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. Stein’s attempt to separate definite past from indefinite future by timelike and lightlike relations in and on the past pointing light cone. The paper shows that this approach leads to restricted and extremely unintuitive notion of co-presence. This is considered as a serious objection against the animation of static time in a relativistic setting. (shrink)

Photographs, paintings, rigid sculptures: all these provide examples of static images. It is true that they change—photographs fade, paintings darken and sculptures crumble—but what change they undergo is irrelevant to their representational content. A static image is one that represents by virtue of properties which remain largely unchanged throughout its existence. Because of this defining feature, according to a long tradition in aesthetics, a static image can only represent an instantaneous moment, or to be more exact the (...) state of affairs obtaining at that moment'. It cannot represent movement and the passage of time. This traditional view mirrors a much older one in metaphysics: that change is to be conceived of as a series of instantaneous states and hence that an interval of time is composed of extensionless moments. The metaphysical view has been involved in more controversy than its aesthetic counterpart. Aristotle identified it as one of the premises of Zeno's arrow paradox and Augustine employed it in his proof of the unreality of time. (shrink)

Photographs, paintings, rigid sculptures: all these provide examples of static images. It is true that they change—photographs fade, paintings darken and sculptures crumble—but what change they undergo is irrelevant to their representational content. A static image is one that represents by virtue of properties which remain largely unchanged throughout its existence. Because of this defining feature, according to a long tradition in aesthetics, a static image can only represent an instantaneous moment, or to be more exact the (...) state of affairs obtaining at that moment'. It cannot represent movement and the passage of time. This traditional view mirrors a much older one in metaphysics: that change is to be conceived of as a series of instantaneous states and hence that an interval of time is composed of extensionless moments. The metaphysical view has been involved in more controversy than its aesthetic counterpart. Aristotle identified it as one of the premises of Zeno's arrow paradox and Augustine employed it in his proof of the unreality of time. (shrink)

When attempting to predict future events, people commonly rely on historical data. One psychological characteristic of judgmental forecasting of time series, established by research, is that when people make forecasts from series, they tend to underestimate future values for upward trends and overestimate them for downward ones, so-called trend-damping. Events in a time series can be experienced sequentially, or they can also be retrospectively viewed simultaneously, not experienced individually in real time. In one experiment, we studied the (...) influence of presentation mode on two sorts of judgment: predictions of the next event and estimation of the average value of all the events in the presented series. Participants' responses in dynamic mode were anchored on more recent events than in static mode for all types of judgment but with different consequences; hence, dynamic presentation improved prediction accuracy, but not estimation. These results are not anticipated by existing theoretical accounts; we develop and present an agent-based model—the adaptive anchoring model —to account for the difference between processing sequences of dynamically and statically presented stimuli. ADAM captures how variation in presentation mode produces variation in responses in both forecasting and judgment tasks. ADAM's model predictions for the forecasting and judgment tasks fit better with the response data than a linear-regression time series model. Moreover, ADAM outperformed autoregressive-integrated-moving-average and exponential-smoothing models, while neither of these models accounts for people's responses on the average estimation task. (shrink)

Many drugs used in paediatric medicine are off-label. There is a rising call for the use of adaptive clinical trial designs in responding to the need for safe and effective drugs given their potential to offer efficiency and cost-effective benefits compared with traditional clinical trials. ADs have a strong appeal in paediatric clinical trials given the small number of available participants, limited understanding of age-related variability and the desire to limit exposure to futile or unsafe interventions. Although the ethical value (...) of adaptive trials has increasingly come under scrutiny, there is a paucity of literature on the ethical dilemmas that may be associated with paediatric adaptive designs. This paper highlights some of these ethical concerns around safety, scientific/social value and caregiver/guardian comprehension of the trial design. Against this background, the paper develops a non-static conceptual lens for understanding PADs. It shows that ADs are epistemically open and reduce some of the knowledge-associated uncertainties inherent in clinical trials as well as fast-track the time to draw conclusions about the value of evaluated drugs/treatments. On this note, the authors argue that PADs are ethically justifiable given they have multiple layers of safety, exposing enrolled children to lesser potential risks, create social/scientific value generally and for paediatric populations in particular, specifically foster the flourishing of paediatric populations and can significantly improve paediatric trial efficiency when properly designed and implemented. However, because PADs are relatively new and their regulatory, ethical and logistical characteristics are yet to be clarified in some jurisdictions, the cooperation of various public and private stakeholders is required to ensure that the interests of children, their caregivers and parents/guardians are best served while exposing paediatric research subjects to the most minimal of risks when they are enrolled in paediatric trials that use ADs. Data sharing not applicable as no datasets generated and/or analysed for this study. Not applicable. (shrink)

