One of the foundations of what explanation means for us is that it doesn’t depend on when something happens: if every causal factor is the same, then the same thing will happen regardless of time.

The other way around:

If time is one of your explanatory variables, then you don’t really know why something is happening, and you’ll have a harder time predicting and influencing a process.

Of course, time orders things (a cause has to come first), but time can’t be part of the explanation. You don’t really know what causes something until you don’t have ‘time passes’ as part of your explanation.


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www.joshbeckman.org/notes/659410743