Out of nowhere: the emergence of spacetime in quantum gravity Quantum gravity attempts to fuse insights from quantum physics, which has so successfully contributed to our understanding of the constitution of matter, and from general relativity, our best theory of gravitation. This is necessary in order to describe the physics of black holes and the very early universe. Such a theory is of great interest to the philosopher of nature: the conceptions of space and time arising from our manifest image of the world have already been challenged by general relativity, and adding quantum effects to the mix promises to add significant complications. As it turns out, most approaches to quantum gravity suggest that our world is ultimately neither spatial nor temporal. How can one conceptualize such a non-spatiotemporal world? May necessary conditions for empirical research in a such world even be violated? How can space and time not be fundamental, but instead emerge from a non-spatiotemporal structure just as the liquidity of water emerges from molecules which are themselves not liquid? Using a concrete example of a theory of quantum gravity, I will explain--and answer--these questions.
David Yates: (University of Lisbon)
The Pendulum Clock and the Past Hypothesis Boltzmann’s account of the thermodynamic arrow of time is based on the current macrostate of the system, the dynamical laws that govern its micro-evolution, and a uniform probability distribution over (unknown) microstates known as the Statistical Postulate. We can appeal to this framework to show that a low entropy system will almost always evolve towards higher entropy. Problem: Boltzmann's account is time-reversible and predicts that a low entropy system will have higher entropy in both the future and the past. According to the Mentaculus account of Albert and Loewer, the asymmetry between past and future is secured by adding a low entropy boundary condition called the Past Hypothesis to Boltzmann’s framework. According to Albert and Loewer, the Mentaculus can account for all the arrows of time. If we conditionalize on current macrostate, dynamical laws, statistical postulate, and the past hypothesis, they claim, we can show that a system will evolve towards higher entropy in the temporal direction that points away from the past hypothesis. But the Mentaculus must still solve the Subsystem Problem: how does a mechanism like a pendulum clock know which way the entropy gradient of the universe points? In this paper I discuss Albert’s solution to the subsystem problem. Albert claims that if you could put the past hypothesis in the future, holding the laws, the macrostate of the clock and the statistical postulate fixed, then the clock would tick backwards. I agree with Albert that if the Mentaculus account of time’s arrow is true, then so is the above counterfactual. In this talk, however, I argue that the counterfactual is false and consider what we might add to the Mentaculus to make it come out true. I conclude that the Mentaculus needs a primitive, temporally symmetric notion of causal interaction to solve the subsystem problem.
Vera da Silva Sinha (University of Oxford and University of Bergen) Chris Sinha (University of East Anglia) Time and Events – in language. mind and world How do you think about time? Do you try to visualise it, and if so what kind of image do you have? Do you see the face of a clock, or a road along which you are travelling from past to future, or an ever-expanding universe, or a line depicting events with their dates? Or perhaps the famous image of Heraclitus comes to mind, of time as a river. But can we say that any of these images is realistic? Our journey of exploration begins with our research into the way that the languages of indigenous Amazonian communities enable their speakers to communicate about events that are remembered, anticipated or imagined. Our approach is interdisciplinary, drawing on natural, life, social and cognitive sciences as well as language sciences. We situate our research findings on concepts of time in indigenous societies of Amazonia in this broad interdisciplinary framework. Our research tells us not that ‘their time’ is radically other than ‘our time’, but that events are the foundation of the human conceptual system, of the human creation of cultural worlds, and of the way that these worlds are structured in and by what we call ‘time’. We offer an account of event-based time, contrasting this with metric time, presenting highlights from our findings that attest against the claimed universality of a “mental timeline”, of space-time metaphor, and of the notion of “Time as Such”. We conclude with a preliminary analysis of the differing cultural ontologies in which temporal concepts are embedded.
Parallel Sections:
Anabela Dias (University of Lisbon)
The illusion of the passage of time in the physical world and the role that the mind plays in this illusion. We tend to see time as something independent of us. As something that moves of its own accord and that influences our way of acting and thinking. But is time really something as special as we tend to believe? How can we be so sure that the passage of time is a phenomenon that happens in the physical world and that condition us, if not even physics was able to prove the existence of the passage of time? We behave as if time really passes, making plans for a future, using expressions like “with the passage of time” and so on... But, until today, neither physics nor psychology or philosophy, have been able to come to a consensus about the passage of time. In this way, perhaps the passage of time is not a physical phenomenon, but a mental one. That is, we believe that time passes by us, but in reality, time is something static, and we are the ones who move along it. According to this, we have the belief that time moves due to a process that takes place in our brain. Therefore, this paper seeks to demonstrate that the passage of time is nothing more than a subjective mental phenomenon. To this end, at first, I will address physics and metaphysics issues regarding the idea of the passage of time. Seeking to demonstrate that the passage of time in the physical world does not exist – highlighting the impossibility of speaking of an objective and universal “now”. I will also, in the first part, emphasize the impossibility of measuring the supposed passage of time and highlighting the fact that not even physics uses time in its own equation. In a second moment, I will focus more on psychological and philosophy of mind issues regarding the question of the passage of time. Thus, I will try to demonstrate the importance that our mind has for the conception that time passes. Showing next that there are different ways of perceiving time and its supposed passage. I will also show in this part cases that demonstrate that, when brain damage occurs, our conception of time and the idea of passage can be modified – thus emphasizing that the supposed passage of time is not something reliable. In this way, we can conclude that, the so-called passage of time, says more about the way that our brain works than about how the world really is. That is, if the world were an uninhabitable place, all times would exist in simultaneous, without ever having a flow. For, although there is a strong connection between us and time, we are not influenced by it. On the contrary, each of us dictates our supposed passage of time. Keywords: Time, passage, mind, illusion, subjectivity.
