Cognitive Science 108/ Linguistics 108

The Challenge of Cognitive Science to Western Philosophy

Readings (in Philosophy in the Flesh)

Reading for Tuesday, September 7, 1999: Read first part of Chapter 11, pp. 170-206.

Homework 2

Due at the Beginning of Class Tuesday, September 7, 1999.

Ground Rules: Discuss the homework with the members of your group. No group notes are to be taken. Write up your homeworks individually. They should be in 12 point type, either 1 & 1/2 spaced or double spaced, with at least 1 inch margins. No late homeworks.

This homework is on the course website:

http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~bbergen/cs108/

We suggest the following: Go to the website and download a copy of the homework. Copy the questions into a new file, and fill in your answers after each question, using a different font (e.g., put the questions in italics and the answers in roman). This way it will be clearer to the grader which answer goes with which question, and you will have an overview of all your answers to questions, one by one, at the end of the course.

Chapter 10

  1. Each of the following sentences is an instance of one or more time metaphors. For each sentence, tell which metaphor(s). Each sentence is paired with an inference. Give the corresponding source domain inference that is mapped onto the time domain by the given metaphor.
  1. Sentence: My problems are way behind me now.

    2. Inference: My problems occurred long ago and I won't encounter them anymore

  2. Sentence: The midterm exam will be here before we know it.

    3. Inference: We are not aware of how soon the midterm exam will occur.

  3. Sentence: Exam period extends over two weeks.

Inference: Three weeks is more than the time exams will be given.
  1. Which of the following arguments from the literature on the philosophy of time arises from which metaphor for time? How does the logic of the argument follow from the logic of the metaphor? Be as brief as possible.
  1. The argument that there is no motion. Suppose you shoot an arrow. At each instant of time after you shoot it, the arrow is at a fixed location. At another time, it is at another fixed location. At each instant it is at some particular location. That is, at each instant the arrow is still, since it is located at a place. There is no instant when it is not at a fixed location. Thus, there is no instant when it is not still. Therefore there is no instant when the arrow is moving. And hence the arrow never moves. The same argument can be given for any purportedly moving object. Hence, there is no motion.
  2. The argument that the past and the future exist at the present. Time flows by us. That means it must flow from somewhere and it must flow to somewhere. The future is therefore flowing toward us at the present and the past is flowing away from us. Thus the future and past, if they are presently flowing, must exist at the present.
    3.
  3. The argument that there is no such thing as the present time. Suppose there were such a thing as the present time. Then it is true at the present time that the professor is typing this question. That is, there would be a fixed relation between the event in which the professor is typing this question and the entity the present time. Now consider the time when you are reading this question. It is not true at the present time that the professor is typing this question. But this is a contradiction: If there is a single thing, the present time, then it is both true and not true that the professor is typing this question at the present time. Therefore, there can be no such thing as the present time.
    4.
  4. The argument that there is no such thing in the world as a long time. When is a time long? It can't be long at present. It can't be long at any time in the past or in the future. So there can never be a long time.
    5.
  5. The argument that there was no Big Bang. Physicists argue that a Big Bang occurred and that during the first fraction of a second "after it" the universe was so compressed that the present laws of physics did not hold. The laws of physics, including those governing space-time, came into existence a fraction of a second "after" the Big Bang. Stephen Hawking has argued that "before" the laws of physics governing space-time came into existence, there was no such thing as time. But if that were true, how could one speak of time coming into existence (with the laws of physics) a fraction of a second "after" the Big Bang. If time came into existence a fraction of a second "after" the Big Bang, there could have been no time in existence "when" the Big Bang occurred. But every event has to happen at a time. Hence, if Hawking is right, the Big Bang could not have happened because there was no time for it to have happened at.
  1. What part of our concept of time is not metaphoric? Is it embodied, and if so, how? What part of our concept of time is contributed by metaphor?

  2. Suppose you are trying to ask what "time" really is. Suppose your very concept of what constitutes "time" is metaphorical in significant part, and the metaphors for time conflict with one another. What problems would there be in using your metaphorical concept of "time" to establish what "time" really is?