tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30588510.post9048780071369443259..comments2024-01-20T19:11:56.655+00:00Comments on metaphysical values: The Shrinking BlockRobbie Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02081389310232077607noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30588510.post-3569607974159550152007-04-12T10:30:00.000+01:002007-04-12T10:30:00.000+01:00Yes, but there are numerous possible equivocations...Yes, but there are numerous possible equivocations with words like 'real'. Possibilities can be real, for if physical indeterminism is the case then there are real possibilities in the future (not just fictional ones). Cf. how matter can disappear, so long as the total energy is conserved; so when by 'real' is meant a basic ontological resemblance to the ordinary objects around us, then there is little force behind the idea that it is a conserved quantity (not to mention problems with summation, e.g. if a cup breaks do we have more things?)...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30588510.post-24536295177207311262007-04-11T23:10:00.000+01:002007-04-11T23:10:00.000+01:00I thought the bearing of the 'nothing comes from n...I thought the bearing of the 'nothing comes from nothing' idea was that it suggests a kind of "conservation of reality" idea. There can't be changes in the amount of stuff that's real. There would be changes if the past was real but the future wasn't, in the growing block case, and vice versa, in the shrinking case. So, either neither the past nor the future is real or both of them are. If they were both real, there couldn't be many possible tomorrows but only one yesterday, because that would involve a kind of shrinkage too (from many down to one), so if any of the future is real and there's only one past, there can be only one future.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30588510.post-8053265680603593732007-04-11T15:53:00.000+01:002007-04-11T15:53:00.000+01:00Anyway, I think that is why we think of the past a...Anyway, I think that is why we think of the past as real, like the present. We are interested in the future because it will be real (so to speak) not because it is real (although it contains real enough possibilities). After all, science tells us that the ordinary objects around us (which are paradigmatically real) are experienced as they were, slightly in the past. So maybe serious defenders of the shrinking block theory of time would have to experience the future possibilities directly, before they drop off the prescients' radars by actualising into the present and past... and that is so unlike ourselves that I even doubt its conceivability.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30588510.post-33326911234901249012007-04-11T14:51:00.000+01:002007-04-11T14:51:00.000+01:00That is, I feel that we don't so much get a presen...That is, I feel that we don't so much get a present world where there was nothing = the future, so much as involve ourselves in the picking out of one of the possibilities to be actual; not so much getting extra reality as relabelling stuff, or perhaps compressing multiple possibilities into single actualities?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30588510.post-88934103417559163852007-04-11T14:45:00.000+01:002007-04-11T14:45:00.000+01:00Seems reasonable. So presumably the past is as rea...Seems reasonable. So presumably the past is as real as the present, just less accessible (to people like ourselves). And although we can affect the future, given indeterminism, that seems to be only in the sense of affecting the possibilities for what will be present, for what will have happened (rather than some weird transtemporal affecting of a distant future). Maybe the past is as real as the present, but is vacant rather than occupied by people affecting what will have happened?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30588510.post-73639520199973018202007-04-11T14:29:00.000+01:002007-04-11T14:29:00.000+01:00Hi Ross,Something I've wondered about these sorts ...Hi Ross,<BR/><BR/>Something I've wondered about these sorts of questions, is how they cohere with the intuition that nothing comes from nothing. If time is to be likened to a growing block, and the present and the past are both real, that seems to entail that there's more and more of reality (it's a growing block). But where does all the extra reality that becomes the present with each passing moment come from? If the future isn't also real then it must come from nowhere, which conflicts with the intuition. And the same thing seems to count against the shrinking block theory. How can things just cease to exist? How could there be, say, five parts of reality one day and then four the next? That would sort of impugn the reality of the real, if it could just disappear.<BR/>What do people say about this sort of thing?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30588510.post-62139148990213266142007-03-27T11:47:00.000+01:002007-03-27T11:47:00.000+01:00Hi Ross,Here's a stab at such a reason: one of our...Hi Ross,<BR/><BR/>Here's a stab at such a reason: one of our pre-theoretical notions seems to be that the present is real (it's where it's all at), the past is kinda real (you know, it's better than the future, but not quite as real as the present) and the future isn't real. <BR/>Because the intuition is that the past is 'more real' than the future it would make sense to run with a Growing Block than a Shrinking block.<BR/>That's not a great reason, but it leads into intuitions about truths, too. If you're a growing blocker you can claim to have truth-makers for truths about the past, though you might well lack them for truths about the future. Now that seems right. At least, it seems *better* than saying that we have truths about the future and not the past.<BR/>There are obviously ways around this, but I think that might go some way to explaining the intuitive pull of the growing block that isn't available to the proponent of shrinking block.<BR/><BR/>Cheers,<BR/><BR/>JonathanJonathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02534442767016881701noreply@blogger.com