Persona #185
C. D. Broad
1887–1971 · British philosopher; Knightbridge Professor at Cambridge; author of "Scientific Thought" and "The Mind and its Place in Nature"
The specious present and the growing-block universe — careful philosophical analysis between A-theory and B-theory
Broad held the Knightbridge Professorship at Cambridge from 1933 to 1953. His "Scientific Thought" (1923) and "The Mind and its Place in Nature" (1925) are distinguished by their methodical separation of distinct philosophical issues and the laying out of every available position. Broad's "growing-block" view of time — the past and present are real but the future is not — provides a middle path between presentism (only the present is real) and eternalism (past, present, and future are equally real). His later work in parapsychology and psychical research damaged his philosophical reputation, but his early systematic work on time, mind, and the philosophy of science remained influential.
Key works
- Perception, Physics, and Reality (1914)
- Scientific Thought (1923)
- The Mind and its Place in Nature (1925)
- Examination of McTaggart's Philosophy (1933–38, 2 vols)
- Lectures on Psychical Research (1962)
Declared Influences
Presentism 30%
Analytic Metaphysics / Logical Atomism 25%
Dualism 15%
Panpsychism 10%
Eternalism -15%
Presentism
30%
Broad's growing-block universe is a presentism-adjacent position: the past is fixed and real, the present is real, but the future does not yet exist. This makes him a major reference point in the metaphysics-of-time literature.
"The sum total of existence is always increasing. Past events are real; future events are not." (Scientific Thought, ch. II)
Broad is one of the principal mid-century systematic analytic metaphysicians; his style of carefully separating positions and laying out the logical space was canonical for the analytic tradition.
"It is highly desirable to distinguish carefully between these various theories which are too often confounded." (The Mind and its Place in Nature)
Dualism
15%
Broad's detailed examination of mind-body theories landed on a sympathetic treatment of emergent dualism — mind as a real and not-fully-physically-reducible feature of nature.
"Consciousness emerges from the brain in a way not predictable from the underlying physics, yet without supernatural addition." (The Mind and its Place in Nature)
Panpsychism
10%
Broad treated panpsychism seriously as a live theoretical option in The Mind and its Place in Nature; the late twentieth-century revival of panpsychism cites him as a precursor.
"Whether the basic constituents of reality have proto-mental properties is a serious empirical-metaphysical question, not an absurdity." (Mind and its Place in Nature, paraphrasing)
Eternalism
-15%
Broad explicitly distinguished his growing-block view from eternalism, denying that the future is real in the same way as the past.
"To speak of the not-yet as existing on a par with the now is to obliterate the distinction we most need." (Scientific Thought)
Internal Tensions
Broad's late involvement with parapsychology — defending the seriousness of survival evidence and apparent telepathy in the SPR Proceedings — damaged his mainstream philosophical standing. His sympathetic treatment of dualism and panpsychism was treated as embarrassing by Oxford analytic colleagues from Ryle on; the twenty-first-century revival of consciousness studies has partially rehabilitated this dimension of his work.
⧖
I. Time
Growing-block: past and present are real, future is not yet. Uni-directional accumulating temporal ontology.
Attributes
Extent: Infinite
Ontological Status: Substantival
Grain: Continuous
Freedom: Non-Deterministic
Traversability: Linear
Direction: Uni-directional
Dimensionality: One
✦
II. Space
Standard substantival physical space.
Attributes
Extent: Infinite
Ontological Status: Substantival
Curvature: Curved
Dimensionality: Three
Locality: Local
◉
III. Matter
Standard substantival matter.
Attributes
Extent: Infinite
Ontological Status: Substantival
Conservation: Conserved
Dimensionality: Three
Locality: Local
◎
IV. Observer
Plural embodied observers; mediated knowledge through scientific theory and careful analysis. No metaphysical agency.
Attributes
Time Instance: Single
Space Instance: Single
Knowledge Extent: Mediated
Knowledge Retainment: Partial
Physicality: Embodied
Agency: Active
Number: Plural
Metaphysical Agency: None
⚡
V. Energy
Standard physics.
