We are issuing a call for abstracts for the Eastern Division Meeting of
the Philosophy of Time Society on December 27-30, 2008, Philadelphia,
PA- Marriott Hotel. The deadline for submission is May 15, 2008 and
notification will occur on or before May 31, 2008. Please send your
abstract to Nathan Oaklander at lno@umflint.edu
Since time is a physical quantity which can measured with fantastic accuracy, I've always taken it for granted. By chance I ran across the PTS and it has introduced me to the many paradoxes inherent in time. I have just read a book by Palle Yourgrau entitled "A World Without TIme: The Forgotten Legacy of Goedel and Einstein." Kurt Goedel was perhaps the greatest logician of the 20th century, if not of all time. Goedel and Einstein became close friends in 1942 at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies. Einstein taught Goedel general relativity. Goedel developed a cosmology based on a rotating universe which was consistent with general relativity. According to Yourgrau this consistency has never been dis-proven. In Goedel's universe time was cyclical, hence it was possible to travel into the past. Goedel concluded that the existence of time was inconsistent with general relativity. To this day, this conclusion is either disbelieved or ignored. Yourgrau states that "Rarely have so many understood so little about so much." If one has the time(?), this book is well written and is a fun read for anyone interested in mathematical logic, physics, and the characters that once inhabited these domains.
L J Swartzendruber
Check out the new on line bibliography for the philosophy of mind and consciousness studies at http://consc.net/mindpapers. There are two subsections listing lots of papers from philosophy and beyond on "temporal consciousness" and "time and consciousness."
This philosophy of mind site raises the question, perhaps we should put together our own group bibliography on time studies...
I've been reading Trenton Merricks' new book Truth and Ontology, and he spends the first few chapters beating up on Truthmaker. I now think that Truthmaker is a goner.
"Truthmaker says that for every true claim there is something or other that - just by existing - makes that claim true" (p. 1). If Truthmaker is true, then presentists who believe that propositions like D: that there were dinosaurs are true are in trouble because it seems that nothing presently exists to make (D) true. Similar things could be said for propositions about brute dispositions, modal properties, subjunctive conditionals (including counterfactuals of freedom), and so on. The principle motivation behind Truthmaker, Merricks points out, is to "catch the cheaters" - cheaters like presentists.
A big objection to Truthmaker is that negative existentials like H: that Hobbits don't exist don't need truthmakers but are true. (H) is obviously true. So Truthmaker is false.
Merricks devotes chapter 3 to dealing with ways that the Truthmaker theorist might try to account for the truths of negative existentials. Perhaps the universe has the property of being such that there are no hobbits, and this property is the truthmaker for (H). But then cheaters can make the same move. They can say that the proposition (D) is made true by the universe's having the property of being such that there were dinosaurs.
Or perhaps (H) is made true by the totality of all existing objects in the universe. But all this could exist and (H) could be false. (It's possible that all existing objects in the universe exist and Hobbits exist as well.)
Perhaps (H) is made true by the totality of all existing objects in the universe and the universe's having the property being such that there is nothing else. But then, as mentioned above, there doesn't seem to be a principled reason to disallow properties like being such that there were dinosaurs.
Merricks' response to that last objection is what did it for me. Truthmaker theorists should move on to defending other principles like "truth supervenes on being" or they should formulate new principles. But maybe my conclusion is to quick. Is there any hope for Truthmaker?
Some claim that presentism is falsified by special relativity. Does that make presentism a contingent truth? If the speed of light were infinite, would that change matters for presentism? Do eternalism or the growing block theory, if true, have the status of metaphysical truth?
The paper Adrian Bardon will be presenting at the Eastern APA PTS meeting, "Kant and the Conventionality of Simultaneity," is available at the following link: bardon_simultaneity.doc
April 25 and 26, 2008 West Virginia University will host "Time on Trial: One Hundred Years of McTaggart's Argument Against Time," a conference commemorating the anniversay of McTaggart's "The Unreality of Time." I'm pleased to announce we will have three outstanding keynote speakers: Nathan Oaklander, Quentin Smith, and Michael Tooley.
