Reductionism

[bilby]

it seems rather odd to assume that a place stops existing just because I am not there anymore. I apply the same concept to time, and conclude that 1994 still exists, just as the United Kingdom still exists, even though I am not currently in either place.

But in a block universe, you are still there too, in 1994.

Hey, I'm not countering. You might be correct.

As for the whiff I thought I detected, that wasn't from you and maybe I was wrong about it.

Got me thinking...
In a block universe: how can we be sure that my ”now” is at the same time as your ”now”?
(Assume you and I are at rest relative each other to exclude relativistic effects)

In the real universe we already know you can't be sure of that. Observers in different reference frames disagree on both the sequence of events, and on their timing.

Why would you imagine that there needs to be such an agreement?

 

[DBT]

Where does it all go then? How would you explain what happens to everything? And more importantly, in QM theory, time travel occurs at the microscopic level.

It doesn't go anywhere. It is all fixed by whatever conditions brought about the whole pack and caboodle in the first instance, except that there is no first instance. That too is an illusion of conscious interpretation, as is quantum fluctuations. Each freeze frame, if taken sectionally, merely expressing a different state or particle position, but no actual movement.

What bilby said.

Then you have no ability to act. Every freeze frame of your existence from when you were born (appear within a small section of the block) to when you disappear from the block, is fixed in this block time matrix and you merely have the illusion of decision making and movement. An illusion formed from a spotlight of conscious attention....itself fixed at every point in the block matrix...so that if you could rewind and replay, nothing would change.

 

[bilby]

Where does it all go then? How would you explain what happens to everything? And more importantly, in QM theory, time travel occurs at the microscopic level.

It doesn't go anywhere. It is all fixed by whatever conditions brought about the whole pack and caboodle in the first instance, except that there is no first instance. That too is an illusion of conscious interpretation, as is quantum fluctuations. Each freeze frame, if taken sectionally, merely expressing a different state or particle position, but no actual movement.

What bilby said.

Then you have no ability to act. Every freeze frame of your existence from when you were born (appear within a small section of the block) to when you disappear from the block, is fixed in this block time matrix and you merely have the illusion of decision making and movement. An illusion formed from a spotlight of conscious attention....itself fixed at every point in the block matrix...so that if you could rewind and replay, nothing would change.

Yes. Except that there's no spotlight; if conscious attention exists, it exists at all the points in space time where it occurs. Nothing moves in the block, and there is no such thing as the present. The illusion of the present is caused by the existence of memory - at every point when you are conscious, your brain contains the memory of earlier times.

From the higher dimensional perspective, all events are fixed. Including consciousness.

Why not?

 

[DBT]

It doesn't go anywhere. It is all fixed by whatever conditions brought about the whole pack and caboodle in the first instance, except that there is no first instance. That too is an illusion of conscious interpretation, as is quantum fluctuations. Each freeze frame, if taken sectionally, merely expressing a different state or particle position, but no actual movement.



Then you have no ability to act. Every freeze frame of your existence from when you were born (appear within a small section of the block) to when you disappear from the block, is fixed in this block time matrix and you merely have the illusion of decision making and movement. An illusion formed from a spotlight of conscious attention....itself fixed at every point in the block matrix...so that if you could rewind and replay, nothing would change.

Yes.

Why not?

Do you mean ''why not'' observe change if rewind was possible, or something else?

 

[bilby]

It doesn't go anywhere. It is all fixed by whatever conditions brought about the whole pack and caboodle in the first instance, except that there is no first instance. That too is an illusion of conscious interpretation, as is quantum fluctuations. Each freeze frame, if taken sectionally, merely expressing a different state or particle position, but no actual movement.



Then you have no ability to act. Every freeze frame of your existence from when you were born (appear within a small section of the block) to when you disappear from the block, is fixed in this block time matrix and you merely have the illusion of decision making and movement. An illusion formed from a spotlight of conscious attention....itself fixed at every point in the block matrix...so that if you could rewind and replay, nothing would change.

Yes.

Why not?

Do you mean ''why not'' observe change if rewind was possible, or something else?

I edited my previous.

I mean why shouldn't reality be as you describe?

You seem to think that the inability to change anything if a rewind were possible is somehow a problem; but unless you have evidence that changes ARE possible in such a situation, that's not the case.

 

[DBT]

Do you mean ''why not'' observe change if rewind was possible, or something else?

I edited my previous.

I mean why shouldn't reality be as you describe?

You seem to think that the inability to change anything if a rewind were possible is somehow a problem; but unless you have evidence that changes ARE possible in such a situation, that's not the case.

Well, it could be. I describe it for the benefit of Ryan and his position on consciousness and freedom. I have no personal preferences, whatever happens to be the nature of Reality is it, and that's that.

 

[Subsymbolic]

It seemed so,

"Then of course there's the fact that time isn't a dimension in the same way as a tesseract inhabits the fourth dimension - the traditional model is something like 'at ninety degrees' time isn't like that at all.
Spatial metaphors for time are just a bad idea."

from a few posts ago.