António Mendes (Departamento de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Escola Secundária de Barcelinhos)
Time, Grammar, and Ontic Realism The view that time is real structures our common beliefs and discourse about ourselves or the world. Common alternative views of the nature of time may include differences about time asymmetry, intrinsic direction, or the distinction between objective and subjective, but never question its reality or existence. This ontic realism is problematic in scientific views about time. Time appears in most equations of classic physics. However, since Newton we know that we do not measure the true-time t, but the assumption of its existence allows efficient frameworks to describe nature, change, and causation (Newton, 2017, p. 37). Relativity and Quantum theories turn obsolete the ordinary belief about a time t flowing by itself, and in relation to which everything evolves. This stance allows a description of nature, and of change as independent of space or time (Rovelli, 2017, 2018). Human organisms code inner and outer situations or events into neural maps for homeostatic purposes (Damasio, 2003; Damasio & Carvalho, 2013), and human bodies also create secondary and schematic maps of those first order maps and merge them into neural schemas for action or motor behavior (Arbib, 1999; Aziz-Zadeh & Damasio, 2008; Jeannerod, 1999). Neural mappings code time as temporal meanings derived from cognitive representations of space and motion, and these meanings can be enacted through synchronous coactivation of neural mappings or patterns (Kraft et al., 2009; Pöppel, 1994, 2009) and traduced into symbolic, grammatical, and diagrammatical units for reasoning or causal narration (Brandt, 2020a; Evans, 2004, 2013; Talmy, 2000, 2003b), or other intentional actions (Bergen et al., 2003; Gallese & Lakoff, 2005; Talmy, 2003a). In this paper, we discuss the dependence of such alternative views of time upon a presumed bifurcation between concepts of subjective or mental origin as opposed to concepts having a sensorimotor, or external origin. First, we will argue that such bifurcation is illusory because temporal experience and cognition is a complex process involving several cognitive processes (assessing motion, fictive motion, spatial situations, and duration; to distinguish the present from the past, to anticipate the future from present and past experiences, to judge simultaneity, to order events in memory in chronological or causal sequences, etc.) Second, we will argue that although time cannot be equated with an objectively real attribute of the physical world, grammatical structures for temporal cognition define temporal frames of reference (Evans, 2013) that enable us to make sense of the dynamical aspects of our experience, such as motion, change, and causation. Finally, we will discuss the possible reconciliation between the multiplicity of times in relativity theory or timeless physical theories (Rovelli, 2009, 2021) and the temporal reference systems in human language and thought. The evidence presented indicates that time is not a unitary notion or property but a complex, processual, and multidimensional cognitive representation (Brandt, 2020b; Rovelli, 2021) that looks consistent with a dynamical conception of the world but denies both Presentism and Eternalism (Rovelli, 2009; Tooley, 2000). Keywords: Time, Embodied Cognition, Cognitive Grammar, Temporal Frames of Reference, Presentism.
Bensu Altunsoy (Yeditepe University)
Kant And Bergson on the perception of Time The concept of time is a complex and multifaceted one, and there are various philosophical and scientific theories about its nature. In this paper, I will elaborate on Immanuel Kant and Henri Bergson’s perspectives on the nature of time, and the difference in their philosophies regarding the role of intuitionin perceiving temporality. In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant claims that the pure forms of intuition, namely space and time, in the faculty of sensibility underlie the necessary a priori conditions for all possible human cognition. That is, all empirical intuitions stand under these conditions. Furthermore, the operations of the faculty of understanding, and the function of the act of I thinkas spontaneity from a Kantian perspective determine the extent to which the human mind is able to cognize objects with regard to, first, the original-synthetic unity of apperception, which allows the human mind to think an object in one consciousness of it, that is, perception of an object as one and the same thing; and secondly, the synthesis of apprehension, which allows us to place any given outer object in, again, one and the samespace and time. Thus, time is an a priori condition of the mind in order for things to become objects for us, and temporality is imposed to events subjectively. When it comes to Bergson, however, he proposes an account of time as a flowing, continuous duration. Since our understanding is based on our mental representations and intuitions, it might be difficult to conceive of time in the Bergsonian sense as something that is not made up of distinct moments or points. Yet Bergson believes that our typical way of thinking about time as a series of discrete moments is actually an abstraction, and that the true nature of time is a continuous, flowing whole that cannot be divided into parts. He argues that our experience of time is more fundamental than our conceptual understanding of it, and that we must rely on our intuitionto grasp its true nature. The term ‘intuition’ in Bergson has a rather different meaning than in Kant, in the sense that it is, or can be, our way of apprehending reality immediately without being limited by our mental representations or concepts. Keywords: Kant, Bergson, time, temporality, intuition.
Charles Spinosa, B. Scot Rousse and Matthew Hancock (Independent Scholar and Principal of Independent Consulting Practice) (Visiting Scholar at the University of California at Berkely and Director of Research, Pluralistic Networks) (Independent Scholar and Founder, Missions that Matter)
Using Heidegger’s Temporal Realism to Bridge Conflicting Positions on Time in Today’s Physics Today’s physics remains divided over whether time is fundamental to the universe (as Lee Smolin and string theorists say), emergent (as Claus Kiefer, Carlo Rovelli, and canonical and loop gravity theorists say), or an aspect of our making sense of things (as Julian Barbour claims). Relativity and quantum physics are similarly divided. We argue that Heidegger’s minimal account of time in nature—as a pulsing, repeating, now (and not a sequence of nows)—from Being and Time--provides a useful bridge between the differences especially when united with Claus Kiefer’s interpretation of Neville Mott’s exemplary derivation of a time-dependent microsystem from a time-independent microsystem. The paper starts by setting out the opposed accounts of time in relativity and in quantum physics. Relativity has no place for a flowing now and no global, stable timeframes. Quantum physics has a flowing now and requires a stable global timeframe. We then turn to Heidegger to show how he starts with time in sensemaking and finally arrives at what it is without all the components that come from our sensemaking. It is not continuous, infinite, infinitely divisible, directed, and made up of a forward-moving now with a closed past and open future. It is a repeating, pulsing now that has a before and after within each now but not between nows. Heidegger’s account of time matches the time of circadian rhythms. We then turn back to physics. Canonical and loop quantum gravity try to bridge the divide between relativity and quantum physics by claiming that fundamentally there is no time, no now. That satisfies relativity. Yet, time does emerge in micro-systems. That satisfies quantum theory. However, physicists have then to make sense of change without time. To see how Heidegger could help, we turn to Claus Keifer’s account of Neville Mott’s exemplary derivation of a time-dependent system from a time-independent system. The time-independent system is a radium nucleus interacting with a hydrogen atom. Mott shows how Schrödinger’s time-independent equation accounts for the system. But to account for the hydrogen atom’s evolution, Schrödinger’s time-dependent equation is required. Heidegger’s concept of time in nature as repeating, pulsing nows fits with and fills out the time-independent state and equation. How does this time become sequential? Heidegger’s phenomenology of natural clocks revealing time and the Keifer-Mott account of the radium nucleus acting as a natural clock come together. The oscillations of the wave representing the radium nucleus set the pace for the evolution of the hydrogen atom. Thus, we have the radium nucleus’s now tied to the place1 of the hydrogen atom’s evolution; another now gets tied to place2, and out of that emerges the sequence of nows as well as a spacetime manifold that ties motion to place and then to time. Thus, applying Heidegger’s concept of time in nature keeps the bridge between relativity and quantum physics supplied by quantum gravity while also keeping time as foundational and avoiding the need to account for change without time. Keywords: Heidegger, time, realism, idealism, quantum gravity
Daniel Saudek (Uppsala, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt)
Time’s order from non-ordered sets This contribution presents a derivation of time’s order:
Consider a patch P of mud in which animals leave their footprints. Somebody photographs all states in P’s existence and shuffles the stack of photos in random order. The set of all states of P, with no temporal order defined on it, will be called MP. Can you find a temporal order by inspecting the stack? Let e be an elephant’s footprint, and d a dinosaur’s footprint in P. Also, let the event “d appears” be written as d, and “e appears” as e. You find that there is a state Pd (where it is understood that this is a state without e), and a state Pde, and no state Pe. Then, event e cannot occur before event d, since otherwise Pe would exist. Hence, d must occur either before or simultaneously with e. An atemporal configuration on MP is thus a sufficient condition for a temporal order between events. It is not claimed here that state Pd cannot exist after state Pe. It clearly could. Rather, the above condition refers to an order of events, not of states. Nor is tacitly assumed that “footprints, once produced, stay forever”. On the contrary, the mud could be very unstable, so that footprints quickly vanish. But the above reasoning still holds. No hidden circularity is involved. Underlining a state will signify its existence, so “Pd” means “state Pd exists”. “bs” will mean “is before or simultaneous with”. Then, Pde, Pd, ¬Pe → d bs q. Since we can apply the same reasoning to any macroscopic object X, records p, q in it, and corresponding events p, q, we can write: Xpq, Xp, ¬Xq → p bs q. This configuration will be called the “pq-asymmetry”.
