists temporally extended, "wormlike" over time, but that doesn't mean it doesn't change, or that time doesn't pass... it does, per definition". I've shown you that this is incorrect. B-theorists assert that time does not pass. You can always opt for the Moving Spotlight theory if you want to retain temporal passage. — Luke

I don't think you have shown that. You seem to think that there is something fundamentally different about an object existing over all the intervals of time (t1, t2, t3, etc) and the passage of time, I don't. Time passes just the same, that's what the intervals of time indicate. Maybe 'passing' is a confusing word to use in an eternalist perspective because there isn't a preferred moment, but that's just a semantic issue, not necessarily because of some fundamental difference in how things move from one interval of time to another.

EDIT: And to clarify my position, I don't subscribe to any metapyiscal theory of time. I think time is a usefull convention at least. Maybe it's real, maybe not, I don't know and ultimately I don't think it really matters all that much for me as a human being.

It's a different type of existence compared to all other things which exist at a time. — Luke

Yes apparently, it just isn't clear to me what that would be.

You want me to entertain a perspective which is not the topic of this discussion? — Luke

Eternalism is the topic of the discussion.

None of this implies the ontological truth of one theory or the other. In fact, it doesn't even imply that time has an ontological nature. It might just be an ordering principle in our minds. — Echarmion

Yeah, that's where I'm at basically. Time is a usefull convention, regardless of it's ontological nature.

Is that a definition? — Luke

It's figure of speech, sort of, if you plot something in a graph along an axis that indicates different moments of time, then they move in time, and change. But whatever, it's not that important.

My concern, as presented in the OP, is with temporal passage and motion. I'm not sure whether "change" is really the same thing. Your use of this term seems to be a way for you to try and have both the A-theory and the B-theory. — Luke

Motion is a subset of change. And I use change instead of time, because it's the thing we observe, unlike time itself. But if you want, what I said works just as well with motion.

I don't. I deny that "the whole temporally extended object" changes at all. However, this might depend on your definition of "change". I'm not all that interested in change unless it means the same as temporal passage or motion. — Luke

It is the same with motion. You at time x1 and you at time x2 are at different locations, so you move. It doesn't make sense to say that 'the whole temporally extended object" doesn't move as a whole. To make that claim is to apply a 3d perspective on motion to 4d spacetime.

As I keep repeating, what it adds is the difference between the A-theory and the B-theory, which is temporal passage. A-theorists think it's real; B-theorists do not. It is not "just a question of what exists" if temporal passage is something over and above everything that exists. If it's not, then there's no distinction between B-theory Eternalism and the Moving Spotlight theory, which would imply there's no distinction between the B-theory and the A-theory. — Luke

Honestly, I have no idea whatsoever what you mean with temporal passage. Earlier I asked the question if you think time was something that exists independently, and you answered this:

I do not mean by it "that time is an independent metaphysical thing acting on the universe." — Luke

Now you say temporal passage is something that exists over and above everything else?

Either way, your last sentence doesn't follow. There is still a distinction between the theories because they have a different view of what exists, regardless of temporal passage.

A direction to time assumes temporal passage, which B-theorists reject. Entropy won't help you. To provide an account of why temporal passage has a direction is to concede that temporal passage is real. The Eternalist doesn't need to account for the direction of apparent temporal passage, but for apparent temporal passage itself (i.e. for how and why apparent temporal passage is not real). — Luke

Temporal passage again eh, if only I knew what it meant... I didn't say anything about temporal passage, I said time appears to have a direction because of entropy, and I think it can explain the direction just fine.

But I give up, like noAxioms said, you seem to be incapable of entertaining another perspective, and at this point i'm just repeating myself.

Per what definition? — Luke

The 4th axis of 4d spacetime.

You've introduced this talk of "change" rather than temporal passage. What changes about a space-time worm? Obviously, it has different parts at different times, but nothing about it changes. — Luke

The parts at different times are different right? Well, that simply is change. I don't know how to put it any other way really. Change is part of the thing that exists temporally extended. You cannot expect the whole temporally extended object to change in yet another 5th dimension. Then you are trying to apply a 3d presentist logic, where the time dimension isn't included yet, to 4d spacetime…. naturally that won't work.

As the SEP article notes, it's taking tense seriously, which means "the irreducible possession by times, events, and things of genuine A properties", which simply means that future events become present and then past. Genuinely! But I'm sure you already knew that. — Luke

I get that if you think only the present exist, the future and past are ontologically different... And so yes you would take tense seriously. But that is just a question of what exist, which I agree is different in the two theories. I'm just not sure what the word "genuinely" is supposed to add to all of this.

