As with NSSD, most contemporary philosophers, when confronted with NSTD, would reject P2, which I have argued to be a consequence of Robust Realism’s commitment to the
Constitution Thesis. If the robust realist is to reject the conclusion of either argument, it must be by way of rejecting the premises articulating aspects of standard spatial and temporal realism. Yet abandonment of P1 or P3 in either seems a significant cost. P1 in each argument articulates, or at least has the prima facie air of articulating, what we take existence in space or time to mean.
This is particularly true in the case of NSSD. To speak of a chair being in space but having no spatial dimensions, or having spatial dimensions merely as some kind of addendum to its constitution, is seemingly to do violence to the concept of a chair. The situation is a little different with NSTD. It might be said that P1 in NSTD articulates what existence in time means for a four dimensionalist. The notion of existence in time might not be as meaningful for the presentist, for whom existing in the present might be said to be one and the same as simply existing. P3 in each argument seems like plain common sense, but the foregoing
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discussion goes some way towards rendering questionable any claim to the effect that these are conceptual truths. As we have seen, there has been a tendency, even among the more well-known philosophers, to conflate phenomenal and objective spatial and temporal properties, which might suggest a degree of ambiguity and even incoherence in our folk
notions of objective spatial and temporal properties. Obviously, physics has done so much to refine and revise our folk conception of space and time that whether or not P3 articulates an aspect of our incredibly inadequate folk conceptions of spatiotemporal properties might be thought entirely irrelevant, but I shall argue that comparable ambiguity belies the
sophisticated representations of these properties furnished by the physical sciences. To
explain how, I must address an issue already touched upon in Chapter 1 in a little more detail. To begin with, let us return to Chalmers’ (1996 p. 118) essentially structural-cum-dynamical characterisation of physical theory:
… the basic elements of physical theories seem always to come down to two things: the structure and dynamics of physical processes. Different theories invoke different sorts of structure. Newtonian physics invokes a Euclidean space-time; relativity theory invokes a non-Euclidean differential manifold; quantum theory invokes a Hilbert space for wave functions. And different theories invoke different kind of dynamics within those structures: Newton’s laws, the principle of relativity, the wave equations of quantum mechanics. While all realists maintain that such structural cum dynamical properties are really
instantiated, they are divided as to what that means. To ask this question is to open a veritable can of worms. To start with, philosophers are still divided as to whether a complete structural cum dynamical description of reality is one and the same as a complete description of reality, whether or not such properties are ontologically sui generis. Spatiotemporal properties
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feature in such theories as fundamental structural properties.92 Some maintain that the
instantiation of such structural properties is a matter of something, some substance or intrinsic nature, a quiddity, to use contemporary philosophical parlance, bearing structure.93 Structure can’t simply exist in and of itself. In like manner, some think modally articulated dynamical properties such as dispositions must be grounded in some intrinsic categorical nature.94 Also, while Chalmers describes physics as uncovering structure and dynamics, some have
considered this to be a pleonasm. Some have maintained that dynamics are a mere function of structure, others that structure is a mere function of dynamics.95 Structural Humeanism, which has it that claims about dispositions, laws and such merely articulate regularities embodied in physical reality’s four-dimensional structure, has ordinarily been motivated by concerns about the scrutibility of sui generis dynamical properties,96 but it might just as easily be motivated by an austerely naturalistic attitude of the kind that treats any metaphysical attempt to move beyond physics with suspicion. As Rosenberg (2004 pp. 143, 144) points out, current physics requires little more than regularities: “A description of coevolving fields is the centerpiece of quantum mechanics” and “the successful use [of Schroedinger
equations] requires us only to assume regularity in the succession of states” they “plot …
92 If this ceases to be the case, as some physicists are predicting, it won’t be because physics has ceased to
model physical reality in structural terms, but rather, because a more sophisticated structured coordinate system has replaced the space-time of old, one in which space-time can be emulated, at least in a coarse grained fashion, at a higher level. Hence Chalmers (2012a p. 325) describes the properties spatial properties might potentially derive from as properties of more fundamental spaces, “those of a quantum-mechanical
configuration space, or an underlying space in a theory of quantum gravity such as string theory”. Clearly, any such transition will only have a terminological impact upon the established dialectic. Belonging to the universe such theories purport to model will still be a matter of constitutive inclusion within such a ‘space’, which will still be a matter of constitutively possessing the ‘spatial’ properties it purports to represent. On the standard assumption that such properties are non-phenomenal, consciousness won’t possess the requisite pre-spatial ‘dimensions’.
93 See Foster (2008 pp. 46, 81).
94 For a discussion of the considerations motivating this view, see Blackburn (1990). For argument to the effect
that they aren’t compelling, see Holton (1999).
95 Lewis (1986a pp. ix-xii) is the most famous contemporary proponent of the former view. In section 8, I’ll
discuss Foster’s (2008 pp. 128-144) argument to the effect that space could be at least partially nomologically constituted. Rosenberg (2004 pp. 213-217) attempts a more thoroughgoing reduction of spatiotemporal properties to nomological properties.
