相关论文: The fate of presentism in modern physics

Presentism is, roughly, the metaphysical doctrine that maintains that whatever exists, exists in the present. The compatibility of presentism with the theories of special and general relativity was much debated in recent years. It has been…

Is presentism compatible with relativity ? This question has been much debated since the argument first proposed by Rietdijk and Putnam. The goal of this text is to study the implications of relativity and quantum mechanics on presentism,…

The idea of a moving present or `now' seems to form part of our most basic beliefs about reality. Such a present, however, is not reflected in any of our theories of the physical world. I show in this article that presentism, the doctrine…

According to conventional wisdom, presentism is at odds with the theory of relativity. This is supposed to be shown quite simply just by considering the relativity of simultaneity. In this paper I will show that conventional wisdom is…

Eternalism is the view that the past, the present and the future exist simpliciter. A typical argument in favor of this view leans on the relativity of simultaneity. The 'equally real with' relation is assumed to be transitive between…

Recent developments in foundations of physics have given rise to a class of views suggesting that physically meaningful descriptions must always be relativized to a physical perspective. In this article I distinguish between strong physical…

I present a discussion of some issues in the ontology of spacetime. After a characterisation of the controversies among relationists, substantivalists, eternalists, and presentists, I offer a new argument for rejecting presentism, the…

In contemporary physics space and time are intertwined entities so that kinematical and dynamical quantities are expressed in the four-dimensional space-time. This formulation seems to contradict our every-day experience and perception…

The traditional metaphysical debate between static and dynamic views in the philosophy of time is examined in light of considerations concerning the nature of time in physical theory. Adapting the formalism of Rovelli (1995, 2004), I set…

Is reality three-dimensional and becoming real (Presentism), or is reality four-dimensional and becoming illusory (Eternalism)? Both options raise difficulties. I argue that we do not need to be trapped by this dilemma. There is a third…

Eternalism is the view that all times are equally real. The relativity of simultaneity in special relativity backs this up. There is no cosmically extended, self-existing 'now'. This leads to a tricky problem. What makes statements about…

Despite the success of modern physics in formulating mathematical theories that can predict the outcome of quantum-scale experiments, the physical interpretations of these theories remain controversial. In this manuscript, we propose a new…

We propose an interpretation of physics named potentiality realism. This view, which can be applied to classical as well as to quantum physics, regards potentialities (i.e. intrinsic, objective propensities for individual events to obtain)…

This paper investigates the mathematical representation of time in physics. In existing theories time is represented by the real numbers, hence their formal properties represent properties of time: these are surveyed. The central question…

Two people may claim both to be naturalists, but have divergent conceptions of basic elements of the natural world which lead them to mean different things when they talk about laws of nature, or states, or the role of mathematics in…

Without a doubt many problems in physics arise as a consequence of our philosophical conception of the world. In this contribution however we endeavor to alleviate this scenario by putting forward a philosophical approach under which some…

We argue against current proposals concerning the non-existence of time. We point out that a large number of these proposals rely, at least implicitly, on the assumption of `closure' (or `partial closure') of the laws of Physics. I.e. the…

Metaphysics is the science of being and asks the question ``What really exists?'' The answer to this question has been sought for by mankind since the beginning of recorded time. In the past 2500 years there have been many answers to this…

For more than half a century, dualities have been at the heart of modern physics. From quantum mechanics to statistical mechanics, condensed matter physics, quantum field theory and quantum gravity, dualities have proven useful in solving…

In the present paper I argue that the formalism of Newtonian mechanics stems directly from the general principle to be called the principle of microlevel reducibility which physical systems obey in the realm of classical physics. This…