Edward Feser, in his contribution to Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives, draws a parallel between this teaching and the idea of the “block universe,” which is based on the theories of Einstein and his teacher Hermann Minkowski. The block-universe concept holds that we must understand time as a fourth dimension tied up with the three dimensions of space, so that the universe is like a four-dimensional block that contains all of space and time — past, present, and future. Minkowski would refer to this four-dimensional block as “world,” because the mathematical formulation suggested that all of time is already established, just like space. Our common-sense notion that space is static, allowing us to move around within it, whereas time “flows,” taking us along with it, is illusory. Just as the universe doesn’t have an “up” or “down,” so likewise there is no past or future, except in the sense that it seems that way to us. Much like for Parmenides there is only the Whole, for Minkowski and Einstein there is only the “world.”Well worth reading in full, though I dissent from his understanding of Aristotle as offering 'privation' and 'actuality vs. potentiality' as two different ways of overcoming the Parmenides problem. To say that a doctor comes from a non-doctor and to say that a non-doctor realizes their potential to become an actual doctor is just two ways of saying the same thing. As Aristotle also says, in his description of potentiality, 'one cannot make a saw out of wool.' That is to say that wool is even more deprived of the actuality of the saw than is raw iron. The "two" models are just different ways of describing one.
Feser’s critique of the “block universe” borrows key moves from Aristotle’s responses to Parmenides, though because he does not explicitly engage with them, it is unclear to what extent he is aware of the borrowing. In the beginning of the Physics, Aristotle explicitly distinguishes Parmenides and his disciple Melissus from other thinkers whom he calls “students of nature” (physiologoi). Parmenides and Melissus were not students of nature, according to Aristotle, because they denied motion, relegating it to mere appearance: “To investigate whether Being is one and motionless is not a contribution to the science of Nature.” The teaching that change is an illusion is not a teaching on nature, according to Aristotle, because it does not explore the origins or birth of things. Aristotle says he sees no requirement to engage seriously with this teaching in the Physics (remember, physis means both “nature” and “birth”), just as the geometer is not required to engage with those who reject his premises. (As we shall see, Aristotle nonetheless does briefly engage with Parmenides later in the Physics.)
Feser’s essay is constructed as a series of ducks and dodges that allow the Aristotelian idea of change or motion to survive the various challenges of the block universe’s severe determinism, in which the future is already fixed. It isn’t until the end of the essay that Feser hits on the most forceful point, the one that most closely resembles Aristotle: Even if the universe is really a four-dimensional block, “there would be nothing about its nature that requires that a block universe of precisely that sort, or any block universe at all for that matter, exists.” Just as Parmenides’ denial of motion is not an explanation of the origins of things, so the block universe is not an explanation of why we have this universe rather than some other one. The theory that explains the universe as a whole cannot explain the particulars. But note how Aristotle’s original critique is more forceful than Feser’s: Those who do not examine coming-into-being, and thereby fail to explain the world as it is, do not examine nature.
This should be a sobering call to today’s scientists, for Parmenides’ reasoning was sound in many respects, and our thinking today strongly resembles his.
Augustine's interpretation of evil as privation of the good shows how this can work. Can an all-good God make evil, and if not, how can evil come to be? Augustine's answer is that evil is a failure to achieve the fullness of the good inherent in God's creation. Evil is a privation. Notice that this is just another way of saying that evil is a failure to actualize the potential good in something.
Still, discussions of this sort are exactly the kind of 'learning from Aristotle' that we could all stand to do. "Aretê, boys: You've either got it or you don't."
6 comments:
Well, the block universe isn't far wrong, missing only the fact that time isn't merely a fourth dimension, but is itself three-dimensional.
Getting around the volume of time, like we do in space, is just an engineering problem.
