TIME
 

I. Importance

A. One might really doubt: me at 6

B. God: Judeo-Christian God logically impossible.  (L.P. doesn't show something does exist, but L. I. shows it doesn't.)

C. Time travel: Logically impossible, or so paradoxical as to be incoherent, inconceivable
 

II. The basic nature of time. Two theories:

A. All that exists is the present: presentism

1. common sense

2. time travel

B. All time exists in some sense: 4-Dimensionalism
 

III. Saint Augustine (354-430)

A. "What was God doing before He created the world?" (The bad answer).

1. A perfect being can't be mutable

2. A creator must be mutable (doesn't he decide to create?)

3. No Judeo-Christian God.

B. God is outside of time.  All time is present to God.  After all, God made the entire universe.  Time is a function of the physical world, so God must transcend it. We are limited and can only perceive "now". God is unlimited and perceives everything and always.  This solves the problem because we can say that God does everything He does in one, eternal, and immutable action.
 
 

C. This is radically weird

1. The present has no special status, it's not more real than past or future.  Things are very different from the way we perceive them to be.

2. Yes, but so is "common sense" time.

a. Only present exists.

b. Yet we measure past and future (How can a nonexistent thing be long or short?).

c. At least we've got a grip on the present...? But what is it?  The present year? Day? Hour? Minute? Second?  No. It's the extensionless point at which the non-existent future turns into the non-existent past...it's nothing.

D. Could time be the movement of bodies?

1. Heavenly bodies?

2. No. Time is that by which we measure the motion of bodies.

3. Time is not to be found in the movement of external things...

E. Time is an extension of the mind.  Past and future exist only as memory and anticipation.  I can measure a "long time ago" because I can hold the idea of an extended past in my present memory.  All that there is for us is the ever-changing present.

F. Contradiction?  Only the present exists for us.  All time exists for God.  (We're limited)

G. Time travel?
 

IV. Kant (1724-1804)

"Time is empirically real, but transcendentally ideal."

A. Noumenal v. Phenomenal worlds

B. Mind structures incoming sense data from noumena into phenomena.

C. "Categories of the mind," sort of like lenses.  Eg. the "Emerald" City in the book.

D. Time is one of the categories of the mind.  We see things through "time-colored" lenses.
Noumena not temporal.  That's just how we see things.

E. Why say this?  Time is an aspect of the world as we experience it, and yet it is known a priori.  i.e. prior to experience.  We don't learn about time, we have to presuppose it to make sense of anything.  Couldn't you say we learn about time from change?  X was this way, but now it's this other way?  No, because our comprehension of change presupposes time.
 

E. Time travel?
 

TIME TRAVEL PARADOXES

The person who wants to disprove the possibility of time travel (a.k.a. "the critic") argues that if we assume that time travel is possible we find that this leads us to impossible conclusions, so we know that time travel is not possible.  The defender of the possibility of time travel argues that admitting the possibility of time travel does not (for one reason or another) entail any impossibility.
 

I. The Grandfather paradox

A. The paradox: TT > (A and not A)     But Not(A and not A) therefore not TT

1. TT is possible (assumption)

2. You could travel to the past (from 1)

3. You could kill your grandfather before your father is conceived. (Seems possible)

4. If you kill your grandfather, you never exist. (necessary truth)

5. You exist and you do not exist. (from 4)

6. Therefore TT is not possible (When an assumption leads to an impossible or absurd conclusion, the assumption must be mistaken.)
 

B. The solution

Premise 3 is false.  You cannot change the past.  If x happens at time t, then x happens at time t.

(Terminator, Time after Time)
 

II. Personal Identity

A. The paradox: If TT is possible then you could be in two places at once...which is just impossible.

B. The solution: Different physical parts of you can be in different places at once.  Perhaps we are four-dimensional beings who exist as a series of temporal parts.  So different temporal parts can be in two places at once.  (Back to the Future, Bill and Ted)
 

III. The Causal Loop

A. The paradox: If TT is possible then so are causal loops, but causal loops are impossible, therefore no TT.  Why are causal loops impossible?  They violate the principle of sufficient reason:

1. For any contingent object there has to be a sufficient cause/adequate explanation.  (The principle of sufficient reason)

2.  If A caused B and B caused C and C caused A, (like the info on how to build pipe bombs in The Terminator,  then none of them is adequately explained.  (We don't know where they came from.  We can use the analogy of the mirrors again.  Suppose A, B, and C are mirrors.  A gets its light from B, B gets its light from C, and C gets its light from A.  Where did the light come from?  If in a causal loop, A, B, and C are contingent, they can only pass existence along once they've got it...so a loop has the same problem as an infinite series...you need something outside to explain where the things came from.)
 

