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AGPhil: Arbeitsgruppe Philosophie der Physik

AGPhil 2: Space, Time and Spacetime

AGPhil 2.2: Talk

Monday, February 25, 2013, 17:15–17:45, SR 113

Could spatiotemporal objects possibly leave their spatiotemporal locations behind? A further problem about multi-location — •Thorben Petersen — University of Bremen, Department of Philosophy

According to combinations of spacetime substantivalism and endurantism, persisting spatiotemporal objects are multi-located in spacetime, i.e. located in their entirety at different regions of substantivalist spacetime. However, the jury is still out on whether the framework of multi-location is indeed an applicable or even intelligible framework. I here shall develop a simple argument to the effect that the framework of multi-location is indeed inapplicable (to four-dimensionalist spacetimes). The argument, very roughly, is that insofar substantivalism about spacetime implies that spatiotemporal regions are static and insofar substantivalism furthermore implies that facts concerning spatiotemporal location supervene upon (or else are grounded in) facts about spacetime, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the occupiers inherit the static character from the spatiotemporal regions they occupy. Accordingly, occupiers of spacetime regions cannot be meaningfully said to leave their spatiotemporal regions behind, whence it is hard to see how enduring objects could be properly multi-located in spacetime.