The passage of time is an intrinsic asymmetry in the temporal structure of the world, an asymmetry that has no spatial counterpart. It is the asymmetry that grounds the distinction between sequences which run from past to future and sequences which run from future to past. Consider, for example, the sequence of events that makes up an asteroid traveling from the vicinity of Mars to the vicinity of the Earth, as opposed to the sequence that makes up an asteroid moving from the vicinity of Earth to that of Mars. These sequences might be ‘matched’, in the sense that to every event in the one there corresponds an event in the other which has the same bodies in the same spatial arrangement. The topological structure of the matched states would also be matched: if state B is between states A and C in one sequence, then the corresponding state B* would be between A* and C* in the other. Still, going from Mars to Earth is not the same as going from Earth to Mars. The difference, if you will, is how these sequences of states are oriented with respect to the passage of time. If the asteroid gets closer to Earth as time passes, then the asteroid is going in one direction, if it gets further it is going in the other direction. So the passage of time provides an innate asymmetry to temporal structure. — Tim Maudlin

This is the temporal passage that B-theorists reject. — Luke

I agree that the eternalist need to give an explanation for the apparent asymmetry of time, which unlike space, seems to move only in one direction. But, as I alluded to in an earlier post, I think they probably can with the second law of thermodynamics. Entropy only increases, and so that gives time an apparent direction, only one way.

The takeaway here is that B-theorists deny that time genuinely passes, so if you think it does, then you might not be one. — Luke

I've read the things you referred to, and my question is still the same, what do you mean with genuinely passage of time and genuine change? I can't answer the question if I don't know what it means.

Again, to me it seems that the only difference between the theories is what you consider to be real or existing. In 4d spacetime an object exists temporally extended, "wormlike" over time, but that doesn't mean it doesn't change, or that time doesn't pass... it does, per definition. And that is not merely 'apparent change', change is part of the existing temporally extended object and just as real as change is in A-theory it seems to me.

It's the B-series. But look, if you don't engage the ideas themselves, I don't think we will get anywhere.

I don't think characterization as A-series or B-series explains anything by itself. It seems to be merely about the language we use to describe things, and so not about the nature of things. From the stanford Encyclopedia :

McTaggart begins his argument by distinguishing two ways in which positions in time can be ordered. First, he says, positions in time can be ordered according to their possession of properties like being two days future, being one day future, being present, being one day past, etc. (These properties are often referred to now as “A properties.”) McTaggart calls the series of times ordered by these properties “the A series.” But he says that positions in time can also be ordered by two-place relations like two days earlier than, one day earlier than, simultaneous with, etc. (These relations are now often called “B relations.”) McTaggart calls the series of times ordered by these relations “the B series.”

And then it goes on to say this, which I agree with :

(An odd but seldom noticed consequence of McTaggart's characterization of the A series and the B series is that, on that characterization, the A series is identical to the B series. For the items that make up the B series (namely, moments of time) are the same items that make up the A series, and the order of the items in the B series is the same as the order of the items in the A series; but there is nothing more to a series than some specific items in a particular order.)

What comes next in the article, and what you seem to be getting at, is what I think doesn't follow from merely ordering in A or B-series :

In any case, McTaggart argues that the B series alone does not constitute a proper time series. I.e., McTaggart says that the A series is essential to time. His reason for this is that change (he says) is essential to time, and the B series without the A series does not involve genuine change (since B series positions are forever “fixed,” whereas A series positions are constantly changing).

Why? What is "genuine change" as opposed to change that is merely things being different at different moments in time? What is this "temporal passage" that is supposedly absent from the B-series and essential to time? I've raised the same questions earlier, but you keep just referencing back to same ill-defined notions, as if that explain anything. If you want to discuss this topic, engage with the ideas.

Okay, thanks for your responses. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an account by the Eternalists of how we experience time the way we do. Except for those who simply assume (Presentist/A-theory) temporal passage within what is supposed to be a static block universe. — Luke

The temporal passage thing is not the problem, the block is only static viewed from the outside. Within the blockuniverse time is one of the dimensions, like I said earlier. So things change and we interpret that as time passing, though we never actually see a thing like time passing.

What does need to be explained is the unequality between past and future, because in principle the laws of physics go in either direction just the same. There the low entropy of the early universe and the second law of thermodynamics can do some explaining.

It's a pressing concern to 'appear' to conform to the facts, otherwise people won't buy into it anymore. But it doesn't actually have to conform with the facts because generally people also don't care that much about truth that all the details have to be correct.

No technically the answer is, no.... if only a yes or no answer will do :-). They need to "appear" to conform to facts... not they have to conform to facts.

The question is, are some worldviews so out of step with facts that they're doomed to go out of fashion as people gather more and more information? Alternatively, is it a must that worldviews always have to conform to facts? I mean religion these days has the reputation of being out of touch with reality and to that extent undesirable but that doesn't detract from its history as the most popular worldview for over two thousand years now. Isn't this proof that worldviews needn't always be fact-based? — TheMadFool

It was easier to say the universe was created in 7 days in a time where we had no clue how the world came to be.

