Some odd theories of temporal reality, with eschatological applications

The three major theories of temporal reality are presentism (reality includes only the present), growing block (reality includes the present and past) and eternalism (reality includes past, present and future).

A recent option that has been considered is thick presentism on which reality includes a short segment of time including the present. This lets one have some of the intuitive advantages of presentism (dinosaurs and Martian settlements don’t exist) while at the same time neatly solving the problem of diachronic causation. Moreover, it raises an interesting explanatory problem: why does our world have the kind of temporal reality it does.

I think that if thick presentism is metaphysically possible, likely so are a number of other views:

1. Very thick presentism

2. Time-variable thickness thick presentism

3. Growing block

4. Space-variable thickness thick presentism

5. Swiss-cheese temporal reality.

On very thick presentism, the band of reality in thick presentism becomes extremely thick, say a million years. For there seems to be no compelling reason why the band of reality posited by thick presentists would have to be thin.

On the time-variable thick presentism, we have a thick presentism where the thickness varies with time. This is likely something that the thick presentist has to countenance. For, plausibly, some moment within the thick present has to be distinguished as “very present” to avoid violating the law of non-contradictions (since objects will have contradictory properties within the thick present). Suppose that that moment happens to be at the middle of the thick present. Then when the very present gets closer and closer to the beginning or end of time, the band of reality must get thinner and thinner. Or suppose the moment happens to be at the end of the thick present (I think that may be the better theory). Then when the very present gets closer to the beginning of time, the band of reality gets thinner and thinner. We also get time-variable thick presentism by applying patchwork principles to recombine worlds with thick presentisms of different thicknesses.

Growing-block with a finite past is just a time-variable thickness thick presentism where the very present is at the end of the thick present and the thickness of the thick present at t is equal to the duration from the beginning of time to t. And if we allow it with a finite past, why not with an infinite one—assuming an infinite past is possible?

Applying patchwork principles to thick presentisms with different thicknesses, we can get a space-variable thick presentism—here, the present may be ten minutes thick, but there it may be ten years thick.

Once we allow that, why not go all the way and allow a swiss-cheese temporal reality, where at any given time various chunks of the four-dimensional manifold are included or left out in a pretty arbitrary fashion (perhaps subject to some restrictions to make causation work)?

Now, here’s a fun theological speculation. Some thinkers are worried about eternalism and growing block on theological grounds: they worry that these theories imply that horrendously evil events like the Holocaust will eternally be a part of reality, and that this is inappropriate. But once we have expanded the range of options as we have, we can have some interesting theological theories.

For instance, perhaps, growing block is true between now and the Second Coming. Then at the Second Coming the band of reality gets very thin, so that after the Second Coming, the band of reality includes only the times from the Second Coming to the then-present. We can think of this as giving a surprising reading of the “Behond, I make all things new” of Revelation 21:5—the past events and object suddenly get wiped out of reality. Or, as a variant, perhaps partial eternalism becomes true after the Second Coming: reality now includes all times from the Second Coming on.

But one may worry that that wipes out too much—for instance, it wipes out the glory of the Cross (I am grateful to a graduate student for this worry). Very well. Then we go for a swiss cheese version where we have selective removal from reality—the Holocaust goes but the Cross stays, say.

All this has a certain resemblance to Hud Hudson’s hypertime story. But it’s different in two ways. First, it doesn’t need hypertime. Second, I am assuming here a variant of a standard presentist picture on which there are tensed truths, and the tensed truths function according to standard temporal logics. Thus, if it is true that p, it will always be true that it was true that p. What changes is what events and substances fall within the domain of restricted quantifiers—quantifiers do not commute with “at t” and other temporal operators.

For instance, on the “I make all things new” theories, right now all three of these are true:

1. There exists an x such that at 327 BC: x is a horse named “Bucephalus”

2. At 327 BC: there exists an x such that x is a horse named “Bucephalus”.

3. At 2000 AD: there exists an x such that at 327 BC: x is a horse named “Bucephalus”.

After the second coming, when the past objects and events are wiped out, we still have (b) and (c) holding, but (a) does not hold.

On a hypertime variant of “I make all things new”, once the past was wiped out, we would have none of (a)–(c).