The pq-asymmetry is sufficient for but is it also necessary? No, since there are examples where pq-asymmetry. However, an asymmetry of this type is necessary to measure the strict order “p is before q”. For example, if you (Y) see events d and e, so that there are records—call them d’, e’--in Y, you can ascertain that d is before e only if there is a subset of MY with the configuration: Yd’e’, Yd’, ¬Ye’. This is shown by checking through all other combinations involving d’ and e’ in subsets of MY.
Suppose you find a blank state of P, with no traces in it. There are two ways this can occur: 1. nothing happens; 2. several events combine so as to produce a blank state. By p bs q, p bs q, and there is no distinguishing these two cases, we obtain the set MP. It is now shown that, on MP, a pq-asymmetry is both necessary and sufficient for a strict before order.
Thus, I propose that time order is not fundamental, but emergent. It can be reduced to non- ordered sets of states of objects, and the pq-asymmetry on these sets. Keywords: time order, before, pq-asymmetry, records, emergence.
Daniel Grimmer (University of Oxford)
From Humean Laws to a Neo-Kantian Spacetime: A Dynamics-First View of Topology Many of our leading theories of quantum gravity seem to suggest that space and time are either fundamentally discrete, or else they are non-fundamental. If this is the case, then our familiar experience of time (especially its continuity) would need to somehow emerge from something which is either discontinuous or non-spactiotemporal. But how is this possible? Typical emergence stories involve positing some speculative physical theory and then showing that in some limit this particular theory admits an approximate description in terms of continuous space and time. I will discuss an alternate approach to studying emergence which requires no limit taking, no approximations, and works in a (largely) theory-independent way. Given almost any theory set on a spacetime manifold (either continuous or discrete), one can use the ISE Methodology to reframe the theory as existing on a wide variety of different spacetime setting. To do this, one simply recognizes different operations as generating the theory’s spacetime translations. These alternate spacetime descriptions do not arise via any approximations and limits, but are rather exact in every regime. For instance, there are a wide variety of theories (i.e., those with a finite bandwidths) which can be equally well described as existing on a continuous or a discrete spacetime. I will argue that these various possible spacetime settings for such theories are best viewed as being equally valid descriptions of the theory’s non-spaciotemporal content. Keywords: quantum gravity; spacetime emergence; discrete vs continuous time; ISE Methodology; spacetime algebraicism;
Daniela Monteiro and Emília Araujo (Faculdade de Filosofia e Ciências Sociais da Universidade Católica Portuguesa – Centro Regional de Braga) (Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade do Minho)
Exploring the Role of Time in Access to Culture: A Theoretical Analysis of Socioeconomic Factors Access to culture has been a topic of discussion from several perspectives, namely the importance of democratizing cultural spaces through accessible or free admissions to avoid barriers for low-income people. However, time and the uses of time are critical dimensions in this discussion. In this regard, this study addresses the issue of time poverty, free time and the time constraints faced by economically vulnerable populations, which may hinder their engagement in cultural and leisure activities. Furthermore, it highlights the need to theoretically explore the interaction between time use and socioeconomic factors, such as economic status, social class, employment, and gender. The paper proposes a theoretical approach that considers the interaction between leisure time use and socioeconomic factors, aiming to deepen our understanding of accessibility issues in cultural engagement for populations with limited economic resources. By doing so, the study intends to contribute to the ongoing debate on the democratization of culture and the reduction of access inequalities, recognizing the fundamental role of time in shaping the cultural experiences of these populations. Through an integrated analysis of free time and its socioeconomic determinants, the research seeks to identify and comprehend vulnerable populations' barriers to accessing culture. This theoretical understanding is crucial for informing the development of inclusive cultural policies that promote equitable and broader participation in cultural and leisure activities, enabling all individuals to enjoy their cultural citizenship fully. The study employs a literature review methodology to synthesize existing research, critically evaluate key concepts and theories, and identify gaps and areas for further investigation. By examining a range of scholarly works, this research aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the current knowledge landscape and generate insights to inform future research and policy development in this field. Keywords: time use; access to culture; cultural democratization; vulnerable populations; social inequalities.
Dominic Ryder (London School of Economics (LSE), Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method)
Directed Temporal Asymmetry from Scale Invariant Dynamics: Is the Problem of Time’s Arrow Solved? Julian Barbour has argued that time is complexity, simpliciter. This metaphysics of time is offered as a radical departure from, and improvement on, popular accounts of the arrow of time (AoT) which emphasise its relationship to entropy and the 2nd law of thermodynamics, via statistical mechanics (SM). This is because it avoids the need to assume boundary conditions without explanation (such as Albert (2000); Callender (2004a, 2004b); criticised in Price (1996, 2002, 2004)) and doesn’t face problems associated with defining a SM entropy on the Universe (highlighted by, amongst others, Gryb (2021); Earman (2006); Schiffrin and Wald (2012); Winsberg (2004); Davey (2008); Wallace (2017); Barbour (2020)). Un- fortunately, the proposal has received minimal philosophical analysis. I begin to amend this omission here. In this talk I give a brief exposition of the proposal and its improvements over SM accounts of time, criticise the new proposal, and suggest an improvement. The motivation for the ‘time is complexity’ claim emerges from the scale in- variant model of Newtonian gravity by Barbour, Koslowski, and Mercati (BKM) (2014, 2013, 2015). This model purports to solve the problem of the arrow of time (PoAoT) by deriving a U-shaped curve in a scale invariant variable they call com- plexity, which measures a system’s inhomogeneity. They identify two areas of local asymmetry, either side of the minima of the curve (the Janus point), and suggest there is an AoT pointing away from the Janus point on each side of the curve. The model therefore derives local temporal asymmetry from time symmetric physics without assuming a past hypothesis, and as such the Janus point structure of the solution holds significant preliminary promise for a minimal solution to the PoAoT. However, I show that the model does not recover sufficient supervenience relation- ships between the complexity AoT and other AoTs (including the psychological, causal, epistemic, thermodynamic and radiative AoTs) to regard the problem as being solved. These supervenience relationships are essential for a solution to the PoAoT, because without them there are multiple PoAoTs, and so rather than solving the problem it is multiplied. I also analyse the PoAoT in a framework of research programmes and highlight that these supervenience relationships are essential for the progressiveness of the Barbourian programme, and therefore the failure to derive them undermines the research programme as a whole, including Barbour’s metaphysics of time. As an antidote to this problem I suggest a novel line of research which defines SM in subsystems, such as solar-systems and galaxies, within the BKM model. By recovering the SM AoT (and thus the thermodynamic AoT) as supervening on the complexity AoT, this combined model would be a significant advance towards a satisfactory solution to the PoAoT. This is a departure from accounts which identify time with entropy- or complexity- increase; time emerges from both local entropy gradients and cosmological complexity gradients. By integrating the BKM model with SM, each solves the other’s difficulties, and suggests a resolution to this old problem. Keywords— Arrow of Time; Julian Barbour; Time as Complexity; Scale Invariance; Statistical Mechanics
