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Eternalism (philosophy of time), Talk:Four-dimensionalism

• Eternalism (philosophy of time) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Talk:Four-dimensionalism (edit | subject | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

User:Hypnosifl added an S.M.Carroll reference to eternalism in support of the statement that "It is sometimes referred to as the "block time" or "block universe" theory". Unfortunately, he also included WP:OR in the ref: ""Eternalism, "block universe" and "block time" are understood as synonymous terms by philosophers". Later he claims that Carroll was "not good" (because "It" was in reference to a Kurt Vonnegut example). That's misleading however, because Carroll does go on to specify eternalism... While it's clearly amenable with a 4D view of time, sources offer examples of eternalism that predate a "block universe" 4D view of time, and they stop short of equating the two as "synonymous". I've asked User:Hypnosifl several times not to accommodate his additions to the lede by removing existing material.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Hypnosifl (talk · contribs)
• Machine Elf 1735 (talk · contribs)

Reviving the dead thread Talk:Four-dimensionalism#Elephant in the room - possible redundancy, User:Hypnosifl proactively set me up as an opponent to the edits he intended to make at Eternalism (philosophy of time).

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes.

• To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Eternalism (philosophy of time), Talk:Four-dimensionalism}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

see TL;DR at Talk:Four-dimensionalism#Elephant in the room - possible redundancy and edit summaries at Eternalism (philosophy of time) and User talk:Hypnosifl#Edit Warring.

• How do you think we can help?

Do you think you can help? If so, how?

Machine Elf  21:52, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

How do you think DRN can help? If so, how? is the question. ~~Ebe123~~ → report 18:27, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Eternalism (philosophy of time), Talk:Four-dimensionalism discussion

It sounds like weasel words to say 'some' and not specify who. Also sounds like WP:OR, we need names and sources. If it cannot be backed up then it should be removed. I'm not going to jump into some esoteric article and begin dictating the matter, but if you can't provide a reliable source (anyone, doesn't matter who), then I wouldn't include it. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 22:13, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I hear what you're saying but just to clarify, the weasel word is in the source and this is the lede... specific advocates are given in the body. I'm not disputing that some, (∃, as opposed to all, ∀), philosophers see the two as largely similar or even synonymous. Those philosophers would not allude to any historical "eternalism" that predates the concept of spacetime, for example, but others do.—Machine Elf  22:40, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

In that case I would note that were appropriate for context, even if they are different views or predating current thinking it does not discount the views themselves for having a similar appearance or association. It is good to provide both sides even if they seem silly when a close connection or similarity exists. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 00:36, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, Hypnosifl can explain for himself, but he wanted to say is that eternalism is "synonymous" with block universe theory. He can't source it because apparently no one says that. There is no other dispute.—Machine Elf  01:02, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Note that after MachineElf objected to "synonymous", I immediately changed it to "Eternalism, defined as the view that there are no ontological differences between past, present and future, is also known as the "block universe" theory", directly reflecting the language of the quoted sources (all written by professional philosophers), and all my further edits have avoided "synonymous", so I don't think it's reasonable to treat this as the basis for the dispute. My original reason for using "synonymous" was that I thought any reasonable parsing of the statements by the sources would indicate they were treating them as synonymous (obviously, any sourced claim in a wikipedia article that doesn't directly quote the source requires some small amount of parsing to understand that the sentence in the article is an accurate paraphrase of the accompanying source). Here we are talking about professional philosophers discussing the formal terms "eternalism" and "block time", and the sources say the following:

'The third and more popular theory is that there are no significant ontological differences among present, past, and future because the differences are merely subjective. This view is called “the block universe theory” or “eternalism.”' (source)

'Block universe theory: Metaphysical theory that implies all of the past, present, and future is real. The name derives from the fact that a Minkowski diagram would represent events as points in a block if space and time were to be finite in all directions. Also called "eternalism."' (source)

'It is commonly held that relativity favors the "block universe" view (known also as "eternalism"), according to which all events enjoy the same ontological status regardless of their location' (source)

'It does not help, either, that there is a tendency to conflate eternalism — the four-dimensional "block universe" view — with causal determinism.' (source)

When philosophers say that a given view, first identified with formal name "A", is "also known as" formal name "B", or say things like 'this view is called "A", or "B"', I think it's a perfectly reasonable parsing to say that A and B are just different terms for the exact same philosophical view, i.e. synonymous. But since the sources did not use the precise word synonymous and MachineElf objected, I figured a reasonable compromise would be the "Eternalism ... is also known as the block universe theory", directly reflecting the "also called" and "known also as" in two of the sources above. MachineElf continues to object, insisting that the sentence be replaced by a weaker claim that eternalism is "sometimes referred to as the block time or block universe perspective", presumably based on MachineElf's feeling that for at least some philosophers there is a conceptual distinction between the terms as indicated by his/her comment above "I'm not disputing that some, (∃, as opposed to all, ∀), philosophers see the two as largely similar or even synonymous. Those philosophers would not allude to any historical "eternalism" that predates the concept of spacetime, for example, but others do." But MachineElf hasn't actually provided a single example of a source written by a professional philosopher that says this--the source after his/her "sometimes" version is a book by the physicist Sean Carroll, and Carroll does not actually say that there is any distinction between the terms (he first introduces the terms "block time" and "block universe" to describe the view that all times are equally real, then later he says "The viewpoint we've been describing, on the other hand, is (sensibly enough) known as "eternalism," suggesting he does not see any distinction. For further discussion between MachineElf and I about the Carroll quote, see this section of my user talk page (I have requested MachineElf's permission to move it to the Eternalism talk page so that others will be more likely to see it and weigh in). Hypnosifl (talk) 13:17, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Also, it might help if MachineElf could expand a little on the comment that "I'm not disputing that some, (∃, as opposed to all, ∀), philosophers see the two as largely similar or even synonymous. Those philosophers would not allude to any historical "eternalism" that predates the concept of spacetime, for example, but others do." Are you suggesting that if there was a historical philosopher who had made arguments about all times being equally real in a time period that "predates the concept of spacetime", then no one would call them an advocate of the "block universe", and therefore that the modern philosophers who define "eternalism" to be synonymous with "block universe" would also not call them a historical advocate of "eternalism"? If so, I think that's a misunderstanding--while the origin of the term "block universe" may have to do with relativity, this debate is about what philosophical ideas the terms denote for modern philosophers, and the ones I quoted suggest they are both understood to denote nothing more than the idea that all times have equal ontological status. So if some ancient philosopher, like Dogen, expressed a view that seemed to be saying all times have equal ontological status, it would be correct to say that "they advocated the view that is today described by the term 'block universe'", even though they would have been unaware of the idea of time as a dimension in a four-dimensional block. The fact that the words of the term may have been inspired by 20th century ideas has nothing to do with what philosophers understand the term to mean in a technical sense.Hypnosifl (talk) 15:43, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I don’t understand the issue here as it seems clear cut to me. What became known as the “block universe.” as first formulated by Minkowski based upon his erstwhile math student’s illustrious work, is a construct of physics, while “eternalism” is a philosophical derivation. Although both Minkowski and Einstein were eternalists, they stopped short of actually stating that the theory demanded eternalism, though Einstein came close to stating such in his fifth appendix to the fifteenth edition of his book: Relativity: The Special and General Theory. He stated: “It appears…more natural to think of physical reality as a four-dimensional existence, instead of, as hitherto, the evolution of a three-dimensional existence.”

One of the first to discern the true depth of Minkowski’s arguments and his true intent was the German mathematician Hermann Weyl who about two decades after Minkowski delivered his famous speech made a defining observation regarding what came to be known as the block universe that has significant relevance to what you are asking here. He observed: “The objective world simply is, it does not happen.”

Therefore, the concepts of the block universe and eternalism are certainly not synonymous in form anymore than an American is synonymous with America. Whether this is also true in substance is somewhat debatable. However, a good case might be made that the two concepts are synonymous in substance. What seems to constitute the final nail in the coffin for the presentist position is perhaps the most salient prediction of STR, the relativity of simultaneity. It is simply not tenable to account for this within a three-dimensional paradigm of reality (with time being an independent entity rather than embedded with the three dimensions of space to form the four-dimensional, holistic entity now called spacetime). For an excellent discussion of this point, I would commend to you the following paper by a philosopher at a Canadian university whose research and insights I have found to be invaluable in formulating my own opinions.

