Hi Stephen;
I have a couple of quesitions.
"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."
Im not quite sure what you mean by this. Possibly you mean that to
coherently describe time it isnt enough to have laid out in succession a
series of moments, or events, described by real numbers or however. There
must also be something running through the series in order for the concept
of time to make any sense. If you like, there must be a 'now' - a temporal
position of sorts - in which raw sensory experience - audio and vision
perhaps - comes together synaesthetically into a coherent perspective and is
then consigned to memory. Put another way, there are many strips of film one
could thread through a projector but until one does so the well ordered
sequence of frames remains static, time is not realised in any coherent way
in a film until it is shown. I think that if this is what you mean (or
close) i'ld like to add my support to you're objection.
However, you might mean that there must be some sense of duration and
transitivity within each individual moment. If you like, a series of events
(frames, real numbers) which individually have no duration (or sense of
transition) can not therefore collectively be considered to obtain such
properties. I disagree with that. duration and transitivity can obtain
accross a span of events, and to be strict I dont undestand the requirement
for change at all.
'Time, from what I have studied so far, involves two distinct notions: a
"measure of change" and an "order of succession".'
I can see that time involves an 'order of succession'. I dont see that time
is a 'measure of change', if by that you mean that time depends on change to
exist. I can concieve an infinate universe consisting of a solitary glove
over time, a universe in which there are moments but no change. Awareness of
time might not be possible in the absense of change, but that is not the
same thing as time not existing. Moreover, it seems odd to insist - if you
are insisting - that events (frames, real numbers) change rather than the
just the substances which characterise the event itself.
In boiling water, the water (substance) changes temperature, the event at
which all the water has passed temperature 'd' requires no inherent
'becoming' to make sense temporally, it just needs to 'identify' the state
of the water at that time, doesnt it?
regards.
Chris.
>From: "Stephen Paul King" <stephenk1.domain.name.hidden>
>To: "Everything-List" <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
>Subject: Re: The Time Deniers and the idea of time as a "dimension"
>Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2005 13:37:05 -0400
>
>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
>
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Received on Fri Jul 08 2005 - 07:37:29 PDT