24.115: Philosophy and Time: Course Description

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Unit 1: Time and metaphysics. Is there really such a thing as the passage of time? Or is the passage of time, somehow, an illusion? Some philosophers say that to speak of "time flowing like a river" is to make a conceptual mistake. Others say that we can directly perceive the passage of time, or that the passage of time is somehow "given" to us in experience. We will try to understand what this debate is about, and figure out who is right.

Unit 2: Time and the mind, I. How does our mind (or brain) represent things that happen in time? A naive view is that our experience is like a movie. A long visual experience, like a movie, is made up of a sequence of still images of some scene. Many think that this view is inconsistent with the fact that we can see things change, as when we see that the second hand of a clock is moving. Others think that the view cannot account for various perceptual illusions we are subject to. We will look at the evidence, and discuss what an alternative to the naive view might look like.

Unit 3: Time and the mind, II. In this unit we will take up the topic of "subjective duration." When waiting in line time seems to pass slowly while when out having a good time with friends it seem to zip by. Two events may last just as long in objective time without seeming to us to take the same amount of time. What determines the subjective duration of an event? Again there is a naive view that is initially plausible. We judge how long something is taking by the number of "atomic experiences" that pass before our mind during that event. When something exciting is happening the atomic experiences pass through faster and time seems to slow down. Is this model consistent with what scientists have discovered about the way our brain processes information? What other model might there be?

Unit 4: Time and value, I. What makes for a life that is good for the person who lives it? One common view is "temporally atomistic." It says that a good life is just a life made up of good moments. More carefully, it says that a life is good overall if the good moments in it outweigh, overall, the bad ones. Some philosophers have said that atomism is false. Two lives might have the same number of good and bad moments, (and the good moments may be just as good, and the bad ones just as bad), without those lives themselves being equally good. What are the arguments for this holistic view? Are they any good?

Unit 5: Time and value, II. We prefer to have good things happen to us. But we are not neutral about when they occur. We prefer having good things in the future to having them in the past, and we prefer having them in the near future to having them in the far future. Why do we have these preferences? Could the theory of evolution explain it? And is it rational to have these preferences? Or should they go on the long list of irrational behaviors social scientists have uncovered?