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/2408/1/Petkov-BlockUniverse.pdf

Nevertheless, the proposition that the ‘block universe” demands eternalism is not universally accepted. Therefore, an editor is wrong in removing material that casts doubt upon the proposition in favor of inserting material which at least implies that there is no credible dissent to the proposition.HistoryBuff14 (talk) 13:53, 27 July 2012 (UTC)'

HistoryBuff, does your statement that the block universe is a "construct of physics" mean that you are saying that you understand the term "block universe" to be one that does not necessarily refer to a philosophical claim about the ontology of different times (treating them as equally real), but rather can be understand to refer just to the physical/mathematical content of Minkowski's formulation of relativity (which, as a physical theory, cannot properly be understood to make any philosophical claims about ontology, even if it may suggest that eternalism is a better fit for the physics than presentism)? If that is what you're saying, can you provide any sources that say the same thing? The paper you link to doesn't seem to say this, although it talks about various physicists drawing ontological conclusions from the physics--in the introduction it says that taking the block universe view means "regarding the universe as a timelessly existing four-dimensional world", with "timelessly existing" being an ontological claim. I have never seen "block universe" used to refer only to physical claims about relativity, or to mathematical formulations of relativity, although the name is inspired by Minkowski's version as MachineElf demonstrated to me (pointing to this reference). On the other hand, if you're saying that you just don't distinguish between the physical content of Minkowski's work and the ontological claims of the "block universe" view, I think that's a view philosophers would disagree with, even if physicists themselves might sometimes fail to distinguish them. The author of the paper you link to does seem to think that there is a unique ontology compatible with the physics seen in relativity, but he does argue this conclusion at length rather than saying that relativity itself is an ontological theory (and always seems to use "block universe" to refer to the ontological conclusions, not the physics itself...nor does he mention the word "eternalism" so that paper can't be used as evidence for a difference in meaning between "eternalism" and "block universe"). Moreover, he admits he is in the minority in this view: see p. 19, where he writes It is a widely accepted view that "relativistic mechanics does not carry a particular ontological interpretation upon its sleeve". I would say this widely accepted view is the correct one, since nothing in the physics would change if there was an "ontologically preferred frame" which was completely indistinguishable from other frames by experiment, but a discussion about this issue would be getting away from the question of whether there are any reliable sources that argue for any difference between the terms "block universe" and "eternalism". Hypnosifl (talk) 14:43, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

The former. Einstein thought he was theorizing a new paradigm describing the nature of realty and not some philosophical treatise. In fact, as is commonly known, it was Minkowski who discerned the deeper implications of the great man’s work; a discernment that Einstein was reluctant to embrace at first. He eventually did. You want me to find a source for this assertion? If so, I shall try to dig one up but I can’t remember exactly where I read it first.

I wrote a philosophical proof of a creator (of some kind, not necessarily God in the traditional sense; it could just as well be an extra-dimensional computer program) based upon the fact that I don’t see how the eternalist model of the block universe (which I am convinced is correct assuming a materialist reality) can accommodate causality from within, notwithstanding the fact that it seems absurd on an empirical basis to deny causality exists. Therefore, causality must have been operative from without in a higher dimensional time. It is difficult to pin down exactly what Einstein’s ontological views were, except to say he was certainly not a believer in God. Whether he had been an atheist or an agnostic is open to debate. Therefore, he certainly wouldn’t have agreed with my proof. Still, it is based upon the apparent implications of his theory.

This is no different than discussing the implications of Copernicus’s heliocentric cosmology which ticked off a lot of churchmen wedded to a literal interpretation of certain Biblical events. Copernicus was not making any theological or philosophical statement. He was simply putting forth a new physical paradigm of reality.HistoryBuff14 (talk) 15:35, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

You want me to find a source for this assertion?

Yes, that would be helpful. But I'm still confused about what you're asserting--you say "Einstein thought he was theorizing a new paradigm describing the nature of realty and not some philosophical treatise", but "nature of reality" sounds like a claim about ontology, not about physics alone free from any philosophical claims. So when you say "the former", I'm not clear on how your statement relates to my original question which asked if you understood "block universe" to sometimes refer to the physical content of relativity or its mathematical formulation, free of any ontological claims about whether all times are equally "real". Are you saying "yes" to that question (i.e., saying some professional philosophers do use "block universe" to refer to a non-philosophical theory of physics), or are you saying that the people who came up with the term "block universe" just didn't distinguish between physical claims and ontological claims, and understood relativity itself to be making ontological claims about all times being equally real? Hypnosifl (talk) 15:59, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, what I mean, at least, is that Einstein, through algebra, positioned a theory with predictions that were or might some day become testable such as time dilation, length contraction and the relativity of simultaneity. At this point in its formulation, it was a mere mathematical construct with no ontological overtones. It was Minkowski adding a geometrical view of spacetime that placed ontological overtones to the theory that Weyl later spelled out. Although it appears to be incomprehensible to the human intellect (at least), what I would term the “ultimate mystery” is that somewhere within reality (either within our dimension or one a priori to ours)someone or something must “just is” (exists eternally with no beginning; timelessly) which forms the ground of existence which cannot be further sublated. (“I am who am.”) To Weyl, that would be the universe itself, the sum total of MEST as opposed to a theist’s God. In my proof, I dispute this contention as illogical because of the obvious existence of causality that does not seem to be able to be accounted for within an eternalist paradigm.

Regarding a source for Einstein not at first accepting Minkowki’s interpretation as literal, it is stated in the Wiki article for Minkowski that Einstein viewed his former teacher’s model as a mathematical trick. A blogger I found states the same, though I can’t pin an actual source at the moment, maybe a biography of Einstein. I think it is pretty much common knowledge which is why perhaps it is not sourced in the Wiki article.

This particular blogger is like most of us here, a very intelligent layman to the fields of physics and philosophy. Aside from iterating what I discussed above, he spends a lot of time in this post discussing his views on the differentiation of mathematical constructs and reality. I don’t agree with him in his article’s entirety.

Here’s the link:

http://enquiriesnw.com/2012/05/28/space-time-and-reality/HistoryBuff14 (talk) 22:09, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Hypnosifl, I've explained more than once:

He introduced the concept with a popular example from fiction. He most certainly did name "this lofty timeless Tralfamadorian perch", sometimes called "block time" or "block universe", and in due course, he went on to say that he had been speaking about eternalism. It's WP:TENDENTIOUS to claim there's nothing in Carroll 'that clearly contradicts the idea that "eternalism" and "block universe" are understood by philosophers to refer to the selfsame philosophical theory'. But if 'sometimes' didn't make it clear enough, he belabors the point: 'Opinions differ, of course. The struggle to understand time is a puzzle of long standing, and what is "real" and what is "useful" have been very much up for debate.' Yes, he does say that eternalism is sometimes called "block time" or "block universe"... as opposed to Augustine's presentism: "The viewpoint we've been describing, on the other hand, is (sensibly enough) known as "eternalism," which holds that past, present, and future are all equally real." The so-called '"It is sometimes known as block time" edit' was preexisting text and your bold subsequent edit has been challenged, see WP:BRD.

— User talk:Hypnosifl#Edit Warring

No philosopher who traces eternalism back to Parmenides would seriously claim that Minkowski "block time/block universe" originated in the 5th century BCE. Again, it's merely WP:TENDENTIOUS to repeat ad nauseum that you don't need a cite.—Machine Elf  21:35, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Hello. I am a volunteer here at DRN. I've flagged this dispute for attention - sorry that we haven't had time to look at this yet. I ask you all to hold off on discussion until myself or another volunteer comments further. Thanks. Steven Zhang 13:19, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Taking a look on it. ~~Ebe123~~ → report 18:23, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

If there were a consensus to support Hyponosifl's attempted rollback of the lede to a point prior to the dispute, I wouldn't object, but his own cites argue against his position and whereas they're arguably too numerous for the lede, removing valid cites seems like the wrong way to go... At any rate, if we could avoid confusing the issue with unrelated edits, that might help the volunteers here hone in on the dispute. Would page protection be in order, while discussion is on hold?—Machine Elf  23:37, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

I've requested page protection as Hypnosifl insists on making extensive edits while this discussion is on hold.—Machine Elf  23:55, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

I suggested rolling back the lede to the point immediately before the dispute began as a temporary solution until a consensus is formed, since it doesn't seem fair to leave it on either of our modified versions if the other disagrees with the modifications. I don't think my unrelated edits confuse the issue since they have nothing to do with the subject of the dispute (namely, whether any modern philosophers understand there to be a difference in meaning between the terms "eternalism" and "block universe"), and I didn't have a problem with the unrelated edits MachineElf made to the "Determinism and Indeterminism" section while the dispute was already going on (see this 27 July edit by MachineElf), so it seems unfair that he/she wants to preserve the "Determinism and Indeterminism" edit while making a blanket rule that I can't make any further edits to any sections (even if MachineElf has no specific objections to the content of these edits). I am not aware of any wikipedia rule that says that when a dispute is in progress, the people involved are forbidden from making any further changes to the page even if these changes have nothing to do with what they were disputing. Hypnosifl (talk) 00:00, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

I've tried to preserve your additional cites each time, but I see no reason for a flurry of presumably unrelated changes... the direct quote of Popper regarding his discussion with Einstein is related: ‘the view that the world was a four-dimensional Parmenidean block universe in which change was a human illusion, or very nearly so. (He agreed that his had been his view, and while discussing it I called him "Parmenides".)’.—Machine Elf  00:22, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Edit warring with misleading edit summaries.—Machine Elf  00:42, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

As I just commented on the talk page, I don't see how that edit was edit warring, or how it contained a misleading summary.Hypnosifl (talk) 01:04, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

You don't see how 3 reverts in less than 6 hours based solely on your unilateral "temporary" solution could be construed as edit warring? You don't see how your edit summary is misleading? "no justification for restoring your version of the lede from the pre-dispute version"... I provided justification 1) in both of my edit summaries, 2) on the article talk page, 3) on this page, and 4) on the request for page protection. You may not think it's sufficient justification, but it's misleading to revert a third time claiming "no justification" as if I haven't said a word. Frankly, calling it "my version" is a laugh, as it's merely an attempt to incorporate your cites, and where verifiable, your changes to the article text. Again, I'm really not surprised you want to remove your cites, as they don't support your position. I added the direct quote from Popper (which would actually support your position, unless it's taken tongue-in-cheek), prior to your participation in dispute resolution and unlike your recent changes, it was not added simultaneously with a unilateral change to the lede. Very simply, I asked you not to "make changes while the dispute resolution has been put on hold", and you've repeatedly refused to comply.—Machine Elf  04:30, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Frankly, calling it "my version" is a laugh, as it's merely an attempt to incorporate your cites, and where verifiable, your changes to the article text.

