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Andrew J Turner Phd Thesis the C+A Theory of Time Andrew J Turner PhD Thesis The C+A Theory of Time: Explaining the Difference between the Experience of time and the Understanding of Time The University of Adelaide Discipline of Philosophy School of Humanities and Social Sciences July 2007 Table of Contents Chapter Title Page Number Volume One Part One Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Chapter 2 McTaggart 8 Chapter 3 Development of McTaggart 21 Chapter 4 The A Theory of Time 49 Chapter 5 The B Theory of Time and Direction 71 Chapter 6 The Semantics of the B Theory and the Challenge of Experience 82 Chapter 7 Beyond the A and B Theories of Time 91 Chapter 8 Ontic Time 97 Chapter 9 Epistemic Time 113 Volume Two Part Two Chapter 10 Phenomenological Method and Phenomenological Data of Time 123 Chapter 11 The Phenomenology of Duration and Succession 133 Chapter 12 The Phenomenology of the Present Moment 143 Chapter 13 The Phenomenology of the Flow of Time 155 Chapter 14 Perception, Perspectivism and Projectivism 171 Part Three Chapter 15 The C+A Theory 178 Chapter 16 Different Responses to the Phenomenology 186 Chapter 17 An A Model of Epistemic Time 193 Chapter 18 Paraconsistency and Time 196 Chapter 19 Conclusion 223 References 226 Andrew J Turner Summary of Thesis The central problem addressed by this thesis is to attempt and reconcile our experience of time with our scientific understanding of time. Science tells us that time is static yet we experience it as dynamic. In the literature there tend to be two positions. Those who follow the science and claim that time is static and that our experience is mind-independent; those who favour our experience and question the science. I attempt to reconcile these positions. To do this I adopt terminology set out by McTaggart (1908) who termed the static view the B series and the dynamic view the A series. The literature that has developed out of this breaks down into the A Theory where time is the past, present and future; and the B Theory, where time is just involves events being earlier than or later than other events. I reject both positions as accounts of ontology. I adopt McTaggart’s C series, a series of betweenness only, on the grounds that it is this series that is mostly aligned to science. Given the C series, our experience requires explanation. A claim of mind- dependency is insufficient. I argue that the A series really refers to mind-dependent features that are brought out by our interaction with the C series; much like the way that colour is brought out by our interaction with a colourless world. The B series is the best description of the contents of time, not time itself. To examine the experience of time I adopt phenomenology to describe that experience. From within experience I show that certain features of that experience cannot be attributed to a mind-independent reality and use this as further evidence for the above claims. Finally I suggest that most theories of time are driven by the view that a theory of time has to be consistent. I examine recent developments in logic to see whether such a consistent requirement is needed. I conclude that the most we can get out of paraconsistent approaches is inconsistent experiences, not inconsistent reality. I conclude that the A series is the best description of our experience of time, the C series the best description of the ontology of time, and the B series as the best description of the contents of time. This reconciles our experience with our understanding of time. This work contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made in the text. I give consent to this copy of my thesis, when deposited in the University Library, being made available in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. Andrew J Turner 1084755 The University of Adelaide July 2007 Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the assistance of the following people, without whose advice and support I would never have been able to complete this thesis. Dr Greg O’Hair Professor Chris Mortensen Ms Sarah Walker Mr Steve Leishman Mr Peter Quigley Chapter 1 Introduction This is a thesis about time and our experience of time. I intend to explain why our experience of time is so different to our understanding of time. This entails that our experience of time is not veridical. But first we need to bring out three senses of understanding; 1. An understanding implicit in our concepts, language and tenses. This type of understanding is a guiding function of the mind/brain, similar in some ways to Kant’s synthetic a priori concepts. But these concepts may have originally been gained through evolutionary experience or evolutionary cognitive development so they are not necessarily synthetic a priori in nature. 2. An understanding in the ‘common sense’ about time. This is the sort of understanding to be studied by sociologists, social psychologists and other society focused disciplines. 3. An understanding developed from our best available scientific theories, guided by but not restricted to a consensus in the scientific community. It is sense 3 that I aim to adopt. Our understanding of time ought to be informed and guided by our best available scientific theories. Specifically I will follow the Special Theory of Relativity (SR). Sense 1 may be attractive to theorists more guided by our experience. My aim here is to explain why our experience of time conflicts with the findings of scientific understanding, i.e. SR. I will argue that our experience of time has been structured by the mind/brain. Because our mind/brain structures our experiences of time, it is natural to think that time itself is independent of that structure. This is not to say that time is totally unlike our experience. It is quite possible that time is as we experience it, but that our mind/brain still structures our experience of time. I will argue that time itself is different to our experience. This means we need two explanations: an explanation for time itself, and an explanation for our experience of time. There are two general strategies adopted within the philosophy of time. The first is to claim our experience is veridical. Time is as we experience it. We experience time as having a past, present and future, because time has these properties. There is a privileged moment in time, call it the Present Moment, that moves from the past into the future. We can, following McTaggart’s legacy, call this an A Theory. The second strategy is to reject our experience of time. If our science is correct then there is no privileged moment in time that we can use to distinguish between the past and future. Events just occur before or after other events. We can, again following McTaggart’s legacy, call this a B Theory. Since I will defend the claim that our experience is not veridical, I may at first seem to be a B-theorist. Whilst of these two strategies I am closely allied to the B Theory, I believe, in fact, that the B Theory is false. The A series has a direction, from the past to the future. The B series has a direction, from earlier to later. However, if we take science as our guide, as I intend to do, then there is no direction involved with time. The B Theory tends to assume that this direction exists. The B- theorist takes time to involve the relations of earlier/later than and so on. But science is time symmetric. The B Theory is not a true description of time. McTaggart also talks of a C series, which involves events just forming a series, whereby one event is between two other events. The C series has no direction, it just is a serial ordering of events. I believe this to be the true description Page 1 of time. If so, then our experience of time is significantly different to the ontology of time described by the C series. 1. Newton and Time To understand what we could mean by time I will turn to a famous description from Newton. Absolute, true, and mathematical time, in and of itself and of its own nature, without reference to anything external, flows uniformly and by another name is called duration. Relative, apparent, and common time is any sensible and external measure (precise or imprecise) of duration by means of motion; such a measure – for example, an hour, a day, a month, a year – is commonly used instead of true time. (Newton, 1726, p. 408) Newton here is comparing absolute time with relative time. My purpose here is to use this quote to derive concepts we might associate with time, not to undertake a scholarly analysis of Newton’s claims. There are a number of concepts we can unpack out of this claim. 1. time is absolute. 2. time is true 3. Time is mathematical 4. Time has an intrinsic dynamic nature Time as absolute (1) means that time exists and is not relative to the observer. It is not clear what (2) means. ‘True’, when applied to a thing could be taken in three ways; 1, to mean authentic, as in a true pearl; 2, to mean genuine, or loyal, as in a true friend; and 3, to mean accurate, reliable, as in a true compass.
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