Abstract
An overview of the efforts of the last century to interpret relativity theory reveals that, for the most part, they concentrated on the formal and geometrical features of the theory while ignoring almost entirely its experiential side. One consequence of neglecting to examine the nature of experience is the widespread acceptance of the static block-universe picture. While many supporters of this view admit to the existence of a gap between this interpretation of relativity theory and experience, according to a suggestion made by Dieks in this volume, a closer examination shows the block-universe picture to be in perfect harmony with experience. In this paper I claim that: (a) any interpretative enterprise regarding relativity that does not include a phenomenological study is inadequate; hence Dieks’ attempt to harmonize the theory with experience is commendable; (b) nevertheless, Dieks’ proposal is untenable; (c) global tense and passage are irremovable from our experience-based conception of reality and must therefore figure in any interpretation of relativity theory; (d) a proper phenomenological analysis of tense and passage (based on an abandonment of the A and the B theories of time) facilitates squaring relativity with experience.
I wish to thank the Israel Science Foundation for supporting the project of which this paper is a part (grant number 491/09).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Already in the fifth century BC Empedocles argued that light travels at a finite speed.
- 2.
Let me mention in passing, that even though the replacement of tense with this notion of becoming should supposedly be music to the ears of new B-theorists, a further examination reveals implicit themes that they will find disturbing. After all, simultaneity figures crucially in the semantic apparatus the new B theory relies on. The tenseless truthmakers of tensed truths can fulfill their task in virtue of their being simultaneous with tokens of these tensed truths. Taking away simultaneity is therefore crippling for B-theorists who do not want to deny that tense figures in experience and language.
- 3.
There are other instances of this difference between Dieks’ and B-theorists. For example, some B-theorists acknowledge that there’s a gap between how motion is experienced and what motion in the block universe really is (cf. Paul, L.A., “Temporal Experience”, Journal of Philosophy CVII (7): 333–359 (2010)).
- 4.
The amended proposal – succession plus uniqueness of the becoming event – is challenged by further queries: why does the temporal distance to an event matter? Why do we get more nervous the more the moment of the bungee jump “approaches”, and why does it matter whether it is before or after where we are now? The asymmetry between “before” and “after” remains a mystery, certainly for those who do not buy into collapsing temporal order onto causal order.
- 5.
NASA engineers actually find themselves in such situations, e.g., with missions to Mars, in which signals from critical stages of the mission may travel up to 10 min before reaching mission control.
- 6.
This is something most B-theorists would agree to. Mellor, for example, claims that in the process of forming our conception of time tense has priority over tenseless relations. Of course, they interpret “presence” in a tenseless way.
- 7.
The present is being treated here as though it is pointlike. Elsewhere I argue that this is a problematic assumption, but problems concerning this assumption do not effect the current argument, for the purposes of which it is useful to think of the present in this way.
- 8.
With its invocation of counterfactuals this is a rather complicated form of connecting to the temporal properties of distant events. But then again there is no reason to suppose that creatures lacking this kind of conceptual machinery ever engage in speculations about distant events.
- 9.
Leaving aside horizon considerations.
- 10.
As is well known Einstein’s assertion that the distinction between the past, present and future is merely an illusion appears as part of the consolation Einstein offered Ms. Besso following the death of her husband.
References
Dieks, D. 2006. Becoming, relativity and locality. In The ontology of spacetime, ed. Dennis Dieks. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Gibson, I., and O. Pooley. 2006. Relativistic persistence. Philosophical Perspectives 20: 157–198.
Hinchliff, M. 2000. A defense of presentism in a relativistic setting. Philosophy of Science 67: S575–S586.
Malament, D. 1977. Causal theories of time and the conventionality of simultaniety. Noûs 11: 293–300.
Putnam, H. 1967. Time and physical geometry. Journal of Philosophy 64(8): 240–247.
Rietdijk, C.W. 1966. A rigorous proof of determinism derived from the special theory of relativity. Philosophy of Science 33(4): 341–344.
Savitt, S. 2010. Relativity, locality and tense. In EPSA philosophical issues in the sciences, 211–218. Dordrecht: Springer.
Stein, H. 1968. On Einstein-Minkowski space-time. The Journal of Philosophy 65(1): 5–23.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Dolev, Y. (2016). Relativity, Global Tense and Phenomenology. In: Dolev, Y., Roubach, M. (eds) Cosmological and Psychological Time. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 285. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22590-6_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22590-6_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-22589-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-22590-6
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)