It's "your version" with respect to the one issue that is the source of this entire dispute--namely, the fact that you continually reverted my edits saying that eternalism is "also known as" block time (even though two of the sources I posted used near-identical wording), changing it to "sometimes known as", apparently because of your belief (which you have never provided a single source to confirm) that they can only be equated "sometimes" because block time is also "sometimes" defined to mean something a bit different than eternalism, with the block time definition supposedly involving 20th century conceptions of "spacetime" while the eternalism definition does not (as seen in your comment above, I'm not disputing that some, (∃, as opposed to all, ∀), philosophers see the two as largely similar or even synonymous. Those philosophers would not allude to any historical "eternalism" that predates the concept of spacetime, for example, but others do.) If you could provide a source for this claim, this whole dispute could be easily resolved, as my opinion on this issue could be easily changed with an example of a single professional philosopher specifying that he/she uses the terms to mean different things.

— Hypnosifl (07:21, 1 August 2012 (UTC)), — (continues after insertion below.)

I'm not the only user to disagree with Hypnosifl's WP:BOLD attempt to remove, contrary to the source he, himself, provided, the preexisting language that eternalism is sometimes called "block universe" or "block time". Again, he WP:TENDENTIOUSLY mischaracterizes a simple issue of WP:V as "apparently because of belief" which, needless to say, I would have "never provided a single source to confirm"... Despite his egregious number of citations, he has not provided a source that says it's "always" called that... nothing that contradicts his original source's assertion that it is "sometimes" called that. No one is saying eternalism is not "also known as" block universe or block time, "sometimes" at least... His own sources make it clear that the "block" in "block universe"/"block time" refers to Minkowski's 20th century conception of spacetime, (while some playfully flirt with the anachronism of Minkowski spacetime originating in the 5th century BC via Parmenides). Given the dissenting source that he, himself, provided, I'm merely disputing that it's verifiable all philosophers see them as synonymous, tout court.—Machine Elf  10:42, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Until the dispute is resolved, though, it seems unfair to say that the version left on the page should be the one that is "yours" with respect to the central issue being disputed here. That's why I suggested the temporary solution of reverting to the earlier version of the lede that neither of us had written while we waited for the dispute to be resolved; the first of the three edits of mine you mentioned above was doing this, I'd hardly call it "edit warring" to revert to a neutral version of the lede, especially since I had proposed this on the talk page a little more than 22 hours earlier. But then after I made some other changes to the rest of the article (unrelated to our dispute, and not changes that you have raised any specific objections to) you reverted all of the changes including the change to a more neutral lede, so my second edit was restoring the neutral lede and explaining what I had done in the edit note, as well as pointing out that the other changes I made were unrelated to our dispute so there seemed no good reason for you to revert them. Again I don't see this as edit warring, because I thought there was a decent chance you had misunderstood the changes I had made, not realizing that my change to the lede and my changes to the rest of the article were completely neutral with regard to the subject of our dispute.

— Hypnosifl (07:21, 1 August 2012 (UTC)), — (continues after insertion below.)

Please note they're both "mine", ‘with respect to the central issue being disputed here’, because the version Hypnosifl is demanding also says "sometimes". Although there are too many cites for something so trivial, I think it's a shame to remove every one of them, and I don't condone his unilateral "temporary solution". While confusing the issue with simultaneous edits to other parts of the article, and having received no response as to whether his proposal would be "acceptable as a temporary solution", he reverted back to the unsourced edition 3 times in less than 6 hours, and argued about it non-stop thereafter: because it's not edit warring if I might have misunderstood the neutrality of all his edits, for example...—Machine Elf  10:42, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Then you reverted the whole thing again, in spite of the fact that you had said on the talk page "I don't have a problem with rolling back the lede to the point just prior to your first edit if there's a consensus for it". Based on that, I figured that when your two edit notes said "please do not make a series of extensive changes to the article while dispute resolution is pending" and "please do *not* make changes while the dispute resolution has been put on hold", the "extensive changes" you talked about referred to the additional new paragraphs I had added to the rest of the article, not the reversion of the lede to a pre-dispute version which you claimed to have no problem with. Since I didn't think those edit notes were referring to the lede, that's why I said you had provided "no justification" for reverting my change to the lede. And that's why I made that third edit where I restored the pre-dispute lede but didn't attempt to restore my additions to the rest of the article until a decision was reached about blocking all further changes to the article (in spite of the fact that my additions were unrelated to the dispute, and you provided no link to any wiki rules saying that editors involved in a dispute should avoid making edits to the rest of the article that don't involve the subject of their dispute, and if such a rule existed you would have been violating it anyway--your comment above that you added the Popper material prior to my posting in the dispute resolution thread myself doesn't really explain how this isn't a double standard, given that you had already started the dispute resolution process yourself at that point). If you want to say that your edit notes requesting I not make any changes were meant to include reverting the lede to the pre-dispute version, hopefully you can at least see how I might be genuinely confused (rather than being intentionally "misleading") given your comment on the talk page about having "no problem" with temporarily reverting the lede in this way.

— Hypnosifl (07:21, 1 August 2012 (UTC)), — (continues after insertion below.)

He conveniently ignores the part about consensus... but it's correct that I ‘provided no link to any wiki rules saying that editors involved in a dispute should avoid making edits to the rest of the article’ when the volunteers ask them not to even continue the discussion until they get a chance to catch up. Apart from the contorted rationalization via putting different words in my mouth, it's false that ‘if such a rule existed would have been violating it anyway’. I'm merely saying that if the discussion is on hold, it goes without saying that one should hold off on unilateral edits too. Finally, I've never claimed Hypnosifl was ‘being intentionally "misleading"’, just that his edit summaries, excuses, etc. are, in fact, misleading.—Machine Elf  10:42, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Again, I'm really not surprised you want to remove your cites, as they don't support your position.

This is the second time you've suggested that I wanted to revert to the pre-dispute lede because I secretly realized the sources supported your position, despite the fact that I have already denied that this is the reason and explained my specific objections to your arguments for saying the sources support your position (objections which you said you won't respond to on the talk page while the dispute resolution process is on hold), seems rather like a rather disrespectful speculation about my personal motives, and perhaps represents an attempt to taunt or bait me. Please keep in mind Misplaced Pages:Civility, in which the following types of behaviors are strongly discouraged: "personal attacks, rudeness, disrespectful comments, and aggressive behaviours—when such behavior disrupts the project and leads to unproductive stressors and conflict." And of course, if you think I have been personally disrespectful towards you in some way (as opposed to just disagreeing with you about editing issues), please say something. Hypnosifl (talk) 07:21, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Although he hadn't made that claim in reference to his "temporary solution", I am willing to stipulate that he still has no idea the sources argue strongly against his WP:OR by providing counter examples. My position is not the opposite of that WP:OR, and it's ridiculous to suggest an WP:RS would directly address WP:OR, particularly WP:OR that's trivially false apart from some qualified sense. At any rate, I've certainly never promised him responses to his objections pending the status of the dispute resolution process and I don't see how assuming intellectual competence ‘seems rather like a rather disrespectful speculation about personal motives and perhaps represents an attempt to taunt or bait’ him... but that was a prelude to specious accusations of incivility and personal attacks. I most certainly do think he's been personally disrespectful, despite repeated requests that he stop mischaracterizing my intentions, stop putting words in my mouth, stop referring to me altogether... to which he replied: ‘I suppose as long as you don't plan to edit the statements in the opening paragraph of Eternalism_(philosophy_of_time) saying that eternalism is synonymous with the 4D block universe view, then your opinion on this issue doesn't have any further relevance to editing, so in that case I'm happy to drop it.’—Machine Elf  10:42, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi, I am another dispute resolution volunteer. Ebe123 has already volunteered to take a look at this dispute, but can you guys please hold off on further discussion here until they (or another one of us) has done so? If you're only talking with each other, you might as well do it on the article talk page. If you're making the same arguments without convincing each other, then yes, that's part of what DRN is for, but it serves no purpose to keep talking past each other here without anyone else's input, except to glaze over the eyes of the volunteers with TL;DR syndrome. - Jorgath (talk) 15:32, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Comments by Writ Keeper

Hey, guys, I'm (yet another) volunteer. With Ebe123's permission, I'll hijack it, if I may. So, let me give the briefest of summaries, just to check my understanding of the situation: at the start, everyone is happy with the wording of the lede, where it says that eternalism is sometimes equated with block time and/or block universe. Hypnosifl adds a reference with some commentary in it that basically contradicts the "sometimes" bit; while the actual text in the lede is still not in dispute, one of the footnotes says, in Misplaced Pages's voice, that the consensus of philosophers think of eternalism and the other two terms as synonymous. MachineElf objects to this on grounds of verifiability, as only one of the sources supports that it is a generally-held view, and adds quotes from the sources for context. Hypnosifl says that the quotes don't mean what you think they mean, and we're off to the races, with the dispute spilling out into the text of the lede itself and picking up other elements as well, like the whole relativity/Minkowski part. But the fundamental positions, as it were, seem to be that MachineElf says that "eternalism is sometimes considered the same as block universe" and Hypnosifl says that "eternalism is always considered the same as block universe".

