“Simultaneousness” and “Nowness”: Physics and Metaphysics of Time

  • Artur Przechowski The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Faculty of Philosophy, PhD student
Keywords: philosophy of time; philosophy of physics; A-theory; B-theory; special relativity

Abstract

The status of “nowness” is one of the most important problems of the philosophy of time. The question of “the now” remains relevant in the discussion between presentism and eternalism, or in the problem of reconciliation between the classic idea of objective sense of the flow of time and the concept of time in the modern science. Philosophy of science also reveals the never-recognized-before problem of defining “simultaneousness.”

The discussions on the objectivity or reality of the flow of time neither are the domain of the 20th-century philosophy, nor are the result of the discoveries in the modern physics. It was right on the grounds of relativistic physics, however, where the intuitive perception of time (including the supposedly obvious ideas of “simultaneousness” or the “coexistence”) and the philosophical implications of the scientific theory spectacularly collided. The dissonance between temporal intuitions and ontological implications of relativistic time was studied by Gödel, Rietdijk, and Putnam. The attempts to reconcile the classic tensal categories with the STR definitions, made by Sklar and the others, indicate the need of explication of the different presumptions of the two frameworks of conceptual schemas as well as the need of the separation between metaphysics and epistemology. A radical attempt of elimination of the conflict between the intuition of the flow of time and the relativistic concept of time was presented by Prior, who assigned a fundamental meaning to the tensal categories (A-theory) and who considered the relativistic concepts to be conventional and secondary. Such an idea, however, would explicitly negate the ontological presumptions of the STR, formulated by Einstein himself.

The article presents this difficulties on the basis of the fundamental presumptions and features of the classic and relativistic concept of time.

References

Andersen H., Grush R.: A Brief History of Time-Consciousness: Historical Precursors to James and Husserl (preprint), http://mind.ucsd.edu/papers/bhtc/Andersen&Grush.pdf (dostęp 12.10.2014).
Butryn S. (red.): Albert Einstein. Pisma filozoficzne, Warszawa: De Agostini Polska – Ediciones Altaya Polska 2001.
Einstein A.: Istota teorii względności, Warszawa: PWN 1962.
Einstein A.: O elektrodynamice ciał w ruchu, [w:] tenże, 5 prac, które zmieniły oblicze fizyki, tł. P. Amsterdamski, Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego 1998.
Gołosz J.: Upływ czasu i ontologia, Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego 2011.
Gödel K.: A Remark about the Relationship between Relativity Theory and Idelistic Philosophy, [w:] P.A. Shilpp (red.), Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, vol. 2, Open Court, La Salle 1949, s. 557-562, http://283403168925209589.weebly.com/uploads /9/3/3/0/ 9330952/ godel1949.pdf (dostęp: 12.10.2014).
Heller M.: Wieczność. Czas. Kosmos, Kraków: Wydawnictwo ZNAK 1995.
Laplace P.S.: Essai philosophique sur les probabilités, Paris: Bachelier 1814.
Leibniz G.W.: Wyznanie wiary filozofa, Rozprawa metafizyczna, Monadologia, Zasady natury i łaski oraz inne pisma filozoficzne, tł. S. Cichowicz, Warszawa: PWN 1969.
Newton I.: Matematyczne zasady filozofii przyrody, tł. J. Wawrzycki, Kraków–Rzeszów: Copernicus Center – Konsorcjum Akademickie 2011.
Pabjan T.: O konwencjonalnym charakterze pojęcia jednoczesności w Szczególnej Teorii Względności, „Zagadnienia Filozoficzne w Nauce” 37 (2005).
Putnam H.: Time and Physical Geometry, „The Journal of Philosophy” 64 (1967), no. 8 (Apr. 27, 1967), s. 240-247, http://www.philoscience.unibe.ch/documents/kursarchiv/SS04/Putnam JPhil.pdf (dostęp 12.10.2014).
Savitt S.: Chronogeometrical Determinism and the Local Present (preprint), http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/8481 (dostęp 12.10.2014).
Savitt S.: Being and Becoming in Modern Physics, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-bebecome/ (dostęp 12.10.2014).
Tempczyk M.: Czas we współczesnej fizyce, „Ethos” 2012, nr 3 (99), s. 231-244.
Tkaczyk M.: Logika czasu empirycznego. Funktor realizacji czasowej w językach teorii fizykalnych, Lublin 2009.
Wróblewski A. K.: Historia fizyki, Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN 2009.
Published
2020-06-10
Section
Articles