The necessity of the past and modal-tense logic incompleteness (Q762057)

The thesis (1) Pp\(\supset LPp\), which is supposed to express, within a modal-tense propositional logic, the principle that the past is unalterable, is examined here. In the first place it seems to lead, together with other minimal assumptions of modal-tense logic, to a form of fatalism, that there are no unactualized possibilities, i.e. Mp\(\supset (Pp\vee p\vee Fp)\). Secondly, it is the cornerstone of Diodorus' Master argument which underlies his definition of possibility as present or sometime-hereafter truth, Mp\(\equiv p\vee Fp\), and necessity as present {\#} and always-hereafter truth, Lp\(\equiv p\&Gp\). To obtain the conclusion of the Master argument, however, at least as it is reconstructed by Prior, it is necessary to assume another principle (2) (\(\sim p\&\sim Fp)\supset PG\sim p\), which implies the discreteness of time. The author argues, however, that (2) is stronger than necessary for the argument. All that is required, semantically, is that the temporal ordering relation be irreflexive, it need not be discrete, but irreflexivity by itself is not expressible syntactically within the modal-tense logics. Hence systems based on (1) which are adequate for the Master argument but not requiring discreteness of time, are incomplete. More generally, any system with (1) as the only axiom mixing alethic and temporal modalities is semantically incomplete with respect to the class of frames characterized by an irreflexive temporal ordering, although when (1) is added to such systems as K and \(K_ t\) the resultant systems are complete.