So, if I got that right (and please tell me if I don't!), here's my suggestion, for which I'd be interested on hearing your feedback. First, I'd say we revert the wording of the lede itself back to what's used before this fracas started, so that we don't have to worry about the whole relativity/Minkowski diagram bit. That may be an issue that needs to be discussed, but it's a separate issue, so let's deal with the one at hand first. It also has the advantage (IMO) of getting rid of some of the qualifications and limited definitions and so on that got introduced over the debate, which look like they're more confusing than helpful to the casual reader. So, the question becomes this: Hypnosifl, are you solid enough in that position that you want to remove the word "sometimes" from the text of the lede itself? You didn't remove it from the lede when you first started, and that's what confused me at first. If you don't want to remove it, then the issue can probably be fixed just by removing the additional text in the footnote, so that it doesn't contradict the sentence it's supposed to support, and letting the refs stand on their own (probably in separate ref tags, but that's just stylistic). If you do want to remove the word from the lede, then we have a bit more to discuss. What do y'all think? Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 00:05, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

For my part, I've no objections to any of that.—Machine Elf  07:47, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Hypnosifl adds a reference with some commentary in it that basically contradicts the "sometimes" bit; while the actual text in the lede is still not in dispute, one of the footnotes says, in Misplaced Pages's voice, that the consensus of philosophers think of eternalism and the other two terms as synonymous.

That's not my understanding of the dispute; at least, I don't recall to Machine Elf objecting to any one of the four sources I added in particular, and I also don't see that any of the sources provides stronger support for the notion that they are synonymous than the others (all four support this notion about equally, AFAIK, though none use the word synonymous--that's why, after Machine Elf complained about my "synonymous" edit, I changed it to "also known as", which is near-identical wording to two of the sources.) If you think one source supports my claim more strongly than the others, can you specify which of the four you're talking about? Here they are again:

'The third and more popular theory is that there are no significant ontological differences among present, past, and future because the differences are merely subjective. This view is called “the block universe theory” or “eternalism.”' (source)

'Block universe theory: Metaphysical theory that implies all of the past, present, and future is real. The name derives from the fact that a Minkowski diagram would represent events as points in a block if space and time were to be finite in all directions. Also called "eternalism."' (source)

'It is commonly held that relativity favors the "block universe" view (known also as "eternalism"), according to which all events enjoy the same ontological status regardless of their location' (source)

'It does not help, either, that there is a tendency to conflate eternalism — the four-dimensional "block universe" view — with causal determinism.' (source)

Incidentally, I since spotted another reference (written by a professional philosopher of science), which I'd like to add to the article once this dispute is resolved:

"Many philosophers have taken the view, known as 'the block universe theory' or 'eternalism', that there are no significant ontological differences among present, past, and future." (source)

So, the question becomes this: Hypnosifl, are you solid enough in that position that you want to remove the word "sometimes" from the text of the lede itself? You didn't remove it from the lede when you first started, and that's what confused me at first.

Yes, unless a source is found where a professional philosopher mentions some distinction in meaning between the terms. Not sure what you mean when you say I didn't remove it from the lede at first, my initial edit did remove it, (edit: sorry, now I see what you mean, I notice now that I added the claim that they are synonymous in the footnote while leaving the main text the same; but this would leave no confusion in the mind of readers who read the footnote, whereas if the main text read "sometimes" while the footnote just offered some sources without commenting on the issue of the equivalence of the terms, I think the issue would be a lot less clear to readers) then after Machine Elf objected to my calling the terms "synonymous" and reverted that, my next edit also removed "sometimes referred to" from the article, which I changed to Eternalism, defined as the view that there are no ontological differences between past, present and future, is also known as the "block universe" theory. Hypnosifl (talk) 12:48, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Okay, so now that we've focused the dispute, let's get into it. It seems to me that the sources do support Hypnosifl's position. I don't think we can really draw any conclusion from the Carroll source on way or another; the transitive connection between the terms are too loose. Moreover, while he does use the word "sometimes", he uses it in a way that doesn't need to imply a difference between the terms; if position A is sometimes called B, that doesn't have to mean that, the rest of the time, B refers to something else; it could just mean that B is rarely-used. The other sources that Hypnosifl lists seem to indicate that "block universe" and "eternalism" mean the same thing, in fairly uncontroversial terms. So, the question is now for MachineElf: what's making you support the word "sometimes" in the main text of the lede? Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 14:07, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Could you expand on how it seems to you that the sources support Hypnosifl's position and what that is? Carroll is a clear counter example, the various meanings attached to "block universe" do not simplistically coincide with those of "eternalism":

• British Broadcasting Corporation (1970). The Listener. British Broadcasting Corporation. p. 141. ISSN 0024-4392. LCCN sn96046406. This idea is essentially that of the ' block universe ' — a term coined by William James according to which the world is like a film strip: the photographs are already there and are merely being exhibited to us.

• Jammer, M. (2006). Concepts of Simultaneity: From Antiquity to Einstein and Beyond. Concepts of Simultaneity. Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 78. ISBN 9780801884221. LCCN 2006048564. Berkeley "time" was nothing but "the succession of ideas in our minds," it follows that for God, in whose mind, as Berkeley expressively stated, there is no success, time as defined by Berkeley does not exist. Moreover, because past, present, and future are "actually present," in God's mind, He sees them as what human beings would call "simultaneously." That kind of simultaneity exists when we look at the representation of the past, present, and future in a diagram of what is now called the "block universe," a term that was coined in 1890 by William James...

• Whitrow, G.J. (1980). The Natural Philosophy of Time. Oxford Science Publications. Clarendon Press. p. 274. ISBN 9780198582120. LCCN lc79041145. Weyl's view, like Einstein's, was essentially that of the 'block universe', to use the term coined by William James to denote the hypothesis that the world is like a film strip: the photographs are already there and are merely being exhibited to us.

• Borchert, D.M. (2006). Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Masaryk - Nussbaum. Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Masaryk-Nussbaum. Macmillan Reference USA. p. 326. ISBN 9780028657868. LCCN 2005018573. It has been characteristic of monism, from the earliest times, to insist on the unity of things in time (their freedom from change) or in space (their indivisibilty) or in quality (their undifferentiatedness). Such a view of the world is already found in a developed form in the pre-Socratic philosopher Parmenides and was nicknamed the "block universe" (by Thomas Davidson, a friend of William James)...

• Huneker, J. (1913). The Pathos of Distance: A Book of a Thousand and One Moments. C.Scribner's sons. p. 363. LCCN 13010641. "The pluralistic world," continues James, "is thus more like a federal republic than like an empire or a kingdom." Monism, on the other hand, believes in the block universe, in a timeless, changeless condition; "all things interpenetrate and telescope together in the great total conflux." ... Francis Herbert Bradley of Oxford, with his Appearance and Reality, is the man upon whom James trains his heaviest artillery.

• Schlosshauer, M. (2011). Elegance and Enigma: The Quantum Interviews. The Frontiers Collection. Springer. p. 125. ISBN 9783642208799. I would rathr say that quantum mechanics on a QBist reading appears to imply an irreducible pluralism to nature. Nature is composed of entities, each with a fire of its own--something not fueled or determined by any of nature's other parts. The philosopher William James coined the terms "multiverse" and "pluriverse" to capture this idea and put it into contrast with the idea of a single, monistic block universe. Unfortunately, the Everettians have co-opted "multiverse"...

• Layzer, D. (1991). Cosmogenesis: The Growth of Order in the Universe. Oxford University Press, USA. p. 309. ISBN 9780195069082. LCCN lc88012530. The phrase "block universe" was used by William James, A Pluralistic Universe (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977), p. 140. James refers to "the block- universe eternal and without a history."

• Kern, S. (2003). The Culture of Time and Space, 1880-1918: With a New Preface. Harvard University Press. p. 204. ISBN 9780674021693. LCCN 2003056635. In the 1880s, when Bergson and James began to argue that mental life was a flux with no sharp conceptual or operational boundaries, one of their targets was this kind of ossified faculty psychology. Another was Francis Herbert Bradley's monism. James spearheaded the attack on Bradley's dismissal of time and change as mere appearances and on the "block universe" of his rigid systematic philosophy. For James only the diversity and movement of experience was real.

• Jammer, M. (2011). Einstein and Religion: Physics and Theology. Princeton University Press. pp. 160–161. ISBN 9780691102979. LCCN 99024124. Indeed, the relativity of temporal order has been invoked to resolve certain theological problems as shown below. Another aspect of time, which has been used for the same purpose, is its relativistic conception as a coordinate in Minkowski's four-dimensional space-time, at least when the latter has been interpreted--as, for example, by Hermann Weyl--as a "block universe." As Weyl phrased it, "the objective world simply is, it does not happen..." In other words, the relations "earlier," "simultaneous with," and "later" are merely geometrical relations in the static four-dimensional space-time, and the terms "past," "present," and "future" have no objective reality. Whether the idea of a "block universe" is a logical consequence of the theory of relativity, or even only compatible with it, is not our present concern. It should be clear, however, that such a conception of the universe would seriously conflict with the Judeo-Christian religious tradition, which assigns to time a very active role in history.

• Nahin, P.J. (2011). Time Travel: A Writer's Guide to the Real Science of Plausible Time Travel. Time Travel. Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 89. ISBN 9781421400822. LCCN 2010938406. The origin of the specific term block universe is generally cited to be the Oxford philosopher Francis Herbert Bradley (1846-1924), who in his 1883 book Principles of Logic wrote: "We seem to think that we site in a boat, and carried down the stream of time, and that on the bank there is a row of houses with numbers on the doors. And we get out of the boat, and knock at the door of number 19, and, re-entering the boat, then suddenly find ourselves opposite 20, and, having done the same, we go on to 21. And, all this while, the firm fixed row of the past and future stretches in a block behind us, and before us." The house numbers would seem to be Bradley's way of referring to the centuries. Notice that this statement was written twelve years before The Time Machine, and it preceded Minkowski by a quarter-century.

