Question
- Which temporal properties, if any, are likely to exist? Explain why.
- How convincing is the claim that nothing is not something? Explain why.
- To what extent, if at all, is time travel a logical possibility? Explain why.
- ‘If an object changes, it is no longer the same object.’ Discuss how persuasive this claim is.
Solution
| 1. Which temporal properties, if any, are likely to exist? Explain why. |
| Temporal properties are those that exist only at an instant and most likely to change from time to time. When you move from one location to another, the properties of the item will change, and so will it, when you move from one period to another. Temporal properties exist in the perspective of pastness, presentness, and futurity (Fiocco 2). Things with temporal properties exist in one form in the past and another in the present. From this perspective, even people have temporal characteristics because they grow and change over time. The height of a person today will be different from the future because of growth. A chameleon has temporal color because it changes according to the temporal location. For instance, it changes color from green to brown when it moves from a lead to the soil. Temporal properties might be hard to predict because of the change, and what exemplified a person today might be different in the future. |
| 2. How convincing is the claim that nothing is not something? Explain why. |
| The statement that “nothing is not something” is quite convincing. Wherever there is something, there cannot be nothing. Whenever there is nothing, something does not exist. For example, before God made the earth, nothing existed. But God desired and created something, including man, which brought the nothingness to an end (Goldschmidt 57). Therefore, something had to be made to exist, so that nothing can cease to exist. Although the example using God can be confusing to those who do not believe in God, it remains a classical description of the statement. Nothing and something cannot exist together because where there is something, there is no something, and whenever something comes into existence, nothing ceases to exist. In creation, something emerged from the nothingness but brought it to an end. |
| 3. To what extent, if at all, is time travel a logical possibility? Explain why. |
| To explore the logic behind the issue of time travel, it is necessary, to begin with, a definition. The concept involves a discrepancy between different times (Lewis 145). It is commonly understood as the ability of a person to travel towards the future or backward to the past. Whether time travel is possible remains debatable, as some believe that it is physically possible, while others suggest that it is logically impossible. I support the idea that time travel is logically impossible because someone cannot travel across time to the past or future. The possibility of time travel could generate numerous logical problems (Wittenberg 148). For example, if people could be able to move back to the past and change history, many would. However, we all know that as much as it is desirable, it is logically and practically impossible. People are stuck with the successes and mistakes of their past. |
| 4. ‘If an object changes, it is no longer the same object.’ Discuss how persuasive this claim is. |
| Clearly, “if an object changes, it is no longer the same object.” The claim is persuasive from the point of view that an object is defined in totality using its attributes, and in some cases, its space. Therefore, if you change the attributes or properties of an object, you will have changed the object in totality. It is no longer the same object. For example, if a brown table is painted white, it remains a table, yes, but in a different form. It becomes a different thing altogether because the properties that define it are now different (Mumford 8). Therefore, it is justifiable to argue that if something changes, it ceases to exist in the original form and becomes a different thing altogether. |
| 5. Works Cited |
| Fiocco, M. Oreste. “Passage, becoming and the nature of temporal reality.” Philosophia vol. 35, no.1, 2007, pp. 1-21.
Goldschmidt, Tyron, ed. The Puzzle of Existence: Why is There Something Rather Than Nothing?. Routledge, 2014. Lewis, David. “The Paradoxes of Time Travel.” American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 13, 1976, pp. 145–52. Mumford, Stephen, and Matthew Tugby, eds. Metaphysics and Science. OUP Oxford, 2013. Wittenberg, David. Time travel: The Popular Philosophy of Narrative. Fordham Univ Press, 2013. |
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