Imperatives are linguistic devices used by an authority (speaker) to express wishes, requests, commands, orders, instructions, and suggestions to a subject (addressee). This essay's goal is to tentatively address some of the following questions about the imperative. -/- METASEMANTIC. What is the menu of options for understanding fundamental semantic notions like satisfaction, truth-conditions, validity, and entailment in the context of imperatives? Are there good imperative arguments, and, if so, how are they to be characterized? What are the options for understanding (...) the property that an account of good imperative arguments is supposed to track? What constraints on a semantic analysis of the imperative do different positions on the metasemantic issues impose? -/- SEMANTIC. How might we implement metasemantic postures in a rigorous formal system? How much can we do using familiar tools from deontic modal logic? How much leverage over semantic questions can we gain by introducing tools from natural language semantics—ordering sources, dyadic modal operators, salient alternatives, and the like—into a formal semantics for an imperative object language? How much leverage can we gain by introducing tools from rather less-utilized areas of modal logic—devices for representing actions and planning in time, modal operators constructed from action-terms, and the like—into the analysis? -/- DYNAMIC. How do imperatives succeed in performing the speech acts they are used to perform? How do imperatives update discourses? How can we leverage an account of imperative discourse update in giving a dynamic semantics for the imperative? Is there anything about the imperative that demands a dynamic semantic treatment? (shrink)

A static, spherically symmetric, and asymptotically flat solution of coupled Einstein-Born-Infeld equations is presented. When the internal mass of the system is zero the resulting space-time is regular and describes static electromagnetic geon.

There are two antithetical classes of Paradoxes, The Runner and the Stadium, impregnated with infinite divisibility, which show that motion conflicts with the world, and which I call Static. And the Arrow, impregnated with nothing, which shows that motion conflicts with itself, and which I call Dynamic. The Arrow is stationary, because it cannot move at a point; or move, and be at more points than one at the same time, so being where it is not. Despite their (...) contrast, however, both groups can be evaded, if motion is conducted over discrete points: (a) If no two points touch, there will be a step ahead, for there will now be nextness. And (b) if they do not touch, “here” and “there” (=not–here) will no longer be sufficiently proximal to have the body be where it is not. They will be separate. So the body is only where it is. Hence, both groups, despite their contrast, presuppose, each in its own way, the infinite proximity of any point with anynext. But the Dynamic group cannot survive what it needs. Suppose that “here” and “not–here” (i.e., “there”), are not discrete but infinitely proximal. Then Rest also would be self-contradictory. And it gets worse. For it takes two to make a contradiction, in this case, “here,” “not–here,” and their proximity. But, with regard to conditions of infinite proximity, “in the end there can be only one” (point), and hence no contradiction in the first place. The Dynamic paradoxes rest on a premise with which they are inconsistent. They need two of this, of which, in a different but just as equally vital connection, there can be only one. On the force of this remark, the Dynamic paradoxes, initially the stronger of the lot, actually turn out to be the weaker. (shrink)

There are two antithetical classes of Paradoxes, The Runner and the Stadium, impregnated with infinite divisibility, which show that motion conflicts with the world, and which I call Static. And the Arrow, impregnated with nothing, which shows that motion conflicts with itself, and which I call Dynamic. The Arrow is stationary, because it cannot move at a point; or move, and be at more points than one at the same time, so being where it is not. Despite their (...) contrast, however, both groups can be evaded, if motion is conducted over discrete points: (a) If no two points touch, there will be a step ahead, for there will now be nextness. And (b) if they do not touch, “here” and “there” (=not–here) will no longer be sufficiently proximal to have the body be where it is not. They will be separate. So the body is only where it is. Hence, both groups, despite their contrast, presuppose, each in its own way, the infinite proximity of any point with anynext. But the Dynamic group cannot survive what it needs. Suppose that “here” and “not–here” (i.e., “there”), are not discrete but infinitely proximal. Then Rest also would be self-contradictory. And it gets worse. For it takes two to make a contradiction, in this case, “here,” “not–here,” and their proximity. But, with regard to conditions of infinite proximity, “in the end there can be only one” (point), and hence no contradiction in the first place. The Dynamic paradoxes rest on a premise with which they are inconsistent. They need two of this, of which, in a different but just as equally vital connection, there can be only one. On the force of this remark, the Dynamic paradoxes, initially the stronger of the lot, actually turn out to be the weaker. (shrink)

We distinguish three debates within current analytic philosophy of time: a first one regarding the passage of time, where static and dynamic views oppose each other; a second one concerning the existence or non-existence of temporal entities, where presentism and eternalism are main contenders; a third one about permanence, where the conflict is between permanentism and temporarism. We then consider how Severino's Parmenidean view may be related to such debates and argue that it is best viewed as (...) a kind of temporarist static eternalism. (shrink)

These are just some of the fundamental questions addressed in Time and Space. Writing for a primary readership of advanced undergraduate and graduate philosophy students, Barry Dainton introduces the central ideas and arguments that make space and time such philosophically challenging topics. Although recognising that many issues in the philosophy of time and space involve technical features of physics, Dainton has been careful to keep the conceptual issues accessible to students with little scientific or mathematical training. Surveying (...) historical debates and ideas at the forefront of contemporary thinking, the book is unrivaled in its coverage. Topics include McTaggart's argument for the unreality of change; static, tensed, and dynamic time; time travel and causal arrows; space as void, motion, and curved spac; as well as a non-technical introduction to the special theory of relativity and the key features of general relativity, spacetime, and strings. Dainton also addresses the relationship between the philosophy of time and broader human concerns involving actions, ethics, fatalism, and death. (shrink)

