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    Counterfactual power over the past (CPP) is not the same ... — Carmelics
    Home/Free Will & Foreknowledge
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    Counterfactual power over the past (CPP) is not the same thing as changing the past.

    Free Will & Foreknowledge
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

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    • 1.Under the assumption that there is only one time line, changing the past is incoherent since it amounts to there being one past prior to t2 in which God has a certain belief at t1, and then Jones does something to make a different past, which requires two pasts prior to t2.
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    • 2.What CPP affirms instead is that there is only one actual past, but there would have been a different past if Jones acted differently at t2.
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    Reasons Against

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    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.If Jones's act at t2 would have brought about a different past, then Jones possesses causal power over past events that no longer exist to be causally influenced.
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    • 2.Retroactive causation of this kind is metaphysically indistinguishable from changing the past, since both require the present to determine what was the case at earlier times.
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    • 3.The linguistic distinction between 'would have been different' and 'would be changed' cannot bear the metaphysical weight needed to dissolve the fixity-of-the-past intuition underlying the incompatibilist argument.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.On a growing block or eternalist ontology, past facts are as fixed and real as present ones, making CPP require genuine counterfactual power over equally real, fully constituted states of affairs.
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    • 2.William Hasker's 'Gordian Knot' argument establishes that any world in which Jones does otherwise just is a world with a numerically distinct past, which collapses the CPP/changing-the-past distinction into a merely verbal one.
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    Free Will & Foreknowledge

    Related

    If Jones's act at t2 would have brought about a different past, then Jones posse...On a growing block or eternalist ontology, past facts are as fixed and real as p...Retroactive causation of this kind is metaphysically indistinguishable from chan...The linguistic distinction between 'would have been different' and 'would be cha...
    +3 moreShow less
    Under the assumption that there is only one time line, changing the past is inco...What CPP affirms instead is that there is only one actual past, but there would ...William Hasker's 'Gordian Knot' argument establishes that any world in which Jon...

    Similar

    Truths about the past are necessary — they cannot be other than they a...82%The past cannot be changed.80%Compatibilists accept that the past cannot be changed79%Humans cannot causally affect the past75%

    Source

    AI-extracted
    SEP: free-will-foreknowledge
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    Notice that counterfactual power over the past is not the same thing as changing the past. Under the assumption that there is only one time line, changing the past is incoherent since it amounts to there being one past prior to t2 in which God has a certain belief at t1, and then Jones does something to make a different past. That requires two pasts prior to t2, and that presumably makes no sense. What (CPP) affirms instead is that there is only one actual past, but there would have been a different past if Jones acted differently at t2. (CPP) also does not require the assumption that what Jon...

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit