Cessation of existence and theories of persistence

Suppose I could get into a time machine and instantly travel forward by a hundred years. Then over the next hundred (external) years I don’t exist. But this non-existence is not intrinsically a harm to me (it might be accidentally a harm if over these ten years I miss out on things). So a temporary cessation of existence is not an intrinsic harm to me. On the other hand, a permanent cessation of existence surely is an intrinsic harm to me.

These observations have interesting connections with theories of persistence and time. First, observe that whether a cessation of existence is bad for me depends on whether I will come back into existence. This fits neatly with four-dimensionalism and less neatly with three-dimensionalism. If I am a four-dimensional entity, it makes perfect sense that as such I would have an overall well-being, and that this overall well-being should depend on the overall shape and size of my four-dimensional life, including my future life. Hence it makes sense that whether I undergo a permanent or impermanent cessation of existence makes a serious difference to me.

But suppose I am three-dimensional and consider these two scenarios:

1. In 2017 I will permanently cease to exist.

2. In 2017 I will temporarily cease to exist and come back into existence in 2117.

I am surely worse off in (1). But if I am three-dimensional, then to be worse off, I need to be worse off as a three-dimensional being, at some time or other. Prior to 2117, I’m on par as a three-dimensional being in the two scenarios. So if there is to be a difference in well-being, it must have something to do with my state after 2117.

But it seems false that, say, in 2118, I am worse off in (1) than in (2). For how can I be better or worse off when I don’t exist?

The three-dimensionalist’s best move, I think, is to say that I am actually worse off prior to 2017 in scenario (1) than in scenario (2). For, prior to 2017, it is true in scenario (1) that I will permanently cease to exist while in (2) it is false that I will do so.

It can indeed happen that one is worse off at time t₁ in virtue of how things will be at a later time t₂. Perhaps the athlete who attains a world-record that won’t be beaten for ten years is worse off at the time of the record than the athlete who attains a world-record that won’t be beaten for a hundred years. Perhaps I am worse off when publishing a book that will be ignored than when publishing a book that will be taken seriously. But these are differences in external well-being, like the kind of well-being we have in virtue of our friends doing badly or well. And it is counterintuitive that permanent cessation of existence is only a harm to one’s external well-being. (The same problem afflicts Thomas Nagel’s theory that the badness of death has to do with unfinished projects.)

The problem is worst on open future views. For on open future views, prior to the cessation of existence there may be no fact of the matter of whether I will come back into existence, and hence no difference in well-being.

The problem is also particularly pressing on exdurantist views on which I am a three-dimensional stage, and future stages are numerically different from me. For then the difference, prior to 2017, between the two scenarios is a difference about what will happen to something numerically different from me.

The problem is also particularly pressing on presentist and growing block views, for it is odd to say that I am better or worse off in virtue of non-existent future events.

Of the three-dimensionalists, probably the best off is the eternalist endurantist. But even there the assimilation of the difference between (1) and (2) to external well-being is problematic.

Self-causation, persistence and presentism

Fido exists now because of various things Fido did a couple of minutes ago, such as breathe, pump blood with his heart, etc. So, it seems, Fido's existence is caused by Fido. But self-causation is absurd. So what's going on? Well, that depends on the theory of persistence.

Perdurantists and exdurantists have no problem at all. One temporal part causes another. There isn't even a whiff of absurd self-causation, either. Four-dimensionalist worm-theorists who don't believe in temporal parts can say that Fido doesn't cause his existence, but only aspects of his spatiotemporal dimensions. So on four-dimensional theories, we don't have absurdity.

But what about three-dimensionalist theories? Suppose Fido wholly exists at this time. Then it seems that all of Fido (now) is caused by Fido (five minutes ago), and that would be absurd. But that's not quite right. The eternalist or growing block three-dimensionalist can distinguish. Fido doesn't cause Fido's existing simpliciter. Fido only causes Fido's existing now. If we want more precision, we can say that Fido in virtue of existing five minutes ago causes himself to exist now. No problem, again.

That leaves the other three-dimensionalist option: presentism. And now we have a problem. According to presentism, to exist is to exist presently. Fido's present existence is (was? -- the tenses are hard to get right) caused by Fido. But that just means that Fido's existence is caused by Fido. And that's self-causation.

But perhaps we should take account of the sorts of things presentists say about the problem of transtemporal causation. Maybe it's not quite correct to say that Fido's existence is caused by Fido, but rather that Fido's existing is caused by Fido's having existed five minutes ago. Plus, talking like this makes causation a relation between states of affairs, and some will prefer that. But we still have a problem. For Fido's having existed five minutes ago is a state of affairs involving Fido. But it's absurd for Fido's existing to be caused by any state of affairs involving him, since Fido's existing is explanatorily prior to any state of affairs involving Fido.

