More on Presentism and Causality

My friend, commentator, and sometime collaborator, Tom Belt, makes some good suggestions regarding the problem of reconciling presentism with diachronic causal relations (my emphasis in bold):

What about distinguishing between two kinds of causality? You could posit a proper/direct sort of causality as 'the effect of t1 upon its immediate successor t2'. The temporal transition from t1 and t2 is the point of genuine 'becoming'. But t2 then has its own directly causal relationship on t3, and t3 on t4, and so forth. ... Causal relations between temporal locations not directly ‘touching’ would be a second sort of causality, an indirect causality. ... Consider the passing of the baton in a relay race. The causality involved in the passing of the baton between runners 1 and 2 is of a different kind than that involved in the passing of the baton between runners 1 and 4. We say runner 1 passed the baton to runner 4, and we grant the truth of this propositionally as well. But getting into the metaphysics of it reveals at least two distinct kinds of causal relation and distinguishes truth-grounds at t3 as 'caused by' only t2 realities. And where t2 and t3 meet IS the present.

I think this is right and I'd like to try and develop it further by stipulating a distinction between events and actual states of affairs (or "facts").

An actual state of affairs is an aspect of reality. For example, my cat Tiffany is now lying on the bed. Hence, there now obtains the state of affairs Tiffany's being on the bed. Similarly, whenever it rains here in Las Vegas (which isn't often), the state of affairs It's raining in Las Vegas obtains or is actual.

An event, by contrast, is a diachronic transition between two actual states of affairs. Thus, when Tiffany gets off the bed to get some food, an event occurs in that a state of affairs that was actual (Tiffany's being on the bed) gives way to another state of affairs (Tiffany's not being on the bed). So conceived, an event is like the passing of a baton from one state of affairs to another. Here the baton is existence or actuality and the passing of the baton is the bringing about of another state of affairs.

What I have in mind is this sort of picture:

... S1 | S2 | S3 | S4 ...
...    E1   E2   E3   ...
...    t1   t2   t3   ...

where S1, S2, etc. denote successively actual states of affairs, and E1, E2, etc. denote successive events, and these events in turn define succesive moments of time (t1, t2, etc.). Note, that given my definitions, states of affairs can become constituents in events. For example, E1S2E2 is a diachronic transition between S1 and S3. Hence it is a compound event, one that includes at state of affairs S2 and two non-compound or simple events as constituents. (For example, we can think of WWII as a compound event.)

In terms of this categorization, I want to suggest that causal relations do not take events (compound or simple) as relata but states of affairs. We should talk not of event-event causation, but of state-state causation. Direct causation is a simple event by which one state of affairs gives rise to a new state of affairs. Indirect causation is a compound event by which one state of affairs gives rise to a new state of affairs.

But in calling causation a relation between states of affairs, we should not think of there being two actual states of affairs that are then connected by a third thing, a causal relation. Such a view would clearly rule out presentism since it would require the existence of two successive states of affairs that, qua successive, could not be simultaneously present. No, causation is an dynamic relation in the sense of S1 giving rise to S2. It is a power or set of powers operative in S1 that transforms it into S2.

Furthermore, since time is continuous, between any two states of affairs there are a potentially infinite number of other states of affairs and a potentially infinite number of simple events. Thus, the state that is NOW is in continuous transition. It is simultaneously both receiving the baton from its predecessor and already passing it on to its successor.