Elton Marques and Bruno Nobre (universidade Católica Portuguesa) Time, emergence, and temporality. According to many philosophers of physics, the variable 'time' does not appear in certain domains of scientific discourse. Some of these authors suggest thinking the concept 'time' as less fundamental, thus meaning that time is emergent, i.e. it emerges from more basic structures or domains of reality. In this article, our proposal will be to discuss how we can deal with some conceptual problems that the emergence thesis presents. According to L. Sklar (1983), we could hardly imagine or represent a world without time or space, or, to put it another way, a world without 'space-time'. Our focus will be to discuss the apparent fundamentality of time, considering emergentism and the impact this thesis may have on the revision of this status, in philosophy and in other areas where the concept of time finds a place. After discussing these difficulties, we will postulate a compatibilist solution: the fundamentality of time in some domains, although it contrasts strongly with its emergence in the field of quantum gravity, demands only a descriptivist thesis about the content of this concept, revealing a less 'divisive' verbal dilemma than one might think. Discussing this aspect of the problem may contribute to the acceptance of the emergence thesis among philosophers less familiar with the latest scientific advances, in restricted domains such as quantum gravity and others. Keywords: Emergentism, temporality, space-time, descriptivism, fundamentalism
A Wittgensteinian reading of linguistic data about time conceptualization across languages and cultures This talk is constituted by two separate topics that I wish to combine in a meaningful comparison in the final part. The first part consists of a metanalysis of the studies that, across languages and cultures, have found linguistic and cognitive models of time that are not reified, dividual, (in a word: metric) but, rather, are event-based within a given social and cultural context. I will organize these findings and try to systematize them from a philosophical perspective. The second part will expose Wittgenstein’s sketch of a conceptual opposition between two different kinds of time (“memory-time” vs. “information-time”, or “physical time”). While it has been argued that such a distinction is a special case of a way more general Wittgensteinian reflection upon “phenomenological and physicalist frameworks” (Hintikka 1996), here I will focus on his characterization of time as something people think of and think in. The final part will tentatively investigate the possibility that the empirical linguistic findings may indeed not warrant conclusions on how people think about time. I’ll use Schulte’s (2006) interpretation of Wittgenstein's work-in-progress reflection on time to suggest that the very notion of making inferences about ontology (of time, in this case) expressed or lived by a linguistic community must be rethought, if not perhaps abandoned.
João Onofre (Universidade Católica Portuguesa)
O tempo como forma geral da estrutura dinâmica da realidade Para Zubiri, «a realidade é sempre emergente [...] em virtude do seu dinamismo» (EDR 280), e a «forma geral do dinamismo» é o tempo. O tempo não é uma espécie de linha pré-existente onde «caem» as coisas, da mesma forma que o espaço não é um mero recetáculo das coisas. É algo estruturalmente intrínseco à realidade: toda a realidade emerge num onde e num quando. O tempo é então temporalidade, uma «respetividade», um modo constitutivo do estar das coisas reais, umas «respetivamente» às outras. Da análise zubiriana resulta uma análise concetual em três momentos: o conceito descritivo do tempo (que nos releva as noções de conexão, direção, distância e unidade do tempo), o conceito estrutural do tempo (sucessão, idade, duração, precessão) e o conceito modal do tempo (o «já», o «é» e o «ainda» como «fácies» estruturais do ser). Conjugaremos estas análises com a noção fundamental da fase madura do filósofo espanhol de atualidade e analisaremos a sua «surpreendente» tese de que o tempo é um modo de ser e não um modo de realidade. Palavras-chave: realidade; ser; tempo; temporalidade; atualidade.
José Beato (University of Coimbra - IEF /CECH (Portugal))
Paradoxes of the instant: chronology and metachronology of emergence Time can be understood as a continuous emergence, composed not only of the fluid mass of duration (Bergson) that encompasses both persistence and transformation but also of a myriad of pulsations, sudden events, and occurrences that propel "becoming" and bring forth the future. However, the "instant" poses a unique challenge as a temporal category. It lacks the morphology of the "moment" and is not equivalent to the "present." As Plato's "exaiphnes" (ἐξαίφνης) suggests, the instant is "out of time," (Parmenides: 156d9) and even Aristotle, who analyzed time starting with the notion of "nûn" (νύν), acknowledges that "time is not constituted of instants" (Physics: IV, 218a8-10). Instant is paradoxical, encompassing both chronological and metachronological dimensions. On one hand, the instant represents the pulsation and propulsion of irreversible becoming. On the other hand, it signifies a fault or fracture in the interval of that same becoming, emerging suddenly as the insubsistent instance of kairosand event. Despite this paradoxical nature, one can argue that the instant, being both the "denial of point and moment," "sets the time" (Jankélévitch). The instant subverts the intratemporal genesis and causality inscribed in the irreversible and irrevocable flow of time, giving rise to both creation and nihilation. It serves as the intersection of time and eternity (Kierkegaard). The purpose of this paper is to present the main features of paradoxes of the 'instant'. Our starting point will be the metaphysics of Vladimir Jankélévitch, a philosopher of time who develops a unique perspective that transcends the controversy between Gaston Bachelard and Henri Bergson. Specifically, we will examine the duality between the 'intuition of the instant' and the 'intuition of duration' as antagonistic ways of understanding the fundamental experience of time and emergence. Keywords: Instant; Kairos; event; exaiphnes; nûn; Jankélévitch; Bergson; Bachelard
There is no time, only change: deconstructing the concept of time and examining the partially fundamental and partially emergent nature of change This paper proposes that the concept of time is a construct we use to measure and describe our experiences and observations of a specific type of change. It is not the goal of this paper to prove that time does not exist. Rather, by arguing that wherever we apply the concept of time, there is a specific type of change, and by analyzing the components of this change, I suggest that there is no reason to believe in the existence of time as anything over and above this specific type of change. For ease of exposition, I will use the acronym STOC for the specific type of change in question. Everything that we use the concept of time to account for is accounted for by the components of STOC. We use the term ‘time’ and all temporal language as a matter of convenience. Whether reality is fundamentally timeless and whether time is emergent are active areas of research in philosophy of time. Since, I argue, the concept of time tracks the phenomenon of STOC, the question becomes whether this specific type of change is fundamental or emergent. I argue that there is no simple solution to this question. There is at least one component of STOC that is fundamental, some components of STOC that are emergent, and at least two components of STOC for which is there is a longstanding debate over whether they are fundamental, emergent, or just a product of human thought. I conclude that whether STOC is fundamental or emergent is mostly a matter of choice of description. We can either describe STOC as partially fundamental and partially emergent or we can describe it as emergent, since it is not wholly fundamental. During this discussion, I also address questions of how the terms ‘fundamental’ and ‘emergence’ are being used. Keywords: change, causation, entropy, emergence, timelessness
Kevin Purkhauser (University of Vienna)
