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  1. Travels in four dimensions: the enigmas of space and time.Robin Le Poidevin - 2003 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Space and time are the most fundamental features of our experience of the world, and yet they are also the most perplexing. Does time really flow, or is that simply an illusion? Did time have a beginning? What does it mean to say that time has a direction? Does space have boundaries, or is it infinite? Is change really possible? Could space and time exist in the absence of any objects or events? What, in the end, are space and time? (...)
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  • Minkowski spacetime and the dimensions of the present.Richard T. W. Arthur - unknown
    In Minkowski spacetime, because of the relativity of simultaneity to the inertial frame chosen, there is no unique world-at-an-instant. Thus the classical view that there is a unique set of events existing now in a three dimensional space cannot be sustained. The two solutions most often advanced are that the four-dimensional structure of events and processes is alone real, and that becoming present is not an objective part of reality; and that present existence is not an absolute notion, but is (...)
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  • Presentism and eternalism in perspective.Steven Savitt - 2006 - In Dennis Dieks (ed.), The Ontology of Spacetime I. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
    The distinction between presentism and eternalism is usually sought in some formula like ‘Only presently existing things exist’ or ‘Past, present, and future events are equally real’. I argue that ambiguities in the copula prevent these slogans from distinguishing significant opposed positions. I suggest in addition that one can find a series of significant distinctions if one takes spacetime structure into account. These presentisms and eternalisms are not contradictory. They are complementary elements of a complete naturalistic philosophy of time.
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  • Identity, space-time, and cosmology.Jan Faye - 2008 - In Dennis Geert Bernardus Johan Dieks (ed.), The Ontology of Spacetime II. Elsevier. pp. 39-57.
    Modern cosmology treats space and time, or rather space-time, as concrete particulars. The General Theory of Relativity combines the distribution of matter and energy with the curvature of space-time. Here space-time appears as a concrete entity which affects matter and energy and is affected by the things in it. I question the idea that space-time is a concrete existing entity which both substantivalism and reductive relationism maintain. Instead I propose an alternative view, which may be called non-reductive relationism, by arguing (...)
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  • The irrelevance of the presentist/eternalist debate for the ontology of Minkowski spacetime.Mauro Dorato - 2006 - In Dennis Geert Bernardus Johan Dieks (ed.), The ontology of spacetime. Boston: Elsevier. pp. 93-109.
    In this paper I argue that the debate between the so-called “presentists” – according to whom only the present is real – and the “eternalists”, according to whom past present and future are equally real, has no ontological significance. In particular, once we carefully distinguish between a tensed and a tenseless sense of existence, it is difficult to find a single ontological claim on which the two parties could disagree. Since the choice of using a tense or a tenseless language (...)
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  • The uncaused beginning of the universe.Quentin Smith - 1988 - Philosophy of Science 55 (1):39-57.
    There is sufficient evidence at present to justify the belief that the universe began to exist without being caused to do so. This evidence includes the Hawking-Penrose singularity theorems that are based on Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, and the recently introduced Quantum Cosmological Models of the early universe. The singularity theorems lead to an explication of the beginning of the universe that involves the notion of a Big Bang singularity, and the Quantum Cosmological Models represent the beginning largely in (...)
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  • Time Lapse and the Degeneracy of Time: Gödel, Proper Time and Becoming in Relativity Theory.Richard T. W. Arthur - unknown
    In the transition to Einstein’s theory of Special Relativity (SR), certain concepts that had previously been thought to be univocal or absolute properties of systems turn out not to be. For instance, mass bifurcates into (i) the relativistically invariant proper mass m0, and (ii) the mass relative to an inertial frame in which it is moving at a speed v = βc, its relative mass m, whose quantity is a factor γ = (1 – β2) -1/2 times the proper mass, (...)
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  • Einstein, Relativity and Absolute Simultaneity.William Lane Craig & Quentin Smith (eds.) - 2004 - Routledge.
    Einstein, Relativity and Absolute Simultaneity is an anthology of original essays by an international team of leading philosophers and physicists who have come together to reassess the contemporary paradigm of the relativistic concept of time. A great deal has changed since 1905 when Einstein proposed his Special Theory of Relativity, and this book offers a fresh reassessment of Special Relativity’s relativistic concept of time in terms of epistemology, metaphysics, and physics.
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  • (1 other version)The Disappearance of Space and Time.Carlo Rovelli - 2007 - In Dennis Dieks (ed.), The Disappearance of Space and Time. Elsevier.
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  • Is there an alternative to the Block universe view?Vesselin Petkov - unknown
    This paper pursues two aims. First, to show that the block universe view, regarding the universe as a timelessly existing four-dimensional world, is the only one that is consistent with special relativity. Second, to argue that special relativity alone can resolve the debate on whether the world is three-dimensional or four-dimensional. The argument advanced in the paper is that if the world were three-dimensional the kinematic consequences of special relativity and more importantly the experiments confirming them would be impossible.
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  • Finding “real‘ time in quantum mechanics”.Craig Callender - 2007 - In William Lane Craig & Quentin Smith (eds.), Einstein, relativity, and absolute simultaneity. New York: Routledge. pp. 50-72.
    Many believe that quantum mechanics makes the world hospitable to the tensed theory of time. Quantum mechanics is said to rescue the significance of the present moment, the mutability of the future and possibly even the whoosh of time’s flow. It allegedly does so in two different ways: by making a preferred foliation of spacetime into space and time scientifically respectable, and by wavefunction collapse injecting temporal ‘becoming’ into the world. The aim of this paper is to show that the (...)
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  • On the Impossibility of Hybrid Time in a Relativistic Setting.Martin Schmidt - 2006 - Kriterion - Journal of Philosophy 1 (20):29-36.
    There are two rival theories of time: static and dynamic. The Special Theory of Relativity is one of the strongest arguments for static time. However, the defenders of dynamic time claim that their approach is also possible in a relativistic setting. This debate supported the third theory: the hybrid theory of time. The aim of this paper, however, is to argue that the hybrid theory is against the nature of the Special Theory of Relativity. The argument is motivated by H. (...)
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  • Becoming, relativity and locality.Dennis Dieks - unknown
    It is a central aspect of our ordinary concept of time that history unfolds and events come into being. It is only natural to take this seriously. However, it is notoriously difficult to explain further what this `becoming' consists in, or even to show that the notion is consistent at all. In this article I first argue that the idea of a global temporal ordering, involving a succession of cosmic nows, is not indispensable for our concept of time. Our experience (...)
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  • Ontologická alternativa McTaggartova paradoxu.Vladimír Havlík - 1995 - Organon F: Medzinárodný Časopis Pre Analytickú Filozofiu 2 (4):327-341.
    The article deals with McTaggartś paradox of time from an ontological point of view. There are two basic approaches which are usually taken in solving McTaggartś paradox. The most commonly adopted in analytic philosophy is the rejection of the flow of time as a myth. This position leads to the extreme statement that the world is intrinsically tenseless. The other is the view that temporal passage is a genuine feature of the world and is consistent with an ontology of concrete (...)
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