Exploring the metaphysics of time, this book examines key questions about the nature of time. It begins by examining the distinction between the two main theories of time, the static view and the tensed view, arguing that the temporal properties of ‘past’, ‘present’ and ‘future’ are not in fact properties of events. Other topics also discussed include fatalism, the ‘open’ future, death and dying, whether there are logical impediments to travelling in time, and the metaphysical (...) implications of precognition. Revised and expanded second edition . (shrink)

Motivated by the recent wave of investigations on plane domain wall spacetimes with nontrivial topologies, the present paper deals with (probably) the most simple source field configuration which can generate a spatially planary symmetric static spacetime, namely a minimally coupled massless scalar field that depends only upon a spacelike coordinate. z. It is shown that the corresponding exact solutions (ℳ. g±) are algebraically special, type D-[S-3T] (in11), and represent globally pathologic spacetimes with a G4-group of motion acting on R2 (...) × R orbits. In spite of the model simplicity, these Φ-generated worlds possess naked timelike singularities (reached within a finite universal time by normal nonspacelike geodesics). are completely free of Cauchy surfaces, and contain, in the t-leveled sections, points that cannot be joined by C1-trajectory images of oblique non-spacelike geodesies. Finally, we comment on the possibility of deriving from (ℳ, g±) two other physically interesting Φ-generated” spacetimes by appropriate joining conditions in the (z=0)-plane. (shrink)

Why are we still intrigued by Nietzsche? This chapter argues that sustained interest stems from Nietzsche’s challenge to what we might call the ‘staticism’ inherent in our ordinary experience. Staticism can be defined, roughly speaking, as the view that the world is a collection of enduring, re-identifiable objects that change only very gradually and according to determinate laws. The chapter discusses Nietzsche’s rejection of remnants of staticism in Hegel and Schopenhauer (1). It outlines why Nietzsche deems belief in any variant (...) of the staticist picture as problematic (2); and examines his adualistic-dialetheic stance towards, for example, first-person and third-person descriptions in the philosophy of mind (3). The chapter closes with a discussion of the contributions of "Nietzsche on Time and History". (shrink)

Accurately predicting other people's actions may involve two processes: internal real-time simulation (dynamic updating) and matching recently perceived action images (static matching). Using a priming of body parts, this study aimed to differentiate the two processes. Specifically, participants played a motion-controlled video game with either their arms or legs. They then observed arm movements of a point-light actor, which were briefly occluded from view, followed by a static test pose. Participants judged whether this test pose depicted a (...) coherent continuation of the previously seen action (i.e., “action prediction task”). Evidence of dynamic updating was obtained after compatible effector priming (i.e., arms), whereas incompatible effector priming (i.e., legs) indicated static matching. Together, the results support action prediction as engaging two distinct processes, dynamic simulation and static matching, and indicate that their relative contributions depend on contextual factors like compatibility of body parts involved in performed and observed action. (shrink)

To study the static software defect detection system, based on the traditional static software defect detection system design, a new static software defect detection system design based on big data technology is proposed. The proposed method can optimize the distribution of test resources and improve the quality of software products by predicting the potential defect program modules and design the software and hardware of the static software defect detection system of big data technology. It is found (...) that the traditional static software defect detection system design based on code source data takes a long time, averaging 65 h /day. However, the traditional static software defect detection system based on deep learning has a short detection time, averaging 35 h/day. In this article, the detection time of the static software defect detection system based on big data is shorter than that of the other two traditional system designs, with an average of 15 h/day. Because the system design adjusts the operating state of the system, it improves the accuracy of data operation. On the premise of data collection, the system inspection research is completed, which ensures the operational safety of software data, alleviates the contradiction between system and data to a high degree, improves the efficiency of system operation, reduces unnecessary operations, further shortens the time required for inspection, improves the system performance, and has higher research and operation value. (shrink)

On the distinction between static and genetic phenomenologies -- On time consciousness and its relationship to intersubjectivity -- On the question of intersubjectivity -- The Husserlian account of ethics -- Conclusion: The impact of genetic phenomenology.

Time plays a central role in consciousness, at different levels and in different aspects of information processing. Subliminal perception experiments demonstrate that stimuli presented too briefly to enter conscious awareness are nevertheless processed to some extent. Implicit learning, implicit memory, and conditioning studies suggest that the extent to which memory traces are available for verbal report and for cognitive control is likewise dependent on the time available for processing during acquisition. Differences in the time available for processing (...) also determine not only the extent to which one becomes conscious of action, but also provides the basis for making attributions of authorship to experienced acts. In this paper, we offer a brief overview of these different findings and suggest that they can all be understood based on the fact that consciousness takes time. From this perspective, the availability of representations to conscious awareness depends on the quality of these representations — the extent to which they are strong, stable in time, and distinctive. High-quality representations occur when processes of global competition have had sufficient time to operate so as to make the system settle into the best possible interpretation of the input. Such processes implement global constraint satisfaction and critically depend on reentrant processing, through which representations can be further enriched by high-level constraints. We discuss these ideas in light of current theories of consciousness, emphasizing the fact that consciousness should be viewed as a process rather than as a static property associated with some states and not with others. (shrink)

