PL 772: Insight & Beyond, I Fall 2009

Patrick H. Byrne Philosophy Department Boston College

Class # 7, October 28, 2009 Chapter 5: Space and Time

Space and Time

Let us now define Space as the ordered totality of concrete extensions, and Time as the ordered totality of concrete durations... Our concern is not with imaginary extensions or imaginary durations but with the concrete extensions and durations correlative to experience. (166)

Kinds of Space and Time

Personal Reference Frames Personal Orderings

(Individually Meaningful, Descriptive Spaces & Times)

Public Reference Frames Intersubjective Orderings

(Socially Constructed & Meaningful, Descriptive Spaces and Times)

Special Reference Frames Scientific Orderings

(Explanatory Spaces and Times)

Kinds of Space and Time

Concrete Intelligibility of Space and Time

Abstract Intelligibility of Space and Time

Questions for Intelligence

Where am I? Where are you? Where is it? When did that happen? What time is it?

The Problem of Ordering Extensions and Durations

For neither the totality of concrete extensions nor the totality of concrete durations falls within the experience of the human race, let alone the human individual only a fragment of concrete extension and of concrete duration falls within human experience. Still, one can take that fragment as origin. Beyond the extension that is experienced, there is further extension; and , beyond the duration of experience, there is further duration. (166)

Kinds of Space and Time:

Personal Reference Frames

Where am I? Where are you? Where is it? When did that happen? What time is it? How are those extensions and durations related to my body?

Exercise in Appropriating Personal Reference Frame

in the same place/space Sensibly experienced extensions (vs. objects) present sensed extensions vs. absent sensed extensions

present sensed extensions in relation to absent sensed extensions

Jean Piaget The Childs Conception of Space

The problem of integrating different spaces:
mouth-space right- and left-hand-space visual space other body-part spaces hearing-space body-moving space

Jean Piaget The Childs Conception of Space

Development of childrens intelligences

Topological: Earliest construction of spatial relations

Projective: Intermediate spatial relations Euclidean: Mature construction of spatial relations

Jean Piaget The Childs Conception of Geometry

Topological Stage

Jean Piaget The Childs Conception of Geometry

Projective & Euclidean Stages

Kinds of Space and Time:

Public Reference Frames
Where am I? Where are you? Where is it? When did that happen? What time is it? The Intersubjective problem of Ordering (making meaningful, social construction = generally intelligible locations & dates, 168) Structured [insights] around Origins (167)

Jean Piaget, The Childs Conception of Space

Transformations of Intelligible Relations

Topology and Maps

Kinds of Space and Time:

Public Reference Frames
Where am I? Where are you? Where is it? When did that happen? What time is it? In relation to what? Intersubjectively, insight-structured around Origins (167)

Kinds of Space and Time:

Public Reference Frames

The Problem of Ordering: Mircea Eliade: homogeneity is Chaos Origins are Sources of Meaningfulness Origins are intersubjectively chosen Insights structure other extensions and durations as meaningful by relation

Other Kinds of Origins

Theres no place like home. My secret place

My neighborhood
Our favorite place/hangout

Alma mater (Towers on the Heights)

Where I met the love of my life Where the dead have fallen

Kinds of Space and Time:

Public Reference Frames
Where am I? Where are you? Where is it? Being lost In relation to what? Where = in what relation to what origin Intersubjectively, insight-structured, ordered around Origins (167)

Maps & Directions

Relating paths & landmarks Intersubjectively understood (intelligible ) Relating to intersubjectively meaningful Origins Importance of the empirical residue

Kevin Lynch The Image of the City

In the process of way-finding, the strategic link is the environmental image [with its associated set of insights], the generalized mental picture of the exterior physical world. A vivid and integrated physical setting, capable of producing a sharp image [and insights], plays a social role as well. It can furnish the raw materials for the symbols and collective memories of group communication. (p. 4)

Kevin Lynch The Image of the City

Public images [are] the common mental pictures [and insights] carried by large numbers of a citys inhabitants: areas of agreement which might be expected to appear in the interaction of a common culture. The world may be organized around a set of focial points, or be broken into named regions, or linked [through insights and] by remembered routes. (p. 7)

Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City

Problem of Ordering: Insight and Agreement

Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City

Problem of Ordering: Insight and Agreement

Christian Norberg-Schulz Meaning in Western Architecture

By what means, then, [do humans] gain the [existential] foothold and identity which are not offered by nature? In general, [we] succeed because of our ability to reach beyond the individual situation, that is, because of our ability to abstract and generalize. This implies that the meaning of any phenomenon is the context in which it appears, and that any [person] is the interrelationships or meanings which are accessible to him or her. (p. 428)

