Inscription and Eternity

Chapter 4 argues that given the production of continuity, we can understand chronological time as itself produced. In other words, the temporal order of past, present and future, where the past precedes the present and the present the future, depends on a different temporal order. This second, metaphysical order grounds the more common chronological order as its condition of possibility and is itself grounded in the modal structure of objects and difference. Therefore, time is not foundational to the cosmos. In this second order, the present produces the past. An account of the inscription of the past through the actions of the present is given. The continuity found in Chapter 3 provides a metaphysical ‘surface’ for such inscription. Since all inscription is partial, it will be shown that there exist powers of the pure present that make inscription possible but are not themselves inscribed. These powers do not pass into the past, rather they remain the atemporal ground of the time. This provides truthmakers for what is traditionally called the eternity of mathematical truths.

Asymmetry · Epistemology · Eternity · Modality (human–computer interaction) · Physics · Temporality · Artificial Intelligence · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Classical Antiquity Studies · Computer Science · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · Philosophy