We develop a semiotic scheme of time, in which time precipitates from the repeated succession of punctuating the progressive tense by the perfect tense. The underlying principle is communication among local participants. Time can thus be seen as a meaning-making, semiotic system in which different time codes are delineated, each having its own grammar and timekeeping. The four time codes discussed are the following: the subjective time having tense, the objective time without tense, (...) the static time without timekeeping, and the inter-subjective time of the E-series. Living organisms adopt a time code called the E-series, which emerges through the local synchronization among organisms or parts of organisms. The inter-subjective time is a new theoretical dimension resulting from the time-aligning activities of interacting agents. Such synchronization in natural settings consists of incessant mutual corrections and adjustments to one’s own punctuation, which is then constantly updated. Unlike the third-person observer keeping the objective time while sitting outside a clock, the second-person negotiators participate in forming the E-series time by punctuating and updating the interface through which different tenses meet at the moment of “now.” Although physics allows physicists to be the only interpreters, the semiotic perspective upends the physical perspective by letting local participants be involved in the interpretation of their mutual negotiations to precipitate that which is called time. (shrink)

‘Philosophy’ today has come to mean the academic ideological disputes between various grandiose ‘meta-philosophies’, rather than the content or explanation of the real problems and issues. I illustrate typical expressions of the conventional ‘scientific' anti-realist philosophy of time here, and how far it has infiltrated the scientific world view.

Several functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have demonstrated abnormalities in static intra- and interhemispheric functional connectivity among diverse brain regions in patients with major depressive disorder. However, the dynamic changes in intra- and interhemispheric functional connectivity patterns in patients with MDD remain unclear. Fifty-eight first-episode, drug-naive patients with MDD and 48 age-, sex-, and education level-matched healthy controls underwent resting-state fMRI. Whole-brain functional connectivity, analyzed using the functional connectivity density approach, was decomposed into ipsilateral and contralateral functional connectivity. We (...) computed the intra- and interhemispheric dynamic FCD using a sliding window analysis to capture the dynamic patterns of functional connectivity. The temporal variability in functional connectivity was quantified as the variance of the dFCD over time. In addition, intra- and interhemispheric static FCD patterns were calculated. Associations between the dFCD variance and sFCD in abnormal brain regions and the severity of depressive symptoms were analyzed. Compared to HCs, patients with MDD showed lower interhemispheric dFCD variability in the inferior/middle frontal gyrus and decreased sFCD in the medial prefrontal cortex/anterior cingulate cortex and posterior cingulate cortex/precuneus in both intra- and interhemispheric comparisons. No significant correlations were found between any abnormal dFCD variance or sFCD at the intra- and interhemispheric levels and the severity of depressive symptoms. Our results suggest intra- and interhemispheric functional connectivity alterations in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and default mode network regions involved in cognition, execution and emotion. Furthermore, our study emphasizes the essential role of altered interhemispheric communication dynamics in the DLPFC in patients with MDD. These findings contribute to our understanding of the pathophysiology of MDD. (shrink)

One of the most interesting aspects of Józef Bocheński’s philosophy was its relation to Henri Bergson’s thought, particularly to his philosophy of religion. Unlike the majority of the Catholic philosophers at that time, Bocheński did not stress the significance of dynamic religion, but rather focused on the role of static religion in human life. In his view, what was of particular interest within this religion was its fabulation function. This direction of the philosopher’s research stemmed from the realism (...) and empiricism proper to the analytic philosophy developed by Bocheński and became increasingly visible as the years passed. In this text the author shows how Bocheński’s analyses of religion, referring to both daily human experiences and logic, moved towards Bergsonian static religion, while diverging from dynamic religion and its key notion of mysticism. (shrink)

With the continuous development of software, it is inevitable that there will be various unpredictable problems in computer software or programs that will damage the normal operation of the software. In the paper, static analysis software is taken as the research object, the errors or failures caused by the potential defects of the software modules are analyzed, and a software analysis method based on big data tendency prediction is proposed to use the software defects of the stacked noise reduction (...) sparse analyzer to predict. This method can learn features from original defect data, directly and efficiently extract required features of all levels from software defect data by setting different number of hidden layers, sparse regularization parameters, and noise ratio, and then classify and predict the extracted features by combining with big data. Through experimental tests, the performance of the presented method is better than that of the comparison method in correct rate, accuracy rate, recall rate, F1-measurement, AUC value, and running time, which proves that the research results in this paper have more accurate failure prediction effect and can timely eliminate software failures. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger has been one of the most influential but also criticized philosophers of the XX century. With Being and Time (1927) he sets apart his existential analytic from psychology as well as from anthropology and from the other human sciences that deny the ontological foundation, overcoming the Cartesian dualism in search of the ontological unit of an articulated multiplicity, as human being is. Heidegger’s Dasein Analytic defines the fundamental structures of Dasein such as being-in-the-world, a unitary structure that (...) discloses the worldhood of the world; the modes of being (Seinsweisen), such as fear (Furcht) and anxiety (Angst); and the relationship between existence and time. In his existential analytic, anxiety is one of the fundamental moods (Grundbefindlichkeit) and it plays a pivotal role in the relationship of Dasein with time and world. The paper firstly focuses on the modes of being, underling the importance of anxiety for the constitution of human being; secondly, it is shown the relationship between anxiety and world, and anxiety and time: rejecting both the Aristotelian description of time, as a sequence of moments that informs our common understanding of time, and the Augustine’s mental account of inner time, Heidegger considers temporality under a transcendental point of view. Temporality is ek-static, it is a process through which human being comes toward and back to itself, letting itself encounter the world and the entities. The transcendental interpretation of time provided by Heidegger may give its important contribution in psychopathology. (shrink)

