Another consolation from the nature of time

29 Nov, 2023

I previously interpreted Joanna Newsom as presenting time as an a priori condition of experience rather than an objective reality, and as offering consolations to loss on that basis. I recently happened to re-read a Velleman lecture that discusses some different consolations based on the nature of time. He discusses several consoling arguments he thinks doesn't work, and one he thinks does work. Here's the one that works. I might revisit the ones that don't work.

The central argument is that the self as a thing that endures through time is an illusion (because the idea of the same thing, any thing, enduring through time is incoherent),¹ and that this illusion anchors the illusion that time passes. The notion of time passing is also incoherent on its own terms, but it's the same incoherence as that involved in the enduring self, so the two illusions support each other. If the very same self exists in time at succeeding moments, then it is moving forward in time. The suffering caused by the illusion of an enduring self is the feeling that time is running out, a feeling that only makes sense in the presence of the paired illusion that time passes. The consolation that works is giving up these illusions so you understand that it is impossible for time to run out, and you no longer feel the anxieties that brings.