• Jammer, M. (2011). Einstein and Religion: Physics and Theology. Princeton University Press. p. 181. ISBN 9780691102979. LCCN 99024124. In short, the relativity of simultaneity has been applied to save libertarianism as a fundamental tenet of traditional religion and morality. In a much discussed article from 1966, Cornelis Willem Rietdijk claimed that, contrariwise, the relativity of simultaneity implies strict determinism and therefore necessitarianism, the denial of free will. Strictly speaking, this claim is much older, for it is part of the interpretation of space-time as a "block universe;" a term that was used as early as 1883 by the dialectical metaphysician Francis Herbert Bradley to denote the detemporalization of physical reality. Not only Herman Weyl, whose characterization of the "block universe" was cited earlier, but also our other philosophers and scientists, including Ernst Cassirer and, most eloquently, James Hopwood Jeans, expresses the idea that the theory of relativity implies strict determinism, the concept of the world as a "block universe," and the denial of free will, because clearly the Parmenidean doctrine that there is no "becoming" but only "being" requires that free will is at best an illusion.

• McHenry, L.B. (1992). Whitehead and Bradley: A Comparative Analysis. Suny Series in Systematic Philosophy. State University of New York Press. p. 2. ISBN 9780791409169. LCCN lc91012725. Although is greatly indebted to Bradley's concept of 'feeling' as an "implicit repudiation of the doctrine of 'vacuous actuality'" his disagreements focus primarily on various problems of accepting the Absolute as the final transcendent Reality. He frequently referred to this position as the "block universe" devoid of process. This what he means he says that: "if this cosmology be deemed successful, it becomes natural at this point to ask whether the type of thought involved be not a transformation of some main doctrines of Absolute Idealism onto a realistic basis."

• Nahin, P.J. (2011). Time Travel: A Writer's Guide to the Real Science of Plausible Time Travel. Time Travel. Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 92. ISBN 9781421400822. LCCN 2010938406. Hermann Weyl (1885-1955), a German mathematical physicist who in his last years was a colleague of Einstein and Godel at the Insitute for Advanced Study in Princeton, expressed this view (in his 1949 book Philosophy of Mathematics and Natural Science) in words that have since become famous:

The objective world simply is, it does not happen. Only to the gaze of my consciousness, crawling upward along the life line of my body , does a section of the world come to life as a fleeting image in space which continuously changes in time ."

Now, after reading that, recall time traveler's speech to his friends:

There is no difference between Time and any of the three dimensions of Space except that our consciousness moves along it...here is a portrait of a man at eight years old, another at fifteen, another at seventeen, another at twenty-three, and so on. All these are evidently sections, as it were. Three-Dimensional representations of his Four-Dimensional being, which is a fixed and unalterable thing ."

This was written, remember, in 1895, thirteen years before Minkowski and his world-lines, and of course decades before Weyl's famous quote.

The block universe concept appeared very early in pulp science fiction. {{cite book}}: line feed character in |quote= at position 296 (help)

—Machine Elf  16:57, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I did ask you almost from the start if you could provide any sources other than Carroll for the claim that "block universe" sometimes has a different meaning than "eternalism", but you always refused my request; a lot of time might have been saved if you had done this earlier. I think some of these sources are not clearly using "block universe" to mean anything other than "all times are equally real", but are simply using analogies to make the idea more concrete; for example, "the world is like a film strip: the photographs are already there and are merely being exhibited to us" and Bradley's metaphor of our moving on a boat past houses representing different times, with "the firm fixed row of the past and future stretches in a block behind us, and before us" (i.e. all the members of the row are equally real and fixed). And Jammer's quote about relativity being "interpreted" to imply a "block universe" does not clearly indicate that he thinks the concept of "block universe" itself involves relativistic ideas like a four-dimensional spacetime manifold. William James is a good candidate for a philosopher using "block universe" differently, though--he was criticizing a type of monism in which every particular part of reality is completely determined by its relationships with other parts of reality, which goes beyond the eternalist claim that future events "exist" (to qualify as an eternalist, one does not necessarily have to believe that future facts are completely determined by other events in their past or by metaphysical necessities). It's not clear whether James was saying that this type of monism implies a "block universe" in the more limited sense of future events already being "out there", or whether he was using "block universe" to refer to this sense in which future events are determined. Do you know of any contemporary philosophers who use "block universe" in a way that suggest they mean some type of determinism as well as the idea of past and future events being just as real as present ones? If not, we might consider something like "also known as the block time view by modern philosophers", but with a footnote that historically some philosophers like James used the term differently (and I'll try to find a source that states more clearly if James meant "block universe" to imply determinism). Hypnosifl (talk) 17:46, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Apparently, no time would have been saved... WP:OR there's nothing wrong with the current text: "sometimes called". See WP:LEDE.—Machine Elf  18:03, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Nothing about my original edit constituted "original research", since the sources I gave did support the claim that eternalism is "also known" as the block universe view. If someone provides reliable sources for a claim, it's not their responsibility to make sure that the claim is universally agreed upon by all professionals in the field; other editors can provide sources that show that other professionals disagree, as I asked you to do all along. Your new research above did provide a strong indication that some sources do define "block universe" differently, and although I wasn't convinced they were definitive, when I did a little more looking for quotes by/about philosophers who disputed the monists like James and Whitehead I did find a source (see below) that very clearly uses "block universe" in a way that includes determinism. If you had done similar research earlier in our debate, I imagine the same thing would have happened, so quite a lot of time and energy would have been saved. Hypnosifl (talk) 18:20, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I didn't refer to your original edit.—Machine Elf  18:38, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

OK, I thought when you you put WP:OR next to "there's nothing wrong with the current text", you meant that my proposed modifications to the current text (i.e., "also known as") were original research. If that's not it, what does the accusation of WP:OR refer to? Hypnosifl (talk) 18:43, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

“‘Non-presentism’ is an umbrella term that covers several different, more specific versions of the view. One version of Non-presentism is Eternalism, which says that objects from both the past and the future exist just as much as present objects. According to Eternalism, non-present objects like Socrates and future Martian outposts exist right now, even though they are not currently present. We may not be able to see them at the moment, on this view, and they may not be in the same space-time vicinity that we find ourselves in right now, but they should nevertheless be on the list of all existing things.” http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time/ see also http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-bebecome/

—Machine Elf  18:18, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

What's the relevance of this one? It doesn't use the term "block universe", and its definition of "eternalism" is the same as the one in my edits of the lede. Hypnosifl (talk) 18:22, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

It differs from the definition you give #above. Let's give Writ Keeper a chance to focus the discussion.—Machine Elf  18:31, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

My definition directly above for block universe/eternalism was "all times are equally real", that seems to me to be no different from "objects from both the past and the future exist just as much as present objects". But you're right that this is a bit of a sidetrack; perhaps you could comment on my latest proposed edit at the bottom of the page, or we can wait for Writ Keeper to comment. Hypnosifl (talk) 18:43, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

You said: “to qualify as an eternalist, one does not necessarily have to believe that future facts are completely determined by other events in their past or by metaphysical necessities”—Machine Elf  19:15, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Nothing in that quote says or implies that "future facts are completely determined by other events in their past or by metaphysical necessities", it just says that they already exist, so it doesn't contradict what I said. As an analogy, if you find a long sequence of numbers on a scroll of paper, naturally you believe that later numbers in the sequence already exist when you look at earlier ones, but the fact that they exist doesn't mean that the numbers were generated by a rule that meant later numbers were determined by earlier ones (so that if you knew the rule, you could predict later numbers before actually unrolling the scroll and looking at them, just by seeing earlier parts of the sequence). The sequence could be completely random, for example. Eternalism is usually understood to be compatible with the idea that there is a similar randomness to events in history, so eternalism shouldn't be conflated with determinism--that's what one of the quotes I provided at the beginning was saying, 'It does not help, either, that there is a tendency to conflate eternalism — the four-dimensional "block universe" view — with causal determinism.' (source) Hypnosifl (talk) 19:30, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Incidentally, I am not sure that William James ever used the specific phrase "block universe"--the closest quote I can find is one from "The Dilemma of Determinism" where he wrote "What does determinism profess? It professes that those parts of the universe already laid down absolutely appoint and decree what the other parts shall be. The future has no ambiguous possibilities hidden in its womb... the whole is in each and every part, and welds it with the rest into an absolute unity, an iron block, in which there can be no equivocation or shadow of turning." However, it does seem that modern philosophers discussing the late 19th-/early 20th-century conflict between a school of monistic philosophers who saw everything as determined by its relation to the whole, like Bradley, and those who disagreed with them, like James and Dewey and Whitehead and Russell, do use "block universe" in a way that includes the concept of determinism, as on p. 180 of Alfred North Whitehead: Essays on His Philosophy, where George Louis Kline writes of "the Block universe view described thus by Russell: 'There are such invariable relations between different events at the same or different times that, given the state of the whole universe throughout any finite time, however short, every previous and subsequent event can theoretically be determined as a function of the given events during that time.'" So Kline at least is using "block universe" to mean something more than the view that all times are equally real. The fact remains that many philosophers define "block universe" to mean nothing more than this, so I would propose something like "also called the 'block universe' view by many philosophers , although some define 'block universe' to include additional concepts like the future being determined by the past ". Would that be acceptable? Hypnosifl (talk) 18:09, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed the fact that one of your sources directly quoted James using "block-universe", in A Pluralistic Universe. Later in the lecture there is another quote where he seems to be including in the term some sort of monistic idea of the universe being a "rationalistic" whole where none of the parts make sense except in relation to the whole: "Here, then, you have the plain alternative, and the full mystery of the difference between pluralism and monism, as clearly as I can set it forth on this occasion. It packs up into a nutshell:—Is the manyness in oneness that indubitably characterizes the world we inhabit, a property only of the absolute whole of things, so that you must postulate that one-enormous-whole indivisibly as the prius of there being any many at all—in other words, start with the rationalistic block-universe, entire, unmitigated, and complete?" Hypnosifl (talk) 19:00, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Please see WP:LEDE.—Machine Elf  18:26, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