Christian Norberg-Schulz Meaning in Western Architecture

The purpose of the work of [architecture] is to conserve and communicate experienced existential meanings giving individual existence meaning by relating it to a complex of natural and human dimensions orientation implies that any meaning is experienced as forming part of a comprehensive spatio-temporal order the character of a place is determined by this revelation Any place contains directions and openings. (429-30)

Christian Norberg-Schulz Meaning in Western Architecture

Whereas perceptual space varies continuously, existential space has a relatively stable structure. (430) Complex, interrelations of: Centers (nodes) Paths Regions or domains (enclosures)

Landscapes Settlements (villages, towns, cities) Neighborhoods Buildings (homes, churches, palaces)

Bedroom, kitchen, hearth

Kinds of Space and Time:

Public Reference Frames
When did that happen? What time is it? In relation to what? When = in what relation to what origin Intersubjectively, insight-structured around Origins (167)

Kinds of Temporal Public Orderings

Continuous/discontinuous: the problem of sleep Cyclical Linear Straight line, curved line, crooked line? What is the origin? What is the end? Insights: constitutive of temporal orderings

Kinds of Space and Time:

Special Reference Frames
Where is everything? When did everything happen? What time is it, for whom? Scientific Orderings
(Explanatory & Abstract Ordering of Extensions & Durations)

A Problem Peculiar to Physics (167)

Kinds of Space and Time:

Special Reference Frames
A Problem Peculiar to Physics since all mathematical principles and all natural laws of the classical type are abstract, it follows that their appropriate expression must be invariant. However, the science of physics does not enjoy the same immunity. It investigates local movements, and it cannot state their laws without some reference to places and times. (165)

Newtons Presuppositions about Space, Time, and Motion

1. Absolute, true, and mathematical time, in and of itself and of its own nature, without reference to anything external, flows uniformly and by another name is called duration. Relative, apparent, and common time is any sensible and external measure (precise or imprecise) of duration by means of motion; such a measure for example, an hour, a day, a month, a yearis commonly used instead of true time.

Newtons Presuppositions about Space, Time, and Motion

2. Absolute space, of its own nature without reference to anything external, always remains homogeneous and immovable. Relative space is any movable measure or dimension or measure of this absolute spaces; such a measure or dimension is determined by our senses from the situation of the space with respect to bodies and is popularly used for immovable space, as in the case of space under the earth or in the air or in the heavens

Newtons Presuppositions about Space, Time, and Motion

4. Absolute motion is the change of position of a body from one absolute place to another; relative motion is change of position from one relative place to another. Thus, in a ship under sail, the relative place of a body is that region of the ship in which the body happens to be or that part of the whole interior of the ship which the body fills and which accordingly moves along with the ship. And relative rest is the continuance of the body in that same region of the ship or same part of its interior. But true rest is the continuance of a body in the same part of that unmoving space in which the ship itself, along with its interior and all its contents, is moving...

Kinds of Space and Time:

Special Reference Frames

Einsteins dissatisfaction Biot-Savart Law Faradays Law Law of Propagation of Light:

Abstract Intelligibility: Transformations & Geometries

Galileo, Newton, and Kant were looking for some sort of absolute, but they were looking in the wrong places. They sought the real as opposed to the apparent, only to end up with everything apparent, the notion of the real included. Let us follow a different tack. (178)

Abstract Intelligibility: Transformations & Geometries

From geometrical considerations it will be possible to find three equations relating x, y, and z, respectively, to x', y', and z', and further, to show that these equations hold for any point (x, y, z). In this fashion there are obtained transformation equations, and by the simple process of substitution any statement in terms of x, y, z can be transformed into a statement in terms of x', y', z. (169)

Abstract Intelligibility: Transformations & Geometries

In the foregoing consideration of transformations, the procedure in the special case was based upon geometrical considerations. It is worth noting that the inverse procedure is possible, that is, that from a consideration of transformations one can work out the general theory of geometries. (169)

Abstract Intelligibility: Transformations & Geometries

The abstract formulation of the intelligibility immanent in Space and in Time will be a geometry.

The expression of the principles and laws of any geometry will be invariant. For principles and laws are independent of particular places and times, and so their proper expression cannot vary with variations of spatiotemporal standpoints. (173-74)