Block universe

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Block universe  - also block time , eternalism - denotes a certain cosmological concept. The totality of time, i.e. past, present and future, is understood as both given and real. Time is thus seen in analogy to space (philosophy) . Adopting such a position has far-reaching implications for the philosophy of time , ontology, and temporal logic . Competing standpoints are presentationalism (only the present is real) and possibilism (Only the present and the past are real, the future is open insofar as different possibilities can be realized).

Historical precursors

A first philosophical formulation can be found, at least implicitly, in the Greek philosophers Parmenides (approx. 520–455 BC) and Zeno of Elea (approx. 490–430 BC), there in his arguments for the unreality of the perceived passing away currently. Parmenides and Zeno of Elea, both of whom belonged to the Eleatic school , initially use this argument to justify a rationalism. This rationalism also refers to the school of the Pythagoreans .

In the traditions of Judaism , Christianity and Islam , the idea of ​​a block universe corresponds to the idea that God stands outside of time. Augustine von Hippo (354–430 AD), church doctor and philosopher of late antiquity, discusses this position. In modern times, the pantheistic ontology of the rationalist Baruch de Spinoza (1632–1677) is also in line with such ideas.

Modern representatives

In the modern sense, the idea of ​​the block universe is connected with a description of space-time , which the special theory of relativity in Minkowski's view suggests: Space-time as a four-dimensional "block" instead of the "classic" idea of ​​a three-dimensional space that moves or moves on the time axis whose states change over time. The alternatives seem to presuppose an absolute simultaneity , but such an independence of simultaneity from different inertial systems is incompatible with the special theory of relativity.

Representatives of a block universe interpret the special theory of relativity in such a way that there is no way to identify a clearly defined point in time as the present regardless of one's own perspective. Simultaneity, and with it the distinction between present, past and future, becomes merely subjective, the passage of time becomes an illusion of a point of view. Block time therefore assumes all points in time as equally possible, ontologically real starting points for perspectives, past and future become directions of observation instead of ontologically different areas.

The asymmetry, i.e. that irreversible events only run in one time direction (like the increase in entropy ), becomes the reason for the assumption that time is directed ("time arrow"). The block universe thus results in determinism .

See also

literature

  • Huw Price: Time's Arrow and Archimedes' Point , Oxford University Press, New York 1996

Web links