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The B-theory of time, also called the "tenseless theory of time", is one of two positions regarding the temporal ordering of events in the philosophy of time.B-theorists argue that the flow of time is only a subjective illusion of human consciousness, that the past, present, and future are equally real, and that time is tenseless: temporal becoming is not an objective feature of reality.
Furthermore, while events acquire their A series determinations through a relation to something outside of time, their B series determinations hold between the events that constitutes the B series. This is the B series, and the philosophy that says all truths about time can be reduced to B series statements is the B-theory of time .
Philosophy of space and time is the branch of philosophy concerned with the issues surrounding the ontology and epistemology of space and time. While such ideas have been central to philosophy from its inception, the philosophy of space and time was both an inspiration for and a central aspect of early analytic philosophy. The subject focuses ...
Examples in continental philosophy of philosophers raising questions of temporality include Edmund Husserl's analysis of internal time consciousness, Martin Heidegger's Being and Time, J. M. E. McTaggart's article "The Unreality of Time", George Herbert Mead's Philosophy of the Present, and Jacques Derrida's criticisms of Husserl's analysis.
In the philosophy of space and time, eternalism [1] is an approach to the ontological nature of time, which takes the view that all existence in time is equally real, as opposed to presentism or the growing block universe theory of time, in which at least the future is not the same as any other time. [2]
In the B-theory, temporal passage and becoming are subjective and illusions of consciousness. Craig explains: [38] "On a B-Theory of time, the universe does not in fact come into being or become actual at the Big Bang; it just exists tenselessly as a four-dimensional space-time block that is finitely extended in the earlier than direction.
The theory resolves the issue by proposing a higher dimension of Time, t 2, in which our consciousness experiences its travelling along the timeline in t 1. The physical brain itself inhabits only t 1 , requiring a second level of mind to inhabit t 2 and it is at this level that the observer experiences consciousness.
Critics of this theory such as Myles Brand have suggested that the theory be modified so that an event had a spatiotemporal region; consider the event of a flash of lightning. The idea is that an event must include both the span of time of the flash of lightning and the area in which it occurred.