Reductionism

[ruby sparks]

Cool, up to speed on that, Abbot, Rucker and so on.



But that assumes, quite incorrectly, that I only have a posteriori resources to play with. That's never true. I always have a priori tools as well and I can imagine and work with as many dimensions as I like in that universe as in this, by, for example defining a logical space with position described indexically, or any other geometrical tool of pure maths I fancy bringing to bear.

This is what the possible existence of higher dimensions means.

I'm not sure it is.

From our 3-D perspective we know a 2-D being wouldn't have an answer, even though there is one: we can look around and see the 3-D matter all those 2-D slices are made from. So we reason by analogy, and recognize that there might be a 4-D world full of 4-D matter that 3-D slices could be made from. The fact that we can't see any or even visualize it with our evolved-for-3-D brains isn't a good reason to conclude it doesn't exist.

But now you are being inconsistent - on the one hand you are assuming we'd lack the a priori tools to think about x dimensions and on the other hand you are assuming we have them to reason about by analogy - sure, but we have far sharper tools than that. As it happens, I suggest you read Rucker's blatantly named The Fourth Dimension and How to Get There. It's a bit of a kerfuffle, but I can assure you that we can visualise four dimensions.

With that preamble, consider the following scenario. You have a mass of lava that flowed into a volcano that didn't quite erupt. As the lava cools, it starts to freeze. Freezing is localized -- the whole mass doesn't suddenly change from liquid to solid all at once. Crystals form and then they grow. If you've looked closely at a crystal you've probably seen flaws in the crystal structure, little lines where the molecules don't all line up. Flaws are visible because they're much bigger than rock molecules, because the molecules don't freeze onto a growing crystal at random. Rather, where they fasten depends on what's already there on the crystal's surface that they can fasten onto. So an initial random irregularity at one point on the surface can propagate to layer after layer. Flaws grow along with the crystal, in directions that depend on their initial conditions. Two adjacent flaws can grow in different directions, and may bump into one another as more layers of molecules are added. If you could somehow get into the liquid rock and watch the crystal growing, you'd see a solid surface with little defects on it. And as the crystal grows, the defects would move, not just toward you as the crystal grows, but relative to one another. Study them long enough and you could work out a whole physics of within-surface defect movement.

Sure, look at the simulated annealing in spinglasses model used as the learning algorithm in Boltzmann machines. It already exists, but...

And if the rules were complicated enough, maybe organisms made of moving crystal surface defects could evolve.

Ok, but you are setting up an immensely complex and baroque experiment to get across a simple idea - 2d is a slice of 3d and things that appear unconnected can be connected.

Presto: from their point of view, 2-D beings in a 2-D world, asking themselves how there could possibly be a third dimension, a dimension of time.

Cool. I get it.

Now here's the problem. If we lived in a world like that, then we'd be constantly struck by the consequences of that connection. For example, action at a distance woudl be commonplace - imagine a 3d tree growing through a 2d slice - pull one branch along a 2d plane and other branches would move mysteriously. I could carry on, but once I point out this issue, I assume as many problem cases as you wish will become clear. You know, variable inertia depending on how much stuff we can't see the thing is connected to and so on. If this model was right then physics as we understand it simply wouldn't work. Induction would fail and the world would be much older than it is.

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.

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?'

 

[ruby sparks]

It gets reorganised into something else.

And more importantly, in QM theory, time travel occurs at the microscopic level.

And it wouldn't violate the 1st Law of Thermodynamics. Not that I'm an expert, but, are all the vast number of 'real' pasts existing without any energy being involved?

 

[Subsymbolic]

Cool, up to speed on that, Abbot, Rucker and so on.



But that assumes, quite incorrectly, that I only have a posteriori resources to play with. That's never true. I always have a priori tools as well and I can imagine and work with as many dimensions as I like in that universe as in this, by, for example defining a logical space with position described indexically, or any other geometrical tool of pure maths I fancy bringing to bear.



I'm not sure it is.




But now you are being inconsistent - on the one hand you are assuming we'd lack the a priori tools to think about x dimensions and on the other hand you are assuming we have them to reason about by analogy - sure, but we have far sharper tools than that. As it happens, I suggest you read Rucker's blatantly named The Fourth Dimension and How to Get There. It's a bit of a kerfuffle, but I can assure you that we can visualise four dimensions.

