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What Experience Cannot Teach Us About Time

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Abstract

Does the A-theory have an intuitive advantage over the B-theory? Many A-theorists have claimed so, arguing that their theory has a much better explanation for the fact that we all experience the passage of time: we experience time as passing because time really does pass. In this paper I expose and reject the argument behind the A-theorist’s claim. I argue that all parties have conceded far too easily that there is an experience that needs explaining in the first place. For what exactly is an experience of temporal passage? One natural thought is that we experience passage in virtue of experiencing change, or in virtue of experiencing change as ‘dynamic’. Another is that we experience passage in virtue of experiencing events as (successively) present. None of these experiences, I argue, amounts to an experience of passage. Although there might still be other ways to experience passage, A-theorists would have to provide us with a plausible candidate experience. If there is such an experience at all, it won’t be one that qualifies as what we intuitively take to be an experience of passage. The ‘intuitive advantage’, it seems, has dissolved in any case.

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Notes

  1. Among others, there is the classic argument that change requires temporal passage, inspired by McTaggart’s view (1908, 1927) (although McTaggart ultimately rejects temporal passage). Some may argue that temporal passage is reflected in the tensed structure of language. A further argument is found in Prior’s paper ‘Thank Goodness That’s Over’ (1959), where he argues that we need the passage of time to make sense of our emotional attitudes towards events.

  2. Not all dynamic theories would be entirely happy with this characterisation but it suffices to give a first intuitive grasp of the phenomenon I am concerned with.

  3. For defence of the A-theory and tense realism see among others: Bigelow (1996), Broad (1938), Markosian (2004), Smith (1993), Schlesinger (1991), Zimmerman (2005), Crisp (2005, 2007), Prior (1958, 1967, 1968a, b), Tallant (2009, 2010, forthcoming), Zeilicovici (1981). For the distinction between tense realism and A-theory see (Percival 2002).

  4. B-theorists include Le Poidevin (1996, 1998), Le Poidevin and Mellor 1987), Mellor (1981, 1998), Oaklander (1991, 1993, 2002, 2004), Quine (1960), Reichenbach (1947), Russell (1914, 1940, 1948), Smart (1949, 1955), Smith (1993), Williams (1951). Not all B-theorists think of themselves as static theorists. Oaklander (2012) and Maudlin (2002) defend a B-theoretic account of temporal passage according to which time is inherently dynamic just by virtue of the fact that it features a sequence of different events (Oaklander) and/or has a privileged direction (Maudlin). This is not the sense of passage the dynamic theorist has in mind.

  5. To my mind, the only philosophers who have denied that we experience temporal passage (although for different reasons than me) are Prosser (2012, 2007) and Deng. Dainton comes close to arguing that we do not experience passage in (Dainton 2011).

  6. I will sometimes use ‘experience’ as a shorthand for ‘visual perceptual experience’.

  7. Le Poidevin’s argument actually refers to a bundle of arguments. I have taken his label to identify what I take to be the most important one.

  8. The objection can also be understood in a more general way. The doubt then seems to be whether we can, in principle, ever know whether a certain explanation is the best explanation for some explanandum. But although we might strictly speaking never be in the position to know whether an explanation is really the best explanation, it does not mean that it could not actually be the best explanation. My thanks to Fiona Macpherson who brought my attention to this point.

  9. Philosophers who have argued along these lines include Le Poidevin (1991), Oaklander (1993), Mellor (1998), and Paul (2010).

  10. Le Poidevin does not defend the view—he is merely describing an intuitive pre-philosophical assumption that most of us share.

  11. By ‘ordinary change’ I mean all changes that objects can undergo apart from the change that constitutes temporal passage. When I just say ‘change’ I refer to ordinary change, unless otherwise indicated. I am not implying that all ordinary changes can be perceived. Mere Cambridge changes are presumably not perceivable and that they are included under the label ‘ordinary change’ might sound strange. However, the term ‘ordinary change’ is mainly chosen to separate the change that uniquely constitutes temporal passage from all other changes.

  12. Strictly speaking it is not true that we only perceive what is momentarily present. In fact, all we ever perceive is the past, due to the time lag in perceptual experience. The point is, however, that we only ever perceive what was present, but we do not perceive more than what was present at the time when the light was emitted from the object we are currently perceiving. Our awareness, it seems, is restricted to what happens at a time, and cannot ‘take in’ what occurs over time. It is natural to assume that when a perceptual stimulus takes n seconds to reach us at a time t, then we are perceptually aware of what happens at time t-n, but not of anything that happened before or after t-n. For ease of reading I shall stick with the less precise formulation that we are only ever perceptually aware of what is present.

  13. Philosophers who have denied that we can, strictly speaking, have perceptual experiences of change include Mabbott (1951, 1955), Dennett (1991), Mellor (1998), Le Poidevin (2007), Kelly (2005), and Plumer (1985).

  14. Specious present theories of various types have been among others defended by James (1890), Broad (1938), Foster (1982), Dainton (2000) and Tye (2003). For a good overview of the temporal perception debate, see Dainton (2008).

