A = TWA 800 was shot down B = TWA 800 was bombed by terrorists C = TWA 800 suffered from mechanical failure P1: A or B or C P2: not B P3: not C C: the...
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No, I subscribe to Peirce's theory of time as truly continuous. It is somewhat similar in holding that the present is an indefinite lapse, such that "...
Again, this is an assumption, which I reject. This is simply the basis of our arbitrary unit for measuring the passage of time. Again, this is an assu...
That is the mathematical continuum, not true continuity. I deny that the real numbers are truly continuous. A truly continuous line is not composed of...
Right, but it is faulty because continuous motion does not require a series of discrete steps, going only halfway to the destination with each step. L...
Again, the order is not the issue, it is the direction that is lacking; and this "visualization" wrongly treats events as discrete individuals. Again,...
Why would anyone be restricted to traversing only half the distance to the wall with each step? If the first step goes halfway, and the second step go...
This is McTaggart's C series, which by itself is inadequate as a definition of time, because it lacks direction. The A series is also required to get ...
Time and space are continuous in themselves, so any units assigned to them are completely arbitrary, and you cannot measure a worldline except along t...
For spatial coordinates, the "unit" along each axis is an arbitrary interval of space and applies in any direction whatsoever, which is why it can als...
Actually, McTaggart's landmark 1908 paper did not say anything about the A/B/C theories, only the A/B/C series: The A series is "the series of positio...
We evidently have different definitions of "brute fact." For what it might be worth, Wikipedia states, "In contemporary philosophy, a brute fact is a ...
I did not state or imply otherwise. Methodological naturalism can only go so far, which is one reason why it is a mistake to convert it to metaphysica...
On the contrary, a brute fact is something that is deemed to be inexplicable in principle, thus closing off further inquiry as allegedly pointless. On...
Scientific inquiry employs methodological naturalism, but it is a mistake to convert this to metaphysical naturalism. On the contrary, divine creation...
The spirit of scientific inquiry should preclude us from ever simply accepting something as a brute fact. Like anything else that we observe in the un...
Thanks for the links, I will take a look when I get a chance. The motivation is simply to challenge the widespread and usually uncritical assumption t...
I actually got the idea from Charles Sanders Peirce, who was advocating it more than a hundred years ago. Again, what is being considered as evidence ...
Not only that, but scientists generally assume that the laws of nature as we observe them operating today have always operated that way; or at least, ...
That is beside the point. Time has mathematical, phenomenological, logical, and metaphysical aspects. It does not belong exclusively (or even primaril...
Of course he is, because time is a metaphysical concept. Defining it as "the iteration of events" is no less philosophical. Besides, this is "The Phil...
How could there be change without time? What does it even mean to talk about anything happening "before" there was time? It does not beg those questio...
I already did, but apparently I am misunderstanding what you mean by "use Time" in this context. Also, you still have not answered one of my questions...
Once again, you are putting words in my mouth. I did not claim that we never use past/present/future to express/convey/verbalize thought, I said that ...
You would need to read the entire thread, not just the OP. The thread title is "The Reality of Time," and the OP directly rebuts McTaggart's claim tha...
Please notice: I did not say that time is only present, I said that all thinking takes place in the present. Those are two completely different statem...
And yet what followed was the same incoherent mess that you keep repeating. If I could not make heads or tails of it the first three times, what makes...
Only because I have been unable to discern your argument. Bare assertion. How is time paradoxical and/or contradictory viz conscious existence? What t...
Rather than repeating a blizzard of words, please summarize in one sentence what you find paradoxical or contradictory about time as I have outlined i...
No, why do you keep saying that? Please specify the alleged paradox or contradiction. Nonsense, all thinking (cognition) takes place in the present. W...
Time is not something actual at all, because it does not act on or react with anything. In other words, time does not exist, even though it is real--i...
No, again, time is not a concrete thing and past/present/future are not abstract qualities or relations that we predicate of it. It is a real law that...
As discussed in the other thread, it is a mistake to treat time as a concrete thing composed of individual moments whose contents are individual event...
No, but that has no bearing on whether time logically could have had a beginning. Instead, the issue is whether time is entirely continuous or had at ...
I would say no--time is a real law that governs existing things, not itself an existing thing--but you have steadfastly refused to give your own defin...
No, you assumed that an infinite past would entail an actual infinity, and that this is impossible. As I mentioned upstream, an alternative is that ti...
No, again, that is incorrect. This is Modal Logic 101. The contradiction of (a) is "time did not necessarily have a beginning"--i.e., "time might not ...
No, that is not how modal logic works--the negation of "X is necessary" is "X is not necessary" rather than "not-X is necessary." Denying that time ne...
No, no, no. You are confusing two very different propositions: 1. Necessarily, time either had a beginning or did not have a beginning. 2. Time either...
Logically, yes; actually, no. Again, what dissolves the paradox is that the arrow need not move to each subsequent midpoint as a discrete step. Even t...
As I said, it is not a matter of "proof." It is not logically necessary that time had a beginning, and it is not logically necessary that time had no ...
I know, but the mistake is thinking that it is logically necessary that time has no beginning, such that it is irrational to believe otherwise. How do...
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