Temporal Logic pp 197-202 | Cite as
Tense logic and special relativity
Abstract
According to Prior many philosophers and scientists who accept the tapestry view of time have claimed that “they have on their side a very august scientific theory, the theory of relativity, and of course it wouldn’t do for mere philosophers to question august scientific theories” [SFTT, p. 3]. Prior early became aware of the conflict between tense logic and special relativity. It was mentioned by Saul Kripke in a letter to Prior as early as 1958. Prior described the conflict in a very clear way:
The trouble arises when we come to compare another’s experiences, when, for example, I want to know whether I saw a certain flash of light before you did, or you saw it before I did. ... It could happen that if I assumed myself to be stationary and you moving, I’d get one result — say that I saw the flash first — and if you assumed that you were stationary and I moving, you’d get a different result ... And the conclusion drawn in the theory of relativity is that this question — the question as to which of us is right, which of us really saw it first — is a meaningless question ... Now I don’t want to be disrespectful to people whose researches lie in other fields than my own, but I feel compelled to say that this just won’t do. [SFTT, p. 3–4]
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