This paper brings together the Sarvāstivāda (a major school of Abhidharma Buddhism) and Miller's (2019) moving spotlight theory to see how presentness is explained in terms of causation. The paper argues that a causal theory of presentness like Miller's encounters a dilemma: causation is either synchronic or diachronic, but neither is safe in the presence of the challenges. On the one hand, if causation is synchronic, how does a causal chain extend over time so that the wave of causation (and hence the spotlight) can move at all? On the other, if causation is diachronic, then a present moment has a temporal extension enough to accommodate a cause and its proximate effect. The paper proposes a synchronic notion of causation that counters the first challenge. This can be done by bringing together the Sarvāstivādin grasp-production model of causation, some Stoic ideas about causation, and some Armstrong's metaphysics.

中文翻译：

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移动聚光灯的因果理论

本文汇集了说一切有部（阿毗达磨佛教的一个主要学派）和米勒 (2019) 的移动聚光灯理论，以了解如何根据因果关系来解释当下性。该论文认为，像米勒这样的因果理论遇到了一个两难的境地：因果关系要么是共时的，要么是历时的，但在面临挑战时，两者都不安全。一方面，如果因果关系是共时的，那么因果链如何随着时间的推移而延伸，以便因果关系的浪潮（以及聚光灯）能够移动？另一方面，如果因果关系是历时性的，那么当前时刻的时间延展足以容纳一个原因及其最近的结果。本文提出了一个因果关系的共时概念来应对第一个挑战。