"Time has been studied by philosophers and scientists for 2,500 years, and thanks to this attention it is much better understood today. Nevertheless, many issues remain to be resolved. Here is a short list of the most important ones—what time actually is; whether time exists when nothing is changing; what kinds of time travel are possible; why time has an arrow even though the dynamical laws of the microscopic constituents of the universe appear to be incapable of distinguishing past and future; whether the future and past are real; how to analyze the metaphor of time's flow; whether the future will be infinite; whether there was time before the Big Bang; whether tensed or tenseless concepts are semantically basic; what is the proper formalism or logic for capturing the special role that time plays in reasoning; and what are the neural mechanisms that account for our experience of time. Some of these issues will be resolved by scientific advances alone, but others require philosophical analysis.
Philosophers of time are deeply divided on the question on what sort of ontological differences there are among the present, past and future. There are three competing theories. Presentists argue that necessarily only present objects and present experiences are real; and we conscious beings recognize this in the special "vividness" of our present experience. According to the growing-universe theory, the past and present are both real, but the future is not. The third and more popular theory is that there are no significant ontological differences among present, past and future because the differences are merely subjective. This view is called "eternalism" or "the block universe theory."
This controversy raises the issue of tenseless versus tensed theories of time. Eternalism or the block universe theory implies a tenseless theory. The earliest version of this theory implied that tensed terminology can be removed and replaced with tenseless terminology. For example, the future-tensed sentence, "The Lakers will win the basketball game" might be analyzed as, "The Lakers do win at time t, and time t happens after the time of this utterance." The future tense has been removed, and the verb phrases "do win" and "happens after" are tenseless logically, although they are grammatically in the present tense. Advocates of a tensed theory of time object to this strategy and say that tenseless terminology is not semantically basic but should be analyzed in tensed terms, and that tensed facts are needed to make the tensed statements be true. For example, a tensed theory might imply that no adequate account of the present tensed fact that it's now midnight can be given without irreducible tensed properties such as presentness or now-ness. So, the philosophical debate is over whether tensed concepts have semantical priority over untensed concepts, and whether tensed facts have ontological priority over untensed facts. "
Philosophers of time are deeply divided on the question on what sort of ontological differences there are among the present, past and future. There are three competing theories. Presentists argue that necessarily only present objects and present experiences are real; and we conscious beings recognize this in the special "vividness" of our present experience. According to the growing-universe theory, the past and present are both real, but the future is not. The third and more popular theory is that there are no significant ontological differences among present, past and future because the differences are merely subjective. This view is called "eternalism" or "the block universe theory."
This controversy raises the issue of tenseless versus tensed theories of time. Eternalism or the block universe theory implies a tenseless theory. The earliest version of this theory implied that tensed terminology can be removed and replaced with tenseless terminology. For example, the future-tensed sentence, "The Lakers will win the basketball game" might be analyzed as, "The Lakers do win at time t, and time t happens after the time of this utterance." The future tense has been removed, and the verb phrases "do win" and "happens after" are tenseless logically, although they are grammatically in the present tense. Advocates of a tensed theory of time object to this strategy and say that tenseless terminology is not semantically basic but should be analyzed in tensed terms, and that tensed facts are needed to make the tensed statements be true. For example, a tensed theory might imply that no adequate account of the present tensed fact that it's now midnight can be given without irreducible tensed properties such as presentness or now-ness. So, the philosophical debate is over whether tensed concepts have semantical priority over untensed concepts, and whether tensed facts have ontological priority over untensed facts. "
This article explores both what is now known about time and what is controversial and unresolved, by addressing the following questions:
posted by G.d'A-L. or HARL or Ori Sapel at 5:32 PM
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