Scottish Nous

Sider on Presentism: Some Critical Remarks

I've been rereading Sider's argument against presentism in Four-Dimensionalism (4-Dism).  This time around, I've been struck by the weight Sider places on a certain type of verificationist claim.  I provide three examples, with commentary.  First:

The main problem with [saving "a single "hyperplane" of simultaneity relative to some frame of reference"] is that it is scientifically revisionary, for it in essence recognizes a distinguished relation of simultaneity. (Sider, 4-Dism, p. 47)

Sider also knocks the notion of "absolute position" on the following grounds:

The problem is that there is no empirical basis for assuming that absolute comparisons of position make any sense. (Sider, 4-Dism, p. 28)

Finally:

The point, then, is that the physical considerations in Newton's rotating bucket thought-experiment do not support that claim that cross-time comparisons of position are meaningful, since Minkowski and neo-Newtonian space-times account for the thought-experiment (and are physically adequate in other ways as well). (Sider, 4-Dism, p. 31)

I'm not at all sympathetic to these types of argument.  In the first place (and taking Sider's points in reverse order), cross-time comparisons of position are clearly meaningful.  I take myself to know what people mean when they make such comparisons.  Now if I was a verificationist, I might not think that such comparisons were meaningful (on the assumption that there is no method of empirically verifying the truth of such comparisons, which I'll grant).  But nobody should be endorsing verificationism these days.  So what's going on?  Perhaps the thought is that such comparisons aren't "empirically meaningful" in the sense that they can't be verified empirically.  But that's not to object to them unless one thinks that investigation of the nature or structure of space and time is a task for scientists only.  I don't see why I should buy that latter claim, nor have I ever seen an argument for it.  I'm open to hearing them, though.

Sider's second claim concerns whether "absolute comparisons of positions make any sense".  Here he says we have no "empirical basis for assuming" that they do make sense.  Let's suppose he's right about that.  Does that show that they don't make sense?  Does that show that we have no reason to think they make sense?  Again, of course not.  I suspect one would endorse such a position only if one was in the grip of a philosophical theory according to which cross-time comparisons of position can't make sense unless there is empirical evidence available that can support such comparisons.  But I'm not in the grip of such a theory, and I know of no good reason to endorse such a theory.  Where is the defense of this odd theory?

Lastly, I'll grant that to privilege a hyperplane of simultaneity is revisionary, in some sense of "scientifically revisionary".  It's "revisionary" in this sense: most scientists don't privilege (or think there is any good scientific reason to privilege) any such particular hyperplane.  But scientific reasons, again, aren't the only reasons there are.  And as far as I can see, there is zero scientific evidence that rules out privileging such a hyperplane.  In other words, the scientific evidence we have supports SR, but not a version of SR that entails that there is no such privileged hyperplane.  If I'm right about what our current empirical evidence shows, then the fact that most scientists don't endorse a privileged hyperplane is, while revisionary in a certain sense, not revisionary in any philosophically interesting sense.  One should only care about being "scientifically revisionary" in the interesting sense when the best scientific evidence we have shows or provides support for the claim that one's revisions are false.  But since this is not the case, the appeal to being "scientifically revisionary" is empty.

None of this is to say that Sider doesn't present some powerful arguments against presentism.  Indeed, 4-Dism contains the best presentation of the arguments presentists like myself have to face.  Many of these arguments are powerful.  But where the arguments turn upon considerations like the one's above, I'm not convinced.  There they seem to sacrifice philosophy on the altar of science.  But I'm open to being possibly enlightened.

Like Rain on Your Wedding Day

Dembski has some smart cats co-blogging with him over at Uncommon Descent.  Witness this witty remark drawn from DonaldM's latest post:

pro-Darwinism blogger [P. Z. Myers] has announced he is going ON STRIKE. He made this announcement, ironically, on the very website, ScienceBlogs, he is striking against, where he has his own blog, Pharyngula.