The sentence I proposed is still rather brief, and I think clear definition of terms is important in philosophy. But an alternate suggestion I'd be happy with would be to keep the "sometimes called" in the lede, then add a footnote which says something like "many philosophers use "eternalism" and "block universe" interchangeably", followed by the references I provided, "though others use 'block universe' to denote additional concepts such as determinism", followed by the Kline references and any others (edit: including the James reference, see above) that unambiguously show the author defining "block universe" to mean something more than just the view that all times are equally real. Hypnosifl (talk) 18:34, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Eternalism: Proposed resolution

I've read through the above discussion. It is clear that Eternalism and Block Universe/Time are very closely related concepts. As with many philosophical concepts, their definitions are a bit vague, and perhaps vary from author to author. Some authors define them as identical, some define them in peculiar ways. But all interpretations are very, very similar. My suggestion is this:

• The article will explain to the reader that there are a variety of definitions/interpretations of the terms Eternalism, Block Universe, and Block Time.
• The article will identify (in the lead) some of the common themes in the definitions/interpretations
• The article will focus on enumerating the significant persons that defined/interpreted these terms; the article will identify the sources and give the dates of the definitions/interpretations
• The article will not assert, in the encylopedia's voice that all three terms are positively identical; However, the article will state that some (but not all) authorities consider Eternalism to be the same as Block Universe/Time

In other words: in topics like this, it is best to just present the various viewpoints of the sources, in a very factual, objective way; and let the readers draw their own conclusions. Does that sound like a good idea? --Noleander (talk) 00:58, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

By way of example, there are many WP articles that objectively present multiple definitions/interpretations. For example, the Socialism article's lead states "There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them. They differ in the type of social ownership they advocate, the degree to which they rely on markets versus planning, how management is to be organised within economic enterprises, and the role of the state in constructing socialism." And Facism's article includes "Historians, political scientists and other scholars have long debated the exact nature of fascism. Each form of fascism is distinct, leaving many definitions too wide or narrow. Since the 1990s, scholars including Stanley Payne, Roger Eatwell, Roger Griffin and Robert O. Paxton have been gathering a rough consensus on the ideology's core tenets." Other articles that have a similar approach are Atheism and Anthropic principle. That is the sort of flavor I am suggesting for Eternalism. --Noleander (talk) 01:05, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, 100%—Machine Elf  04:22, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't know that there are multiple definitions of "eternalism" among modern philosophers; at least, no one has pointed to any sources that give different definitions. As for "block universe", what do you think of my proposal above, namely: 'an alternate suggestion I'd be happy with would be to keep the "sometimes called" in the lede, then add a footnote which says something like "many philosophers use "eternalism" and "block universe" interchangeably", followed by the references I provided, "though others use 'block universe' to denote additional concepts such as determinism", followed by the Kline references and any others (edit: including the James reference, see above) that unambiguously show the author defining "block universe" to mean something more than just the view that all times are equally real.' Hypnosifl (talk) 12:27, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, your thought of keeping "sometimes called" in the lede (with a footnote) is good. But I'm trying to look at the bigger picture: Rather than focus on one word in the lede ("sometimes" vs "always") I'm suggesting that throughout the entire article the tone should be "There are a variety of interpretations of these three terms; person A in 1925 said ...; person B in 1948 said ...; person D asserts that E and BU are the same; ... ". Just present the different viewpoints of the sources and avoid synthesizing in the encyclopedia's voice. --Noleander (talk) 15:15, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Do you (or other commenters) think my proposed footnote is itself OK? As for the rest of the article, since the main focus is eternalism as a philosophy of time, and I don't think anyone has suggested that the term "eternalism" means anything other than "all times are equally real", I don't think it's needed to go into a lot of detail about other uses of "block universe" outside of sections on the history of these ideas (since these sections naturally tend to include ideas that are related to but not quite identical to the modern notion of eternalism). As far as I can tell, the only clear examples of "block universe" being used to mean something different are either by historical proponents and opponents of the type monism put forth by the British idealists in the late 19th and early 20th century (and maybe some other non-British Absolute idealists around the same time, like Josiah Royce), or by modern philosophers discussing this historical debate. If there are examples of "block universe" being used in other contexts, such that the editors can reach a consensus that the person using it is clearly using it to mean something different than "all times are equally real", those uses could be discussed too. So far I'm not convinced that any of the sources brought up to date show that "block universe" is sometimes meant to include concepts specifically from the theory of relativity, even if relativity is often interpreted to imply the view that all times are equally real, so the footnote I proposed only specifically mentions other uses related to Absolute idealism, but it leaves open the possibility that there could be "other" uses of block universe as well, so it doesn't take a definite stance on the relativity issue. Hypnosifl (talk) 16:40, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Talk:2012 Burgas bus bombing talk page

Have you discussed this on a talk page?

Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.

Location of dispute

• 2012 Burgas bus bombing (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Burgas bus bombing article talk page
• Somedifferentstuff talk page (content was moved to article talk page, but originally happened here)

Users involved

• Activism1234 (talk · contribs)
• Somedifferentstuff (talk · contribs)

Dispute overview

Redundant passage is written in the article. A reference at the end is given to July 22, and I have argued that the author likely repeated what she wrote on July 21 (as it was very similar), which was already stated on July 20 (article was on July 21 either b/c that's when she submitted article, or repeated it for context...). The July 20 statement is mentioned above in a different passage already, and is fine. The new passage seems redundant, and the referenced article isn't focused on the passage either, which I used to show she was just repeating what she wrote before for context or info. The other editor has argued that it's possible the statement was said twice on two different days, but I have argued there is no proof for this, and gave other examples showing media outlets repeating information stated previously for context.

Have you tried to resolve this previously?

I've tried asking an administrator, who referred me to Third Opinion. Third Opinion rejected it, since the dispute was at Somedifferentstuff's talk page, rather than the article's talk page.

How do you think we can help?

Just by saying whether you feel that the passage should be included again with a reference to an article two days later.

Opening comments by Somedifferentstuff

There is a content dispute, as noted above, but the issue is larger than that. If you look at the "perpertrator" section of the article you'll see that it contains loads of information regarding Hezbollah. The official who is in charge of the investigation, Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov, said there was no proof that Hezbollah was behind the attack. My view is that since he is in charge of the investigation, his view regarding Hezbollah should be heavily weighted. Right now the POV of the section is distorted. Have a look at this material Activism1234 added. - see the bottom section which starts "According to a media report, Bulgarian authorities have determined that a Hezbollah terror cell was responsible for the attack." Now when you look at the source, it states that they got this information from a television newscast in Israel. This goes against information from Tsvetanov, as well as the view from the White House, which has not made a statement about responsibility. Yet for some reason, Activism thinks this material should remain in the article. And please have a look at the editorial content he added to the aftermath section. At the end of the day, the article needs to be neutralized, and I think it's best for an uninvolved editor to do so. Somedifferentstuff (talk) 12:17, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Talk:2012 Burgas bus bombing discussion

Please do not use this for discussing the dispute prior to a volunteer opening the thread for comments - continue discussing the issues on the article talk page if necessary.

Hi, so I'm Ebe123, an DRN volunteer. I would like to wait for the opening comments of all the other parties before opening for discussion. ~~Ebe123~~ → report 21:24, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

• Let me get this straight. The article right now says:

The Bulgarian Interior Minister denied media reports that it was a local Hezbollah cell, saying that the possibility was not discussed, and they were focusing only on "realistic options." He added that the bomber was a foreign national and not Bulgarian, and that investigators were following several leads, including that there was an accomplice. The interior minister stated there wasn't yet proof he was sent from Hezbollah, and dispelled other media reports, saying that the DNA results would confirm the perpetrator's identity.

Is there a problem with that passage that requires dispute resolution? I don't see it--I see an article with way too much news items in there, and I personally don't care what a certain official says on such-and-such day, but while there is an overlap between the two statements I don't see why we should make a fuzz over it. It's easy to economize the passage, of course:

The Bulgarian Interior Minister denied media reports that it was a local Hezbollah cell, saying that the possibility was not discussed, and they were focusing only on "realistic options." He added adding that the bomber was a foreign national and not Bulgarian, and that investigators were following several leads, including that there was may have had an accomplice. The interior minister He stated there wasn't yet proof the perpetrator was sent from Hezbollah , and dispelled other media reports, saying that the DNA results would confirm the perpetrator's identity.

How does that strike you? Somedifferentstuff, whatever else they believe, will have to believe in editorial economy. Drmies (talk) 21:55, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm more than fine with your suggestion and what you striked out, and will be more than happy to agree to that edit. However, the dispute resolution was over whether the passage "On July 21, it was reported that Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov, the official who is in charge of the investigation, "denied rumors in the international media about the bomber's identity and said there was no proof that Hezbollah was behind the attack."" is needed, since nearly the exact same thing is written just a few lines above . It's more detailed on the talk page, in the last section, under the words "Moved from Somedifferentstuff's talk page." Thanks. But I do like your suggestion about the first part. --Activism1234 22:01, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Did you folks just post a bunch of material after reading

"Please do not use this for discussing the dispute prior to a volunteer opening the thread for comments - continue discussing the issues on the article talk page if necessary."

and

"Hi, so I'm Ebe123, an DRN volunteer. I would like to wait for the opening comments of all the other parties before opening for discussion."?