Self-organisation, emergence, quantum- thermodynamics, complexity, organisational emergence As a joint PhD student, I conduct research on two fronts. Firstly, I explore the mechanisms driving selforganisation in complex systems, encompassing entropy, phase transitions, feedback loops, and information processing in far-from-equilibrium states. Secondly, I investigate the intersection of thermodynamics and quantum mechanics, focusing on phenomena occurring at different scales. For instance, the behaviour of a single electron wire within a gas-heat bath reveals intriguing convergence and complex states. Within the first realm of inquiry, an ongoing challenge lies in formalising the concept of selforganisation in a manner that captures the essential distinction between living and non-living systems. Despite advances in fields such as lambda calculus, a comprehensive formalisation that elucidates how a system can effectively harness and replenish its energy gradient akin to living organisms remains elusive. In the second realm, reliance on Navier-Stokes equations and numerical methods proves insufficient for explaining spontaneous organisational behaviours that manifest in complex regimes, such as the one elucidated earlier, but which can be observed through machine learning algorithms. Both lines of inquiry grapple with phenomena that fall within the purview of emergence. However, emergence is not a mere synonym for the unknown, but rather an acknowledgement of specific mechanisms that manifest within hierarchical structures, reflecting organisational patterns arising from interactions at different scales. Amidst the commonly recognised concepts of emergence proposed by Humphrey, such as weak, strong, synchronic, diachronic, upwards, and downwards, a potential unifying notion that aligns with foundational principles is that of organisational emergence. Organisational emergence explores the dynamic processes in complex systems, where properties emerge from interactions and collective behaviours, without clear delineation of collectives or components. Embracing the complexity inherent in such systems necessitates a departure from the Newtonian phase space and an embrace of uncertainties, thereby diverging from the conventional application of weak emergence in physics. Strong emergence lacks explanatory power, requiring non-derivable leaps or invoking an external intelligent designer, leading to regress. Organisational emergence strikes a balanced approach. Hence, a bridging compromise emerges in the form of organisational emergence. However, the role of time in this context warrants consideration. While we have thus far employed a thermodynamic conception of time, incorporating the principles of relativity and insights from modern theories necessitates a broader perspective. Consequently, the question arises: How does emergence manifest as a temporal mechanism, and how does emergence as a mechanism comport within temporal mechanics? Addressing this query relies on our fundamental understanding of both emergence and time. From an organisational perspective, emergence finds its essence in the relational dynamics between mechanisms and entities across various scales. Time, in turn, becomes a reflection of these relational dynamics, with the organised hierarchies serving as repositories of memories. In my thesis, I delve into the interplay between organisational emergence and time. By adopting an organisational perspective, I offer fresh insights into these fundamental phenomena, bridging disciplines and contributing to scientific inquiry. Keywords: self-organisation, emergence, quantum-thermodynamics, complexity, organisational emergence
Marcos González-Vidal (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and Universidade Católica Portuguesa)
Machina mundi. A cognitive linguistic approach on the effects of the clock in the conceptualization of TIME This paper explores how the invention of the clock machine brought about a series of fundamental changes in the understanding of the concept TIME in Spanish from the 16th to the 19th century. Previous historical and cultural studies (Mumford 1934, 1967, 1970 or Le Goff 1977, 2020), have already reflected on the importance and the social and cultural effects of the mechanical conception of TIME born in the Middle Ages in Western Europe, showing how its conception has developed over the years in parallel with research on the technology of the clock. And there is also ample research on the conceptualization of TIME as SPACE and MOTION within Cognitive Linguistics (Cifuentes Honrubia, 1989; Boroditsky, 2000; Evans, 2004; Sinha et al. 2011; Moore, 2014, 2017; among many others) proving that TIME constitutes a real experience, both subjective and psychological, becoming manifest in our way of expressing temporal events. Drawing on these antecedents, this study takes a Corpus Linguistics approach by searching for the concepts of CLOCK and MACHINE in the Corpus del Español (Davies, 2002-) and Corpus Diacrónico del Español (CORDE) (REAL ACADEMIA ESPAÑOLA, n.d.) corpora from the 16th to 19th centuries. This empirical analysis is combined with Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, 1999; Johnson, 1991) with the aim of identifying the conceptual metaphors which conform the mechanical conception of TIME at the dawn of the Modern Age. Results show how the conceptual metaphors found, related to MACHINE in general and to CLOCK specifically, project a conception of TIME dominated by a mechanical rationality which, although already present in the Middle Ages, is found in a stable and mature form throughout the Modern Age. Thus, conceptual metaphors such as THE UNIVERSE IS A MACHINE/CLOCK or GOD IS A CLOCKMAKER, among others, project mappings related to harmony, equilibrium, cause-effect determination or to the notion of system which make the mechanical frame of TIME emerge. In this sense, TIME is understood as lineal, uniform, divisible, regular, perpetual or precisely measured. Finally, this paper also discusses the continuity in history of some of these mappings and their application to other domains like the BODY, as in conceptual metaphors such as THE BODY IS A CLOCK. Keywords: time, clock, machine, Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Corpus Linguistics.
Peter Koss (Retired Engineer/Scientist/Philosopher)
Time and Time Again – What is time? Regardless of the 20th century progress in science and philosophy, we still have different opinions about the meaning of the term “time.” This has been caused by the insufficient philosophical understanding of the term “mind” and by uncritical acceptance of new ontological views and concepts of time and space introduced by Einstein in his theories of relativity. Einstein’s theories were based on insufficient ontological views of Leibniz who understood happenings in the world as sequences of events and who paid attention to the simultaneity of events. There were three philosophers whose ontological views are important for understanding of time. Alfred N. Whitehead, in his “Science and the Modern World,” asserts that Nature needs to be understood from the viewpoint of processes; that is, being in the ongoing processes rather than to understand it as a series of individual events. Henri Bergson, in his “Creative Evolution,” and Martin Heidegger, in “Being and Time,” addressed human life as a continuous process. They pointed towards the fact that the existence of the inanimate things of Nature as well as the life of living creatures are the dynamic ongoing way of being. They pointed out to the continuation of being. The true understanding of time and temporal terms comes also with a second advance--the modern understanding of human cognition, mind and its relation to the outside world. It comes from understanding of mind as representations or reflections of the world in the human brain that are of different nature than the physical world itself. In our brains, we have visual images and other sense-impressions and feelings provided by the biological nature of our bodies, and human mental constructs in form of symbols (words and language) generated by our intellectual efforts. As part of our cognition, we notice different aspects, features or characteristics of physical things and happenings. We then abstract them, separate them from the things themselves, and give them names. We talk about length, speed, etc., as if they would be something separate from the physical things themselves. We are also conscious of continuities and discontinuities, beginnings, duration and endings, and describe real things by these abstractions. To understand time and temporal terms, we needed to make this step to understand abstractions, what they are and where they came from and to learn that the existence of inanimate things as well as the life of living things are the dynamic, ongoing way of being.