Eric Hines
You don't avoid the Parmenides problem by making time three dimensional; the problem remains that everything already exists in a static way, and thus that motion (meaning any sort of change) is impossible. There is the allied problem, described here, that there's then nothing to account for why we have the particular arrangement that we do, unless your concept of 'three dimensional time' means that these three dimensions spell out all of the possibilities/potentialities in all of their forms. In that case the arrangement isn't an issue because there isn't an arrangement, exactly; the problem we have then is why we happen to experience the world as if there were one particular past, and one particular present. It becomes a problem about conscience rather than a problem about physics, but both are ultimately metaphysical problems.
I don't make time three-dimensional, it's been that long beside I came along.
Aside from that, 3D time makes the Parmenides problem irrelevant: there is nothing to change because everything already exists in all of its "evolutionary" forms, has always existed, and always will (or at least between some sort of beginning and some sort of heat death end of our universe). As we move through space and time, we perceive things differently is all.
It's not only a matter of conscious, it's a matter of imperfect sensors sending digitized versions of an analog world (above Planck's length and time, themselves only presently done constructs) through further-digitizing neural pathways, themselves imperfect, to imperfect digital-oriented wetware for processing.
Physics, including Planck minima, are just our currently used means of getting around in those perceptions.
Eric Hines
Yes, that's where I thought you had to be going with that. The thing is, that doesn't avoid the Parmenides problem; it's what gives rise to the problems that seem to make motion impossible. If everything is already in place, there's nothing left to cause change. Asserting that all the possibilities are fully actualized somewhere only makes this worse, not better. Now 'potentiality' and 'actuality' can't help you, per Aristotle; there is only actuality.
The solution also has some other unfortunate consequences for ethics, e.g., it means that there is no moral reason to work on actualizing your virtues, because somewhere they are in fact fully actual, and everywhere else they necessarily musn't be in order that the whole matrix of possibilities can exist; furthermore, you can't change anything anyway, since the matrix is set. Since 'ought' implies 'can,' and you 'can't' change anything, you lose all ethical obligations. You also end up disabling Augustine's solution to the problem of evil, which is fine except that it's a tricky problem that is now back in full force.
But the main issue is that change seems to occur all the time, but you've adopted a metaphysics in which nothing remains unaccounted for that could explain the change. Even adding in the problem of the unreliable sensors, as you put it, doesn't remove the problem; you still need something that isn't fully played out to explain why the sensations change. Why do I think about X for a while, and then not-X? If all the possibilities are fully actual, there must be one in which I continue to think about X for a lifetime. There must be many others in which I stop, for some reason, and begin to think about not-X. What causes me to be experiencing the one possibility and not any of the others?
You may be confusing metaphysics for physics, Grim. You often take these philosophical texts and sources as talking about your physics, your material world, when the exact definition of metaphysics is that they are talking about higher powers and realms: the Spirit.
What causes me to be experiencing the one possibility and not any of the others?
The human avatar experiences time in a linear fashion, but can manipulate space and matter to a certain extent. The Higher Self in charge of the human avatar is in the spirit world, which is not matter but the Source that matter is a byproduct or derivative of. This is the Ideal, which casts a shadow and creates the mortal world of linear time and forgetting in the Eternal Dream.
The Higher Self, or god as people tend to call it, does not experience linear time. For the HS, everything has already happened. There is no past, no present, and no future. It is a ring, a circle, an eternity. They are in time/space, not space/time. They can jump around time the way we travel in space. But as a result, they cannot manipulate the space and matter as easily, because those follow the dictates of linear time more. Humanity tends to think of this as omniscience which it may or may not be. But something more applicable would be time paradoxes. The Higher Self has already seen the end and the beginning, but it can intervene in the mortal linear time streams of the avatar so that the avatar has a chance to use free will to change things up. This then... causes the paradox. We respond to this paradox issue by talking about multiverses and parallel quantum realities or mathematical calculation (quantum computer) results. But the Higher Self perhaps does not see any contradiction whatsoever, because it has already happened or is happening right now.
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