On Sat, Feb 11, 2006 at 09:09:27AM -0000, West, Matthew R SIPC-DFD/321 wrote:
> > On Thu, Feb 09, 2006 at 09:06:33PM -0500, Barry Smith wrote:
> > > sets exist timelessly
> > > do you agree with that?
> >
> > Only when their members are also timeless. You didn't exist at the
> > time of the Big Bang. How could your singleton {Barry} have?
> > Sounds preposterous to me, unless we agree with Matthew that you had
> > some sort of ontological status at the time qua "merely future"
> > individual -- a view I find philosophically repugnant.
>
> MW: The 4D position is to say there is some way things will turn out. (01)
A plausible but not uncontroversial view. (02)
> So there is just one set of all rabbits that have or will ever exist. (03)
That, of course, a non sequitur. It is plausible, for example, to think
that (a small piece of) the way things will turn out is that a child
will be born on 1 January 2007. It simply does not follow that there is
something such that it will be born on 1 January 2007 (hence it doesn't
follow that there is a set containing all the humans that have or will
exist). (04)
Your more general argument above, in a nutshell, is that the Barcan
Formula is true for the future (and past) tense operators: (05)
If it will be that something is F, then there is something that will
be F. (06)
This is a natural principle to accept *if* you are already inclined to
accept merely future individuals. But to argue for your merely future
individuals simply on the grounds that the Barcan Formula valid as you
have above is to put the logical cart before the philosophical horse.
You've *chosen* this particular poison; one can just as reasonably
choose not to indulge. (07)
> We don't know about all the members, but then we don't know about
> all the members at 08:30 11th February 2006 either.
>
> MW: Following this, the set of all rabbits that have ever existed or
> will ever exist has the same members, even before there were rabbits.
> Of course before there were rabbits, we are not likely to be interested
> in them, but that is a different matter. (08)
Well, of course, I do *understand* the view. I simply find it, once
again, philosophically repugnant -- though, again, I am inclined to
think it is a useful fiction for purposes of ontological engineering. (09)
-chris (010)
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