B. Possible solutions:

1. Principle of sufficient reason doesn't always hold.

2. Time travel does not necessarily entail that causal loops are possible, i.e. you can imagine traveling in time and not being involved in causal loops.  So if causal loops are impossible, all that shows is that you'll never have one.  Not that you couldn't travel in time.
 
 

GOD
 

INTRODUCTION TO THE JUDEO-CHRISTIAN GOD
 

I. Why the judeo-christian God? (Rather than Zeus or Odin)

A. That's who's most important to us in our culture.

B. You can mount a philosophical argument for the existence of God, but not for Zeus or Odin.
 

II. "Judeo-Christian"

A. Not to ignore Islam

B. Not to imply that Christianity, Islam and Judaism are "really" the same.
 

III. Attributes

A. Perfect = Unlimited entails immutable and one.

B. Omnipotent (Can God make a rock too heavy for Him to lift?)

1. Can't do the logically impossible. (Just words.  Not a "thing" there to be done.)

2. Can't act contrary to his nature (sin, make a mistake)...the "ability" to do these things is a limitation.

C. Omniscient

1. God knows past, present, and future.

2. Contradicts freedom? No. God knows what you will do because in His eternal "moment" he sees you doing it.

D. All good

1. Limited by moral laws? No. He's the standard.  The moral order is a reflection of God.

2. Loving, just, providential

E. Eternal (Time is a limitation.)

F. Ubiquitous (Incorporeal. Space is a limitation.)

G. The creator and sustainer of absolutely everything... ex nihilo.  (Why can't we say that things exist that were not made by God?  Then he'd be limited.)  How can an immutable God act in time?

H. Necessary Being...absolutely independent, uncaused, His very nature is to exist.
 
 

DOES SUCH A BEING EXIST?
 

I. Nowadays the two really live options in terms of world-views seem to be...

 1.) the universe is the product of a transcendent Creator, and intelligent mind, i.e. God, or...

 2.) the universe just fell out this way by chance.  There happen to be minute particles of matter and physical laws.  There was this big bang (for which no cause or reason can be given) and here we are.

II. Pace Sagen, Contact, the latter is not a simpler explanation.  If anything, the former is.
 

III. Three arguments.  Need all three to get the Judeo-Christian God. (These aren't the only ones, but they're standard ones that can be done relatively quickly.)  All are causal arguments, i.e. they move from facts about the observable world to what must be the explanation or cause of those facts, i.e. God.
 
 

A. Cosmological argument. There must be a Necessary Being to serve as the ultimate  cause/explanation  for the existence of things.
 

1. There are contingent beings.

2. Every contingent being requires a cause.

3. If this cause is itself contingent, then it, too requires a cause. (Parent/child and on and on. Oxygen, earth, sun, ...)

4. The chain of contingent causes could not go on to infinity.  That wouldn't help to explain how anything exists. (The mirror analogy.)

5. There must be an ultimate cause...a necessary being.  (Something that can generate existence, not just pass it along.)

6. Therefore God exists.

Criticisms:

1. Maybe the universe itself is the Necessary Being. (Whole collection of mirrors.)

2. Maybe there is no cause. (Deny the principle of sufficient reason.)

2. Is this really God?  Well, add the other proofs.
 
 

B. Teleological Argument: Design requires a designer.
 

1.  The universe seems to be an orderly place where the parts all fit together.  "Universe" means "turned towards unity."  Non-rational things move towards ends. (Animate and inanimate things act in an orderly fashion to achieve some good.  Pick your favorite example from natural history.  The ants that build suspension bridges.)

2. They are guided, not be chance but by purpose. (i.e. it is the aim of attaining some future goal that produces their actions.)

3. A non-rational thing cannot conceptualize the future goal and the steps required to achieve it.  There must be an intelligence ordering natural things towards their goals.

4. God.
n.b. Much closer to God now.  Intelligent Creator.  All-powerful, omniscient, transcends the categories of His creation therefore, eternal and ubiquitous.
 
 

Criticism: There's an alternate explanation. Inanimate things just fell out this way, and animate things evolved. (This is the "scientific" explanation and there is a conflict between science and religion...? NO, NO, a thousand times No!!!)

1. No conflict between evolution and creation.

2. There is a conflict if we say that evolution etc. was random, i.e. not the product of a designing mind.  But is this a scientific view?  One for which there is some sort of empirical evidence? No.

3. Two competing faiths...the God view and the Chance view.  Which seems more plausible?
 
 

C. Argument from Morality

1. There is an objective moral order.  Real right and wrong.

2.  This moral order exists outside of and superior to human beings.  (It would exist whether or not we recognized it, and we are subject to it, not vice versa.)

3.  There must be an ultimate "ground" for this moral order...an ultimate standard for value.

4. God
 

Criticisms

1. Deny the first premise.  Relativism.  Again, there is no proof for relativism.  Can't absolutely prove it either way.   Ubiquitous and almost indubitable belief should count as evidence.

2. Other objective source?