They need to be facts based insofar that makes them convincing enough for people to belief in, I suppose.

That's why some religious people go through all the trouble of reworking the creation story into intelligent design. That at least has some semblance of being in accordance with scientific findings.

Why are there more atheists in this day and age than in the past? What makes people give up a religious worldview, if not that it's about being grounded (in facts/truths)? — TheMadFool

Because Chistianity had Truth as one of its core values and ate its own tail... in short :-).

So, you think the scientific worldview is, to say the least, closer to the truth than other worldviews? — TheMadFool

Yes I do, but I want to say that other worldviews don't necessarily have a whole lot to do with truth. That's not their primary function, I don't think. They're usually more metaphorical than literal.

I'm only concerned with those scientific claims that are well-established - having run the gauntlet of tests and retests consisting of both experiments of verification and falsification. These are, in my humble opinion, regarded as facts as opposed to opinion.

If science was always right, then the SpaceX manned mission wouldn't be considered a test flight. Every space mission is a test of our current scientific knowledge. One common saying among scientists is that "You only get the right answer after making all possible mistakes".
— Harry Hindu

In the last statement, the quote, there's the indication that when science gets it right it does get it right and there can be no dissent unless you want to be called a lunkhead. — TheMadFool

Well yeah, if it has been tested countless of times over years, than maybe they have a point in calling dissenters lunkheads. It's like running your head into a wall over and over again, that IMHO qualifies as lunkhead behaviour.

Isn't that part of the scientific method? — Harry Hindu

Yes it is.

I think what we're getting at is that the scientific method is open-minded. It accepts that present scientific explanations might not always be the best, and that there might be a better explanation. This explains why science is the default method - because it simply accepts any testable hypothesis that has been tested numerous times and still has predictive power. Every time you use your smartphone you are testing the science that the technology is based on. — Harry Hindu

I don't disagree, but I think what OP is getting at is not so much the scientific method itself, but how it is received and use more widely in our societies.

So the only qualifier is that the hypothesis is testable by every human being. If it isn't, how can we say that what we know is useful for other human beings? — Harry Hindu

I wouldn't say every human being, because testing a theory can become very technical and expensive, but you need to be able to verify it with empirical data, yes.

This state of affairs in re the scientific worldview begs an explanation and the one that comes to mind is that scientific claims are considered incontrovertible truths, very unlike claims made by other worldviews. — TheMadFool

Yeah, no it's the opposite, some scientific theories are only considered 'the best theory we currently have' so long as there is no data to the contrary... and people are constantly and actively looking for data that might not fit those theories.

Over the years a number of theories have passed that test so many times, that people have come to consider them 'incontrovertible truths'. Which is why they currently have the authority they do. There's nothing wrong with that in itself, I'd say.

What maybe is a problem, to be charitable to your post, is that because of these succes, science has gotten an aura that might be abused and a bit overused at times. Abused for example in political discourse or pseudo-sciences, and overused maybe in cases like morality where it's isn't entirely clear that the scientific method necessarily would be a good method for it.

I think you are not wrong in your analysis, there doesn't seem to be a good solution to that dilemma.

Either you opt out entirely and ostracize the social part of yourself which makes for a poor life indeed, or you go with it and deny some of your other ideals in doing so, which will possibly lead you to burn out somewhere along the road. Going against your core values does come with a price.

What's left then is finding ways to deal with it.

Philosophy maybe can help a bit to form a better understanding of why things are the way they are, which can lead to some acceptance of the inevitable and re-evaluation of values. If your values are only attuned to a world that doesn't exist, then chances are they need some tuning.

Meditation and exercise could probably help in keeping you mentally and physically sane.

Another way of dealing with the disconnect is finding ways of to express yourself in some creative endeavor i.e. music, writing etc...

Oh yeah, and finding some people you can relate to probably goes a long way.

Yeah, let's leave that one for another thread.

What we mean is "how do things (like perspectives and knowledge) exist"? — Harry Hindu

Could you clarify that question, because I don't get it as it is formulated... How do perspectives and knowledge exist seems like an odd question to ask, because they don't, if we take existence to mean what it generally means, material or physical existence.

So there isn't a how things are when it comes to knowledge and perspectives? Then what on Earth have we been talking about all this time when saying or writing those words? — Harry Hindu

Don't know why you ask me that question. I thought my point was clear from the first post I made addressing one of yours :

What do we mean with 'how things are'?

:-) — ChatteringMonkey

A perspectivist would probably say that 'natures' and 'essences' are also incoherent notions, like 'how thing really are' is.

So then, if it's a question about natures, then that is your answer.

