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david3565
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2002
Total Posts : 1
| Posted 11/13/2002 7:23 AM (GMT -6) |   | Ok, here it goes. If time is linear and finite (there is argument over whether time is linear but assuming it is) then a singular temporal event can both be determined and undetermined at the same time. How? If you view it from in front (making it a future event) then it has not happened yet, but if you view it from behind (making it a past event) then it has already happened. Thus it can both be free will and pre-determined at the same time. This may sound like a contradiction but lets take but other apparent contradictions exist in science. Example: It is possible in quantaum physics to have one atom exist in two places at once. Not two atoms, but one atom occupying two locations. And yet this is not a contradiction. To end on an interesting and related note: I remember a quantaum physicist saying that events in the future coule effect events in the past. Anyway, its only a theory and I would like to hear your crtiicisms.
Edited by - david3565 on 11/13/2002 2:40:08 PM
Edited by - david3565 on 11/13/2002 2:44:50 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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Alan Rhoda
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680
| Posted 11/14/2002 10:06 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Ok, here it goes. If time is linear and finite (there is argument over whether time is linear but assuming it is) then a singular temporal event can both be determined and undetermined at the same time. How? If you view it from in front (making it a future event) then it has not happened yet, but if you view it from behind (making it a past event) then it has already happened. Thus it can both be free will and pre-determined at the same time.
Welcome to the CVM Discussion Board, David!
Your argument presupposes what philosophers call a B-theory of time, according to which the passage of time is purely a matter of perspective. On the B-theory the entire timeline--what we think of as past, present, and future--is equally real. The passage of time is purely a matter of our changing perspective. The future already exists, we just haven't caught up with it yet. The other theory of time, the A-theory, says that only the present really exists--the past is no longer, the future is not yet, the flow of time is real and objective, not a matter of our perspective. Now it seems to me that the B-theory of time is just false--for detailed arguments on that issue I refer you to William Lane Craig's book "Time and Eternity".
Another issue concerns the validity of your argument, which proceeds as follows:
1. You can view an event as future or as past.
2. Viewed as future, the event appears undetermined.
3. Viewed as past, the event appears determined.
4. Therefore, an event can be both determined and undermined at the same time.
The problem with this reasoning is with the move from "X APPEARS determined/undermined" to "X IS determined/undermined". Maybe the future appears underdetermined but nevertheless really is. What you need is an unstated premise that "Things are the way they appear". But that is highly questionable, as anyone who has ever experienced an optical illusion or seen a magic trick realizes.
Hope that helps,
Alan
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