There is little doubt that we perceive the world as tensed—that is, as consisting of a past, present and future each with a different ontological status—and transient—that is, as involving a passage of time. We also have the ability to execute precisely timed behaviors that appear to depend upon making correct temporal judgments about which changes are truly present and which are not. A common claim made by scientists and philosophers is that our experiences of entities enduring through transient (...) changes are illusory and that our apparently accurately timed behaviors do not reflect dynamical time. We argue that our experiences of objects enduring through transient changes need not be thought of as illusory even if time is not dynamic at the fundamental level of reality. For, the dynamic properties we experience objects as having need not be fundamental properties. They could be weakly emergent from static, temporal properties. Temporal properties, on this view, are similar to ordinary properties like that of being solid, which are correctly experienced as properties of medium-sized material bodies even though they are not instantiated at the fundamental level of reality. (shrink)

I suggest that Carter and Hestevold's arguments for L1 and L2 can be given a chance to succeed if (i) everywhere in them that we find an occurrence of the thesis Transient Time we replace it with an occurrence of Presentism, and (ii) everywhere in them that we find an occurrence of the thesis Static Time we replace it with an occurrence of Presentism's denial. I'm fairly confident that their arguments for L1 would succeed if these changes (...) were made. (If Presentism is true, nothing has temporal parts, for some at least of the temporal parts of a thing extended in time must be past or future. But if nothing has temporal parts, Endurance must be true.) I'm less confident that their arguments for L2 would succeed if those changes were made. But if the changes that I suggest are not made, the arguments for L1 and L2 certainly fail. (shrink)

Time is woven into the fabric of our lives. Everything we do, we do in and across time. It is not just that our lives are stretched out in time, from the moment of birth to the moment of our death. It is that our lives are stories. We make sense of ourselves, today, by understanding who we were yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that; by understanding what we did and why we did (...) it. Our memories shape our present selves, since we are the product of who we were, and who we remember being. Yet who we are lasts for but a moment. It is who we will be that demands attention. We are forever projecting ourselves into the future. We painstakingly plan for the needs of our future selves, all the while knowing that while what we do will make those future selves who they are, still, our future selves are elusive. So it is not simply that we happen to live our lives in time, the way, say, one might happen to live in Australia, or Singapore. It is hard to fathom how things could be otherwise. What would it be to live a life without time? Yet time itself is intangible. Though we are keenly aware of what has been ‒ of pain and loss, regret and pride ‒ and of what might be ‒ of anticipation, and dread, and longing ‒ time itself seems unaffected by anything we do. Though we can anticipate a future birthday cake, time itself cannot be tasted. Though we can dread a future dentist’s appointment, time itself cannot be touched. Though we remember the crunching of leaves this past autumn, time itself cannot be heard. How can it be that something so central to each of us, to who we are, and what we care about, can be so spectral? What, in the end, is time? Is time real, like a substance in which each of us, like insects in amber, finds ourselves trapped? Is time a dimension through which we can move? Is time not a thing at all, but some connection between events? If time is real, what is it like? Does it flow like a river, taking each of us prisoner in its current, washing us ever closer to the end of our lives? Is time like a cresting wave, coming ever closer to each of us from the future, engulfing us, and then receding into the past? Or is time static? Like a one-way road that each of us might wander, with no chance to turn back? Or perhaps time is like none of these things. Perhaps time is more like space; something we can navigate freely, so that we can visit different times just like we visit different places. Perhaps we can we travel in time the way we can travel in space. These questions, and many more, are the focus of this book. Now, you might wonder what philosophers are doing writing a book about time. Surely that’s a job for physicists! It is true: a great deal of what we know about time stems from our understanding of physics. However, even in physics we find that there are questions about time that go unanswered. Moreover, increasingly, physicists are turning to philosophers for help in understanding the role that time plays in current physical theories. Our goal is to get the reader up to speed on some of the central issues that influence our understanding of time so that they too may play a role in this ongoing discussion between science and philosophy. We hope that in doing so it will become clear what philosophy can bring to the study of time. There is a natural narrative in philosophy regarding the study of time, and we have chosen to organise this book according to that narrative. However, the book may also be approached in a ‘choose-your-own adventure’ spirit. While later chapters build on material introduced in earlier chapters, you can skip around, reading the book in any order you choose. For the instructor, this means that she can design her course around this book in any number of ways, depending on the particular topic she wishes to focus on. (shrink)

In the philosophy of time, the neo-positivist is focussed above all else on sustaining the view called the static theory of time, as the very foundation of their scientific metaphysics. This is the deeply held metaphysical conviction of almost all ‘modern philosophical-scientific’ writers on time. In fact it is hardly too much to say that the entire official modern 20th Century philosophy of physics rests on the assumption that the static theory of space-time is (...) the only concept of time we can use in physics. The static theory of time prescribes the representational space for physics as being logically based on space-time – to the point physicists are incapable of conceiving a theory without space-time any longer, and mutter superstitiously among themselves if someone suggests such a thing. By extension, this space-time provides the representation of all reality for the modern scientific materialists, since they believe that everything ultimately reduces to physics. This agenda simultaneously requires discrediting the alternative concept of time flow and the associated traditional metaphysical concepts that it supports. This Chapter explains the concept of time flow and contrasts it with the static or block universe theory as a genuine and natural alternative for a physical ontology. (shrink)