With that preamble, consider the following scenario. You have a mass of lava that flowed into a volcano that didn't quite erupt. As the lava cools, it starts to freeze. Freezing is localized -- the whole mass doesn't suddenly change from liquid to solid all at once. Crystals form and then they grow. If you've looked closely at a crystal you've probably seen flaws in the crystal structure, little lines where the molecules don't all line up. Flaws are visible because they're much bigger than rock molecules, because the molecules don't freeze onto a growing crystal at random. Rather, where they fasten depends on what's already there on the crystal's surface that they can fasten onto. So an initial random irregularity at one point on the surface can propagate to layer after layer. Flaws grow along with the crystal, in directions that depend on their initial conditions. Two adjacent flaws can grow in different directions, and may bump into one another as more layers of molecules are added. If you could somehow get into the liquid rock and watch the crystal growing, you'd see a solid surface with little defects on it. And as the crystal grows, the defects would move, not just toward you as the crystal grows, but relative to one another. Study them long enough and you could work out a whole physics of within-surface defect movement.

Sure, look at the simulated annealing in spinglasses model used as the learning algorithm in Boltzmann machines. It already exists, but...

And if the rules were complicated enough, maybe organisms made of moving crystal surface defects could evolve.

Ok, but you are setting up an immensely complex and baroque experiment to get across a simple idea - 2d is a slice of 3d and things that appear unconnected can be connected.

Presto: from their point of view, 2-D beings in a 2-D world, asking themselves how there could possibly be a third dimension, a dimension of time.

Cool. I get it.

Now here's the problem. If we lived in a world like that, then we'd be constantly struck by the consequences of that connection. For example, action at a distance woudl be commonplace - imagine a 3d tree growing through a 2d slice - pull one branch along a 2d plane and other branches would move mysteriously. I could carry on, but once I point out this issue, I assume as many problem cases as you wish will become clear. You know, variable inertia depending on how much stuff we can't see the thing is connected to and so on. If this model was right then physics as we understand it simply wouldn't work. Induction would fail and the world would be much older than it is.

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.

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?'

Yeah - Edwin Abbot dealt with this in detail a century and a half ago - 3d bank robbers reaching into unbreakable vaults, for example

 

[ryan]

I'm not so sure about this. The whole point about time dilation is that it only happens relative to something else - it's about the interaction between two frames of reference. There's no such thing as mere high speed - it's always an interaction between two frames of reference any one of which could be though of as the one moving at speed or the one standing still relative to the other. So no, I don';t think it works like that at all.

Yes and no. The frame that dilates is the frame that accelerated initially from the other frame. If you don't take that into account, you get stuck thinking there is a twin paradox when we know there isn't one.

An important thing that I learnt when studying relativity is that the dilation and contraction really do happen for the the frame observing it and it is not just an illusion.

Can you give some examples?

Nope, as I said, I'm not a good enough physicist. I'm trusting physicists who I have known and shared coffee and cake with over many years to be right. I can name drop if you want.

You said you weren't a good enough mathematicion.

Anyways, the "shut up and calculate" attitude only gets us so far. I mean why philosophise on science if the "translations" are all neccessarily bollox? I would be careful when taking individual opinions, especially in this case.

Presto: from their point of view, 2-D beings in a 2-D world, asking themselves how there could possibly be a third dimension, a dimension of time.

Cool. I get it.

Now here's the problem. If we lived in a world like that, then we'd be constantly struck by the consequences of that connection. For example, action at a distance woudl be commonplace - imagine a 3d tree growing through a 2d slice - pull one branch along a 2d plane and other branches would move mysteriously. I could carry on, but once I point out this issue, I assume as many problem cases as you wish will become clear. You know, variable inertia depending on how much stuff we can't see the thing is connected to and so on. If this model was right then physics as we understand it simply wouldn't work. Induction would fail and the world would be much older than it is.

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.

For being such a modest physicist or mathematician who doesn't accept "translations" you sure made some HUGE conclusions and claims of your own.

 

[bilby]

One can't refute the idea, but why accept it?

I don't accept it. It's just one of many speculations.

Why even give it consideration?

Because thinking about stuff is fun.

Does it change anything? Can it be used to make any predictions?

Not yet. Maybe one day. Maybe never.