It's not just a metaphor.

I thought I clarified the difference between two ways of using the word dimension. So to be clear, do you think that time, as the fourth dimension, has the same relation to the third dimension as the third dimension has to the second?

There isn't much of a difference.

I suggest you look into that claim a bit before carrying on this argument, because this is starting to feel a bit like kicking a man while he's down.

 

[aupmanyav]

Then you have no ability to act. Every freeze frame of your existence from when you were born (appear within a small section of the block) to when you disappear from the block, is fixed in this block time matrix and you merely have the illusion of decision making and movement. An illusion formed from a spotlight of conscious attention....itself fixed at every point in the block matrix...so that if you could rewind and replay, nothing would change.

One can act in whatever way one wants, but it hardly matters to the reality. We are too puny. Think of galaxies with w and x solar masses coalescing into one with a solar mass y and solar mass z going up as gravitation waves.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Yes, I was thinking about this. Sort of. If we imagine beings who live in a 2-D world, they couldn't imagine a 3-D one. Got it. But, if they only experienced 2-D but were in a 3-D world, that would be different, because weird stuff would happen in their 'little world' constantly, to the point that it would be unpredicatble and irregular (to them). A bird might poop on their little flat heads for starters. It'd be 'fuck where did that come from?'

Nah, you're just thinking of the problem from your perspective of a three-dimensional world.

If you want to assume 2D-beings living in a 2D-slice of a 3D-world surely you also have to assume that the laws of the 3D-world itself allow for this to be.

By "beings", I take it you mean things with a modicum of mental life and abilities, capable of observing their own 2D-slice universe, things with some sort of brain one way or the other... If not, then there are just no "beings" and no "2D-universe".

So, if you want to have that kind of 2D-beings at all, the 2D-slice universe must have physical laws allowing for this to happen. And for this to be at all possible the 3D-world has to have laws that make sure this to be the case. So sure, your 2D-beings may perhaps see things "coming through" but only to the extent that it could be perfectly compatible with the existence and "well-being" of the kind of 2D-beings you're talking about.

Be always careful as to what you are assuming exactly...
EB

 

[ryan]

Where does it all go then? How would you explain what happens to everything? And more importantly, in QM theory, time travel occurs at the microscopic level.

It doesn't go anywhere. It is all fixed by whatever conditions brought about the whole pack and caboodle in the first instance, except that there is no first instance. That too is an illusion of conscious interpretation, as is quantum fluctuations. Each freeze frame, if taken sectionally, merely expressing a different state or particle position, but no actual movement.

That's presentism. That goes against more widely accepted science.

Think about it this way. When you start looking at a really long building up close, you may start scanning it from left to right. You have no doubt in your mind that the beginning is still there even when your focus has shifted away from it. To look at the beginning you just have to redirect your focus. But in this theory, time has us on a train looking at the side of the building that we never get to look at again.

What bilby said.

Then you have no ability to act. Every freeze frame of your existence from when you were born (appear within a small section of the block) to when you disappear from the block, is fixed in this block time matrix and you merely have the illusion of decision making and movement. An illusion formed from a spotlight of conscious attention....itself fixed at every point in the block matrix...so that if you could rewind and replay, nothing would change.

Well that's what calculus and I think real analysis tells us about even abstract structures of a continuous nature. Even the most dense structures imaginable (based on the reals) can be seen as being chopped up into an infinite number of pieces that can join together seamlessly. In that sense there's no escaping frames/derivatives.

 

[ryan]

There isn't much of a difference.

I suggest you look into that claim a bit before carrying on this argument, because this is starting to feel a bit like kicking a man while he's down.

I have, so I feel the same about you. Tell me what is so different other than our conscious perception of its one-way feature? Is it even one way if nobody is here to observe it. If not, then it is actually identical to the other 3 spatial dimensions.

from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time/#3D4Con

"According to The 4D View, temporally extended objects have temporal parts, temporal extension is perfectly analogous to spatial extension, and time is one of four dimensions that are on a par, at least with respect to the manner in which objects are spread out in space-time."

 

[steve_bank]

Subjective perceptions is what divides the world, the root cause of modern conflicts.

 

[Speakpigeon]

it seems rather odd to assume that a place stops existing just because I am not there anymore. I apply the same concept to time, and conclude that 1994 still exists, just as the United Kingdom still exists, even though I am not currently in either place.

But in a block universe, you are still there too, in 1994.

Hey, I'm not countering. You might be correct.

As for the whiff I thought I detected, that wasn't from you and maybe I was wrong about it.

Got me thinking...
In a block universe: how can we be sure that my ”now” is at the same time as your ”now”?
(Assume you and I are at rest relative each other to exclude relativistic effects)

???

In a block universe there is only "here". There's no "now".

Still, suppose we're pleasantly sitting at the terrasse of a café here in Paris. Why would you suspect your "here" might be different from my "here"? Same thing for time in a block universe. Basically, we're both looking at the same clock at the frontispiece of the city hall a few metres away and agree we are seeing the same time indication. Remember, somebody very clever here is saying that time is the clock and nothing else!

