The ontology of perm and the arguments against perdurantism are fundamental questions in philosophy of time. Both theories seek to determine whether an object has temporal parts and whether its parts have a locality that is time-extending or time-unextended. Ordinary persisting objects are located only in three-dimensional regions. However, the question of endurantism is less straightforward. If there are temporal parts, an object is time-extended if it is perdurant.
Arguments against perdurantism
The argument against perdurantism has its roots in the idea that change is impossible. The notion of time is a core part of the concept, but it isn’t the crux of the problem. Indeed, many endurantists maintain that the notion makes perfect sense. The unintelligibility of perdurantism comes from another angle: its commitment to a category mistake. This mistake cannot be resolved without accepting mereology.
Hence, the perdurantist’s solution is a better one. On this view, a statue and a piece of clay are identical temporally, but their appearance is not. In addition, they will coincide spatiotemporally and mereologically. The perdurantist will then be forced to accept this solution. If they do, they will not be able to claim that their position is better. But if perdurantists insist that this theory is true, they can reply that the statue and the piece of clay will remain the same temporally.
Ontology of perm
Persistence has two forms, endurantism and perm. While perdurantism is a state of non-change, endurantism is a condition in which objects persist for a certain length of time. Both types of persistence involve a question of mereology, the locative question of whether an object exists within a region of time that is either extended or unextended. Ordinary persisting objects are only found in three-dimensional regions.
There are various ways to persist without temporal parts. An object can be multi-located at various instants, or it can be merely located in a four-dimensional extended spacetime region. A mereologically simple object will have no parts and be perpetually present. This is the definition of a perm object. The following two theories are compatible:
C++ programs
A program can use PERM for global variable persistence. This library is for use with dynamic memory allocators like jemalloc. The perma.c module contains functions for registering global variables and combining them into a block. Unlike mmap, perm uses a separate backup file for each variable. This allows the program to keep its data on different media. A program can use PERM before calling allocation functions.
While C++ does not support object persistence directly, there are proposals in the works to add this functionality. Implementing this feature is not as simple as you might think. The object may vary in size from platform to platform, and the byte ordering of different platforms complicates the process. Persistence also requires that persistent objects reserve state on non-volatile storage, which is separate from the program’s scope.
Multi-location
A number of metaphysics questions arise when considering the persistence of temporal parts. Some of these questions are related to metaphysics of time, while others focus on the nature of perm and parthood. We will discuss each of these questions in turn. First, we must understand what persistence means. Persistence is an attribute of objects that persist across locations and parts of time. Persistence is a characteristic of a single object or part, whether it is in one location or in multiple locations.
Objects are constituted of multiple locations. Objects are a series of stages in a space, and persistence refers to how those stages can be persistent in time. This is contrary to traditional definitions of persistence. In this model, persistence refers to the continuation of a process from one location to another. Objects may persist in multiple locations, even when they undergo physical changes and undergo various processes.
Unintelligibility of view
The unintelligibility of view after persistence of the perm has two aspects. One is due to the category mistake made by perdurantism. The other aspect is due to the fact that perdurantists believe that their temporal part makes perfect sense. Mereology is a way out of this problem. This paper explores the two aspects of unintelligibility and offers an alternative account.