Am I a Spacetime Worm?

Four-dimensionalists believe that reality is stretched out over time as well as space. I was born in 1978. Let’s say I die in 2058. According to four-dimensionalism, there is a Philip Goff-shaped “spacetime worm” stretched out over those 80 years. If you are in a room with me, what you will see is only one “temporal part” of that spacetime worm.

Suppose four-dimensionalism is true. A question still remains: Is that spacetime worm me? I don’t think it can be. My argument is simple:

• I am the thing that has my conscious experience.

• No spacetime worm has my conscious experience.

• Therefore, I am not a spacetime worm.

There is at least one thing I know with certainty to exist, and that is my conscious mind as it is right now. That thing which I know with certainty to exist – my conscious mind – is currently having a visual experience of a table with a laptop on it, and an auditory experience of the sounds of children playing in the street outside. I am certainly not experiencing events of my childhood or of my life at the age of sixty four.

Now consider a Philip-shaped spacetime worm which is stretched across (let’s hope) eighty or so years of time. That Philip-shaped spacetime worm is certainly not having the experience I have just been describing. If it is conscious at all it is having some kind of weird consciousness involving all of the experiences of my life. But that is not my consciousness: it is not the consciousness of the “I” which right now I know with certainty exists.

This doesn’t mean four-dimensionalism is false. Some four-dimensionalists identify an individual not with the spacetime worm but rather with a particular temporal part of a spacetime worm. This is called the “stage theory.” The thing which has my conscious experience, the thing I know with certainty to exist, is just one tiny slice of the Philip-shaped spacetime worm stretched over eighty years of time.

This is a coherent view and it might be true. But I hope to God it isn’t. Because these temporal parts do not exist for very long at all. Human-shaped spacetime worms are stretched through fairly long periods of time, enveloping many temporal parts. But the temporal parts which could be plausibly thought to have human experience last no more than one or two seconds each.

Thus, if the stage theory is correct, I won’t be around in a couple of seconds. I will be replaced by some other conscious mind which will be very similar to me, which will share my memories, but which won’t be me: the thinking, feeling thing I know with certainty exists right now. This is precisely the content of the fear of imminent death: the fear that I won’t exist in the near future. In other words, if the stage theory is true, then there is a very real sense in which everybody is about to die.

As I always say, we should be aiming not for the view we’d like to be true, but for the view that’s most likely to be true. I think the jury is still out as to whether or not four-dimensionalism is true. But until matters become clearer, I reserve my right to hope it’s not.

(This is a brief version of an argument I made in the final chapter of my academic book Consciousness and Fundamental Reality.)

I was prompted to think about this because it was the first question in this month’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ on my YouTube channel, where I answer 10 subscriber questions from my Substack. It’s worth tuning in to if only because my beautiful cat Kiara makes an appearance.

“Galileo’s Error” is my book on consciousness and panpsychism: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Galileos-Error-Foundations-Science-Consciousness/dp/1846046017

My book “Why? The Purpose of the Universe” explores the spiritual implications of panpsychism: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Purpose-Universe-Philip-Goff/dp/0198883765

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE AND SUPPORT MY PUBLIC WORK FINANCIALLY IF YOU’RE ABLE