Time is not a real physical thing by itself. The facts that we can observe or detect and are conscious of are that real physical things exist and continue to exist. Time and temporal terms are abstractions that we generated to characterize, to represent the continuous existence of the world. The measure of time or the scientific time is the more complex human construct established by convention that arbitrarily selected one physical process of real things operating under specific (standard) conditions to be the quantitative measure for the ongoing continuation of the world’s existence. Keywords: time, mind, representation, abstraction, continuous existence.
Intratextual Futurology: a Cultural-Linguistic approuch to Future of Believe. Religious texts such as the Bible, the Koran and the Bhagavad Gita, represent, within their strong narratives, significant and powerful summaries of one culture’s systems of symbols and beliefs. Many times they contain as well several prophecies that alert humanity of possible future happenings. However, could the narrative of a religious text become so intense as to determine the lifetime of the community of believers and to affect their future? That’s the dynamic that seems to emerge from many parts of the work of the American theologian George Lindbeck, on which the present intervention aims to be concentrated. Lindbeck’s work develops a cultural-linguistic approach to theology that integrates together the Wittgensteinian philosophy of language and the considerations on culture of Clifford Geertz’s anthropology into a new understanding of faith. In his main work The Nature of the Doctrine, George Lindbeck presents an “intratextual” hermeneutic of the religious text’s narrative, focused on the relationship between the text and the world. According to such a view, the criterion for the faithfulness of sacred texts’ interpretation should be an internal one and the criterion of the applicability of this intratextual vision to the world outside the text should be a “futurology”, i.e. their capacity to offer a significant lecture of reality in the present and mostly in the future time: “A scriptural world is thus able to absorb the universe [...] In brief, a theological proposal is adjudged both faithful and applicable to the degree that it appears practical in terms of an eschatologically and empirically defensible scenario of what is to come”. Therefore, the ability of the religious text to “absorb the world” depends on the relationship between present time of texts’ reading and a future that bears an eschatological promise. In this way, the community of believers seems to live constantly in that moment that the philosopher G. Agamben calls “the time that remains”, marked by the waiting of a future to come. Such a condition seems finally to be a proposal for religious communities in contemporaneity, characterized by the new challenge of defending their beliefs in a plural, globalized and secularized world. As Lindbeck considers in his essay Ecumenism and the Future of Belief, communities of believers should accept a condition of inferiority and become a “creative minority which, despite a sociologically and politically peripheral status, exerts a quite disproportionate influence on the molding of the future”. Therefore, the capacity of the texts’ narrative to shape the future of the interpreters, would be then reported to the society in the witness of the believers. “The general point”, concludes Lindbeck, “is that, provided a religion stresses service rather than domination, it is likely to contribute more to the future of humanity” Keywords: Future - Belief - Intratextuality - Language and Culture.
Phoebe Lily Page (University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol)
Schelling’s Emerging Times: Potentiation and the Becoming of Nature In this paper, I present a reading of Schelling’s Ages of the World (2000), as articulating time as the conceptualisation of the ongoing emergence of new processes within nature. In this way, I interpret time as the measure of becoming that is relative to each system and therefore, productive of a complex system of times. The root of my interpretation is Schelling’s statement that “each new life commences a new time, existing for it that is immediately knotted to eternity” (2000, 67). Tracing the arguments within contemporary analytic emergentism, I argue that time is emergent (unpredictable, irreducible, contingent) and therefore...and that the Agesof the World presents a metaphysics of emergence. As such, I argue that returning to Schelling’s philosophy is fruitful for answering the demands of contemporary emergentism that tends to restrict emergence to only some systems of nature, rather than the ubiquitous process of nature. I argue that the latter is possible through interpreting Schelling’s concept of time in the Ages of the World that means that nature is ubiquitously emergent and evidenced in his conceptualisation of time. This paper brings together contemporary emergentism to think with Schelling in order to construct time as the articulation of natural processes and therefore operative in two registers: 1) the irreducibly local nature of the time as finite emergent processes (“each new life”), that is nonetheless; 2) within the register of eternity as the potencies that are antecedent to and thus constitutive of time, whilst never being ‘present’. Time is therefore “knotted to eternity” as the emergence of new times through the becoming of natural processes. My paper therefore deals with both contemporary problems within emergentism (how it is to be classified – cf. Kim, 1999) and the history of philosophy through a interpretation of Schelling’s metaphysics, in order to form an original account of temporality as a complex system of emergent times. Keywords: Schelling, Complexity, Nature, Systems, Potency.
Beyond Perdurantism and Endurantism: Revisiting Thomist Metaphysics for Time and Change In contemporary metaphysics, perdurantism and endurantism have emerged as prominent views on the persistence and identity of objects. However, Thomist metaphysics, deeply rooted in the philosophical tradition of Thomas Aquinas, offers significant insights over these contemporary positions. This presentation aims to elucidate the advantages of Thomist metaphysics in contrast to perdurantism and endurantism in three main points. 1) Thomist metaphysics places great importance on the concepts of essence and substance. According to Thomistic thought, substances possess enduring identities rooted in their essential properties. This perspective allows for a deeper understanding of the nature of entities and their intrinsic qualities. In contrast, both perdurantism and endurantism struggle to provide a coherent account of the enduring essence of objects. Perdurantism's temporal slices and endurantism's temporal stages lack the explanatory power to capture the essence of objects, often reducing them to mere aggregates of parts. 2) Thomist metaphysics offers a robust account of the unity and identity of objects over time. It asserts that objects are enduring substances with a unified existence throughout their temporal existence. This view aligns with our common-sense intuition about objects, allowing for a consistent and coherent understanding of persistence. On the other hand, both perdurantism and endurantism face challenges in providing a satisfactory explanation for the unity and identity of objects. Perdurantism's fragmented view of objects as collections of temporal parts and endurantism's reliance on temporal stages fail to capture the holistic nature of objects and their enduring identity. 3) Thomist metaphysics highlights the stability of essential properties possessed by objects. According to this view, an object's essential properties define its nature and remain consistent throughout its existence. This stability allows for a coherent understanding of identity and a foundation for knowledge and categorization. Perdurantism and endurantism, however, struggle to account for the stability of essential properties over time. Perdurantism's temporal slices may have varying properties, and endurantism's temporal stages may allow for fluctuations, leading to difficulties in establishing a reliable basis for understanding and classification. Thomist metaphysics may offer discernible benefits over perdurantism and endurantism in contemporary metaphysics. Its emphasis on essence and substance, the coherence of object unity and identity, and the role of essential properties offers a coherent account of time and change. Perdurantism's disadvantages lie in its metaphysical complexity, as it introduces temporal parts for objects, raising challenges in explaining unity and identity over time. Additionally, the theory's overabundance of entities and struggles to coherently address personal identity and consciousness are notable drawbacks. On the other hand, endurantism faces difficulties in explaining how objects persist through change without temporal parts, leading to questions about an object's identity over time. Moreover, endurantism's implications for time travel scenarios and its four-dimensional "time worm" view of objects may clash with common-sense intuitions, posing further metaphysical concerns. Each theory carries its own limitations. Thomist metaphysics, with its rich philosophical heritage, can serve as a valuable alternative. Keywords: change, endurantism, perdurantism, time, thomist metaphysics.
