{"id":3169,"date":"2020-04-26T16:15:46","date_gmt":"2020-04-26T16:15:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2020\/04\/26\/once-more-on-becoming-past-and-becoming-nothing\/"},"modified":"2020-04-26T16:15:46","modified_gmt":"2020-04-26T16:15:46","slug":"once-more-on-becoming-past-and-becoming-nothing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2020\/04\/26\/once-more-on-becoming-past-and-becoming-nothing\/","title":{"rendered":"Once More on Becoming Past and Becoming Nothing"},"content":{"rendered":"

I maintain that in the following conditional, the consequent (2) does not follow from the antecedent (1).<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

(*) If (1) X ceases to be temporally present by becoming wholly past, then (2) X ceases to exist.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Londoner replies<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

You claim that the truth of the antecedent (1) is consistent with the falsity of the consequent (2), i.e. consistent with X not<\/em> having ceased to exist. But that claim implies that both \u201cX still exists\u201d and \u201cX has ceased to exist\u201d could be false.<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t follow.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Consider a spatial analog. I am in a meeting with some people. I then leave the room.  In so doing I cease to be spatially present to those people and the space they occupy.  But no one will conclude that I have ceased to exist by leaving the room.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why not?  Well, where<\/em> a thing is has no bearing on whether<\/em> it is.  If you can grasp that, then it ought to be at least conceivable that when<\/em> a thing is has no bearing on whether<\/em> it is.  And if that is conceivable, then you ought to be able to grasp that (2) does not follow from (1).  An item can become wholly past without prejudice to its existence.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now obviously 'existence' here refers to tense-free existence. That the Londoner is not grasping this is shown by his use of 'still exists.'  The claim is not the logically contradictory one that an item that has become wholly past still exists. For if a thing still exists, then it exists (present tense).  The claim is that it is conceivable that what has become wholly past has not been annihilated: it has not become nothing.  For (2) to follow from (1), presentism would have to be brought in as an auxiliary premise. But on presentism, that which has become wholly past has become nothing at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

Does when a thing is determine whether it is?  This is not obvious.  For it could be — it is epistemically possible — that when<\/em> a thing is has no bearing on whether<\/em> it is. Two views. On one view, temporal location determines whether or not a thing is or exists.  Presentism is one type of this view.  On presentism, all and only that which is located in or at the temporal present exists.  This implies that items not so located — those that are wholly past or wholly future — do not exist.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the second view, temporal location does not determine whether or not a thing is or exists.  'Eternalism' as it is known in the trade — the term is a bit of misnomer but let that pass — is a type of this view.  On eternalism, past, present, and future times and the items at those times (e.g. events) all exist equally, i.e., in the same sense of 'exists.' <\/span><\/p>\n

Now it should be perfectly obvious that this sense must be tense-neutral, or tense-free, or tenseless.  And I have no desire to paper over the considerable problems that arise when we try to specify exactly what this tense-neutral use of 'exists' comes to. But that is not our present topic.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Presentism<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I maintain that in the following conditional, the consequent (2) does not follow from the antecedent (1). (*) If (1) X ceases to be temporally present by becoming wholly past, then (2) X ceases to exist. The Londoner replies You claim that the truth of the antecedent (1) is consistent with the falsity of the … Continue reading “Once More on Becoming Past and Becoming Nothing”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[218,204],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nothingness","category-time-and-change"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3169\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}