Perhaps, though, the presentist can bring in Fido's haecceity H. Fido's existing is caused by H's having been instantiated five minutes ago. That is, I suspect, the presentist's best bet here. But there is a problem for that. For it sure seems like the state of affairs that caused Fido's present existence isn't a state of affairs of his haecceity having had something happen to it (say, being co-instantiated with respiration), but but it is the state of affairs of Fido having done certain things five minutes ago, like breathing. If it is states of affairs about haecceities that are causally relevant, then it looks like the things that are fundamentally involved in causation aren't particulars like Fido but are are abstracta like haecceities. And that's not right.

There is a direct argument here against presentism, too.

1. Fido's presently existing is caused by Fido's having existed five minutes ago.
2. If presentism is correct, Fido's presently existing is Fido's existing.
3. Fido's having existed five minutes ago is a state of affairs of which Fido is a constituent.
4. No state of affairs of which Fido is a constituent causes Fido's existing.
5. So, if presentism is correct, Fido's existing is caused by Fido's having existed five minutes ago. (1, 2).
6. So, if presentism is correct, Fido's existing is caused by a state of affairs of which Fido is a constituent. (3, 5).
7. So, presentism is not correct. (4, 6)

The importance of the future

It would be bad for me to permanently cease to exist in five minutes. But why? Suppose first a metaphysics of time on which there is no future, namely Growing Block or Presentism. On such a metaphysics there is no such thing as my future life, so how could it be bad for there to be a cessation of it?

Since the only tenable alternative to Growing Block and Presentism is Eternalism, the view that the past and future are real (oddly, there are no Futurists who think the future is real but deny the reality of the past), Eternalism is true.

Now, given Eternalism, we have a choice for three visions of our persistence through time. On one vision, Exdurantism, we are instantaneous stages that do not persist through time at all—at most we have temporal counterparts at other times. This does not fit with the intuition of my radical incompleteness should I cease to exist in five minutes. The second vision is Endurantism: I am wholly present at each time at which I exist. But then if the present moment is real, and eternally will be real, and I wholly exist at this present moment, then the intuition about the deep incompleteness I would have were my existence to permanently end in five minutes is undercut. So that can't be right either.

What remains is a family of views on which we are strung out four-dimensionally. The most common member of the family is Perdurantism: I am four-dimensional but have three-dimensional stages localized at times. A less common view is that I am four-dimensional, but not divided up into stages. Both of these views do justice to the idea that my existence is deeply incomplete, in something like the way it would be if I were missing an arm, should I cease to exist in five minutes.

As far back as I thought much about time (probably going back to age 10) I was an Eternalist. Until a couple of years ago, I was an Endurantist. Then I started being unsure whether Endurantism or a stageless four-dimensional view is right. The above argument strongly pushes me towards a four-dimensional view, and since I don't believe in stages, a stageless one.

Moreover, the above may help with a puzzle I used to have, which was how a B-Theorist should think about the badness of impending evils (especially death). How can a B-Theorist make sense of the badness of being closer and closer to something bad? But that may primarily be a problem for the Endurantist, since the Endurantist thinks we are three-dimensional beings wholly located in the here and now (as well as in the there and later, of course).

Endurantism and perdurantism

For a long time, I was a B-theoretical endurantist. As a B-theorist, I did not believe there was an objective difference between past, present and future--only a difference relative to the speech act or mental act. I still hold to this. As an endurantist, I believed that I was wholly present at every given time at which I existed. Not a part of me, a slice of me, but the whole of me.

But now I see that I don't really have a very good objection to a perdurantism that says I am a four-dimensional entity, transcending particular times. Most perdurantists believe that there are temporal parts, slices of the four-dimensional entities that we are. But there is no need to believe that. Certainly, I don't believe that we have horizontal or vertical parts. If I have parts at all, they are parts like heart, leg, brain hemisphere, not neat slices along planes such as "my left half" or "my bottom third". I have no idea what the persistence conditions for "my left half" or "my bottom third" would be. Likewise, if I have temporal parts, they're going to be cut along natural cutting hyperplanes. But in fact, I doubt there are any natural cutting hyperplanes for temporal parts, except perhaps death where the soul separates from the body.

So if I opted for perdurantism, I would not believe in temporal parts or slices. I would think of myself as a single organic entity, stretched out in time.

There is something attractive about this view. It makes us be in time but also transcend particular times, since we're not contained in any time slice.

Moreover, this view escapes the following objection against endurantism: If we're wholly present at every time at which we exist, there is not much to that "whole". It's very "thin"--it's merely three-dimensional. But insofar as we're merely three-dimensional, we don't do very much--the lesson of Zeno's paradox of the arrow is that on a (three-dimensional) time-slice the arrow doesn't move, and there perhaps isn't much to us except insofar as we're moving. I think a presentist endurantist can overcome this worry, but an eternalist endurantist will have some trouble with it. But maybe I am confusing motion with activity here--contemplation is an activity which does not involve motion. So perhaps a three-dimensional entity can have activity without having motion, and then there will be a lot to it (there still won't be a lot to the arrow, but that's OK).

On the other hand, the perdurantist view may have some trouble with transsubstantiation. (That's just a hunch.) If the trouble can't be overcome, I'll stick to endurantism.