Growing block universe

According to the Growing Block Universe or The Growing Block View theory of time, the past and present exist and the future does not exist. The present is an objective property, to be compared with a moving spotlight. By the passage of time more of the world comes into being, therefore the block universe is said to be growing. The present is supposed to be the place where this is supposed to happen, a very thin slice of spacetime, where more of spacetime is coming into being.

The Growing Block View is an alternative to both Eternalism (according to which past, present and future all exist) and Presentism (according to which only the present exists). It is held to be closer to common-sense intuitions than the alternatives. C. D. Broad was a proponent of the theory (1923). A modern defender is Michael Tooley (in his 1997) and Peter Forrest (among others his 2004).

An argument against the Growing Block universe

Recently several philosophers, David Braddon-Mitchell (2004), Craig Bourne and Trenton Merricks have said that if the Growing Block View is correct we have to say that we don't know whether now is now. (The first occurrence of "now" is an indexical and the second occurrence of "now" is the objective tensed property. The sentence implies the sentence: "This part of spacetime has the property of being present".)

Take Socrates discussing, in the past, with Gorgias, and at the same time thinking that this (the discussion) is occurring now. According to the growing Block View tense is a real property of the world so his thought is about now - he thinks, tenselessly, that his thought is occurring on the edge of being - the objective present. But we know he is wrong, because he is in the past, he doesn't know that now is now. But how can we be sure we are not in the same position? There is nothing special with Socrates. Therefore we don't know whether now is now.

Pro Growing Block Universes

James Enns in his book: "Thinking Eye, Seeing Brain" shows how our perception of Now's interval is linked to our visual capabilities. We can at the very best perceive no better than 1/30th of a second. This is a frame rate set by physical limitations. Now is always Now, and since Mr. Enns (et al.) have shown experimentally that humans perceive Now to last between 1.25 to 1.50 seconds, this gives a top mean range of about 45 frame/s., and from this frame of reference, it's always Now, as the Past just happened recently and the Future will happen soon. This view suggests that Time is: Our perception of the processional progression of the 1/30th of a second rate at which the Universe is expanding. So everything happens Now and there is a latency lag between Now and when we finally perceive Now, so that the Past and Now have already happened and are done deals, with the Future as yet being determined, which allows our lagging perception of Now to predict and then plan and finally to manifest our Future. Now is flawed, so if one wants to change the Future, one must begin Now.

AL Englemanin his book "Expressions: A Philosophy of Mind" likens this to, and which goes back to Pythagoras, and since there is nothing new under the Sun, The Growing Block View of Time is paraphrased here: Start first with a Point, then stretch this Point and the Point becomes a Line, then stretch this Line along the Vertical axis and the Line becomes a Block, and then expand the Block, and you get Time as the Universe expanding."

See also

• Presentism
• Eternalism
• Eternity
• Philosophy of space and time

References

• C. D. Broad, 1923. Scientific Thought. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co.
• David Braddon-Mitchell, 2004, "How do we know it is now now?" Analysis 64: 199-203.
• Bourne, Craig, 2002, "When am I?" Australasian Journal of Philosophy 80(3): 359-71.

• Peter Forrest, 2004, "The real but dead past: a reply to Braddon-Mitchell", Analysis 64: 358-62.
• Merricks, Trenton, 2006, "Good-Bye Growing Block" in Dean Zimmerman (ed.) Oxford Studies in Metaphysics. Oxford University Press.
• Tooley, Michael, 1997, Time, Tense, and Causation. Oxford University Press.

External links

• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Time