I am going to defer to Ebe123 on this -- maybe he doesn't mind -- but to me it looks a lot like you just ignored his clear instructions. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:56, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I noticed that and you're 100% correct, but since Drmies is an administrator and he commented, I felt it was all right just to clear up what the topic was about. --Activism1234 23:25, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

I do not mind, although I do not like it. Still, lets wait for the other party. ~~Ebe123~~ → report 00:13, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree. Does no good to have a one-sided discussion. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 01:58, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

The discussion is now open, and I would like Activism1234 to re-post what he removed as it was not open yet. ~~Ebe123~~ → report 19:29, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you.

Somedifferentstuff has issued his opening comments. Unfortunately, he hasn't answered anything of what I wrote. At all. I'd add that personal opinions don't count for "who weighs more." One person may think that the domestic country's intelligence weighs more, another may think a foreign country's intelligence which is considered one of the best weighs more, but at the end of the day, there's no reason not to just include both of them, and complaining that this is mentioned is silly. Tsvetanov said one thing, and that's great. And someone just as notable or important said another thing, and that's great. The comment about the White House not saying it is the same thing - what difference should that make? And besides, White House officials and the Pentagon did say there were markings of Hezbollah, but reporting that as what they said doesn't violate POV. Perhaps we should consider what Vladimiar Popov, a political scientist in Bulgaria, told http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/31/world/europe/after-bombing-bulgarias-ties-with-israel-at-risk.html?_r=1&ref=israelthe New York Times (a reliable media outlet), for some context or explanation as well here.

“For small Bulgaria to come out and openly name Hezbollah in such a way is as good as entering a minefield,” said Vladimir Shopov, a political scientist at the New Bulgarian University in Sofia. “There would have to be absolute certainty almost. You’d have to be really, really confident that your convincing evidence could stand up before all the other members of the E.U.”

Now, surely that should give more reasonable doubt as to why we shouldn't fall head over knees in regards to what one official said, no matter whether they're the domestic country, and simply report what they said, but not to disregard what others have said as well, including those officials published in internationally read media outlets like The New York Times. I myself have added passages about officials who said this isn't true, or who said not to jump to conclusions. I have nothing against it - this is factual information, and that's what Misplaced Pages is for. I will happily add such information if I know about it and have a reliable reference to it. [Now, on the side, I'd like to remind Somedifferentstuff that he added the POV tag specifically in regards to a passage at the end of the article. He wrote in the summary box that he added the tag because this was an opinion piece. I held a lengthy discussion with him on his talk page already about it. This is what the passage said.

The Washington Post's editorial page on July 20 contained an editorial headline "Holding Iran accountable for terrorist attacks," in which The Washington Post said that Iran must suffer for its acts of global terrorism, and "The Security Council should review the abundant evidence of involvement by the Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah in this year’s attacks and punish both those groups as well as the Iranian government with sanctions." The newspaper wrote "Using the territory of countries across the world, working sometimes through proxies like Lebanon’s Hezbollah and sometimes with its own forces, Tehran has been intentionally targeting not just diplomats of enemies such as Israel and Saudi Arabia but also civilians."]

Does it violate POV? As far as I can tell, it properly attributes an editorial read by thousands and thousands of people to the appropriate media outlet, just like it is written over 10 times in, for example, Public image of Barrack Obama. But now he's trying to distract from that towards another issue, that he feels it's unfair for certain comments by top officials to be mentioned alongside those of other officials, and his personal opinion of who counts more should be taken by us?? I think we need to make a great effort towards staying on topic - what I filed this dispute resolution about. Somedifferentstuff, so far you haven't answered anything that I've posed at you. Everything you've said has already been discussed before, and I'm happy to discuss it again, but right now I filed a dispute resolution for one specific reason, and you aren't answering it. Now I'm fine with that, but then the redundant passage should be removed.

Thanks.--Activism1234 13:32, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

To make it easier for review, I will copy and paste the two passages I am referring to here.

Passage 1, July 20 reference:

The Bulgarian Interior Minister denied media reports that it was a local Hezbollah cell, saying that the possibility was not discussed, and they were focusing only on "realistic options." He added that the bomber was a foreign national and not Bulgarian, and that investigators were following several leads, including that there was an accomplice.

Passage 2, July 21 (adding to the issue, the reference is to an article from July 22, when in reality it should be the article on July 21 written by the same article which reports what the interior minister said):

On July 21, it was reported that Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov, the official who is in charge of the investigation, "denied rumors in the international media about the bomber's identity and said there was no proof that Hezbollah was behind the attack."

What I've been saying summary - the article written on July 21 was likely just repeating what was said on July 20. This can be for a variety of reasons - either the timezone published it on July 21 rather than July 20, or it wasn't published in time to meet the stamp of July 20, or the author was repeating what was said on July 20 for context. The two articles are very similar in regards to the statement, and essentially conclude the same thing. There isn't proof it was repeated again on July 21, and also, the passages are so similar that there isn't really a point in repeating it twice.

Hope it helps. I'm not in any rush here, I understand some editors may not be as heavy on Misplaced Pages, and while I usually have a heavy presence, I may find myself largely absent from Friday-Saturday, but I would appreciate discussion here when possible.

Thanks.

1. "Barak: Hezbollah behind attack, bomber's identity not known". The Jerusalem Post. 20 July 2012. Retrieved 20 July 2012.
2. July 22, 2012. Kubovich, Yaniv. Bulgaria sends DNA to U.S. in bid to identify Burgas bomber Haaretz. Retrieved: 23 July 2012.

--Activism1234 22:51, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Joseph de Maistre

• Joseph de Maistre (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

User ERIDU-DREAMING has for some time been making edits to this page which I personally feel tend to make it less, rather than more informative. His response to my comments and interventions have been less than polite. Most recently, he has insisted in removing properly-cited and longstanding material (originally added by editors other than me), about Maistre's influence on early sociologists and on Utopian socialists. When I reverted this and asked him to first discuss his concerns in the talk page, he simply ignored me and removed the material again. I then started a thread in the talk page and asked him to air his concerns, but his response was simply to suggest that I should improve my reading skills and remove the material again. I don't want to start an edit war. I think it would be very useful if other editors were to step in.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• ERIDU-DREAMING (talk · contribs)
• Eb.hoop (talk · contribs)

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes

• To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Joseph de Maistre}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

I have asked ERIDU-DREAMING to discuss his concerns in the talk page first, and I have started a thread on the subject in the article's talk page.

• How do you think we can help?

At this stage, I think that input from other editors would be quite useful.

Eb.hoop (talk) 15:43, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Joseph de Maistre discussion

Hi, I am a dispute resolution volunteer. I would like to await an opening statement by ERIDU-DREAMING before we open the discussion. - Jorgath (talk) 16:10, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

What disingenuous nonsense from start to finish. I made some minor changes (mainly to the flow of the article) and every single one of which was always blanket reverted by Eb.hoop. When I pointed out to him that reverting every single minor change in one go suggests ownership issues he stopped (temporarily), but evidently he is strongly motivated to continue. He is obsessed with a minor and not very well argued point about a possible link between De Maistre and some later French sociologists. I have retained this material since Eb.hoop for some reason feels it is of great importance. Unfortunately (for reasons only known to himself) he keeps claiming that the material has been removed. ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 16:39, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

All right, I'm opening the discussion. Before I say anything, I want to remind both of you that this venue is for content disputes only. While content disputes and conduct disputes often go hand-in-hand, I'd like to keep any user conduct issues out of this forum as much as possible. To that end, I or another DRN volunteer may remove any comments that focus exclusively on the behavior of an editor.

Looking over the revision history of the page, it does appear that most of User:ERIDU-DREAMING's edits were minor. It is this series that seems to be of any major substance. Looking at this, it seems that there are currently only cosmetic changes between the article before ERIDU-DREAMING began editing it and now; the one exception is the passage that was moved from the "Political and moral philosophy" section to the "Repute and influence" section. All things considered, this seems to be the passage under dispute. So I have the following questions to start things off:

• Eb.hoop, do you take issue with any of ERIDU-DREAMING's edits outside of that one larger passage? If yes, which, and why?
• ERIDU-DREAMING, are you contesting that the sources for that passage do not support the link? If yes, in what way? If no, what do you see as problematic in that passage?

I hope we can resolve this amicably. - Jorgath (talk) 17:07, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Dear ERIDU-DREAMING: You altogether removed the sentence "This analysis of the legitimacy of political authority foreshadows some of the concerns of early sociologists such as Saint-Simon and Comte," with a reference to LeBrun. (I just noticed that the URL for that reference is dead, but that could be easily fixed). You have also consistently edited the article to play down or remove references to Maistre's arguments about the need for hierarchical authority, as opposed to the mere invocation of a "divine right of kings." After I objected, you did eventually restore the sentence about Maistre's influence on Utopian socialists, with a reference to a book by Armenteros, though you put it in a different place in the article, where it no longer connects directly to his arguments about the legitimacy of authority.

