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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
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    42
    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

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

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 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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      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 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.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 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.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    Reason for 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.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 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.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 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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      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 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.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

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    Strongest counterpoint
    Explore the most compelling reason on the other side.