Does time really exist?

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;171249 wrote:

The next question, of course, is why anyone would think that the eternalist picture, as you call it, would not be true?

Well, what's your answer? After all, you dont think it's true, as you've stated a belief that the future is not fixed.

@ughaibu,

ughaibu;171250 wrote:

Are you a baby?

I shall try again to explain. A temporal part of me is a baby; another temporal part of me is an adult, and so on. The theory is that I am physically extended through time in just the same way I am physically extended through space.

See here: temporal parts.

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;171252 wrote:

A car has wheel parts. Is it even sensible to ask whether a car is a wheel?

I see, so it wouldn't be sensible to class you as an adult, married, having a grandchild, etc.

1 Reply

@ughaibu,

ughaibu;171250 wrote:

Are you a baby?
.
.
.
.
.

---------- Post added 05-31-2010 at 11:19 PM ----------

So, it's not the case that there is some thing that exists, in which case, the statement "nothing can go from not existing to existing" seems particularly meaningless.

As G.E. Moore pointed out, the sentence, "some tigers growl" makes sense, but the sentence, "some tigers exist" does not. (What else would some tigers do but exist. The poor things have no alternative).

0 Replies

@davidm,

davidm;171254 wrote:

I shall try again to explain.

You're repeating yourself. Are you a baby, yes or no?

2 Replies

@ughaibu,

ughaibu;171257 wrote:

You're repeating yourself. Are you a baby, yes or no?

I would advise him, "Just say, no", as Hilary Clinton advised potential young druggies. But he might belie his answer, and weep. (You must think this is a court of law).

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;171261 wrote:

I would advise him, "Just say, no", as Hilary Clinton advised potential young druggies. But he might belie his answer, and weep. (You must think this is a court of law).

So, no response to posts 101 or 103.

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@ughaibu,

ughaibu;171255 wrote:

I see, so it wouldn't be sensible to class you as an adult, married, having a grandchild, etc.

Eh, are you all right? Are you sure you are all right? Not merely sensible, but true. Why wouldn't it be? I was at one time a baby, and am no longer. Which is to say that the proposition, "Kennethamy is a baby in year so-and-so, but this is no longer the year so-and-so" is true. Some sentences need analysis. That is what philosophers do, after all.

2 Replies

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;171264 wrote:

Not merely sensible, but true.

Okay, so post 100 was just you blowing air. And your response to post 101?

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@ughaibu,

ughaibu;171253 wrote:

Well, what's your answer? After all, you dont think it's true, as you've stated a belief that the future is not fixed.

I don't think that my future is fixed, since I think that some of it depends on what I do, and what I decide to do.

0 Replies

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;171264 wrote:

"Kennethamy is a baby in year so-and-so, but this is no longer the year so-and-so". . . . Some sentences need analysis.

What does "this" refer to?

---------- Post added 06-01-2010 at 12:14 AM ----------

kennethamy;171267 wrote:

I don't think that my future is fixed

Then you're not an eternalist. How about explaining "why [you] would think that the eternalist picture, as [philosophers] call it, would not be true".

2 Replies

@ughaibu,

ughaibu;171268 wrote:

What does "this" refer to?

Why this year, of course. What did you think "this" refers to? Aren't you a native English speaker? And don't you, therefore, know the conventions of English conversation? One of those conventions is that when the sentence is unspecified, "This sentence" refers to the sentence being spoken or written. You know that.

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;171270 wrote:

Why this year, of course.

This year was not the year so and so, was it? Thus your phrase "this is no longer the year so-and-so" is more gibbering.

kennethamy;171270 wrote:

"This sentence" refers to the sentence being spoken or written.

As in "this sentence is false".

1 Reply

@ughaibu,

ughaibu;171268 wrote:

What does "this" refer to?

---------- Post added 06-01-2010 at 12:14 AM ----------

Then you're not an eternalist. How about explaining "why [you] would think that the eternalist picture, as [philosophers] call it, would not be true".

Eternalism does not imply the fixity of the future. What would make you think it does? Of course, the future is what it will be, but that is only an empty truism. That is why I wondered why anyone would not be an eternalist. But to say that necessarily, the future will be what it will be, is obviously not to say that the future will necessarily be what it will be. It is only if the latter were true that the future would be fixed. But the latter is clearly false. Ergo....