To me, it has a whiff of.....something odd, namely the idea that 'something' (consciousness?) moves through these 'time locations'. Why should consciousness do that? I do hope it's not another case of reifying misteeriousss consciousness. Wouldn't there be by far the vast majority of 'time places' concurrently existing with no consciousness to experience them?

I don't see consciousness as important or relevant. Nothing 'moves through' block time; it's all just there. There's literally zero reason to consider any particular time as more significant or less significant than any other.

To an observer at any point in time, 'now' looks significant, but that's just selfishness. The illusion of moving through time is just that - it is due to the observer having memories of the past but not of the future at every point in his history.

No, I'm preferring the usual model. Time passes with or without us and doesn't give a flying fuck about the fun experiences we have naturally and comparatively recently evolved to have. We're not that important.

Those facts are just as much a part of my model as they are of yours. Whichever one you want to call 'usual'.

 

[Subsymbolic]

Yes and no. The frame that dilates is the frame that accelerated initially from the other frame. If you don't take that into account, you get stuck thinking there is a twin paradox when we know there isn't one.

An important thing that I learnt when studying relativity is that the dilation and contraction really do happen for the the frame observing it and it is not just an illusion.

Yes. Now explain how your earlier argument accommodates this.

Nope, as I said, I'm not a good enough physicist. I'm trusting physicists who I have known and shared coffee and cake with over many years to be right. I can name drop if you want.

You said you weren't a good enough mathematicion.

When we are talking about this sorts of physicist then the two are functionally equivalent. I'm not incompetent and I certainly am a rock solid logician which means I can usually work it through if I have to.

Anyways, the "shut up and calculate" attitude only gets us so far. I mean why philosophise on science if the "translations" are all neccessarily bollox? I would be careful when taking individual opinions, especially in this case.

I'm a passionate believer that anyone who wants to be a philosopher of X also has to be a competent practitioner of X.

Presto: from their point of view, 2-D beings in a 2-D world, asking themselves how there could possibly be a third dimension, a dimension of time.

Cool. I get it.

Now here's the problem. If we lived in a world like that, then we'd be constantly struck by the consequences of that connection. For example, action at a distance woudl be commonplace - imagine a 3d tree growing through a 2d slice - pull one branch along a 2d plane and other branches would move mysteriously. I could carry on, but once I point out this issue, I assume as many problem cases as you wish will become clear. You know, variable inertia depending on how much stuff we can't see the thing is connected to and so on. If this model was right then physics as we understand it simply wouldn't work. Induction would fail and the world would be much older than it is.

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.

For being such a modest physicist or mathematician who doesn't accept "translations" you sure made some HUGE conclusions and claims of your own.

Indeed - I know where I'm competent. I also note that I'm not seeing any rebuttals beyond personal comments. How about an explanation of where I go wrong?

 

[ruby sparks]

I don't accept it. It's just one of many speculations.

Because thinking about stuff is fun.

Does it change anything? Can it be used to make any predictions?

Not yet. Maybe one day. Maybe never.

To me, it has a whiff of.....something odd, namely the idea that 'something' (consciousness?) moves through these 'time locations'. Why should consciousness do that? I do hope it's not another case of reifying misteeriousss consciousness. Wouldn't there be by far the vast majority of 'time places' concurrently existing with no consciousness to experience them?

I don't see consciousness as important or relevant. Nothing 'moves through' block time; it's all just there.

Fair enough. No prob. It's not even something I know a lot about.

I think it was something somebody else said about it, not you, which I thought had a whiff. And maybe I was wrong.

There's literally zero reason to consider any particular time as more significant or less significant than any other.

Hypothetically, you mean. There would be no reason, if we live in a block universe. Sure.

Those facts are just as much a part of my model as they are of yours. Whichever one you want to call 'usual'.

I was under the impression that the idea that the past (including mine) did not continue to exist was the more usual. Maybe it isn't.

 

[bilby]

I don't accept it. It's just one of many speculations.

Because thinking about stuff is fun.

Not yet. Maybe one day. Maybe never.

I don't see consciousness as important or relevant. Nothing 'moves through' block time; it's all just there.

Fair enough. It's not something I know a lot about.

There's literally zero reason to consider any particular time as more significant or less significant than any other.

