Emiratio

Meanwhile Elsewhere . . .

Presenting on Wednesday was fun -- and except for some complaints about the length of the handout, I think it went well.  Now I'm busy preparing my Trinity presentation for next Saturday, and in an hour I'll take a break to go running with some RU Philosophy grad students.  Wish me luck on both!

In other news:  Check out these two links.  The first is pretty self-explanatory, and the second is to some pictures of a "cabin" my dad is in the process of building.  It'll be beautiful:  two stories, with a beach on one side and Alaskan temperate rainforest on the other, all across the Tongass Narrows from Ketchikan and with a view of the town and mountains.  Congratulations, dad!!!

Congratulations also to Dennis Whitcomb and WWU -- Dennis will be joining the faculty there next fall.  Another WWU/RU connection -- very, very cool!

Alright, back to work . . .

Wednesday Presentation

Wow, I guess it's been a while since I last posted!  For now I've just got a quick announcement for anyone 'round here who might be interested:  I'll be giving a grad student talk at Rutgers tomorrow night at 7:30pm in the Philosophy department, in the classroom across from the seminar room.  Here's some info about it:

The title:  "Time Travel and Motion"

An abstract:  The widely accepted version of Russell’s At-At account of motion is the claim that:  necessarily, something moves iff it’s at one place at one time, and is at a distinct place at a distinct time.  This account has come under attack:  spinning disc cases have been used in an attempt to show that the account is too restrictive in some cases.  I would like to object to the account as well, though on independent grounds.  I find it to be too liberal in some fairly ordinary cases of time travel (though time travel isn't necessary for the cases -- it's really a certain kind of multilocation that generates the problem).  If the cases I suggest are possible, then the At-At account is false.  And even if my cases are merely conceptually possible, the At-At account cannot be accepted as an analysis of motion.  (I'll also talk for a little bit about some intuitive responses to spinning disc cases, and some further problems that we face in giving an account of motion.)

And if this sounds familiar:  I mentioned this paper here last April (though it's changed a bit since I wrote that summary!), and again in September.  And it's what I'll be presenting in Chicago in two weeks -- I'm so excited!!  (I'm also counting the days 'till the Pacific -- less than one week until I board a flight there . . .)

Hope everyone's spring is blissful and productive!