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against points in time”. But there have also been philosophers, like Rosenberg (2004 p. 213- 217) himself, who, rejecting Humeanism, usually on the grounds that it is insufficiently explanatory, have endorsed the latter view, offering nomologically constitutive accounts of space-time.
The point is that refinements of spatiotemporal concepts within physical theory do nothing to resolve the foregoing issues, all of which will loom large in the ensuing discussion. Of particular importance to us at present is the notion that structural properties might need quiddistic bearers. This is directly relevant to the foregoing question of whether or not P3 in each of the foregoing arguments, the claim that the relevant dimensional properties aren’t phenomenal, articulates a conceptual truth. The issue of whether or not such structural properties might be nomically constituted will be broached later. Let us for now make the commonplace assumption that they aren’t nomically constituted, that they are either sui generis fundamental properties, pure structures borne by nothing, or fundamental
modifications of some fundamental quiddistic nature.97 Physics does nothing to settle the question of what intrinsic nature or natures, if any, bear the structural properties physics purports to pick out under the name of spatiotemporal properties. In particular, it doesn’t rule out the possibility that they are phenomenal natures. This idea, that phenomenal properties might constitute the intrinsic properties of matter, goes back to Russell (1954 p. 264):
The gulf between percepts and physics is not a gulf as regards intrinsic quality, for we know nothing of the intrinsic quality of the physical world, and therefore do not know whether it is,
97 The issue of whether physical structural properties are fundamental structural properties, or functions of more
fundamental structural properties, as might be the case if they were properties of a Matrix like computer
simulation in a metaphysically prior world, is much like the foregoing issue of whether or not space and time are fundamental structural properties within physics. It leaves the basic dialectic intact. The question of whether or not consciousness can take up position in the thusly expanded megaverse remains, and the foregoing questions about the metaphysical fundamentality of spatiotemporal properties, whether they inhere in quiddities and such, reemerge as questions about the most fundamental concrete structural properties, whatever they might be. Let us herein assume spatiotemporal properties are not only physically basic, but also metaphysically fundamental structural properties, understanding that this doesn’t make them fundamental tout court, in the sense that they might inhere in quiddities or be nomically constituted.
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or is not, very different from that of percepts. The gulf is as to what we know about the two realms. We know the quality of percepts, but we do not know their laws so well as we could wish. We know the laws of the physical world, in so far as these are mathematical, pretty well, but we know nothing else about it. If there is any intellectual difficulty in supposing that the physical world is intrinsically quite unlike that of percepts, this is reason for supposing that there is not complete unlikeness. And there is a certain ground for such a view, in the fact that percepts are part of the physical world, and are the only part we can know without the help of rather elaborate and difficult inferences.
The project of making good on Russell’s vision has been an ongoing research program ever since.98 Any such view that has matter possessive of an intrinsic phenomenal nature, and, at the same time, bearing non-phenomenal dimensional properties falls prey to arguments of the foregoing kind. But the foregoing quote doesn’t merely suggest that phenomenal properties might constitute the intrinsic properties of matter, but rather, that they might constitute the intrinsic properties of the physical world, which presumably includes space-time itself, and so might for allow for phenomenal dimensional relations, avoiding this problem. In responding to McGinn’s foregoing case for non-spatiality, Chalmers (1995 p. 417) suggests that the intrinsic nature of space itself, “the ‘medium’ in which the mathematical structures of space are embedded”, might feature in the solution of the problem of somehow situating
consciousness in physical space. However, his openness to the possibility of consciousness having non-phenomenal constituents leads him to then shrink back from the thesis that space might be intrinsically phenomenal, suggesting instead that it might be intrinsically
protophenomenal (Chalmers 1995 p. 417). The Constitution Thesis rules out
protophenomena, disallowing any such shrinking back. If there is to be any hope of this trick working, it will be by way of consciousness being constitutively embedded in a phenomenal
98 Contemporary proponents of ‘Russellian monism’ include Chalmers (in some of his moods), Rosenberg
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space-time medium, constitutively bearing the intrinsically phenomenal structural properties which are afforded a purely structural substrate neutral representation in physics. Galen Strawson at least tentatively flags this as a possibility. In setting out his Russellian stall, Strawson (2006b pp. 247, 260) suggests that we might “in the end have to posit a universe- wide sesmet [his acronym for a subject of experience that is a single mental thing] in order to posit the existence of many sesmets existing in a dimension that allows for their interaction”. If sense can be made of this idea, then far from articulating putatively necessary conceptual truths, P3 in each of the foregoing arguments might be straightforwardly false. Without getting too caught up in issues regarding the semantics of the terms of physical theory, there is at least a case to be made for the view that such terms denote the quiddistic realisers or realisations of physical structure and dynamics, rather than some proxy (for instance, the role
of thus realising them). In such a case, if spatiotemporal dimensions are phenomenally realized, then spatiotemporal dimensions, as depicted in physical theory, will be phenomenal properties. I turn now to the question of whether sense can in fact be made of this idea. This will initially involve getting clear on what Strawson’s suggestive but not altogether clear remarks must mean if they are to be taken as offering a way around the foregoing arguments. I will then present an argument against the resulting view.