Hypothetically, you mean. There would be no reason, if we live in a block universe. Sure.

Those facts are just as much a part of my model as they are of yours. Whichever one you want to call 'usual'.

I was under the impression that the idea that the past (including mine) did not continue to exist was the more usual. Maybe it isn't.

It may well be. But to me, 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. Perhaps that just means I am weird - but of course being weird does not make an idea false; If it did, Quantum theory would be in deep trouble.

 

[bilby]

Cool, up to speed on that, Abbot, Rucker and so on.



But that assumes, quite incorrectly, that I only have a posteriori resources to play with. That's never true. I always have a priori tools as well and I can imagine and work with as many dimensions as I like in that universe as in this, by, for example defining a logical space with position described indexically, or any other geometrical tool of pure maths I fancy bringing to bear.



I'm not sure it is.




But now you are being inconsistent - on the one hand you are assuming we'd lack the a priori tools to think about x dimensions and on the other hand you are assuming we have them to reason about by analogy - sure, but we have far sharper tools than that. As it happens, I suggest you read Rucker's blatantly named The Fourth Dimension and How to Get There. It's a bit of a kerfuffle, but I can assure you that we can visualise four dimensions.

With that preamble, consider the following scenario. You have a mass of lava that flowed into a volcano that didn't quite erupt. As the lava cools, it starts to freeze. Freezing is localized -- the whole mass doesn't suddenly change from liquid to solid all at once. Crystals form and then they grow. If you've looked closely at a crystal you've probably seen flaws in the crystal structure, little lines where the molecules don't all line up. Flaws are visible because they're much bigger than rock molecules, because the molecules don't freeze onto a growing crystal at random. Rather, where they fasten depends on what's already there on the crystal's surface that they can fasten onto. So an initial random irregularity at one point on the surface can propagate to layer after layer. Flaws grow along with the crystal, in directions that depend on their initial conditions. Two adjacent flaws can grow in different directions, and may bump into one another as more layers of molecules are added. If you could somehow get into the liquid rock and watch the crystal growing, you'd see a solid surface with little defects on it. And as the crystal grows, the defects would move, not just toward you as the crystal grows, but relative to one another. Study them long enough and you could work out a whole physics of within-surface defect movement.

Sure, look at the simulated annealing in spinglasses model used as the learning algorithm in Boltzmann machines. It already exists, but...

And if the rules were complicated enough, maybe organisms made of moving crystal surface defects could evolve.

Ok, but you are setting up an immensely complex and baroque experiment to get across a simple idea - 2d is a slice of 3d and things that appear unconnected can be connected.

Presto: from their point of view, 2-D beings in a 2-D world, asking themselves how there could possibly be a third dimension, a dimension of time.

Cool. I get it.

Now here's the problem. If we lived in a world like that, then we'd be constantly struck by the consequences of that connection. For example, action at a distance woudl be commonplace - imagine a 3d tree growing through a 2d slice - pull one branch along a 2d plane and other branches would move mysteriously. I could carry on, but once I point out this issue, I assume as many problem cases as you wish will become clear. You know, variable inertia depending on how much stuff we can't see the thing is connected to and so on. If this model was right then physics as we understand it simply wouldn't work. Induction would fail and the world would be much older than it is.

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.

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?'

Weird stuff might happen, but less frequently than you expect. ~13.8bn years ago, something very weird happened to our universe. Perhaps something else equally weird will happen tomorrow.

 

[ryan]

Yes. Now explain how your earlier argument accommodates this.

It acts as a fabric that warps, like an actual fabric. Time dilates the same way distances shrink.

Indeed - I know where I'm competent. I also note that I'm not seeing any rebuttals beyond personal comments. How about an explanation of where I go wrong?

You seem set on time not being a 4th dimension in the face present day physics, after admittedly not being a good enough physicist. There is no way I am going to spend time on that way of thinking.

 

[ruby sparks]

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.

 

[ruby sparks]

Weird stuff might happen, but less frequently than you expect. ~13.8bn years ago, something very weird happened to our universe. Perhaps something else equally weird will happen tomorrow.

It seems counterintuitive to say that I am the equivalent of someone who can only experience 2-D in a 3-D universe. In that scenario, why wouldn't weird, irregular-seeming stuff happen to the flatheads a LOT?

Again though, you could be right. This is not a question I'm going to take a strong side on.