Rui Vieira da Cunha (MLAG - Mind, Language and Action Group (Institute of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto - FLUP) CPBS - Católica Porto Business School)
Derek Parfit on punishment and the passage of time: Can a reductionist really punish a person? Derek Parfit’s view on persons is consensually and rightfully characterized as a reductionist view, given that it considers a person’s existence as nothing over and above the existence of certain other more particular events/experiences, which can all be described in an impersonal way (1984, 211). Parfit is aware of the implications this view can have, in matters of punishment, since the mere passage of time can seem enough to undermine any sort of justification for our practices of punishing persons for acts/events occurred at a different time. Parfit strives hard to show us that we can be reductionists and still believe in punishment, that is, to show us that it is not the case that, if reductionism is true, then there is no desert (1984, 323). I will try to show in this paper that Parfit’s defense of the compatibility of reductionism with desert is fragile since the two claims involved in that defense are dubious. First, the claim that compatibility between reductionism and desert can be defensibly denied is based by Parfit on a misleading analogy with the free-will debates. And second, the claim that reduced connectedness reduces responsibility is not only based on highly questionable assumptions about our moral and legal practices but also leads to counter-intuitive conclusions. The consideration of the goals of punishment and the relevance of time for its justification will be analyzed, to shed light on the argument. I try to save both claims, the first one by reinterpreting the analogy and the second one by redefining the scope of connectedness and shifting the focus from the passage of time to psychological features but, ultimately, the conclusion is that reductionism is a problematic position to hold for anyone defending the existence of desert and punishment. Keywords: Parfit, time, punishment, desert, reductionism.
Sara Sousa and Maria José Carvalho (Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra / CELGA-ILTEC) (Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra / CELGA-ILTEC)
Antes que: from time to purpose The grammatical and dictionary descriptions of the connector antes que in contemporary European Portuguese are usually based on the assumption that it signals a temporal sequence between two situations (Não saberemos quem venceu as eleições antes que todos os votos estejam contabilizados / ‘We won't know who won the election until all the votes are counted’), with few studies mentioning any other meaning (Lobo, 2003, 2013). The truth is that, in most cases, when we use this connector, we express, to a much greater extent, the notion of purpose, in the sense of prevention of an imminent event, about to happen if not avoided and, therefore, with negative consequences (Vou contar-lhe a verdade antes que ele descubra por intermédio de outra pessoa / ‘I will tell him the truth before he finds out from someone else’; Vou apanhar a roupa antes que chova / ‘I'm going to get the clothes before it rains’). The connector that usually signals a strictly temporal relation is, in fact, antes de, as it is usually not possible to replace antes que with antes de without changing the meaning of the utterance in which it occurs. This sense of purpose or of the urgency of preventing a situation from happening is already attested in documents from the first half of the fourteenth century, cooccurring with structures in which the connector has a strictly temporal meaning. In these documents, this connector is usually associated with verbs whose lexical content points to an imminent event with dysphoric consequences, ranging from loss to extinction. We will try to prove, through a frequency study of occurrences in contemporary European Portuguese corpora, that the purpose meaning of antes que is, in fact, becoming more important than the temporal one. This purpose meaning can be made explicit through a paraphrase by PARA QUE NÃO, i.e., by a connector introducing a final subordinate clause of negative polarity (Vou contar-lhe a verdade paraqueele não descubra por intermédio de outra pessoa/ ‘I'll tell him the truth, so he doesn't find out from someone else'). In some contexts, this paraphrase cannot be performed directly, since the identification of the situation that we intend to avoid derives from an inferential process, guided by our knowledge of the world and by the implicature triggered by the use of the connector (Vou apanhar a roupa para que não se molhe caso chovaor Vou apanhar a roupa para que não se molhe quando começar a chover/ ‘I'll get the clothes, so they don't get wet in case it rains’ or ‘I'll get the clothes so they don't get wet when it starts raining’). If our proposal is accepted, it will be interesting to understand the relation that, over time and from a cognitive point of view, has begun to delineate between this temporal connector and the notions of urgency and purpose. Keywords: adverbial subordinate clauses / connector / time / purpose / implicature
Sílvia Maria Alves Fernandes (Doutoranda em Estudos da Religião_FFCS_UCP Braga)
O tempo da religiosidade no tratamento de doenças mentais Ainda que a medicina seja perspetivada num ambiente secular, as questões religiosas têm um enorme impacto na visão das pessoas doentes em relação ao seu estado de saúde e no seu tratamento. Isso é especialmente recorrente na psiquiatria, pois os sentimentos de religiosidade são muito prevalentes entre pessoas com perturbação mental, ainda que muitos profissionais ou técnicos de saúde não estejam cientes da importância da religiosidade e não a vejam como força mediadora para lidar com a doença mental. A forte preponderância da religiosidade entre as pessoas com perturbação mental é atestada por numerosos estudos, na maioria das vezes quantitativos. Huguelet et al. referem, por exemplo, que a maioria dos 100 participantes numa das suas pesquisas (doentes esquizofrénicos) relatam que a religiosidade é uma dimensão importante das suas vidas, mas apenas 36% conversam sobre esse assunto com o seu psiquiatra. Em relação às “doenças da alma ou do espírito”, o afastamento da religiosidade na sua interpretação e, também, no seu acompanhamento, foi uma parte do processo de secularização feita com alguma hostilidade por alguns estudiosos, como é o caso de Freud. No entanto, se era adverso, pois considerava o recurso à religião, para o enfrentamento das grandes questões existenciais, uma defesa imatura, Jung, o outro grande nome da psicanálise, mostrava-se interessado. Segundo este autor, torna-se impossível concebermos um mundo em que as circunstâncias sejam dissemelhantes das nossas projeções pessoais, sendo que o indivíduo só se satisfaz com uma criação mítica quando ela consegue expressar o sentido da existência humana numa criação partilhada entre o consciente e o inconsciente. No entanto, essas conceções religiosas e práticas psicoterapêuticas diziam respeito mais essencialmente a problemas pessoais do que ao tratamento de doenças mentais pela psiquiatria. Esta, aliás, quis libertar-se de qualquer conceção religiosa, e se a religiosidade estava presente no seu domínio, era principalmente como elemento patogénico. Havendo muito trabalho ainda a fazer-se, têm sido levantadas questões pertinentes no que concerne ao efeito do envolvimento religioso no curso e na evolução de doenças, fomentando a ideia de que a religiosidade auxilia efetivamente na recuperação de debilidades e inseguranças na doença mental, tendo em conta noções como apoio social e emocional, conforto e até mesmo salvação. Ao explorarem o seu modo de "ser-no-mundo", as pessoas com perturbação mental, frequentemente reiternados, também tendem a aderir a um ideal normativo de integração social associado a uma sensação de exclusão e que, mesmo quando não hospitalizados, podem desenvolver um desapego global em relação à importância dos papéis interpessoais, valorizando positivamente o afastamento. Deste modo, os significantes religiosos podem restaurar um sentido acrescido ao “eu”. Como resultado desse entendimento, levanta-se um apelo ao estabelecimento do cuidado espiritual. Palavras-chave: Religiosidade, espiritualidade, diagnóstico de doenças mentais, tratamento, saúde mental.