Because, you know, P.Z. Myers should have announced he was going on strike by taking out a billboard or perhaps by throwing up a guest post at Uncommon Descent.  DonaldM continues to demonstrate how oblivious he is:

Why would Myers think anyone cares if he goes on strike? For that matter, will anyone really notice the absence of the rantings on his blog.

Pharyngula gets 125,000 hits a day.  So yes, people will notice if P.Z. Myers stops blogging and ranting.  Almost nobody will notice if Uncommon Descent goes the way of the dodo bird.

Prosecutorial Trash

Mark Bennett's blog Defending People has a few interesting posts I stumbled across today that are directly relevant to my last jury selection experience.  In Fighting Back Against Common Sense he points out the asinine prosecutorial practice of offering "common sense" arguments. The slick little blonde prosecuting the case I showed up for offering a couple such arguments during jury selection.  For example, she asked how we'd determine the credibility of her one witness, a cop.  And she tried to find jurors who agreed with her that they'd exercise their "common sense" here.  I replied that she could take her "common sense" and shove it.  (Ok, I didn't quite say that.)  But I did explicitly inform her that she'd have to adduce evidence in favor of the reliability/credibility of her star witness especially given that he has been trained to give persuasive testimony.  Her response: "You know I am not required to do that, right?"  And of course we know she isn't required to prove her case beyond a reasonable doubt.  She's just required to do that in order to get a conviction.

A related issue Bennett discusses here and here is the "One Witness Rule" trick question.  I think the crafty little witch tried this out too, but I wouldn't bet my life on it.  The goal here is to get rid of jurors who won't convict if the prosecution offers just one witness.  Now of course, jurors (like myself in this case) may not convict if the prosecution offers just one witness precisely because the prosecutor cannot establish her case beyond a reasonable doubt with just one witness.  So nasty prosecutors like to ask the following question:

If we only present one witness, but based on that witness's testimony you believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty, can you convict him?

If you say that you cannot convict in such a case, the prosecutor can strike you from the jury pool "for cause".  Prosecutors can strike prospective jurors "for cause" when they can establish that the juror is unfit.  Here, a negative answer to the question "indicates" (in scare quotes, because as we'll see, it doesn't do anything of the sort) you are unfit because you won't convict even though you believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty---which, of course, is when, and only when, you are supposed to convict in a criminal case.

Now obviously, chances are that the average juror who answers this question negatively has done so because she believes that the testimony of a single witness will not suffice to meet the burden of proof.  The prosecutor is asking a question that, for many jurors, takes the form of a counterfactual with an impossible antecedent.  [Such questions take the following form, where p and q stand in for sentences: "If it were the case that p (which is of course impossible!), then would it also be the case that q?"]  And if you know your average juror, you know they can't answer these sorts of questions very well.  Hell, philosophers don't even know how to answer them.

So how to fix this problem?  Firing the incompetent judges who accept this sort of for-cause challenge would be nice.  Sadly, I don't think that's likely, since as far as I know, only three people (the judge and both attorneys) know why any particular juror was struck.  And how do you think your average judge is going to treat a defense attorney that attempts to get him removed?    Alternatively, we could try to legally enforce publication of the reasons for which jurors were struck.  I know of no good reasons not to pass such laws.  But that won't help now.

So the best currently available strategy, then, is for the defense attorney to, whenever possible, point out the lengths to which the prosecution is engaged is deception and trickery.  For if there's on thing your average juror doesn't like, it's being hoodwinked.  Prosecutors who engage in this kind of practice have zero credibility.  They are deceptive schmucks who deserve nothing better than being part of a chain gang picking up litter on the roadside.  Exploiting trick questions to strike jurors who will not be favorable to your pathetic attempt to adduce evidence, in cases in which people's lives hang in the balance, renders you one of the most base and vulgar human beings living near the surface of the Earth.  The defense should observe as much and explicitly point out the kind of human waste they're up against.