Sample Questions #3      
Space and Time, Spring 2007

1. What is a spatial dimension?  What sort of evidence is there that we live in a
universe of three dimensions of space?  What sort of experience would a two
dimensional being have upon encountering a three dimensional being such as you, and
vice versa?  Why haven't you encountered a two dimensional being?  What sort of
empirical evidence, if it were found, would suggest that we live in a space of more than
three dimensions?  (space, not spacetime).  [Hint: Why was Rudolf Carnap concerned
with spiritualist seances?]   

2. Discuss the shape of time.

3. Discuss the question of the size of the universe.  For example, is it infinite?  Will the
volume of space grow increasingly bigger as time goes on?

4. What are Zeno's paradoxes of motion, and how did Aristotle attempt to solve them? 
Compare Aristotle's solution to the Standard Solution.  Don't discuss the Arrow
Paradox.

5. Describe the micro-structure of space.  Include a comparison of Aristotle's views with
those of today's physicists.  [Hint: real numbers form a linear continuum, quantum
foam.]

6. Explain and discuss the flow of time.  [Hint: J.M.E. McTaggart and J.J.C. Smart.]

7. Discuss the arguments for and against the block universe. 

8. Which is more fundamental, the A-series or the B-series?  Do tensed concepts have
semantical priority over untensed concepts, and do tensed facts have ontological
priority over untensed facts?