Attributes
Extent: Infinite
Ontological Status: Substantival
Conservation: Conserved
Dispersibility: Irreversible
⧉
VI. Information
Information about past events conserved as part of the growing block of reality.
Attributes
Ontological Status: Substantival
Cosmic Conservation: Conserved
Personal Conservation: Non-conserved
Granularity: Continuous
Classified works
Works in the atlas that C. D. Broad authored or that draw on this persona's writings, with full attribute fingerprints of their own.
Computed school proximity
The persona's attribute fingerprint scored against all 202 schools using the same quiz scorer. Useful as a sanity check on the hand-curated influences above.
Philosophical neighbors
Other personas whose attribute fingerprint sits closest to C. D. Broad's — intellectual neighbors across traditions and eras.
97%
Anaximander of Miletus — c. 610–546 BCE
28/29
93%
Saul Kripke — 1940–2022
30/31
92%
Rudolf Carnap — 1891–1970
29/31
92%
Anaxagoras of Clazomenae — c. 500–428 BCE
28/30
91%
Thales of Miletus — c. 624–546 BCE
26/28
89%
Derek Parfit — 1942–2017
29/31
87%
Kurt Gödel — 1906–1978
27/31
87%
David Lewis — 1941–2001
28/31
How C. D. Broad resolves each dilemma
56 resolved positions across 4 dimensions, including 3 distinctive where the majority of schools go the other way · 1 unaligned.
Each dimension is sorted so minority positions come first. Mainstream positions are folded into an expandable list.
Time · 9 dilemmas · 3 distinctive
Persistence, the future, and the direction of becoming.
Distinctive · only 15% of schools agree
(31/202)
Is the universe running out of usable energy?
The heat death of the universe — entropy maxed out, no further work possible — is among the more sobering implications of mainstream physics. Whether it is structurally inescapable depends on what kind of finitude the cosmos has.
Both time and matter are unbounded; 'running out' is misframed.
On this view, the cosmos has neither a temporal horizon nor a material exhaustion point. The framing of running out presupposes bounds that the cosmos doesn't have. Energy gradients perpetuate; new configurations emerge; the categories that make heat-death scary don't apply at the cosmic scale.
Roads not taken
Time is unbounded but matter is finite; usable energy can fail without time failing. (47%) ·
Time both has and lacks bounds depending on the level you ask at; finitude is conventional. (26%) ·
The cosmos has bounds; heat death is a real horizon. (12%)
Distinctive · only 15% of schools agree
(31/202)
Are natural resources fundamentally finite, or only practically so?
Whether we can grow our way out of resource constraints — or whether the cosmos sets limits the economy ultimately must obey — depends on what kind of finitude matter has.
Resources are practically inexhaustible on cosmic scales; terrestrial limits are engineering.
On this view, matter and time are both unbounded at the largest scales. Terrestrial resource limits are real engineering and political constraints but not metaphysical ones; the cosmos can in principle support whatever expansion intelligence is capable of.
Roads not taken
Time goes on but matter is bounded; we are eventually constrained even with infinite time. (47%) ·
The finitude question is level-dependent; resource ethics happens at the level that constrains us. (26%) ·
Resources are finite in the strict sense; living well requires accepting the limit. (12%)
Distinctive · only 15% of schools agree
(31/202)
Could we owe future generations more than is materially possible to provide?
If we owe future people a habitable planet and the material means to flourish, and the cosmos is bounded in ways that make those obligations impossible at some scale, the obligation and the possibility come apart. Where they come apart turns on what kind of finitude we live in.
Both time and matter are unbounded; we cannot in principle owe more than is possible.
On this view, the cosmos has the resources to support whatever flourishing future generations are capable of, given sufficient time and intelligence. The impossibility concern is misplaced; the real questions are about trajectories and choices, not about resource ceilings.
Roads not taken
Time is unbounded but matter is not; we can owe more across long time than the matter can provide. (47%) ·
The owing-and-possibility question is level-dependent; we owe what is appropriate at the level we act on. (26%) ·
The cosmos is bounded; our obligations to future generations are bounded with it. (12%)
6 mainstream positions
Do you really choose?
The future is open and you are a genuine origin of it.
69%
Are addicts responsible for their addiction?
