Our manifest image of time adds a whoosh to time that you won't find in physics. According to Carnap, Einstein worried that science would forever be incomplete, as it misses out on this whoosh, or flowing Now. Carnap, by contrast, felt that our temporal experience could be explained by psychology. In the talk I’ll first explain why physics clashes with the flowing now. Then I’ll develop a Carnapian response. Assume relativity is correct about time. Then ask: why might information-gathering-and-utilizing-systems (IGUS’s) nonetheless model time as flowing? Drawing on work in physics, biology, neuroscience, and developmental psychology, I’ll sketch some new ideas suggesting that such a model would “make sense” even in a relativistic world.
Craig Callender: The Now Illusion
Craig Callender is Professor of Philosophy and Founding Faculty and Co-Director of the Institute for Practical Ethics at the University of California, San Diego. He also sits on the Freedom and Responsibility in Science Committee of the International Science Council, Paris and the Faculty of The John Bell Institute, Hvar, Croatia. Before moving to San Diego, he worked in the Department of Philosophy, Logic & Scientific Method at the London School of Economics. He works in many areas of philosophy of science. His book What Makes Time Special? (Oxford University Press, 2017) won the 2018 Lakatos Award.
Published Oct. 9, 2020 3:36 PM
- Last modified May 7, 2021 3:56 PM