Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> Peter Jones writes:
> > Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> > > Peter Jones writes:
> > >
> > > > Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > I don't know if block universe theories are true or not, but the subjective
> > > > > passage of time is not an argument against them. If mind is computation, do
> > > > > you believe that a conscious computation can tell if it is being run as a sequential
> > > > > series of steps or in parallel, without any external information?
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > If it is being run at all, it is dynamic, not static. Parallel
> > > > processes are still
> > > > processes.
> > >
> > > But the important point is that the temporal sequence does not itself make a difference
> > > to subjective experience.
> >
> > We don't actually know that it is possible that
> > there might be some flicker effect.
>
> Not necessarily. I'm suggesting that the actual physical events are *exactly* the same,
> just their order is different. If the world were created 5 minutes ago, complete with
> fossils, ruins, false memories etc., you could not be aware of this on the basis of any
> observation - by definition, otherwise the illusion would not be perfect. This is of course
> no reason to believe that the world was created 5 minutes ago; but it does mean that
> the absence of a sensation of having just flickered into existence is no evidence *against*
> this theory.
My original point stands. There is no evidence *for* the theory. If
the present
state is determined by more than a 0-width time slice preceding it,
then
a physical process cannot be arbitrarily sliced up.
Computationalism does not help, because computationalism requries
counterfactuals.
> > > Would you say that it is in theory possible for the subjective
> > > passage of time to be as we know it if the blocks were not infinitesimal, but lasted for
> > > a second, so that the whole ensemble of blocks lasted for a second?
> >
> > There is still duration within blocks
>
> Yes, and...
>
> > > Then what if you
> > > make the blocks shorter in duration and larger in number, progressively down to
> > > infinitely many blocks of infinitesimal duration: is there room for dynamism in an
> > > infenitesimal interval?
> >
> > There are such things as infintiessimal velocities...
>
> So if there is room for movement in infinitesimal intervals (or through combination of
> infinitesimal intervals) in a linear theory of time, why not with a block universe?
A block universe with movement is just as dynamic universe
(specifically,
a growing universe).
> Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Fri Aug 18 2006 - 08:35:12 PDT