Now, if you're talking about something as ethereal as subjective time, then I would agree with you. Wait, no, in fact, I can't even agree with you here because not only may we have different subjective times but you may not exist at all to begin with.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Yes. But not currently, as 'currently' refers to 2018, when we are having this conversation. The problem being that there's no good language for describing four dimensional spacetime from a fifth dimensional perspective. From our 4d perspective, i am not in the UK in 1994, because I am in Australia in 2018. But from a 5D perspective, both are true statements of two of the points in spacetime in which I exist.

Nah, because the two of you, or these two "yous", are not one and the same. Not only are they at two completely different space-time points but these to "yous" are not identical to each other. In fact, from the 5D perspective, there's no relation whatsoever between them, except perhaps that they may look vaguely similar from a distance.

In a block universe, the notion of you being in the UK in 1994 is meaningless. Whatever you may think, the guy in 1994 wasn't you.
EB

- - - Updated - - -

Subjective perceptions is what divides the world, the root cause of modern conflicts.

Or, modern conflicts are what divides the world. The root cause of our subjective perceptions. Whichever.
EB

 

[bilby]

Yes. But not currently, as 'currently' refers to 2018, when we are having this conversation. The problem being that there's no good language for describing four dimensional spacetime from a fifth dimensional perspective. From our 4d perspective, i am not in the UK in 1994, because I am in Australia in 2018. But from a 5D perspective, both are true statements of two of the points in spacetime in which I exist.

Nah, because the two of you, or these two "yous", are not one and the same. Not only are they at two completely different space-time points but these to "yous" are not identical to each other. In fact, from the 5D perspective, there's no relation whatsoever between them, except perhaps that they may look vaguely similar from a distance.

In a block universe, the notion of you being in the UK in 1994 is meaningless. Whatever you may think, the guy in 1994 wasn't you.
EB

That's mostly true, but more an illustration of the vagueness of our language than of anything related to the block time model.

They say you can't cross the same river twice; but my experience with a narrow river spanned by a good bridge suggests that you can in fact do so in less than a minute.

A 5D 'god's eye view' would see the two different 'mes' connected by a series of similar 'mes', like a 3D vein of human embedded in 4D spacetime. So it's not completely true to say that there's no relationship between them.

 

[ruby sparks]

It's a nice idea (that the past is still there) and fun to consider, and in some ways naturally intuitive (how many stories and movies about time travel assume it? All of them?) but....I don't buy it.

 

[bilby]

It's a nice idea (that the past is still there) and fun to consider, and in some ways naturally intuitive (how many stories and movies about time travel assume it? All of them?) but....I don't buy it.

Not all of them. There are some very interesting ones that don't. I can't recall the title, but I seem to remember one such story where traveling in time meant arriving on a lifeless Earth - nothing living at all, but all of the inanimate stuff still there.

The real problem for time travel in a block universe is that if you did it, you already did it. Nothing can change, so whatever the consequences of time travel are, they already happened. SF writers usually get around this by either going with the Many Worlds interpretation, where you travel back to a subtly different past, that is not the same as your previously experienced past; Or they use a McGuffin to make paradoxes prohibited (If you try to go back and change things, the machine stops working ,or drops you too far from your target time/place to be able to change anything), or inconsequential (if you try to assassinate your grandfather, your gun jams, or you drop the knife, or something else foils your plan - the only changes you can make are ones that match recorded history); Or they are smart enough not to try to address the question at all.

Indeed, it's perhaps better to say that in a block universe, you are already doing it - from the external perspective, you exist at all points in time that you exist at, and none are preferred, so if you went back in time to when you were ten years old, you wouldn't notice, and nothing would be different at all. Indeed, you are always back (and forward) in time to every point where you exist, and no other points in space-time are accessible to you at all. Traveling in time just gets you to where you are - its like trying to run away from yourself in one of the space dimensions. Which doesn't make for a thrilling SF novel.

 

[DBT]

Then you have no ability to act. Every freeze frame of your existence from when you were born (appear within a small section of the block) to when you disappear from the block, is fixed in this block time matrix and you merely have the illusion of decision making and movement. An illusion formed from a spotlight of conscious attention....itself fixed at every point in the block matrix...so that if you could rewind and replay, nothing would change.

One can act in whatever way one wants, but it hardly matters to the reality. We are too puny. Think of galaxies with w and x solar masses coalescing into one with a solar mass y and solar mass z going up as gravitation waves.

Not in the block time context. It is all fixed. It is Eternalism Absolute determinism.

 

[DBT]

That's presentism. That goes against more widely accepted science.

Aren't we talking about Block Time/Eternalism? It obviously is not accepted science....however this is the thing we happen to talking about.

 

[ryan]

That's presentism. That goes against more widely accepted science.

Aren't we talking about Block Time/Eternalism? It obviously is not accepted science....however this is the thing we happen to talking about.

I thought you were talking about presentism or arguing against a block universe.