Saturday, July 13, 2019

Is the past changing all the time?

The past is unchangeable. But if the A-theory is true, then past events constantly objectively get older and older. That seems to be a kind of objective change. So, the A-theory is false.

10 comments:

Daniel Vecchio said...

Hi Alex,
It may be an objective change, but it sounds more like a Cambridge change than an intrinsic change. Perhaps the past is immutable only with respect to intrinsic changes.
Best,
Daniel

Alexander R Pruss said...

Maybe, but I'm not sure.

On the A-theory, the change from present to past is supposed to be a real change. But it would be a bit odd if the change from 0 minutes ago to 1 minute ago were a real change, but the change from 1 minute ago to 2 minutes ago weren't. The A-theory is supposed to take tensed temporal determinations seriously. But if we take seriously the difference between "presently" and "recently", shouldn't we take seriously the difference between "recently" and "long ago"?

Michael Gonzalez said...

Pruss: On Presentism, there is no past, so how can we say that it is changing all the time? All that is changing is what is; what was doesn't exist so as to change.

Michael Gonzalez said...

To draw out the conceptual muddle of the whole thing, I would add that saying "the past IS changing" is a meaningless statement, since "is" is in the present tense. It is, I think, impossible to speak coherently in such a way; it doesn't make sense.

I don't mean that it's merely unintuitive; I mean it is non-sense (not "nonsense" in the insulting way; but it transgresses the bounds of "sense"; it has no meaning).

Daniel Vecchio said...

Hi Alex,

I would put it this way, the real intrinsic change would be in the actualization of future potentials in the present. The past doesn't really change, but changes relative to the present as it continues to put distance between itself and a past moment by the number of actualizations of potentials that have occurred.
My best,

Daniel

Martin Cooke said...

This is a good argument, Alex, that on the A-theory of time the past is changing all the time. I do not know of any good reasons why, if we do choose to count past events getting older as the past changing, why we would think that the past is unchangeable. Can you think of any?

Alexander R Pruss said...

Daniel:

But what is this "present" that the past is getting more distant from? It's not an enduring object, is it? I don't think this point is fatal to your argument, but it seems like it might call for more care.

Michael:

Even if there is no past, we want to make some sense of the truism that the past doesn't change. One way is to say that propositions solely about the past don't change in truth value. But then we get my problem, since the proposition that WW2 started 80 years ago does change in truth value and seems to be solely about the past. Maybe, though, the thing to say is that the proposition that WW2 started 80 years ago is not just about the past.

Michael Gonzalez said...

Right. I think "x years ago" is also about the present. What is really meant is the year, with "x years ago" just being another way of pointing at it.

Martin Cooke said...

The truism that the past doesn't change is interesting though. If it was changing, we would never know; because we have no direct access to the past. Indeed, if we had such access, then we would be able to change the past. So this truism is essentially a logical truth, or else it is nothing.

Martin Cooke said...

It is actually quite conceivable that the past could change.

Suppose there are parallel universes, and that one is exactly the same as this one now, but had a slightly different past. Now suppose that our souls are moved from this universe into that one. For us it is as though nothing changed, except that we now have a different past.