 

[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.

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.

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.

I probably just need a shower

- - - Updated - - -

Weird stuff might happen, but less frequently than you expect. ~13.8bn years ago, something very weird happened to our universe. Perhaps something else equally weird will happen tomorrow.

It seems counterintuitive to say that I am the equivalent of someone who can only experience 2-D in a 3-D universe. In that scenario, why wouldn't weird, irregular-seeming stuff happen to the flatheads a LOT?

Again though, you could be right. This is not a question I'm going to take a strong side on.

Why would it happen a lot, or at all? I can see how it COULD, but not why it SHOULD; It depends upon activity in the 5th dimension of which we cannot possibly know anything - including whether there is any.

One could take a stance here based on the anthropic principle - if our particular 4d bubble in 5d reality were not sheltered from large numbers of external events, then perhaps it would not have maintained a steady state for long enough for us to evolve and observe it.

 

[ruby sparks]

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.

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.

I probably just need a shower

- - - Updated - - -

Weird stuff might happen, but less frequently than you expect. ~13.8bn years ago, something very weird happened to our universe. Perhaps something else equally weird will happen tomorrow.

It seems counterintuitive to say that I am the equivalent of someone who can only experience 2-D in a 3-D universe. In that scenario, why wouldn't weird, irregular-seeming stuff happen to the flatheads a LOT?

Again though, you could be right. This is not a question I'm going to take a strong side on.

Why would it happen a lot, or at all? I can see how it COULD, but not why it SHOULD; It depends upon activity in the 5th dimension of which we cannot possibly know anything - including whether there is any.

The 5th dimension? Now I'm f**ked.

This is worse than contemplating elves.

Though sometimes I think they might be in double figures dimensionswise.

 

[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.


I probably just need a shower

- - - Updated - - -

Weird stuff might happen, but less frequently than you expect. ~13.8bn years ago, something very weird happened to our universe. Perhaps something else equally weird will happen tomorrow.

It seems counterintuitive to say that I am the equivalent of someone who can only experience 2-D in a 3-D universe. In that scenario, why wouldn't weird, irregular-seeming stuff happen to the flatheads a LOT?

Again though, you could be right. This is not a question I'm going to take a strong side on.

Why would it happen a lot, or at all? I can see how it COULD, but not why it SHOULD; It depends upon activity in the 5th dimension of which we cannot possibly know anything - including whether there is any.

The 5th dimension? Now I'm f**ked.

This is worse than contemplating elves.

 

[Subsymbolic]

Yes. Now explain how your earlier argument accommodates this.

It acts as a fabric that warps, like an actual fabric. Time dilates the same way distances shrink.

Indeed - I know where I'm competent. I also note that I'm not seeing any rebuttals beyond personal comments. How about an explanation of where I go wrong?

You seem set on time not being a 4th dimension in the face present day physics, after admittedly not being a good enough physicist. There is no way I am going to spend time on that way of thinking.

Do I. 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?

 

[bilby]

It acts as a fabric that warps, like an actual fabric. Time dilates the same way distances shrink.



You seem set on time not being a 4th dimension in the face present day physics, after admittedly not being a good enough physicist. There is no way I am going to spend time on that way of thinking.

Do I. 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?

According to general relativity, it is subtly different - time has the opposite sign from the other dimensions when calculating the Invariant Interval, or to put it another way, the units in which time is measured need to be imaginary (multiplied by i), if you want to determine how far apart in spacetime two points are.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime#Spacetime_interval


Some of the strange implications (were that not the case) are examined in Greg Egan's excellent 'The Clockwork Rocket' and its sequels. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonal_(series)

 

[steve_bank]

There are imaginary solutions in relativity that lead to shortcuts across space, according to my cosmology book. It does not mean it acuky manifests in reality.

There are FTL theories that to work must have energy with a negative number, impossible because energy is always proportional to a magnitude squared. Like E = MxV^2.

An imaginary solution simply means you end up having to take the square root of a negative number.

 

[ryan]

It acts as a fabric that warps, like an actual fabric. Time dilates the same way distances shrink.



You seem set on time not being a 4th dimension in the face present day physics, after admittedly not being a good enough physicist. There is no way I am going to spend time on that way of thinking.

Do I.

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.

 

[Juma]

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)