The addict could have chosen otherwise — that's why recovery is real.
69%
Should we hold AI systems responsible for what they do?
An AI without a free will is not the kind of thing that can be responsible.
69%
How much weight do future people deserve?
Future people are as real as you are — and their interests count for as much.
47%
Is regret rational?
The past is as real as the present; regret is a real attitude toward a real thing.
47%
Do we owe extinct species something we cannot give them?
Extinct species are as real as we are; they have standing.
47%
Matter · 7 dilemmas, all mainstream
Is the world created from nothing?
Yes — matter was created and is conserved as a real substance.
55%
Is the physical world fully real?
Yes — the physical world is fully real, mind-independent, persisting.
55%
Does matter have intrinsic moral standing?
Matter is morally considerable insofar as it is created or conserved good.
55%
What is money?
Money is a real institution with intrinsic features.
54%
What is a nation?
A nation is a real moral community with intrinsic character.
54%
What makes someone male or female?
Sex is a real biological kind with given content.
54%
Should we edit the human germline?
Human nature is a real biological kind given by reproductive biology or by creation; editing the germline transgresses what is given.
54%
Observer · 37 dilemmas, all mainstream
Could causation work backwards?
Causation runs one way — the arrow of time is real and structural.
68%
Is the asymmetry between memory and anticipation a real feature of time, or just of us?
The asymmetry is real because time itself has a real direction.
68%
Is the arrow of time a real feature of the cosmos, or only of how we describe it?
The arrow is real and structural; the asymmetry isn't an artifact of description.
68%
Is environmental damage ever truly permanent?
Damage is real and permanent on the relevant timescales. There is no recovery; there is only limitation.
66%
Can a civilization recover from collapse?
Civilizational complexity is hard to build and easy to lose; recovery is at best partial.
66%
Does the second law of thermodynamics mean something morally?
Entropy is what time is. The moral weight, if any, is the weight of working against the current.
66%
Is truth universal, tradition-bound, situated, or constructed?
Truth is mind-independent, universal, accessible in principle to all.
65%
When does a person begin?
A person exists from conception — when a new being comes into existence.
54%
What is marriage?
Marriage has a given form — it’s a kind of thing we recognize, not make.
54%
Does environmental harm in another country bind me morally?
Moral obligation tracks the relations one is in; distance does matter, structurally.
50%
Can prayer for someone far away affect them?
Prayer changes the pray-er, not the prayed-for.
49%
Are coincidences ever more than coincidence?
Coincidence is exactly what the math says it is. The pattern is in the noticer.
49%
What is our place in nature?
Active in a real nature — we cultivate, steward, transform.
48%
Should we colonize space?
Cultivating worlds beyond Earth is the next form of stewardship.
48%
Is genetic engineering of food stewardship or domination?
Genetic modification is cultivation by other means.
48%
Is divine omniscience compatible with human freedom?
The observer is in time; foreknowledge across times raises real freedom problems.
46%
Does meditation reveal something genuinely timeless?
Meditators are bounded observers reporting unusual brain states; the 'timeless' is metaphorical.
46%
Does prayer change God's mind?
If there is an addressee at all, it is in time; prayer is communication, and may genuinely change what comes next.
46%
Are the dead morally present to the living?
Observers are bounded by their own moment, and no further agency makes the dead present.
44%
What kind of religious-theological authority does the tradition recognize?
The category does not apply — the school is non-religious.
44%
Who is the moral primary — the individual, the community, the cosmos, the class, or the species?
The discrete person is the moral primary.
40%
Is reality fundamentally digital?
No — continuous fields, classical limits, analog deep structure.
37%
Are there indivisible units of experience?
No — continuous Jamesian stream, phenomenological lived time.
37%
Is memory stored or reconstructed?
Reconstructed — continuous re-narrating, no fixed engrams.
37%
Does history have a direction or meaning?
History is not where the deepest truth lives.
37%
What makes someone the same person over time?
You are your body — continuity is bodily continuity.
36%
Is the late-stage dementia patient still the person their spouse married?
Same body, same person — even when the cognitive pattern has changed.
36%
If a teleporter copied and destroyed you, would you have survived?