Again, completely untrue. I did several minor edits (including moving a couple of sentences to a new place) and THEN you reverted. You say I have consistently edited the article to play down or remove references to Maistre's arguments about the need for hierarchical authority, as opposed to the mere invocation of a "divine right of kings." Again this is untrue. You seem to be having an argument with somebody else. The only thing I can extract from your statement which bears any resemblance to the facts is the removal of one sentence - of which you seem to be very fond. If you are so fond of it put it back into the article! I personally do not think it is a very helpful sentence. It is so vague it is useless. But spare us the garbage that you are only objecting to every minor change because I am seeking to change the meaning of the article. ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 17:45, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Dear ERIDU-DREAMING: When I first reverted, you had simply removed the sentences, see . After I had objected more than once, you restored one, then the other, but to a different part of the article, all the while refusing to engage in substantive discussion of the issue. It is not my place to judge what your intentions are, and Misplaced Pages instructs us to assume good faith (which would be easier for me to do if you did not so readily engage in vituperation and questioning of my own motives). I do maintain that, as far as I can tell, your edits have, not only in this case but also in previous occasions, been oriented towards minimizing or eliminating discussion of Maistre's arguments about the legitimacy of political authority. I could, of course, be mistaken either in my appreciation of your edits or in my understanding of Maistre's work. But your attitude has made it difficult and unpleasant to try to sort out these issues calmly and rationally. - Eb.hoop (talk) 18:04, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Hello. I, like Jorgath, am a regular volunteer here at DRN. This is looking more and more like a conduct dispute, rather than a content dispute. This noticeboard is only for content disputes. Please stop discussing one another and one another's alleged COI, motivations, attitudes, and the like. If there are any particular edits which you would like to hash out, please identify them and a volunteer will probably be willing to discuss them with you, but if you wish to complain about or discuss one another's conduct please limit that discussion to one another's user talk pages or to WP:WQA, WP:RFC/U, WP:ANI, or some other forum which deals with conduct. Discuss only edits here, not editors. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 19:32, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

I will make an attempt to improve the discussion of Maistre's analysis of the legitimacy of political authority in a way that is well supported by mainstream secondary sources. If this goes well and does not lead to an edit war, I will be happy to regard the issue as settled. - Eb.hoop (talk) 19:58, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

While that's good, neither of you has yet even started to answer my questions. I'm understanding that you're not interacting well with one another, so I propose that you interact with me (and TransporterMan, and any other DRN volunteer) and let us act as go-betweens for the matter of this article. I will reiterate: Eb.hoop, do you have any problem with the changes outside the part I linked to above? ERIADU-DREAMING, in that part, are you challenging the sources or the wording? - Jorgath (talk) 20:17, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Dear Jorgath: I did try to answer your questions, but perhaps my response was not clear. I objected to ERIDU-DREAMING cutting out references to Maistre's actual arguments concerning authority and its legitimacy. He began by removing two sentences outright, with their corresponding references, plus some words earlier in the same paragraph. I came to this bulletin board because I was finding it impossible to have a productive debate with him in the article's talk page. He did eventually add the two sentences back, but at a different place in the article, where they related to Maistre's influence on later thinkers, rather than to the substance of his political philosophy. You can see for yourself what my concerns about the content of the article are, from my most recent edits to it. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:05, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

And just to clarify, those were these two sentences? I'm nowiki-ing it to avoid having to put in a reflist.

• This analysis of the legitimacy of political authority foreshadows some of the concerns of early ] such as ] and ].<ref name="lebrun"/> According to Armenteros, Maistre's writings influenced ] as well as conservative political thinkers.<ref name="Armenteros">Carolina Armenteros, ''The French Idea of History: Joseph de Maistre and his Heirs, 1794-1854'' (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2011). ISBN 0-8014-4943-X</ref>

Is this the part you were referring to, Eb.hoop? - Jorgath (talk) 21:25, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes. You can see the edit that I first tried to revert here: . I had already had a disagreement with ERIDU-DREAMING some months ago about the same subject. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:43, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

I think that Eb.hoop is trying to re-write the article, so that it brings out more clearly the point he wishes to make. That is the best that can be hoped for in the circumstances. Thanks for your help in trying to resolve the issue. ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 22:30, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Do both of you accept this re-write as a potential resolution to the dispute at hand, then? Obviously a re-write may lead to future content disagreements, but if you're willing to work with each other to improve the article by re-writing it, then I'd like to declare this resolved. - Jorgath (talk) 15:26, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm happy with the current text. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:43, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Good. ERIDU-DREAMING, is this acceptable to you? - Jorgath (talk) 16:00, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I am told I must get back to the discussion!

I am glad that Ed.hoop is happy with the text which he wrote, but the phrase "based on compelling but non-rational grounds" is unclear. Who or what is compelling, and why is it compelling?

The statement "What was novel in Maistre's writings was not his enthusiastic defense of monarchical and religious authority per se, but rather his arguments concerning the need for an ultimate source of political authority" is simply a point of view. It is not even a well grounded point of view - since it is pretty obvious that arguments about what grounds political authority are as old as political philosophy.

The phrase "embodied in an individual, and about the social foundations of that authority's legitimacy" is extremely clumsy.

The words which De Maistre addressed to a group of aristocratic French emigrés, "you ought to know how to be royalists. Before, this was an instinct, but today it is a science. You must love the sovereign as you love order, with all the forces of intelligence" is simply De Maistre asserting that defenders of the Kings/Popes should have an adequate political theory, he is not saying (or intending to say) that he is the first to make that claim!

Eb.hoop is obsessed with one point he wants to convey, and it is more dominant than ever in the article in its present form. It is entirely possible that De Maistre did influence Comte and Saint-Simon, but it is not of central importance, and should therefore be in the influences section.

As I say En.hoop reverts every single change I make (the vast majority of which are extremely minor) because he has it in his head that I am pushing something (he is not clear what but he seems to be convinced it is something) yet it is evident that the exact opposite is the case.

I am only interested in it being a reasonably lucid and accurate account of the basic facts about De Maistre.

ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 22:58, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Dear ERIDU-DREAMING: We could try to have this discussion in the article's talk page. But for that to work it's very important that you engage in discussion of the substantive issues and consider my arguments, and not simply dismiss my concerns out of hand, then cut out material and citations in the article.

For what it's worth, let me say here that I think you are wrong about a key issue regarding Maistre. If he had simply been a believer in the divine right of kings and an enemy of democracy, he would be hardly distinguishable from a great many others. He is interesting to the extent that he was the first (or at least one of the first) to try to present a reasoned response against the rationalist political aims of the Enlightened philosophers. - Eb.hoop (talk) 04:09, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

(Redacted) (ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 12:27, 3 August 2012 (UTC))

Removed a comment only about a user. The comment was also a personal attack. As a DRN volunteeer, ~~Ebe123~~ → report 19:19, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Maybe you can tell me a nice way of saying that Ed.hoop is not giving an accurate account. If you cannot think of one then why bother asking me (telling me!) to come here. ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 20:44, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

I do not remember asking you to participate here, but how about "Ed.hoop is not giving an accurate account. " ~~Ebe123~~ → report 21:02, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Bulgaria

Referred to RSN (Steve Zhang)

Pantheism

Have you discussed this on a talk page?

Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.

Location of dispute

• Pantheism (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Users involved

• Allisgod (talk · contribs)
• naturalistic (talk · contribs)

Dispute overview

Basically, the president of an environmentalist donation based website that calls itself "The World Pantheist Movement" has been trying to control the page on Pantheism and promote his organization (and book) and their New Age atheistic view of pantheism he has himself termed "naturalistic pantheism". I have attempted to compromise with him in the past but have failed and it has turned into an edit war. I have made edits that make the page more neutral and beneficial for Misplaced Pages readers but on a daily basis he undos my edits and accuses me of being biased - but my bias is simply toward a regular historical view of pantheism which includes all sides.

Have you tried to resolve this previously?

Many many discussions. The pantheism talk page along with the Classical pantheism talk page is filled with our discussions

How do you think we can help?

Please be the judge on whether or not this individual is self promoting himself and his internet group and forcing his one sided views on the pantheism page.

Opening comments by naturalistic

Please limit to 2000 characters - longer statements may be deleted in their entirety or asked to be shortened. This is so a volunteer can review the dispute in a timely manner. Thanks.

Pantheism discussion

Allisgod: Can you clarify the issues a bit? (1) You say that user Naturalistic is attempting to add material regarding "naturalistic pantheism". Are you suggesting that NP is not a notable concept, or that there are insufficient sources to justify its inclusion? (2) Can you provide a few "diffs" (article history deltas) that illustrate the sort of additions to the article that you object to? (3) Is it correct to say that you wouldn't object to some mention of naturalistic pantheism, but you just want it limited to a modern context? (40 You suggest that a book is being improperly promoted. Which book? Thanks. --Noleander (talk) 21:36, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

I note that the naturalistic pantheism article has virtually no citations; and the few it does have are to http://www.pantheism.net/ which is the site of World Pantheism Movement (WPM). --Noleander (talk) 21:40, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Naturalistic: Questions for you: (1) Can you provide some sources here that demonstrate that "naturalistic pantheism" (NP) is sufficiently important to be in the pantheism article? I glanced at Google Books, and it looks like the term is indeed used frequently by somewhat major publications. Could you pick the two or three most reliable, most authorative sources that (in your opinion) define NP and explain its significance? (2) the pantheism article has three footnotes and two external links that refer to pantheism.net. Is there any conflict of interest (see WP:COI) involved in those references? Are there any more reliable/formal (book or journal) sources that could be used for the footnotes instead of a web site? --Noleander (talk) 21:46, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

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