I asked "what about perspectives?" - meaning, is there a how things are for perspectives? If there is, then how things are isn't an incoherent notion. How things are for your perspective relative to my perspective is a real difference, unless you are actually part of me when I read your posts (solipsism). If all that exists are perspectives, then we need to redefine "perspectives", as we commonly understand today that perspectives are of other things. If you are saying that they aren't, rather that perspectives are the only real feature of the universe - the only thing that there is a "how things are", then it really isn't a perspective that we are talking about are we?

Where is your perspective relative to mine? In answering this question would you not be describing "how things are" between our two perspectives?

So, are you and Marchesk and Jamalrob parts of me when I read your(my) posts? Are we now understanding why the "you" needs to be defined in order to proceed forward on this topic? — Harry Hindu

I alluded to this in an earlier post, but I don't think this is so much about 'what exist' as it is about 'how things are'... It's a question about knowledge rather then existence. Everything is viewed from a perspective, not everything "is" a perspective. So then there is no need for an infinite regress, right?

There is no 'how things (really) are' if everything is viewed from a perspective, because the word perspective implies that we don't have a view on 'the whole thing', whatever that would mean.

I don't understand how someone could be wrong or right about anything if all there are are perspectives. — Harry Hindu

Yes, again the misunderstanding is probably due to it not being about perspectives being all there is, but about viewing things from a certain perspective.

Just to give an example where it could matter, creationists could use that to dismiss evolution as merely an appearance. The underlying reality was created by God 6K years ago. Why God made it look like evolution occurred? Mysterious ways and testing the faithful. Or Satan did it. I don't know. They will think of something. — Marchesk

Yes sure, and that is usually the point of positing an underlying reality beyond the senses. Not that they really care about the truth... but that they want a justification for holding onto their preconceived beliefs and moral views.

I understand the reasons for thinking that, but it does undermine evolution, cosmology, geology as explanations for how the world as it appears to us now came to be that way.

We can still do the science, but it becomes an appearance as well. It appears to us that we evolved, but the reality could be something else entirely. It would be like if God created the universe six thousands years ago to appear as though it was old, evolution occurred and what not. Or the simulation was programmed to make it appear that way. In that case, dinosaurs never existed. Their fossils are an appearance to us.

Scientific explanations become part of the appearance, but they don't say anything about the underlying reality. So we have no confidence that we actually evolved. It only looks like that empirically. — Marchesk

I think, and this is most probably a move you won't like, ultimately that I don't really care about the underlying reality. Truth serves a function, or at least it should in my view, to better inform us about how to live our lives.

The example I tend to give, is that generally we are not even remotely interested in knowing how much individual straws there are in a heap of straws. It's just not something that could help us in attaining any of our goals.... Likewise, what purpose other than truth for truth sake, does the positing of this underlying reality serve? If that reality would have an effect on our actions, then we would find out, and adjust our views accordingly, because it matters in that case. But an underlying reality that we can't sense, that has no effect whatsoever our action or goals, that we have no way of knowing more about and that is not even a coherent notion to begin with... what's the point?

Okay fair enough, I'm a presentist (that maybe is thinking of changing his mind) defending a theory I don't adhere to (yet), so excuse my (lingering) presentist use of words :-).

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.

With 'experience of passage' or with 'passage that is real'?

The eternalist view doesn't start from the point of view of human experience, it's derived from special relativity... and explains human experience after the fact.

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

'Special metaphysical status', or preferred moment as noAxioms put it... that is what exist, what is real. The eternalist says that every point in time is equally real.... but we are only privy to one moment and so experience it as passage of time.

Existence only. — Luke

Yeah but existence in the block-universe is defined in four dimensions, that is probably what you are not realising?

Do you consider Eternalism and the Moving Spotlight theory to be equivalent? — Luke

No, the moving spotlight theory gives a special metaphysical status to the present whereas eternalism does not, I guess, i'm not exactly an expect on that.

How can it be, when B-theorist eternalists reject the reality of temporal passage? — Luke

I don't get how you would interpret it that way, since time is literally one of the dimensions in the block-universe. What do you think that dimension signifies otherwise?

But that passage is not real, right? Eternalist's don't believe that time really passes, right? So, I want to know how motion is supposedly accounted for under Eternalism (by those who believe that Eternalism admits of motion). — Luke

But the block-universe incorporates motion, in space and time? Isn't it a given that things change in space and time in a 4-dimensional block-universe?

Yes I get that, what is the point?

If B-theorist eternalist are right, and we are beings that only experience one moment in time, then we would experience the block-universe as passage of time. I just don't see what the argument is that is presented against that?

See the OP section on The Passage of Time. — Luke

Yes it still isn't entirely clear what your mean with it, does it mean that time is an independent metaphysical thing acting on the universe, or do things just change and we measure that change in units of time for our convenience (we invented the concept basically)?

Either way, I don't see anything that couldn't fit into an eternalist view, other than the disagreement about what is real.