The Philosophy of Time

What are the A and B theories of time?

Time philosophy expert Jonathan Tallant, from the University of Nottingham, tries to explain.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• time
• theory
• timeline

[sh0ck3r48]

People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a non-linear non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big bowl of wibbly wobbly timey wimey... stuff. -The Doctor

[PheetusFia]

There are physicists who are also philosophers and philosophers who are also physicists. I've met several. The thing is, each discipline is so specialized generally collaboration rather than all-in-one packaging is more common. Philosophers generally DO know what physicists say and they respect that. Nonetheless, physicists can't answer all the questions when which theory is correct largely depends not on empirical result but theoretical consistency.

[fntime]

Time makes more sense if you accept a Prime Mover.

Does an insect that lives for a season experience time

like humans?

If there is a creator, who is to say, his creation wasn't

download completely. All occurances and all quantum

possibilities. Then I guess time is the organizing

factor. Placing all 'the beads' in the correct place

within the 'necklace'!

[kanojo1969]

@smarfling It seems to me that the fossil record is an obvious 'truth teller' for the statement that dinosaurs once existed. It's a lot more complex than the simplicity of 'I'm wearing a shirt', but it's clearly valid nonetheless. I am just assuming that he was trying to explain something quite baroque using a grossly simplified example. No doubt, if given enough time and a patient group of us laymen, he could explain it a lot better.

[smarfling]

Why wouldn't existing dinosaur fossils count as a defense for presentists?

[selfishreplicator]

@Bith29 (Continued from below) The evidence for the sentence in quotation marks is the knife in the victim's back and whatever else might provide evidence that a killing took place. The same applies to “Dinosaurs once existed”. The fossils provide the evidence but are not truth makers for the sentence. I hope this helps. Cheers.

[selfishreplicator]

I think you may be confusing the evidence for a proposition with the state of affairs that answers to a proposition. Imagine the police are called to a house where there is a body of a man. Upon examining the body the investigators notice a knife plunged into his back. Suppose they reason that a murder took place in the house. On the usual understanding the truth maker for "Someone killed the man at this house" is simply the event involving the person taking the life of the victim at that house

[RobertoStampini]

Great video, very instructive. I'm not sure if this has been raised before, below. However, you don't appear to offer a defintion of "the present" .

[fntime]

@Wharwulif That sounds like what happened before the Big Bang!

What if Time is the organizing component of reality.

If all time, past, present and future were download all at once,

would not it need an organizing principle or an 'organizer'?

Think of a film library with thousands of reels with images.

While in the library laying there doing nothing, within each

reel, would there be time, or must the reel be shown.

If the Prime Mover dreams of creation, is there time?

[HubTM]

@kashgarinn it does say that. it entails that your future already exists. look up minkowski spacetime.

[Wharwulif]

Time is just a way to measure distance between events.

Why things keep moving?Collisions of materials/energy/other stuff.

If you would have taken 2 objects,put them in a world with no other thing besides those 2,they will just be drawn to each other and compress overtime...Now,if you will cancel material-gravity and collision-based energy,they will just remain in the same spot doing nothing at all,since they are not affected by anything.Therefor,time itself will be irrelevant to those objects.