Oh no not another free will thread.

[Edwardo Piet]

By a block universe do you mean like what Parmenides described?


Well for me it's simply that anything but presentism seems to lead to logical contradictions. To say that all times exist now is to say that the past and the future are happening now which makes no sense because the future is by definition what isn't happening yet and the past is by definition what isn't happening anymore.

EDIT:

Oh I don't agree with this at all. The past doesn't exist any more than the future does.

I read an article attributing something else to block universe.  I guess Eternalism is what I'm looking for?

That's the opposite to presentism and the opposite of what I believe. Eternalism=all times exist equally. Presentism=only the present exists.

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[...]In a sense, the marking of time is irrelevant to God because He transcends it. Peter, in 2 Peter 3:8, cautioned his readers not to let this one critical fact escape their notice—that God’s perspective on time is far different from mankind’s (Psalm 102:12, 24-27).

But surely this is compatible with my belief that if there is anything that exists outside of time it's impossible for us to describe it because our language (mankind's language) is temporal?

That's what i mean when I say that saying things like "The time before time" makes no sense. If there is anything outside of time, we can't describe it without contradicting ourselves because we can only think, talk and write temporally because we are temporal beings. Does that make sense?

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By the way, Hammy is a presentist noumenologically, but scientifically, he seems to agree with the current science of time (as defined in science).

Absolutely correct. It's wonderful when someone characterizes the complexities of my view fairly.

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What you're looking for is the block theory indeed, which is eternalism. Not to be confused with the growing block theory (where past still exists but future has not yet occurred).

Ah, I'd heard of the 'block theory' but not read up on it. I Googled once and found the wrong one I guess lol.

The idea of the past existing but the future not... just sounds silly to me lol.

If the whole problem with the future's existence is that it hasn't happened yet, then surely there's equal problem with the past because it's no longer there?

Unless these are all science models... in which case it's all fair play as long as those models help them do the science and make sense of the universe we live in as we experience it.

What some people who are such die hard science fans that they think metaphysics is total nonsense seem to miss is... it makes no sense to talk of things beyond our experience that we can know. Obviously literally every single thing we know, ultimately comes down to our experience.

Where's that quote from my other thread... hang on.

We know nothing about the intrinsic quality of physical events except when these are mental events that we directly experience.

There ya go. That.