RE: The Time Deniers

From: Lee Corbin <lcorbin.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2005 01:09:49 -0700

Russell writes

> I find it amazing
> that you claim I deny the existence of time. Au contraire, it is
> something I explicitly assume. My reading of Bruno's work is that time
> is implicitly assumed as part of computationalism (I know Bruno
> sometimes does not quite agree, but there you have it).

Sorry. Now, I mean by "Time Deniers" those who (for example Julian
Barbour) believe that time doesn't really exist, but can be reduced
to configuration spaces or bit strings, or perhaps other things.
The essential ingredient---I'm guessing here---is that time is
*not* an independent quantity, not really an independent parameter.

> The true "time deniers" on this list are those favouring the ASSA -
> Jacques Mallah, Saibal Mitra, etc. I never worked out your position Lee?

The Absolute Self-Sampling Assumption---I have not followed all the
threads here, and don't know for sure all that this entails. As for
my position, I admit that it now seems to me that I'm a kind of
dualist compared to those I call the time deniers: because I still
cling to the idea that time has an independent existence (or,
equivalently, cannot be reduced to other quantities).

As I wrote earlier with regard to one species of "time-denier":

> > I am still at the point where I cannot quite imagine how a
> > huge nest of bit strings (say all the real numbers between
> > 0 and 1) manages to (in stasis) emulate all possible
> > conscious experiences of all possible entities. But I
> > still have an open mind.

Now this neologism is only a temporary expedient until I find
out the categories established by people who've thought about
this for years; I don't intend for it to gain any usage.

Lee
Received on Wed Jul 06 2005 - 04:11:52 PDT