I do not endorse any of these odd possibilities, because I am a die-hard B-theorist.

Universal love

Love contains three aspects: appreciation, benevolence and a striving for union. Suppose that we are supposed to love all human beings. In a secular context, each of the three aspects of love threatens to make the love in many cases rather anemic. It is only in a context like that of Judaeo-Christian theology that one can have a love that is both rich and universal. For let's consider the aspects severally.

Appreciation: Unless we have some picture of the human being as in the image and likeness of God, it is difficult to see that much to appreciate in a Mengele. This can perhaps be overcome if one has a robust enough notion of human nature, though perhaps that is just bringing in the image and likeness of God in a hidden way.

Benevolence: It is possible to will the good to all, as this involves a merely dispositional property. But a merely dispositional beneficence is an anemic sort of benevolence. In a religious context, however, the benevolence can act as a genuine beneficence through prayer and something like the communion of the saints.

Unitiveness: While appreciation and benevolence by themselves imply a kind of union, love's striving for union goes beyond these. But in a secular context one can't really go much beyond these in many cases. First, there is the problem of those who appear completely morally corrupt, with whom a further union would be morally problematic. In a religious context, however, the striving for union connects with eschatology. Every individual human on earth is someone with whom we can strive for eternal union in heaven (even if we believe that we won't achieve this union in every case). Second, and even more seriously, there is the problem of the billions of people with whom we simply cannot have a deeper union, because life is too short and their lives do not intersect our lives enough (for a more radical case, one might cite people in the distant past or distant future!) Again, this is overcome in a religious context, often by a potential for liturgical union—in liturgy, we are importantly united with people all over the world participating in the same liturgy—and always by a striving for a union in heaven that is prefigured by the liturgical union.

An interesting question is how the unitiveness will be realized in heaven between those who are in heaven and those who are in hell. I think here there is a kind of liturgical union, in that both those who are in heaven and those who are in hell are united in praise of God: those in heaven deliberately and explicitly so, while those in hell praise God by the value of their existence and the divine justice they exemplify. This is probably a hard saying.

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If the above is right, then the duty of universal love can only fully come into its own in a religious context.

Detraction

Both the Catholic and the Jewish traditions talk of the sin of detraction. Jewish tradition calls this lashon hara`—the evil tongue. Both traditions distinguish detraction from slander. In detraction, one discloses, without sufficient moral reason, the faults of another and one speaks the truth (or what one thinks is the truth). In slander, one makes negative remarks about another that are false (or that one doesn't think are true).
A nun I knew pointed out that there is a way in which detraction is worse than slander. For if you slandered someone, you can at least go and say: "I said bad things about x, but they were false." In detraction, you can't do that (at least not without adding a lie to your offense), so there is a way in which detraction cannot be undone. (Of course in practice, it's hard to fix things after slander, too.)

Of course, both the Jewish and Catholic traditions recognize that there are circumstances when there is sufficient moral reason to remark on the faults of another. For instance, the faults may already be notorious. Or there may be a necessity of protecting the community from the person whose faults one is disclosing.
The wikipedia article on lashon hara` cites Leviticus 19:16: "Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people; neither shalt thou stand idly by the blood of thy neighbour: I am the LORD." (Somewhat related is Jesus' prohibition on calling one's brother "raka" in Matthew 5:22.)

But what is wrong with detraction? After all, in detraction one discloses a truth (or at least that's what one thinks). And truth is a good thing. Moreover, the New Testament insists that eventually whatever is hidden will be made known. So, one might think, it is a good thing to make it known. Here are some thoughts on this puzzle.

1. The old Catholic Encyclopedia mentions, among other harms, a loss of a person's reputation for trustworthiness. This seems quite significant to me. Trust is central to the functioning of a community, and to undermine trust, without sufficient moral justification, can be a serious offense. Epistemically fallen humans are apt to be prejudiced by what they know of the faults of another to a degree that goes beyond what is rationally justified.

2. We are all sinners. By disclosing a hidden fault of another, we make it seem like this person is worse than all the people whose hidden faults are not disclosed. Frequently, the person is made to seem worse than the detractor. There is, thus, an injustice when there is no special reason to disclose the sins of this individual.