A common approach to explaining the perception of form is through the use of static features. The weakness of this approach points naturally to dynamic definitions of form. Considering dynamical form, however, leads inevitably to the need to explain how events are perceived as time-extended—a problem with primacy over that even of qualia. Optic flow models, energy models, models reliant on a rigidity constraint are examined. The reliance of these models on the instantaneous specification of form at an (...) instant, t, or across a series of such instants forces the consideration of the primary memory supporting both the perception of time-extended events and the time-extension of consciousness. This cannot be reduced to an integration over space and time. The difficulty of defining the basis for this memory is highlighted in considerations of dynamic form in relation to scales of time. Ultimately, the possibility is raised that psychology must follow physics in a more profound approach to time and motion. (shrink)

The thesis revolves around the following questions. What is time? Is time tensed or tenseless? Do things endure or perdure, i.e. do things persist by being wholly present at many times, or do they persist by having temporal parts? Do causes bring their effects into existence, or are they only correlated with each other? Within a realist approach to metaphysics, the author claims that the tensed view of time, the endurance view of persistence, and the production view (...) of causality naturally combine into what is called the dynamic view of temporal reality, and that the tenseless view of time, the perdurance view of persistence, and the correlation view of causality naturally combine into what is called the static view of temporal reality. The author argues in favour of a dynamic view. During the discussion a number of metaphysical problems are addressed. First, it is argued that the charges that the dynamic view is contradictory, made by J.M.E. McTaggart and David Lewis, are viciously circular. Secondly, it is argued that the static view cannot account for change, and deprives metaphysics of essential means to provide natural explanations to empirical phenomena. Thirdly, the author presents a novel account of the nature of necessary causal production. He suggests that the traditional conception of causes as essentially being external to the effects should be abandoned, and that causal production instead should be explicated in terms of reciprocal interactions between coexistent substances. (shrink)

In what sense does time exist? Is it an objective feature of the external world? Or is its real nature dependent on the way man experiences it? Has modern science brought us closer to the answer to St. Augustine's exasperated outcry, 'What, then, is time?'? Ever since Aristotle, thinkers have been struggling with this most confounding and elusive of philosophical questions. How long does the present moment last? Can we make statements about the future that are clearly true (...) or clearly false? And if so, must we be fatalists? This volume presents twenty-three discussions of the problem of time. A section on classical and modern attempts at definition is followed by four groups of essays drawn largely from contemporary philosophy, each preface with an introduction by the editor. First, in a chapter entitled 'The Static versus the Dynamic Temporal', four philosophers advance solutions to McTaggart's famous proof of time's unreality. In the next two sections, the discussion turns to the meaning of the 'open future' and to the much-debated nature of 'human time'. Finally, modern science and philosophy tackle Zeno's celebrated paradoxes. The essays by Adolf Grnbaum, Nicholas Rescher, and William Barrett are published for the first time in this volume. (shrink)

Some psychopathologic experiences have as one of their structural aspects the experience of restructured temporality. The general argument is that one of the universal microstructures of experience, namely, lived time offers a particular perspective relevant to certain psychopathologic experiences. Lived time is connected with the experience of the embodied human subject as being driven and directed towards the world in terms of bodily potentiality and capability. The dialectical relationship between the embodied human subject and the world results in (...) a sense of lived time (personal time), a lived time that is intimately synchronized with the time of others (intersubjective time). Some experiences of acute suffering, and in particular acute melancholic suffering, can dramatically alter the temporal microstructure of experience to the extent that personal lived time becomes disordered. Normally, past and future withdraw on their own according with their nature of "not being." The future is characterized as openness to change and movement. The absence of this openness is the closing of the future; without this openness, the future appears static and deterministic. When the future is experienced as static, then one longer has the possibility of "things getting better," nor does one have any possibility of relinquishing or escaping from the past because a static future does not allow openness to change and movement. In short, both past and future become static. With the presence of melancholic suffering and the absence of temporal movement, a sense of hopelessness may arise in the individual because suffering without temporal movement becomes, from the sufferer's perspective, eternal suffering. (shrink)

What is time? What does it mean for time to pass? Is it possible to travel in time? What is the difference between the past and future? Until the work of Newton, these questions were purely topics of philosophical speculation. Since then we've learned a great deal about time, and its study has moved from a subject of philosophical reflection to instead became part of the subject matter of physics. This Very Short Introduction introduces readers to (...) the current physical understanding of the direction of time, from the Second Law of Thermodynamics to the emergence of complexity and life. Jenann Ismael charts the line of development in physical theory from Newton, via Einstein's Theory of Relativity, to the current day. Einstein's innovations led to a vision of time very different from the familiar time of everyday sense. In this new vision, time is one of the dimensions in which the universe is extended alongside the spatial dimensions. The universe appears as a static block of events, in which there is no more a difference between past and future than there is between east and west. Discussing the controversy and philosophical confusion which surrounded the reception of this new vision, Ismael also covers the contemporary mixture of statistical mechanics, cognitive science, and phenomenology that point the way to reconciling the familiar time of everyday sense with the vision of time presented in Einstein's theories."--Amazon.com. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Change and the Arts Time and the Arts Time and Change in Gardens Music Makes the Passage of Time Audible Gardens Make the Passage of Time Visible Notes.

