Yeah, I think presentism vs. non-presentism in time is an interesting example of how to reason from experience.
Like, obviously we’re starting from our experience of the present. And so a qualiaphile might say “And so the buck has to stop there—there’s something special about the present. If you come up with a theory of physics where there’s nothing special about the present, you’ve missed something—you’ve failed to address the Hard Problem of the Present.” Whereas a quale hunter might say “Of course I’m starting from my experience of the present. Which is why it’s important that the theory of physics explains why the beings living within it would think there’s something special about their presents, even if there isn’t.”
There’s a possibility that there might be nothing special about the present at all. I don’t feel like there’s something special about the region of space I occupy, and the illusion of time flow comes from the fact that I cannot say the same about the time.
My point is that difference between presentism vs. non-presentism might be purely linguistical and difference between “this thing existed in the past, but it doesn’t exist any longer” might be just similar to “this thing is there, but it doesn’t stretch all the way to here.”
Yeah, I think presentism vs. non-presentism in time is an interesting example of how to reason from experience.
Like, obviously we’re starting from our experience of the present. And so a qualiaphile might say “And so the buck has to stop there—there’s something special about the present. If you come up with a theory of physics where there’s nothing special about the present, you’ve missed something—you’ve failed to address the Hard Problem of the Present.” Whereas a quale hunter might say “Of course I’m starting from my experience of the present. Which is why it’s important that the theory of physics explains why the beings living within it would think there’s something special about their presents, even if there isn’t.”
There’s a possibility that there might be nothing special about the present at all. I don’t feel like there’s something special about the region of space I occupy, and the illusion of time flow comes from the fact that I cannot say the same about the time.
My point is that difference between presentism vs. non-presentism might be purely linguistical and difference between “this thing existed in the past, but it doesn’t exist any longer” might be just similar to “this thing is there, but it doesn’t stretch all the way to here.”