Quality submissions - 3,000 words - are also sought. They should be sent in blind review format to the email address below by November 1. The proceedings will be published in Philosophia.
Ernani Magalhaes (ernani.magalhaes@mail.wvu.edu)
So next year is the 100th anniversary of the publication of "The Unreality of Time", which first introduced the notions of "A-series" and "B-series" to the philosophical literature. Is there anything being done to celebrate this? It seems like there should be some sort of conference on McTaggart's argument, considering it is arguably the most influential article in our field.
We need a chair for the group PTS meeting at the Eastern APA. We also need a commentator for Yuri Balashov's paper on coexistence. Please! Email me: ernani.magalhaes@mail.wvu.edu
I was once a presentist, but I have become convinced that special relativity makes presentism untenable. I would be interested in hearing what others have to say on this subject.
Who thinks that ersatz B-relations provide an adequate solution to the so-called "problem of relations?"
Ernâni Magalhães is going to comment on the paper by Adrian. If anyone is interested in commenting on Yuri's paper please contact me at lno@umflint.edu. Thanks. Nathan
Papers to be presented at the Eastern APA Meeting, December 2007, Baltimore, MD:
"Kant and the Conventionality of Simultaneity"
Adrian Bardon
Wake Forest University
Abstract:
Kant’s three Analogies of Experience, in his Critique of Pure Reason, represent a highly condensed attempt to establish the metaphysical foundations of Newtonian physics. His strategy is to show that the organization of experience in terms of a world of enduring substances undergoing mutual causal interaction is a necessary condition of the temporal ordering even of one’s own subjective states, and thus of coherent experience itself. In his Third Analogy—an examination of the necessary conditions of judgments of simultaneous existence—he argues that certain conceptual presuppositions consistent with Newtonian physics are necessary to time-awareness. His argument, however, appears to be undermined by conventionalism in natural science generally, and by the conventionality of simultaneity in particular. In this paper I discuss Kant’s claims in light of contemporary relativity theory. I suggest that, while his project is obsolete in major respects, there may still be useful insights into time-awareness to be drawn from his work.
"Against Alexandrov Present and Alexandrov Coexistence"
Yuri Balashov
University of Georgia
Abstract:
On eternalism, there is a sense in which all the inhabitants of spacetime coexist with each other, simply because all such entities—dinosaurs, Nebuchadnezzar, Jacques Chirac, etc.—exist, at their respective spacetime locations. But even the eternalist must admit that there is another sense of the coexistence relation such that she bears this relation to Chirac but not to Nebuchadnezzar. This sense of coexistence is familiar and important and its application is not limited to sentient beings. The Great Wall of China coexists, in this interesting sense, with the Taj Mahal, but there was a time when it did not. Can the interesting notion of coexistence be extrapolated to Minkowski spacetime? To the extent that this is possible it requires certain adjustments in the notion. The need to make the adjustments reveals two distinct strands in the "intuitive lore" of the coexistence relation. They work together in the classical setting but come apart in the relativistic context, thus giving rise to two different sets of rules associated with the use of the interesting concept of coexistence. Which of them, if any, can claim the title? I will consider the alternatives and defend my preferences.
A complete draft of Yuri's paper can be found at:
http://yuri.myweb.uga.edu/Working/coexistence_in_minkowski_spacetime.pdf
Richard Davies of the University of Bergamo (Italy) has announced a call for abstracts for the upcoming Metaphysics of Time conference in Bergamo, scheduled for September 6-8, 2007. For details, visit the conference website at www.unibg.it/metaphysics-of-time.
I would like to start a discussion about our current arrangements for meeting at the APA. My impression is that we invariably get stuck with the worst possible time slots (like Saturday evenings), which makes for rather low attendance at our talks. Why can't we get a different time slot, or at least have the APA rotate us with other societies that now meet at more attractive times?
Craig Callender is editing the forthcoming Oxford Handbook on Time. Here is a preliminary list of contributors with preliminary chapter titles (in alphabetic order):
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