What has been, though it needn't have been, always will have been. What time has mothered, no future time can touch. What you were and that you were stands forever inscribed in the roster of being whether or not anyone will read the record. You will die, but your having lived will never die. But how paltry the ersatz eternity of time's progeny! Time has made you and will unmake you. In compensation, she allows your having been to rise above the reach of the flux. Thanks a lot, bitch! You are one mater dolorosa whose consolation is as petty as your penance is hard.
Ersatz Eternity
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10 responses to “Ersatz Eternity”
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Dear Dr Vallicella,
I realise that this question is unrelated to the post above, but I was unsure where else to post it. I have been following your blog for some time now, and I am very interested by many of the issues that have been raised. However, for some reason I am unable to access the older posts in your previous blog (at PowerBlogs), which are sometimes referred to. Perhaps this could be due to a regional access problem, as I am based in Europe? If so, is there some other way I could access this?
Regards,
Bill -
Hi Bill,
You here express the tense-logical idea that p–>FPp, that if something is the case, then it will thereafter always be the case that it has been the case. In Latin, “facta infecta fieri non possunt.”
Believe it not, this has been denied, by the famous Polish logician Lukasiewicz, none the less. He seems to have accepted a version of presentism according to which (1) all (contingent) truths depend for their truth on what presently exists, and (2) what presently exists need not include anything that suffices to pick out a unique prior sequence of events as “the” actual past. Accordingly, truths about the past may cease to be true as the passage of time obliterates the traces of past events. Lukasiewicz apparently found this a comforting thought:
“There are hard moments of suffering and still harder ones of guilt in everyone’s life. We should be glad to be able to erase them not only from our memory but also from existence. We may believe that
when all the effects of those fateful moments are exhausted, even
should that happen only after our death, then their causes too will be effaced from the world of actuality and pass into the realm of
possibility. Time calms our cares and brings us forgiveness.” (Jan Lukasiewicz, “On Determinism” in idem Selected Works, ed. L. Borkowski, North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1970, p.128.) -
Alan,
The ComBox was supposed to be closed for this post due to its ‘literary’ nature, but I’m glad I inadvertently left it open — your comment is very interesting.
That is an amazing passage from Lukasiewicz both because of the tense-logical principle and because of the consolation he derives from it.
I myself find it very hard to believe that there wasn’t an actual unique past. I find it impossible to believe that, with the passage of enough time, past events will somehow go from being actual to being merely possible.
Don’t you have an argument for the existence of God from the fact that the there is an actual unique and presently unalterable past (together with the thesis of presentism)? -
Bill Hill,
Powerblogs is no more, but see here: http://lists.powerblogs.com/pipermail/maverickphilosopher/
There is also Google cache and the Way Back Machine. Some old posts have been imported into the new blog and others will be.
Thank you for your interest and best wishes. -
Alan,
Following up just a bit, to me it seems obvious, a plain datum, that there is an importance difference between a past event such as Kierkegaard’s engagement to Regine Olsen, and a merely possible (past) event such as his marriage to her. Now that datum tells against presentism — unless you bring God into the picture. -
Thankyou very much.
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Dear Bill,
Yes, in my paper “Presentism, Truthmakers, and God” (Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 2009). I argue that the best way for presentists to supply truthmakers for truths about the past is to appeal to divine memories.
I accept the datanic nature of your distinction between the actual and the merely possible past. I’m not clear, however, on why that distinction by itself should count against presentism. Unlike Lukasiewicz, most presentists do posit present grounds for that distinction. The live question is what sort of present facts, if any, could serve the presentist’s purposes. That’s where my argument for theistic presentism gets its purchase. -
Alan,
If only that which exists now, exists, then that which existed does not exist. If to exist = to be actual, then that which existed is not actual. Since what existed is presumably not impossible, that which existed is now merely possible. It therefore looks as if one can get very quickly from the distinction I pointed out to a rejection of presentism.
But I expect presentists would fight shy of this and seek out present facts to ground the distinction in question. I take it that what you argue is that only present facts involving divine memories are up to the job. -
Dear Bill,
First of all, I am commenting here on the ‘Mental Quiet’ thread, since I could not find a comment button or any other means of talkback on that page.
What I want to say is that there is, and I subscribe to it, a fourth possibility as to the place of practices of mental quiet on the spiritual path. This would be as an aid to an aid, having a sort of double instrumental function.
I speak of the following use. If ‘salvation’ relies on a process, speaking metaphoricaly, of unpicking the knots, or dissolving the accumulated obstructions (complexes, compulsive reactions, defenses, wrong assumptions, etc.) to the appreciation of Reality, then mental quiet, which leads to mental clarity, is an aid to this process in at least two ways: it enables the mind to see more clearly the nature of the obstructions, and it allows us more effectively to apply calm, rationally considered remedial action.
Thus mental quiet and the clarity it brings with it can be seen as an aid to an aid on the path to salvation/liberation/Reality.
Nu?
Keep up the good work.
David Stollar (UK) -
David,
Thanks for your comment. If you don’t see a way to leave a comment on a particular post, then that means that I am not soliciting comments for that post. But let me say that I completely agree with what you say above.
If you are the David Stollar who teaches at the St. James Independent School, then I commend you and your school for teaching meditation to your students. See here: http://www.stjamesschools.co.uk/seniorboys/about-us.php?page=meditation
It is strange that people see the importance of physical culture and of the training of the discursive intellect, but not that of nondiscursive mind.
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