3. There may be honor among thieves, but honor among thieves is always going to be a fragile thing. We live in communities all the adult members of which are wrongdoers. Trust in such a community is particularly fragile, and unnecessary revelations of hidden specifics of the wrongdoings of others endanger that fragile but crucial thing. (This just puts 1 and 2 together.)

4. Our present point of view on evil is partial. Eventually, all evils will be defeated. Our neighbor's sin is either a sin that will be defeated by her repentance and God's forgiveness, or it is a sin that will be defeated by punishment. Seeing the sin as isolated from its particular mode of defeat—and typically we cannot know of a present sin of another which way it will be defeated—is apt to paint a distorted picture of the person's life as a whole (this consideration will be more compelling to those who accept an eternalist philosophy of time) and of the role of the sin in it. We have good moral reason not to facilitate such distortion.

5. When the faults of another are disclosed to sinful humans, these humans will be tempted to take an inappropriate attitude towards these faults, an attitude of judgment rather than forgiveness. Thus, detraction is not only a sin against the person whose reputation is being unjustly tarnished, but also a sin against the listener who is being tempted into sin. Of course, one can be morally justified in acting in such a way that someone will be tempted (if one notices a fire in a house of ill repute, one should not hesitate to call in the fire department, even though the firemen may be tempted to unchaste thoughts by what they see in the house; double effect applies here), but detraction is negative speech that, by definition, lacks sufficient moral justification.

There no doubt are other considerations.

A merit of the above answers is that it is easy to see how they are compatible with eschatological revelation of everyone's faults and merits. For in the eschatological situation, there will no longer be a problem about trust—the repentant will be fully trustworthy and no one will trust the unrepentant.


Mea culpa.

Death and the Second Coming

If I recall rightly, Aquinas had the somewhat strange idea that those people alive at the Second Coming would still die, though only for a moment (using "moment" non-technically). This is an odd position, and one might think it results from an overreading of Scriptural claims that all people die. But consider this argument:

1. (Consummated) Christian marriage only ends with death.
2. After the Last Judgment, there are no marriages.
3. All people will be alive after the Second Coming.
4. Therefore, all Christian married couples who are alive just before the time of the Second Coming will experience the death of at least one of the spouses by the time the Last Judgment is complete.

Now it seems like it would be really odd if God chose exactly one member of each married couple to die at the Second Coming. It would also be surprising if there were no Christian married couples alive just before the Second Coming (I suppose everyone might have become a monk or nun, but it seems improbable). So it is plausible that:

5. If (4), then all people on earth who are alive just before the Second Coming will die by the time the Last Judgment is complete.
6. Hence, all people on earth who are alive just before the Second Coming will die by the time the Last Judgment is complete.

One might challenge (1) as follows. Christian marriage ends with death or with the transformation of the body at the time of the general resurrection. We do not know what that transformation involves, but perhaps it is radical enough to make marriage no longer fitting.

Knowledge of the future

It is sometimes claimed that our knowledge of the future is foggy and lacking in detail, that we know very little about the future, except in a general way. I will argue that if we discount eschatological considerations, we know a lot about the future, and with a lot of specificity. So, for now, let us discount eschatology. Then, I know that American history textbooks in the year 2040 covering the first decade of the 21st century will contain a statement entailing that GWB was elected in 2004.

I know that a record of this post will be available encoded in an operating or recoverable electronic form in 2015. Anything on this blog is currently found on at least dozens of hard drives, including yours, dear reader, if you're reading on a hard-drive based computer, and including hard drives in blogspot's servers, on my home server (both the main and the backup hard drive), etc. Granted, it may be that all this data will be overwritten, but it will still be recoverable if enough effort is put into recovery (see this story on recovery of data on a hard drive in the Columbia disaster). I also know this for a lot of other information on the Internet. I also know that at least one copy of the complete works of Shakespeare will survive to 2040.

In fact, if eschatology can be discounted, I submit that I know just about as many pieces of information about how things will be in the future as I do about how things were in the past. Of course there are many things I don't know about the future, just as there are many things I don't know about the past.

