“Time Without Change”, Essay Example

In this captivating article, first published in the Journal of Philosophy in 1969, Sydney Shoemaker provides a rather startling theory concerning time and changelessness. The foundation for this theory can be found on pages 68 through 70 in which Shoemaker relates the tale of an unknown world that exists somewhere in the universe. This alien world is composed of three separate parts-A, B, and C-much like three countries that share the same geographical borders or three states that share the same geographical boundaries. All of the inhabitants can cross over to another part or region while also being able to observe what occurs in one region or all three. One in awhile, one region experiences what Shoemaker refers to as a “local freeze” when “all processes occurring in one of the three regions comes to a complete halt”; no motion of any kind, no growth or decay (69). Thus, during this “local freeze,” the inhabitants of the frozen region are completely unaware of the freeze state, but the inhabitants of the other regions can see what is occurring. Also, an inhabitant in the frozen region sees changes happening in the other two regions, such as a sapling growing into a fully mature tree in an instant; however, to the inhabitants of the frozen region, nothing appears to be changing, almost as if time itself has come to a standstill.

Shoemaker’s main point behind this tale of a world trapped in space and time is to illustrate his concept of changeless intervals in time via the suggestion that “there are conceivable circumstances in which the existence of changeless intervals could be detected” (79). Possible, what Shoemaker had in mind before writing this scientific philosophical essay is the concept of time travel. For instance, let us pretend that we are inside of a spaceship traveling at the speed of light through outer space. On the wall of the spaceship, there is a clock that reminds us what time is was when we took off in the ship. Now, once we reach the speed of light (approximately 186,000 miles per second), we can look out into space through a window and see that the universe is rapidly changing–planets whizzing by and galaxies appearing and receding in the blink of an eye. However, inside the spaceship, nothing is changing; everything is as it was before we took off except of course for the movement of the hands on the clock. Then, we turn the ship around and head back to Earth after slowing down to a normal speed. The clock on the wall of the ship indicates that we have been in motion for only a few seconds, but when we step out of the ship, everything on the Earth has changed.

Overall, Shoemaker’s essay is very compelling, for it brings to mind an old film called “The Time Machine” in which an inventor climbs in a time machine and starts it up, and as he begins to travel into the future, nothing inside of the machine changes; however, outside of the machine, he sees buildings crumble to nothing only to be replaced by other buildings, and a flower in a pot wilts away and another flower grows instantly to replace the old one. Therefore, inside the time machine (perhaps one of Shoemaker’s regions that is experiencing a “local freeze”), nothing changes, but in another region or area in space and time, everything has changed. Also, Shoemaker’s suggestion that changeless intervals could be detected might relate to observing a galaxy billions of light years distant which from the viewpoint of the observer never changes; however, an inhabitant on a planet inside this galaxy would see rapid changes in the universe, due to being billions of years in the past via a “local freeze” in his section of the universe.

References

Shoemaker, Sydney. “Time Without Change.” Journal of Philosophy. 66 (1969), 63-79. Print.