Different body, different person — you died in the scanner.
36%
Do animals have moral standing comparable to humans?
Animal minds are real because biology is the substrate of mind.
32%
Could a fetal brain organoid in a petri dish be conscious?
Brain tissue can in principle do what brains do; the question is integration.
32%
Should we trust expert testimony when we can't verify it?
Trust expertise whose conclusions a competent mind can in principle reproduce.
32%
Is religious revelation a real source of knowledge?
Revelation is evaluable by reason — and not above it.
32%
Does an LLM 'know' the things it correctly produces?
An LLM can produce correct outputs but not reason to them; useful, not knowing.
32%
What happens to "you" when you die?
Death is genuinely the end.
30%
Could an AI have a mind that matters?
No — mind is what a biological brain does, and an LLM has no brain.
30%
How is knowledge of reality produced?
Through a priori reasoning and conceptual demonstration.
25%
Is salvation, liberation, or fulfillment individual or communal?
—
—
Information · 4 dilemmas, all mainstream
Is anything truly lost when someone forgets?
Information is lost when a mind forgets; matter and energy continue, but the pattern is gone.
51%
Does deleting your data online destroy something real?
Information is genuinely lost when the substrate that hosted it goes; deletion really destroys.
51%
Could the dead, in principle, be brought back?
The information dissipates with the substrate; restoration is in principle impossible.
51%
Is forgiveness ontologically possible?
The offense is locally constituted by its substrate; when the substrate dissolves, the offense genuinely passes away.
51%
Films Referencing This Persona (8)
Either directly referenced in the film, or reading the film through one of this persona's top schools.
Experiments Engaging This Persona's Schools
Surface via influence-schools that respond to the experiment. Each entry shows the school through which the connection runs.
The Delayed-Choice Quantum Eraser
A challenge: if only the present exists, the signal detection at D0 was a fully determinate event when it happened, and the later eraser cannot …
Hafele–Keating
Hafele-Keating confirms differential aging, not eternalism: presentists can accept frame-dependent proper times while insisting on a single moving "now" relative to some preferred frame (Lorentzian …
The Cosmic Microwave Background
A challenge: if only the present exists, the CMB is evidence of past states that no longer do. Presentists must accept the evidence while denying …
Mary's Room
Following late Jackson and representationalists (Tye, Lycan): Mary learns no new fact, only a new first-person mode of presentation of the same physical fact. The …
The Chinese Room
The intuition pump is powerful but not probative: it shows we *can imagine* syntax-without-semantics, not that the imagined scenario is coherent at the scales required …
The Ship of Theseus
Four-dimensionalism (Lewis, Sider): A and B are distinct space-time worms that share an early temporal segment. Each is "Theseus's ship" relative to a different counting …
Philosophical Zombies
The argument's natural home: zombies are conceivable precisely because phenomenal properties are over and above the physical. Chalmers' "naturalistic dualism" (property dualism) accepts the conclusion …
Parfit's Teletransporter
If the mind is non-physical, scanning the body cannot transfer the mind. The Martian has a new soul or no soul; the original dies in …
Libet's Free Will Experiments
A dualist can grant the result without surrendering the soul's agency: the readiness-potential may be the body's preparation, but the conscious self retains final assent. …
The Inverted Spectrum
Inversion may or may not be possible at the level of macro-experience, but the deeper question — what is the intrinsic nature of physical states …
Block's Chinese Nation
The case is congenial: macro-experience requires more than functional organisation — it requires the right combinatorial integration of micro-experiences, which population-level implementations probably lack.
What Is It Like to Be a Bat?
Compatible: subjective character is fundamental, distributed; the bat's experience differs in detail but not in basic ontological status.
Boltzmann Brains
Block-universe pictures take the dispute over typicality as ill-posed in the first place; there is no "random sampling" of observers without a temporally evolving population …
The Pound–Rebka Experiment
Local proper time varies across the spacetime manifold; the block-universe accommodates this naturally, while presentism must accept that "now" is a foliation choice, not a …
Hubble's Redshift Law
The block universe accommodates a finite past: the beginning is a boundary of the manifold, not a mystery requiring temporal "creation." The expansion is a …