Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the second edition
- Preface to the first edition
- 1 Preliminaries
- 2 McTaggart on time's unreality
- 3 The Block universe
- 4 Asymmetries within time
- 5 Tensed time
- 6 Dynamic time
- 7 Time and consciousness
- 8 Time travel
- 9 Conceptions of void
- 10 Space: the classical debate
- 11 Absolute motion
- 12 Motion in spacetime
- 13 Curved space
- 14 Tangible space
- 15 Spatial anti-realism
- 16 Zeno and the continuum I
- 17 Zeno and the continuum II
- 18 Special relativity
- 19 Relativity and reality
- 20 General relativity
- 21 Spacetime metaphysics
- 22 Strings
- Notes
- Glossary
- Web resources
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - McTaggart on time's unreality
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the second edition
- Preface to the first edition
- 1 Preliminaries
- 2 McTaggart on time's unreality
- 3 The Block universe
- 4 Asymmetries within time
- 5 Tensed time
- 6 Dynamic time
- 7 Time and consciousness
- 8 Time travel
- 9 Conceptions of void
- 10 Space: the classical debate
- 11 Absolute motion
- 12 Motion in spacetime
- 13 Curved space
- 14 Tangible space
- 15 Spatial anti-realism
- 16 Zeno and the continuum I
- 17 Zeno and the continuum II
- 18 Special relativity
- 19 Relativity and reality
- 20 General relativity
- 21 Spacetime metaphysics
- 22 Strings
- Notes
- Glossary
- Web resources
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Could time be unreal?
In an attempt to get us to take seriously the idea that reality might be very different from how it seems, Descartes introduced an all-powerful demon. This demon, we are to suppose, is causing us to hallucinate, to have experiences that do not correspond to anything real. The experiences in question are the perceptual experiences that we are having at the moment and those we remember having in the past: the experiences that we unthinkingly take to be revealing the world to us. The point of this scenario is to lead us to appreciate that our experience does not guarantee that the world is as we normally believe it to be. Let us vary the scenario. The allpowerful demon informs us that it has not been providing us with hallucinatory experiences – the world really is pretty much as it seems – but it has instead taken the decision to abolish time.
What would you make of this announcement? Should you care? What difference would it make? Perhaps the world would cease to exist: when the demon acts the present winks out of existence, and the past along with it. Or perhaps everything would come to a stop. People and things wouldn't cease to exist, they would simply stop chang ing. They would be frozen in mid-sentence, in mid-air, and (time lessly) remain in this condition.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Time and Space , pp. 13 - 26Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2010