  15. The term ‘connected’ has been suggested to me by Craig French.

  16. I am much indebted to Thomas Brouwer and Craig French for discussion on this point.

  17. All qualitatively distinct events are also numerically distinct, although the converse does not necessarily hold.

  18. Standardly, change is taken to occur over time, but some people think that changes are instantaneous (Priest 2006). However, even if change was instantaneous, it could not occur in a world without duration. If there is nothing that changes, nothing that is different now from how it was before, there cannot be change. Moreover, even if change was instantaneous, we would not experience it as instantaneous. When a traffic light changes from red to green, for example, we do not experience that the light is simultaneously red and green, we experience that the light is first red and then green, that is, we experience the change as occurring over time. In experience, a’s change from F to G always takes time, whether or not there is a moment of change. Note however that this does not imply that our experiences would be illusory if Priest was correct.

  19. Although change looks like succession in experience, not all successions look like change. To experience succession as change, at least the properties or the objects constitutive of the successive events must differ. A mere numerical change of events cannot be experienced as change, which is presumably why it is standardly thought that we could not be aware of time without being aware of (at least mental) change.

  20. See also Shoemaker for this point (1969). Shoemaker thinks that the fact that we measure time by observing change makes it plausible that there cannot be time without change, for to hold otherwise is to be sceptic about the possibility of measuring time at all. Whether or not there could be time without change shall not be my concern here.

  21. I come back to this in §5.

  22. See for example Dretske (1995), Tye (2000) and Byrne (2001).

  23. See for example Block (1990).

  24. Laurie Paul was discussing (and ultimately rejecting) a similar view in her talk ‘Experience and the Direction of Time’ at the Workshop ‘Temporal Experience’ for the Network of Sensory Research in Toronto 2013.

  25. Le Poidevin mentions this view (Le Poidevin 2007, p. 77), but it is also discussed among others by Mellor (1981, 1998), Callender (2008) and Prosser (2007).

  26. A similar example is found in Mellor (1998), Le Poidevin (2007) and Hestevold (1990).

  27. Skow refers to Hestevold (1990).

  28. A similar point could be made about future events. If we were able to see the future, we would still represent it as present. Mellor has an example of this sort involving a magic crystal ball. Whatever future scene is presented to you in the magic ball, it still looks present to you. But we could not conclude from this that it is present (Mellor 1998, p. 16).

  29. Le Poidevin makes a similar point (2007, p. 78).

  30. See also Hestevold (1990, p. 542), Le Poidevin (2007), (Paul 2010) on the same point.

  31. Fiona Macpherson brought this point to my attention.

  32. Fine writes for example: ‘Even if presentness is allowed to shed its light upon the world there is nothing in [this] metaphysics to prevent that light from being ‘frozen’ on a particular moment of time. (Fine 2005: 287).

  33. I insert the ‘all things considered even’ clause because one might think that if there are other things than the occurrence or lack of passage which differ between a static and a dynamic world, than these might also be factors in explaining the experience. In that case, the fact that time passes would not necessarily be the best explanation for the experience that time passes. Analogously with A-presentness. Many thanks to Alexander Skiles for making this point.

  34. Note, though, that (BestEx) is not a sufficient condition for an experience to be best explained by time’s passage, for an illusion or hallucination of temporal passage could not be accurate in a static world either. The AfE/AfP defender also needs to say that an explanation that takes experiences to be veridical is generally a better explanation than one that resorts to illusions and hallucinations.

  35. Strictly speaking, these experiences would be illusory, due to the time lag in experience. According to Butterfield though, we can almost always ignore the temporal delay. If the process of observation is reliable, and the object is not (much) more than 1,000 m away, we can learn about the observed object’s state at the time when we judge it, not only at a previous time. This is not only due to the fact that the time lag is very short (Butterfield suggests ‘half a second’) but also because solid objects change very infrequently. (1984, p. 163).

  36. Note that the analogous move is not open to the B-theorist in the case of the original argument AfE: That time does not pass cannot be the best explanation for one’s experience as of events undergoing A-change for if time did not pass, there could not be A-change.

  37. Hoerl (2009), Oaklander (1991) and Russell (1915) are among those which have explicitly denied that perceptual experiences should be described as having tensed content. Oaklander has since changed his mind about this, as evident in his article in this very volume.

  38. I attempt to show as much in (Frischhut 2012).

  39. This paper has developed from my thesis, which has been financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation. I am indebted to many people who helped me to improve it. Among these are Fiona Macpherson, Fabrice Correia, Jonathan Lowe, Robin Le Poidevin, Barry Dainton, Kevin Mulligan and the eidos group in Geneva. I am especially grateful for fruitful discussions with Jan Almäng, Thomas Brouwer, Clare Mac Cumhaill, Natalja Deng, Craig French, Ghislain Guigon, Graham Peebles and Alex Skiles.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Geneva, rue de Candolle 2, 1211, Genevea 4, Switzerland

    Akiko M. Frischhut

  2. Subject of Philosophy, University of Tubingen, Philosophisches Seminar, Bursagasse 1, 72020, Tübingen, Germany

    Akiko M. Frischhut

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Frischhut, A.M. What Experience Cannot Teach Us About Time. Topoi 34, 143–155 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-013-9211-x

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