Hi Pete,
----- Original Message -----
From: "Pete Carlton" <pmcarlton.domain.name.hidden>
To: "Everything-List" <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Sent: Wednesday, July 06, 2005 1:12 PM
Subject: Re: The Time Deniers
>
> 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?
[SPK]
Please notice that the identification of "time" with a "dimension"
involves the identification with each moment in time with some positive Real
number. Thus the entire set of moments is identified with R^+. The problem
with this identification is that the notion of a well ordering, an a priori
aspect of the Real numbers, is not necessarily a priori for moments of time.
AFAIK, the paradoxical nature of McTaggart's A and B series follows from a
neglect of this issue.
Time, from what I have studied so far, involves two distinct notions: a
"measure of change" and an "order of succession". The idea that it is merely
a dimension and related to the dimensions of "space", as considered and
promulgated by Minkowski, requires the assumption of classical physics and
strict local realism. We know (I would hope!) that the former assumption is
flawed, but the second is still being debated.
> [PC]
> 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?
[SPK]
Please notice in your example that the automata had to be implemented by
some process in order to render the results. The resulting "checker board"
like picture is a result of the process, it can not be said to have one
pattern or some other prior to and absent the computational process.
Where would a SAS "fit" into the automata? What would its Observer
Moments include?
> [PC]
> Here the state of the system varies with the Z coordinate, rather than
> the time coordinate - but is this relevant? And if so, why?
[SPK]
Pete, the fact that you are plotting the successive states of the system
along some Z is what is relevant, not the particular symbol used, Z or t, or
x, or whatever. The resulting graph is the *result* of a process. It is not
PRIOR to it.
Kindest regards,
Stephen
Received on Wed Jul 06 2005 - 14:13:17 PDT