In what sense does time exist? Is it an objective feature of the external world? Or is its real nature dependent on the way man experiences it? Has modern science brought us closer to the answer to St. Augustine's exasperated outcry, 'What, then, is time?' ? Ever since Aristotle, thinkers have been struggling with this most confounding and elusive of philosophical questions. How long does the present moment last? Can we make statements about the future that are clearly (...) true or clearly false? And if so, must we be fatalists? This volume presents twenty-three discussions of the problem of time. A section on classical and modern attempts at definition is followed by four groups of essays drawn largely from contemporary philosophy, each preface with an introduction by the editor. First, in a chapter entitled 'The Static versus the Dynamic Temporal', four philosophers advance solutions to McTaggart's famous proof of time's unreality. In the next two sections, the discussion turns to the meaning of the 'open future' and to the much-debated nature of 'human time'. Finally, modern science and philosophy tackle Zeno's celebrated paradoxes. The essays by Adolf Grnbaum, Nicholas Rescher, and William Barrett are published for the first time in this volume. (shrink)

We propose an ontological theory that is powerful enough to describe both complex spatio-temporal processes (occurrents) and the enduring entities (continuants) that participate in such processes. For this purpose we distinguish between meta-ontology and token ontologies. Token ontologies fall into two major categories: ontologies of type SPAN and ontologies of type SNAP. These represent two complementary perspectives on reality and result in distinct though compatible systems of categories. The meta-ontological level then describes the relationships between the different token ontologies. In (...) a SNAP (snapshot) ontology we have enduring entities such as substances, qualities, roles, functions as these exist to be inventoried at a given moment of time. In a SPAN ontology we have perduring entities such as processes and their parts and aggregates. We argue that both kinds of ontological theory are required, together with the metaontology which joins them together, in order to give a non-reductionistic account of both static and dynamic aspects of the geospatial world. (shrink)

In "Time to Stop" (Analysis, 29,2, December 1968) Vernon Pratt argues that on a relativistic view of time the universe could not become static. He does not distinguish "it might be true at some time later than t that such-and-such is not the case" from "it might not be true that such-and-such is the case at some time later than t," and this distinction undermines his argument.

The author argues that static and genetic phenomenological methods are complementary, rather than opposite, and by claiming this, the article presents a discussion with Derrida’s interpretation of Husserl’s philosophy. It is claimed that for an adequate understanding of the two forms of a phenomenological method, one has to take into consideration especially Husserl’s B III 10 signature manuscripts. By referring to the manuscripts, the author reconstructs the object, limits, presuppositions, aims and character of both ways of inquiry. Moreover, the (...) author claims that the differentiation of the two forms of the phenomenological method steams from Husserl’s inquiries into the concept of consciousness as defined in Ideas I. (shrink)

I attempt to show, via considering Schlesinger’s device of putting the word ‘now’ in capitals, that the transient view of time can explicate temporal extensivity without presupposing it, and the static view can’t. The argument hinges on the point that duration is generated by continuance of the present—such that ‘the present’ here is used in a nontechnical, nonindexical, and nonreflexive sense, which Schlesinger and others unknowingly give to the word ‘now’ (by “NOW” or “Now” or “’now’”).

Philosophers who work on time often ignore the implications their doctrines have for the common sense intuition that the past is fixed and the future not. Similarly, those who work on fatalism, and whose arguments often imply an assertion or denial of the common sense intuition, rarely take into account the implicit dependence their arguments have upon specific theories of time. I take the intuition, and its relation to the nature of time, seriously. In Part I of (...) my thesis, I investigate the relations between the dynamic and static theories of time, on the one hand, and the intuition, on the other. I argue that the so called 'pure' forms of these theories, inasmuch as they both posit an ontological temporal symmetry, cannot do justice to the intuition. The 'pure' B-Theory, with its denial of objective temporal becoming, cannot allow for a robust sense in which the future is non-fixed. The 'pure' A-Theory, according to which only the present exists, acknowledges the robustness of the asymmetry, but cannot provide a ground for it. I conclude Part I of my thesis with the claim that only a conception of time according to which the past exists and the future does not, can account for the intuition. In Part II, I discuss those fatalistic arguments which rely upon the determinateness of future truth as their key premise, and argue that these fail either because they rely on an illegitimate modal concept, or because they rely on a key undefended assumption. Finally, in the Epilogue, I provide a more detailed sketch of the account of time posited at the end of Part I, and suggest that it can also provide a more thoroughgoing rejection of the logical fatalistic argument. (shrink)

Philosophers have long discussed whether time really passes. Simultaneously, they have also discussed whether time could have begun from an infinite past. This paper clarifies the relationship between the reality of time’s passage and an infinite past. I assert that time cannot have an infinite past if time really passes. This argument is based on a proposition that an infinite series of events cannot be completed if time really passes. A seemingly strong objection to (...) this proposition is that no movement is possible if an infinite series cannot be completed. However, movement is clearly possible; thus, an infinite series can be completed. I argue that although it is sure that an infinite series can be completed in the static view, an infinite series cannot be completed (and thus, time could not have begun from an infinite past) in the dynamic view. (shrink)

