El rol de la Corte Constitucional de Colombia en materia de políticas

So we cannot so easily dismiss the A theorist’s appeal to experience. There is, however, a compelling argument against counting our experience as evidence, which I’ll recount here since, if sound, it has implications for the role of experience in metaphysics more generally. Simon Prosser (2007) ultimately aims to show that time does not pass, but crucial to his argument is a sub-argument, for the conclusion that we cannot experience the passage of time. This sub-argument is ostensibly rather simple, depending on just two premises.

36 the physical state of the world.

P2. The (putative) passage of time would be epiphenomenal with respect to the physical state of the world.

C. From P1 and P2, we can conclude that the passage of time would be

epiphenomenal with respect to experience, and hence that we cannot experience the passage of time. (Prosser 2007, pp. 78-9).

As Prosser suggests, these days, P1 doesn’t require very much support. This is partly because, as supervenience theses go, P1 is rather weak. It says only that the mental is nomically dependent on the physical: as far as P1 is concerned, there may be metaphysically

possible worlds in which the mental is independent from the physical. P1 also says nothing about whether the mental can be explained by the physical: as far as P1 is concerned, the supervenience of the mental on the physical may (or may not) be insufficient to say that the former can be adequately explained in terms of the latter. Finally, P1 says nothing about whether the mental can be reduced to the physical: it is hence open to property dualists to accept P1. Weak as it is, then, P1 should be acceptable to many, A-theorists and B-theorists alike. Indeed, it seems the only theorists who might reject P1 are interactionist dualists. (Prosser 2007, 78-79.)

P2 also seems plausible, though it perhaps requires a little more cashing out to see this. Prosser offers several ways of understanding what is behind P2. Perhaps the most central has to do with what is required to account for physical events.

By ‘epiphenomenal’ I mean that the passage of time neither causes nor in any sense influences or determines physical events. Insofar as physical events can be accounted for, the account is in terms of physics or at least in terms of what supervenes on the physical, and no appeal to the passage of time

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plays a role in any such account. (Prosser 2007, 79.)

Another, closely related way of putting this is to say that all information relevant to accounting for physical events can be given in B-series terms.

One can describe the physical world and the way in which its state at one time depends on its state at other times in B-series terms; given an arrangement of matter at one time the nomologically possible arrangements of matter at earlier and later times are constrained only by the laws of physics and not in any way by real temporal passage. (Prosser 2007, 81.)

To put this another way, since temporal passage is a matter of metaphysics rather than physics, the laws of physics can be expressed in a way that makes no commitment regarding temporal passage. (Ibid. 82.)

Since we can account for physical events without invoking the A-series properties of

pastness, presentness and futurity, we should, Prosser suggests, grant that these A-series properties have no role to play in shaping the physical world: hence, the passage of time would be epiphenomenal with respect to the physical state of the world (ibid. 81.)

So how does granting P1 and P2 force us to conclude that we cannot experience the passage of time? Well, since the passage of time makes no difference to what happens in the physical world, nor could it make any difference to our experience: for, given that our experience nomologically supervenes on physical states (P1), there can be no change in experience without a corresponding change in physical states. Thus, given P1, if the passage of time made a difference to our experience, this would contradict P2. Assuming that in order to have an experience of the passage of time (as opposed to an experience merely as of the passage of time) would require that real passage plays some role in shaping our experiences,

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and that, by P1 and P2, passage cannot in fact play such a role, we are thus led to the conclusion that we cannot experience the passage of time.

Prosser goes on to argue that, since our experience as of the passage of time provides

practically the only reason for us to think that time does in fact pass, we should conclude that time does not pass. I will not say much here about this latter part of Prosser’s case against A- theory. However, it is interesting to note that, if we accept the argument outlined above without going so far as to say that time does not in fact pass, we can see that Prosser has given us an argument that effects a division between appearance and reality. According to P1 and P2, even if it is clear that we do infact have experience as of the passage of time, and even if time does in fact pass, the former cannot in any way be because of the latter.