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Carneades.orgA description of the position in Philosophy of Time and Metaphysics known as Presentism which claims that the only objects which exist are those which exist now, which are present. This position is only available to A Theorists of time not B theorists of time. It can be contrasted with eternalism and the growing universe theory.
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Information for this video gathered from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy and more!
Information for this video gathered from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy and more!
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29 Comments
@ScottTeague-s5t
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PMThis commentary is SO stupid! OF COURSE you can talk intelligently about things that existed in the past but no longer do. You simply use the past tense. "Thomas Jefferson "EXISTED". that's how language works.
@fwwryh7862
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PMYour voice gave me diarrhea.
@infidelt
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PMThanks!
@XX-sp3tt
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PM1:59 Ironically, according to the actual textbook definition, a unicorn is actually any animal that has one horn. Also, if you go back and read the actual first written down description of a unicorn, it's what people today call Rhinos … so unicorns always existed, we just gave them a different name, and gave that original name to something else.
@musicpatron1693
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PMi thought presentism was projecting todays values to past events?
@iainrobertson5194
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PMThe political left are obsessed in this, because its opposite challenges their subjective world view and philosophy of life, that is constantly made up as their sentiments dictate
@terkfranks1538
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PMNot sure I understand your confusion about comparing past things/people. As far as "A" owed more than "B", this at no point requires that A & B existed at the same time as both of them are referred to as in the past, by use of the word "owned" and not the present word "owns".
@Gitohandro
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PMShit, 5 years ago?
You must be dead by now RIP.
Though if Presentism is false I might be able to communicate with you in the past somehow 😀
@ravissary79
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PMThing is, nothing in physics to date has actually disproven presentism despite eternalism being popular because it's mathematically convenient.
@17aaga
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PM0:22 happy new year from the future i guess
@mr.snowflake5895
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PMWarframe players goes to bruh~~~
@KamKooner
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PMhappy fourth of julyyyy… my name is jeremy frederick wilson… but you can call me
@Utonian21
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PMI never understood why everything in the past would exist in an everlasting state, it doesn't make any sense. The notion that the future already exists, makes even less sense
@HainishMentat
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PMThe very question "are the only objects that exist objects that exist in the present" contains its own inevitable answer: yes, because "exist" is in the present tense, so "exist" and "presently exist" are identical. Indeed, it is impossible to state a non-presentist view without making tense errors in your sentences and thus failing to produce a meaningful English sentence. And meaning is a precondition of truth. Strings of words without meaning (like "the Prime Minister is a prime number") cannot express truths because they don't actually express anything.
If you ask "how, then, can we speak truthfully about things that no longer exist", the answer is quite obvious: use the past tense. Thomas Jefferson doesn't have slaves, since he doesn't exist. But he did have slaves. It is a fact now (and always will be) that that was the case. The world is a product of causes that came and went, and some of those causes included his owning of slaves and people seeing and knowing that that was the case and so on.
@keithbessant8346
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PMPresentism is like saying that only our own subjective viewpoint of the world can be right. But time passes at different rates for people in different places. It goes very slightly quicker high above the Earth.
compared to down on the Earth. If it's going quicker then it reaches the future quicker. There is no one objective present, any more than there is any one viewpoint.
@Naijiri.
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PMHow can I make sense of your video if the first minute cannot exist at the same time of the last
@hulkmedia
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PMAssume there is only present moments which is what we experience. Why can't I accept the notion that I was drunk last night as something which actually occurred? Just because i'm not Drunk now doesn't mean that I wasn't drunk last night. I can still reject A & B Theory of time and be logically coherent about presentism. I think that philosophy ended on a conclusion that you can't do this but that doesn't make what I'm saying logically inconsistent. I exist now in the present, time is perceived as a string of present moments which creates the illusion that there is a flow of time, but in reality only the present moment is real. I can still talk intelligibly about the events that I recall in a previous present moment (past).
@thomashirst3984
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PMif a presentist believes that the past never existed and the future never will then id be inclined to disagree however the idea that the past no longer exists and the future doesn't as of yet exist seems perfectly functional to me , the past did exist as present and the future will exist as present, this interpretation allows for references to past events and predictions of future events to be perfectly valid.
@AlejandroMaagno
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PMBut, what is the present??
@RobertMraba1
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PMHow can something that doesn't exist text me back?
@cliffordhodge1449
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PMWithout suggesting a solution, I will mention that belief in the reality of past and future is compelling to the extent that we may not be free to be Presentists. If you tell me, "In some possible world, you suffer a ruptured appendix," I may not be very concerned, since I presumably knew that already. But if you say, "Tomorrow you suffer a ruptured appendix," I will be concerned. In the latter case, I have actually been given information and gained knowledge, whereas in the former this is not so.
@willowtenage8469
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PMI do not believe, there are an infinite number of universes each locked into a particular point in time, that we are traversing from one moment to the next. That is how I imagine a lot of people viewing time, each moment, locked away – and how could it be perceived as anything else from the perspective that there is a past and a future that exist? I for one, with my limited understanding thus far, would subscribe to presentism. There is no past stored away, and no future likewise stored away. Time is a unit of change, and all objects that exist, have always existed in one form or another, but are in a constant flux of change. We measure the change of one thing, compare it to another, and call that time.
There are not an infinite amount of mice located on my mouse pad, all separate from one another, each existing independently from one another, locked in a separate layer of time. There is one mouse, that is made up of atoms that have always existed in one form or another, and currently are taking the shape of a mouse.
@hunterh889
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PMI mean I feel like presentism is just common sense to be honest. The past is called the past for a reason. The future is called the future for a reason… It isn't happening right now, nor is the past. Of course you can look back on certain happy moments in the past, or visualize how you want your life to be in the future, but really it matters what is happening in the moment. If you utilize this philosophy, I feel like it can help you get over many hardships that you still suffer through today. Thanks for the video!
@italianstallion348
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PMYes, objects may not technically be present in either the past or the future, however they've formulated foundations of agreeable knowledge in the minds of the masses. These foundations face weakness in the continuation of time.
@elliotgale470
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PMI'm a presentist
@mikevsamuel
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PMWhen we talk (intelligently?) about whether a unicorn beat a shark aren't we referencing a possible world in which there exists a shark and something that it would be appropriate to label "unicorn?" It seems that the presentist view allows that kind of analysis since there is nothing about the presence of sharks that precludes unicorns or vice-versa.
@TechRud
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PMhey buddy, just wanted to say that I love your videos. I also would like to ask if your Patreon bio is still up to date? Have you still not found some sort of internet solution?
@BrendaCreates
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PMSince A theory of time is refuted by relativity I don't see what relevance it has. Of what importance are the musings of astrologers?
By the way, time is not unreal. It is very real even though it is the consequence of causality.
@paulchartley
02/17/2025 - 2:23 PMSurely an actual physical thing and the concept of that thing are not the same and the concept is not dependent upon the physical existence of that thing.
Unicorns may have never existed and so do not exist in the current moment but the concept of a unicorn does so when talking about how many horns a unicorn has we can talk about the concept without unicorns needing to exist.
Likewise with dinosaurs. The remains of dinosaurs exist so presenting the concept of the dinosaur existing at some time so we can talk about the concept even though the thing itself no longer exists based upon what does exist today which is their remains.
When talking about the future, we would be talking about a potential existence of something based around a concept that exists now even if the actual item itself does not yet exist so we can talk about the concept of a not yet existing openly gay president based upon it's potential possibility and the fact that both presidents and gay folks do exist now at this moment.