Re: The Time Deniers

From: Pete Carlton <pmcarlton.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2005 10:12:49 -0700

On Jul 6, 2005, at 9:08 AM, Stephen Paul King wrote:


>
> There is a huge difference in kind between "existing" and
> "emulating". Existing is atemporal by definition since existence
> can not depend on any other property. Emulations involve some
> notion of a process and such are temporal. The idea that a process,
> of any kind, can "occur" requires some measure of both transitivity
> and duration.
> The mere *existence* of a process only speaks to its potential
> for occurrence.
>
> Kindest regards,
>
> Stephen
>

But isn't the use of time as the dimension along which things vary
(or are 'processed') a somewhat arbitrary choice?

I've wrote to the list before about a "Game of Life" simulation in
which, instead of running the states of the automaton forward in
time, erasing the previous state with the subsequent state, you
simply place the subsequent state >on top< of the previous state
(i.e., you have black disks for "live" cells, and white disks for
"dead" cells, and you pile them up as you go..). If the automaton
includes an SAS, would you say its experiences are instantiated only
at the moment of laying down the disks, or are they instantiated
permanently?

Here the state of the system varies with the Z coordinate, rather
than the time coordinate - but is this relevant? And if so, why?
Received on Wed Jul 06 2005 - 13:46:06 PDT