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JET
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Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 397
  		   Posted 3/7/2006 6:27 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Recent article found at Disputatio.com  (International Journal of Philosophy)
 
 
I was interested in the author's description of three different models of an open future-objective present view of the universe:  (1) presentism, (2) the growing universe model, and (3) the branching universe model.  (I had always thought of the branching universe model as being a form of presentism.)  I recall a thread some time ago about presentism and the problems of grounding truths about the past.  However, if the growing universe or (a la Prior?) the branching universe model is viable, then perhaps these problems go away.   [?]
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Alan Rhoda
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Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680
  		   Posted 3/18/2006 1:47 AM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Hi JET,

The branching universe model is not really a form of presentism because it holds that all causally possible futures really exist, whereas a presentist would say that they don't exist.

As for grounding truths about the past, the growing universe and branching universe models hold that the past continues to exist. Accordingly, they will offer as truthmakers for truths about the past the past events themselves. I don't think that move actually works, however, because I think it gets the semantics of claims about the past wrong.

As for presentism, it is often thought to be a major weakness of it that it has no way to ground truths about the past. I think this objection can be satisfactorily answered, however, provided that the presentist is prepared to also be a theist, as I argue here:

www.alanrhoda.net/papers/Presentism, Truthmakers, and God.pdf

Regards,

Alan
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