> Dr. Russell Standish wrote:
>
> One of the biggest problems is that in Relativity, there is no well
> defined concept of "now" - the locus of contemporary events depends on
> one's frame of reference.
>
> You've probably seen where Tegmark maps spatial and temporal dimensions
> to consider which are possible real systems. Fascinating objective, to
> recognize how space-time relates to the set of all possible worlds.
> Perhaps, as we remove ourselves from our position in time, working
> toward a God's eye view, we need to suspend thinking of time as an
> elementary dimension. Said another way, see the universe as if there is
> one common moment of "now" for everyone and everything.
>
> So I personally prefer to abandon time and use mass or density as a
> dimension. Please let me know, anyone, a good reason not to consider an
> ensemble theory, a description of all possible states or worlds, first,
> without time as a dimension.
>
Of course in the "god's eye view", we see the whole ensemble of
possibilities - David Deutsch's block multiverse. There is no time in
this picture - in fact I would go all the way to saying there is no
information at all - effectively God can know absolutely nothing at
all - a corollory if you like of the "zero information principle". A
bit hard I suppose for those who believe in God's omniscience, but
then omniscience does have many problematic paradoxes.
What does seem important, however, is that the property of time be
required for conciousness, hence any subset of worlds which are
interesting from an anthropic point of view should have the property
of time. This time, however, needn't be fundamental, but could be a
limit of a process of more fundamental concepts. Perhaps this is what
you are alluding to.
Cheers
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Russell Standish Director
High Performance Computing Support Unit,
University of NSW Phone 9385 6967
Sydney 2052 Fax 9385 7123
Australia R.Standish.domain.name.hidden
Room 2075, Red Centre
http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Received on Mon Jun 07 1999 - 18:04:44 PDT