Samuel Dimas (Universidade Católica Portuguesa)
A noção de «tempo» na metafísica da criação de Xavier Zubiri A ação humana está condicionada pela vivência do tempo que proporciona o reconhecimento da nossa condição finita e existencial. O problema em definir o tempo reside na dificuldade da mente humana em apreender o dinamismo da realidade. A objetivação da realidade exige que seja imobilizada em conceitos. Daí a observação de Bergson ao referir que o entendimento não capta a «duração». Mas estaremos nós limitados à intuição mitológica e religiosa para a compreensão do mistério do tempo? Que contributo pode dar a filosofia para a compreensão da experiência temporal? Será apreensível numa racionalidade trans-conceptual? Neste estudo, procuraremos analisar de que maneira o filósofo e teólogo Xavier Zubiri traduz a noção de «tempo» na racionalidade filosófica da tradição judaico-cristã, quer do ponto de vista do tempo «em si mesmo», como linha contínua de presentes em sentido aberto, quer do ponto de vista do tempo das coisas que acontecem no tempo, como realização oportuna, seja nos processos físicos, biológicos, psíquicos ou histórico-biográficos. O ser humano está sujeito ao «tempo» no que se refere à irreversibilidade da cronologia, da sequencialidade consciente e do seu destino finito. Mas o conhecimento humano sobre o «tempo» é enigmático, quer no plano racional e fenomenológico, quer no plano da experiência psicológica e espiritual. O acesso ao tempo pelo sentir, pensar, imaginar e querer revela uma penúria intrigante. O filósofo Xavier Zubiri considera que o saber parco sobre o «tempo» traduz o seu carácter mínimo de realidade, contra as expetativas do sujeito cognoscente1. A reflexão acerca do tempo insere-se na sua metafísica da estrutura dinâmica da realidade a propósito do «estar no mundo» das coisas, que não é ordenado e definitivo, como na perspetiva substancialista aristotélica, mas que é emergente: o tempo é a forma geral do dinamismo das coisas que emergem no mundo2. De que forma o autor reconhece as estruturas temporais físicas e humanas neste sistema metafísico em que o tempo não se apresenta como uma ilusão ou uma degradação, mas como um modo de ser que é dom de Deus? Em que consiste a sua descrição da estrutura do tempo?
S. Arghaei and P. Ebrahimi (Department of Physics, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran) (Department of Physics, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran)
The Role of Relata in the Emergence of Time: Insights from Relational Ontology and Relational Quantum Mechanics In this study, we focused on the emergence of time from a deeper layer of reality composed of Relata, which are entities that exist only in relation to other entities. We used relational ontology and relational quantum mechanics (RQM) as our theoretical frameworks to support this view and define a philosophical notion for Relata that is compatible with the physical reality. Relational ontology is the philosophical view that relations between entities are more fundamental than the entities themselves. This view has been influential in recent studies in fundamental physics, especially in RQM, which is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that views the world as a network of relations between objects, rather than as a collection of independent objects. We drew on the works of various scholars who have developed the field, such as Hume (1739), Sanders Pierce (1891), and Rovelli (1996). We showed that by adopting a relational ontology of physical reality, we could provide an account of Relata as eventful-entities that have properties depending on their relations to other entities. We also used RQM as a theoretical approach, which is based on the principles of quantum mechanics and the notion of quantum information. We reviewed the use of mathematical formalism in RQM to show how Relata could form complex systems that exhibit emergent properties, such as dimensions and causal structures. We argued that time is not a fundamental feature of reality, but rather an emergent property of the relations between Relata. We also reviewed how this could explain some puzzling phenomena in physics, such as quantum entanglement, non-locality, and measurement in quantum mechanics. Finally, we showed that this view had implications for philosophy of mind, especially for the absence problem, which concerns the possibility of phenomenal properties existing in the absence of the objects that typically cause them. We used the definition of emptiness in RQM to solve this problem without violating the relational view. We argued that emptiness is not an objective background, but rather a relational-property that arises from the interactions between objects. Therefore, emptiness is not a void, but rather a field of potential interactions. We suggested that phenomenal properties are emergent properties of complex systems of Relata. We concluded that emergence of time from relational ontology and RQM offered a fruitful dialogue for advancing our understanding of physical reality. We suggested that the proposed concept of Relata had implications for various fields, such as metaphysics, epistemology, linguistics, and consciousness. Keywords: Relational Ontology, Relational Quantum Mechanics, Emergence, Philosophy of Mind, Relata
Zahra Birashk (Freie Universität Berlin - Friedrich Schlegel Graduiertenschule für literaturwissenschaftliche)
The Absolute Temporality of Schelling’s Weltalter Philosophy The temporality of lived existence poses a challenge for philosophies that seek to uphold radical freedom: They must establish the foundations of time in a manner that allows for the possibility of commencing freely, independent of any constraints imposed by the past. F.W.J. Schelling's unfinished magnum opus, "Die Weltalter/The Ages of The World" (1810-1815), is widely regarded as a magnificent attempt to address the dilemmas arising from both metaphysical and scientific conceptions of time. The history of time shows these traditions fail to think the event, for a time that either originates from an unmoving atemporal eternity already encompassing all future determinations or exists as a sequence of homogeneous points in an endless repetition of the same, renders the possibility of any real beginning nullified and therefore the present devoid of a true future or even a genuine presence beyond mere mimicry of its rigid past. However, the Weltalter can present us with a third account of time, which I call the absolute temporality. According to Schelling, if we are to contemplate time in its original essence, the entire past and the entire future must work in unison with the present at each moment (Augenblick), where time as a whole "springs out" as the now-point. Thus, time is eternally a beginning-past (anfangs vergangen). This emergence of time is not a one-time occurrence that subsequently ceases to be a beginning; instead, it is a perpetual act that exemplifies the incipient (anfänglich) nature of the world. Consequently, time cannot be posited outside of things within a divine or human mind. Rather, it exists within each and every thing, albeit with varying degrees of development and differentiation. It is not a matter of things coming into being within time; rather, "in each thing, time emerges anew, and it does so directly out of eternity." Things do not come into existence in time; instead, they come into existence in accordance with their times—they become their times. Weltalter's organic perspective on time and eternity comprehends not only time but also eternity as undergoing change and evolution with each new beginning. For this beginning to be original (autonomous), it cannot arise from a source toto genere different from itself. In contrast to ontotheological notions of the absolute as being exempt from time, the absolute of the Weltalter possesses an immanent temporality that can be influenced and moved by each beginning of time. This enables a future liberated from the past through alteration and origination. In the proposed presentation, I will outline the main arguments scattered throughout the fragments of the Weltalter that support this interpretation. Furthermore, I will demonstrate how this absolute temporality is not only constituted in consciousness through language (subjective), but also inherent to the essence of each being (objective).