So why is it that we feel that the future is so much less known than the past? I want to offer two hypotheses. The first is that we have an awareness of eschatological possibilities, of the fact that we cannot really estimate the probability that, say, in one year God will step in and really change things heavily. I am not sure this hypothesis accounts for the phenomena, though. Non-religious people are also prone to feel that the future is less well known than the past. And I can probably modify at least some of my predictions so they take the eschaton into account. Instead of talking about history books, let's talk about knowledge: I know that some people will know in 2020 that GWB was elected in 2004 (these people might be in heaven, but that doesn't affect the claim). In fact, I know quite a lot about what people will know in 2020—just about every major widely known fact about the world as it is now will be known by somebody.[note 1]

My second hypothesis as to why we feel there is an asymmetry is that this is simply because so many of the things about the future which we want to know are unknown, while comparatively fewer things about the past which we want to know are unknown. The asymmetry, then, perhaps isn't in what we know about the future or past, but in what we want to know. There is a lot more unsatisfied desire in us to know the future than there is unsatisfied desire to know the past. Or at least so it is in our culture.

Knowledge, community and eternity

When I figure out or learn something, I typically find myself with an urge to share it--with family, friends or blog readers. The new knowledge just pulls me to sharing. Some of the pull is vanity. But I don't think it's all vanity. Even if I had to share the knowledge anonymously, without ever having the satisfaction of knowing if anybody ever appreciated it, I would still feel the urge to share it. This isn't a decisive argument that it's not all vanity, but it is evidence. I think I am not alone in this.

While some goods can be enjoyed alone almost as well as together with others, much of the value of knowledge seems to be the value of communal knowledge--and when I talk of "knowledge", I mean to include here "understanding", "insight" and the like. It is natural to share knowledge--that is in large part why we have language. (Self-concealment correlates with psychological and physical problems, but apparently there is insufficient evidence at present to determine what the causal relationship if any there is here--see The Psychology of Secrets by Anita Kelly. And in any case, when I talk of what is natural, I am talking of a normative naturalness, not a statistical normalcy.)

Even those who want to have an esoteric secret doctrine tend to want to have a community of cognescenti with whom they can share it. Or at the very least, and most annoyingly, they want others to know that they have secret knowledge that no one else has.

The good of knowledge is, then, incomplete when the knowledge is solitary. Likewise, the good of knowledge is incomplete when the knowledge is evanescent. While eating a chocolate can be satisfactory even though the chocolate disappears in a few seconds, and the memory fades in minutes to hours, to know something for a short bit of time and then forget it completely is to miss out something important about knowledge. Knowledge is supposed to be a stable and lasting good. We see this in Plato (though he drew from this the wrong conclusions about what can be the object of knowledge, in large part because he was an A-theorist). Suppose we were to learn the answer to some difficult scientific problem, and if we were to about to die and live never again (of course, I believe that death is not the end of life, but this is a hypothetical question), and we could pass the answer to no one. This could be quite tormenting, and it might almost have been better not to know the answer. And, no, this is not just about bragging rights.

One of the things I have wondered about is how much of the meaning of our lives would remain if death were the end of life, and all humanity were to return "again to the nebula" (to use Russell's phrase). Perhaps some valuable things might not lose that much of their savor under that hypothesis. But knowledge, I think, would be much impoverished if it were all coming to an end. One reason for that is the structure of human knowledge. Finding things out always opens more new questions, and so knowledge points to more questions which in turn point to more knowledge--Nicholas Rescher talks about this really nicely. But I think there may also be something about knowledge itself, about the connection between knowledge and eternity.

The good of knowledge, thus, seems to point to community and eternity, being incomplete without either.

For the Christian, this reflection might point to the Trinity (God's self-knowledge is essentially shared between three Persons who have one intellect), the Incarnation and beatific vision (this self-knowledge is graciously shared with us), and eschatology (our knowledge will, indeed, last--and even our bodies will rise again, so even the kind of knowledge we have as embodied beings will return). Love is greater than knowledge (in its fullness it includes knowledge but goes beyond it), but knowledge (or at least understanding, and justified true belief) is theologically significant as well. After all, Christ is Logos and Sophia.