I think that "psychological time" fits the bill. The observer needs a a temporal dimension in which to appreciate differences between states.
OK. That move makes coherent your attempt to derive physics, and makes it even compatible with the sort of approach I advocate, but then: would you agree that you should define or at least explain what is the "psychological time". More generally: What is your psychology or your theory of mind? This is (imo) unclear in your Occam Paper (or I miss something). I find that assuming time, and the applicability of differential equation (especially with respect to a psychological time) is quite huge.
Bruno
"Physical time" presupposes a physics, which I haven't done in "Occam".
It is obviously a little more structured than an ordering. A space dimension is insufficient for an observer to appreciate differences, isn't it?
Cheers
On Tue, Feb 24, 2004 at 02:11:07PM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> Hi Russell,
>
> Let me try to be a little more specific. You say in your Occam paper
> at http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks/docs/occam/node4.html
>
> "The first assumption to be made is that observers will find themselves
> embedded in a temporal dimension. A Turing machine requires time to
> separate the sequence of states it occupies as it performs a computation.
> Universal Turing machines are models of how humans compute things, so it is
> possible that all conscious observers are capable of universal computation.
> Yet for our present purposes, it is not necessary to assume observers are
> capable of universal computation, merely that observers are embedded in
> time. "
>
> Are you meaning physical time, psychological time, or just a (linear)
> order? I am just
> trying to have a better understanding.