What Heidegger means by “freedom” in Being and Time is somewhat mysterious: while the notion crops up repeatedly in the book, there is no dedicated section or study, and the concept is repeatedly connected to a new and opaque idea – that of the “choice to choose oneself.” Yet the specificity of Being and Time’s approach to freedom becomes apparent when the book is compared to other texts of the same period, in particular The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, (...) The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, The Essence of Grounds, and The Essence of Freedom. Although there are some differences, the definition of freedom that can be found there identifies it with “existence” or “transcendence,” Dasein’s ek-static opening onto the world. Thus “being in the world must also be primordially bound up with or derived from the basic feature of Dasein’s existence, freedom… Dasein’s transcendence and freedom are identical! Freedom provides itself with intrinsic possibility: a being is, as free, necessarily in itself transcending” (GA 26: 238; Heidegger’s italics). Note the apodictic modality of the claim: it is not simply the case that Dasein, as transcending, is free. Anything that has the structure of being in the world must be free: freedom is co-extensive with Dasein. Yet Dasein is often pictured in Being and Time as anything but free: it “ensnares itself” (268), is “lost” (264), “alienated” (178), and needs to be “liberated” (264, 303). Thus comparison between Being and Time and other texts on freedom yields an important paradox: although by definition it transcends toward the world, the Dasein of Division I is deprived of freedom. It must be free, and yet phenomenological analysis shows that it is not free. To understand the specific meaning of freedom in Being and Time, one has to square this circle. (shrink)

According to The Static Theory of Time, time is like space in various ways, and there is no such thing as the passage of time. According to The Dynamic Theory of Time, on the other hand, time is very different from space, and the passage of time is an all-too-real phenomenon. This paper first offers some suggestions about how we should understand these two theories, and then introduces five new arguments for The Dynamic (...) Theory of Time. (shrink)

Because the traditional social media fuzzy static image interactive three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction method has the problem of poor reconstruction completeness and long reconstruction time, the social media fuzzy static image interactive 3D reconstruction method is proposed. For preprocessing the fuzzy static image of social media, the Harris corner detection method is used to extract the feature points of the preprocessed fuzzy static image of social media. According to the extraction results, the parameter estimation algorithm of (...) contrast divergence is used to learn the restricted Boltzmann machine (RBM) network model, and the RBM network model is divided into input, output, and hidden layers. By combining the RBM-based joint dictionary learning method and a sparse representation model, an interactive 3D reconstruction of fuzzy static images in social media is achieved. Experimental results based on the CAD software show that the proposed method has a reconstruction completeness of above 95% and the reconstruction time is less than 15 s, improving the completeness and efficiency of the reconstruction, effectively reconstructing the fuzzy static images in social media, and increasing the sense of reality of social media images. (shrink)

Today, knowledge on ideal text legibility and high-quality typefaces support fast reading and are accessible to almost everybody who uses a computer. Instead of accelerating the reading process, the kind of typography discussed in this article invites the observer to play in order to catch attention and go beyond the sheer process of reading. Text, which tricks our perception, is observed more intensely than usual ones. Roman Terpitz’ exhibition poster (Figure 1) and the typeface Wirefox (Figure 2) demonstrate how this (...) works in static images. Currently, there is quick growth of still and moving images. Flickering screens catch attention while their content is exchangeable anytime. Hand-held devices like smart phones, touch pads or large, facade-covering LED billboards allow text to be convertible over time. The experiment Dancing type (Figure 3) shows how animated characters can change between text and texture. Words reveal out of a graphical structure and immediately dissolve afterwards. This claims the observer’s attention. This article will introduce and analyse a typography that leads to questions like where it could be used beyond advertising, which applications make sense, if it could improve communication qualities of certain texts and how it can add benefits to current screen technologies. (shrink)

I argue that time travel to the past is impossible, given a certain metaphysical theory, namely, The Dynamic Theory of Time. I first spell out my particular way of capturing the difference between The Dynamic Theory of Time and its rival, The Static Theory of Time. Next I offer four different arguments for the conclusion that The Dynamic Theory is inconsistent with the possibility of time travel to the past. Then I argue that, even (...) if I am wrong about this, it will still be true that The Dynamic Theory entails that you should not want to travel back to the past. Finally, I conclude by considering a puzzle that arises for those who believe that time travel to the past is metaphysically impossible: What exactly are we thinking about when we seem to be thinking about traveling back in time? For it certainly does not feel like we are thinking about something that is metaphysically impossible. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe juridical force of time forms a critical, but hitherto unexplored part of Hugo Grotius’s discourse on the justice of war and peace. Grotius defines war as a span of time in which disputed rights and armed conflicts between states are examined in reference to temporal coordinates. This method allows him to adjust otherwise static laws to meet the demands of times and spaces in an increasingly expanded world. In doing so, Grotius is also able to reconcile (...) multiple layers of laws in a temporal framework, which suspends one layer of law, to be revived at later times. Finally, cautious in the use of the language of time, Grotius admits both that right demands immediacy, and that justice suffers delays. By this nexus of delay and emergency, Grotius warns against the abuse of ‘time’ as a legal concept to justify unlawful claims, which still rings with alarm today. (shrink)