What are the "parts" of an event?

But objects are events.

Goodman, Structure of Appearance, 1951:Our tables, steam yachts, and potatoes are events of comparatively small spatial and large temporal dimensions. The eye of a potato is an event temporally coextensive with the whole, but spatially smaller. The steam-yacht-during-an-hour is an event spatially as large as the yacht but temporally smaller. But the steam-yacht-during-an-hour is an element in a larger whole as is the eye of the potato.

I think the current phrase is "time worm". (Get it?)

Quoting Josh Alfred

What do events reduce to?I

Discontinuities (i.e. quanta).

Reply to Josh Alfred An object would be a structure that imposes stability. An event speaks to the notion of a structure that instead effects a meaningful change … from one objectified state to some other.

So in terms of parts, an event would have to have beginning and end points. Temporal parts rather than spatial parts - if what you seek is that which is the lack of change which in turn accounts for what is the change.

An object is composed of parts to the degree they could be elements located elsewhere. An event is composed of parts to the degree they could be located elsewhen.

All this suggests that ontology ought to take an integrated spatiotemporal view of “things”. A systems science or process philosophy view.

Some have argued about perdurantism versus endurantism. Something seems to be missing here though, not convinced either will do.

Quoting jorndoe

Something seems to be missing here though, not convinced either will do.

Perdurantism requires you to believe the block universe interpretation of special relativity is true. So as an account of change, it doubles down on object oriented ontology. It leaves no room for quantum nonlocality/contextuality, material accidents, or finality - all the other things a holist would want to find in their metaphysics.

Quoting apokrisis

An object is composed of parts to the degree they could be elements located elsewhere. An event is composed of parts to the degree they could be located elsewhen.

(Re: ontological locality) :up:

Quoting Josh Alfred

When thinking of objects or mechanisms consciousness forms a gestalt of them, that is a object or a mechanism is a whole with parts or properties. Simple, right? But what about events.

Parts would be too simple. That might do for something material that already had defined parts, but that would make the question of events moot from the start. What are the parts of a billiard game or football match, or love, beauty, a thought, a bicycle ride, or just a simple encounter with someone?

To look for parts, other than parallel streams, whether point particles or bound segments in time, is already a reductionist approach that will work for the pragmatist or scientist to the extent or precision required for practical ends. Is that engineer's approach sufficient for philosophy?

Reply to Josh Alfred
Quoting Josh Alfred

When thinking of objects or mechanisms consciousness forms a gestalt of them, that is a object or a mechanism is a whole with parts or properties. Simple, right?

No, Not at all simple for me.

First of all, there's no main verb and therefore no main sentence. ("When" introduces a secondary sentence and "that is" introduces an explanatory sentence.)

Then, you say that objects or mechanisms form a whole (gestalt), that is,they are parts of a whole, and then you say an object or a mechanism is a whole with parts. That is, an object/mechanism is both a part and a whole. Except if you are talking about an ad infinitum kind of situation, like a fractal, which is not at all evident and certainly not something one says en passant!

Quoting Josh Alfred

What do events reduce to?

An event is determined mainly by time, place and form. These must be all known and mentioned to call something an event. They are all needed to verify the truthfulness of an event, i.e. to prove that something has actually occurred. And this is the problem with a lot of articles in newspapers and magazines: they often omit to mention the time element! And you ask, "Well, when has that happened?" or "When is this article written?" etc.

Reply to Josh Alfred

A standard reading of events is as four-dimensional objects (in the philosophical sense, not the physical one), that is, regions of spacetime occupying spatial and temporal coordinates. At least, this is the preferred reading of event for someone like Quine or Lemmon.

Naturally, then, it follows that their parts are 1. events whose spatiotemporal extension is a proper subset of the 'larger' event, 2. 'points in time', if they exist, i.e. instants/moments 3. some atomic unit of time, if you believe in time atomism. Since these are spatiotemporal, each of these times are associated with whatever is spatially the case at each time token, so you could literally say, per your example, that the person running the marathon is a part of that event describing the phenomena including the fact that this person runs.

That said, it's unclear if this is at all a reduction of events. There are disputes in the ontology of time and whether there exists timepoints, and the relation between instants, timepoints (infinitesimal units of time), time atoms (the smallest possible unit of time, if it exists), and events.