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;171274 wrote:

Eternalism does not imply the fixity of the future.

Of course it does, because the future exists, completed, just as much as the past.

1 Reply

@ughaibu,

ughaibu;171272 wrote:

This year was not the year so and so, was it? Thus your phrase "this is no longer the year so-and-so" is more gibbering.As in "this sentence is false".

Yes, only, of course, the sentence, "the sentence now being uttered by me is false" makes no sense. The statement, "This is no longer the year so-and-so" is extremely false because out of context, it implies that this year is not this year. (Of course, the changed statement, this is no longer the year when Tony Blair was the first minister of the the Queen, is true). Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we fashion to speak philosohese. (Apologies to Sir Walter Scot).

1 Reply

@ughaibu,

ughaibu;171257 wrote:

You're repeating yourself. Are you a baby, yes or no?

I'm puzzled. Do you not grasp the point? Because some other of your posts suggest that you do grasp it, so are you being deliberately perverse here? And did you read the link I gave?

The question "are you a baby" is meaningless in the eternalist/temporal parts picture. It's as if I were to tell you that I have knees, and you were to ask, "Are you knees, yes or no?"

The answer is NO, I am not knees; rather, knees are a spatial part of me. They exist about midway between my feet and waist. Right?

And when you ask, "Are you a baby," the answer under eternalism is NO, I am not a baby; rather, babyhood is a temporal part of me. It exists roughly just after my temporal boundary of birth.

Do you really not grasp this analogy? You don't have to agree that it's a true picture of reality, but I find it a bit incredible that you can't grasp the analogy on offer here.

The upshot is I am neither a baby, nor a teen, nor a young adult, nor an old adult, nor on my deathbed. All those stages are parts of me, because "me" under eternalism is an object extended through time, the way at any give moment "me" is an object extended through space.

0 Replies

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;171279 wrote:

The statement, "This is no longer the year so-and-so" is extremely false because out of context, it implies that this year is not this year.

So, upon analysis, it turns out that "Kennethamy is a baby in year so-and-so, but this is no longer the year so-and-so" is nonsense. You seem to have meant something like:
1) Kennethamy is a baby in year so-and-so
2) this is not the year so-and-so
Conclusion: Kennethamy is not a baby.

---------- Post added 06-01-2010 at 12:42 AM ----------

davidm;171281 wrote:

The upshot is I am neither a baby, nor a teen, nor a young adult, nor an old adult, nor on my deathbed. All those stages are parts of me,

Okay, tell me how you die.

2 Replies

@ughaibu,

ughaibu;171276 wrote:

Of course it does, because the future exists, completed, just as much as the past.

Kennethamy is correct. Reread his two sentences with the word "necessarily" in them, and ponder the difference between them. He has correctly identified the modal status of the ontology of the future.

---------- Post added 05-31-2010 at 11:44 AM ----------

ughaibu;171282 wrote:

So, upon analysis, it turns out that "Kennethamy is a baby in year so-and-so, but this is no longer the year so-and-so" is nonsense. You seem to have meant something like:
1) Kennethamy is a baby in year so-and-so
2) this is not the year so-and-so
Conclusion: Kennethamy is not a baby.

---------- Post added 06-01-2010 at 12:42 AM ----------

Okay, tell me how you die.

Death is a temporal boundary. And so is birth. You have two temporal boundaries: birth and death.

You have spatial boundaries, don't you? In the case of space, you have more boundaries than in the case of time, because there are three dimensions of space, and only one of time.

Temporal boundaries: birth, death.

Spatial boundaries:

Horizontal: top of head, soles of feet.
Left to right: Left side of body, right side of body
Back to front: Back of body, front of body.

2 Replies

@davidm,

davidm;171284 wrote:

Kennethamy is correct. Reread his two sentences with the word "necessarily" in them, and ponder the difference between them. He has correctly identified the modal status of the ontology of the future.

No he hasn't. The status of an eternalist future is no different from that of the present or past, it is actual. That it's actuality isn't necessary makes no more difference to the future than it does to the past.

0 Replies

Does time really exist?

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