Brent Meeker wrote: > 1Z wrote: > > > > Bruno Marchal wrote: > > > >>Le 09-août-06, à 12:46, 1Z a écrit : > >> > >> > >>>Timeless universe, universes where everything that can exist > >>>does exist, are not well founded empirically. > >> > >>So we should understand that you would criticize any notion, sometimes > >>brought by physicists, of "block-universe". > > > > > > > > Yes, I certainly would! It is unable to explain the subjective > > passage of time. Dismissing the subjective sensation of the passge of > > time > > as "merely subjective" or "illusional" is a surreptitious > > appeal to dualism and therefore un-physicalistic! > > I don't see that problem. In the block universe each subject is modelled as > having different states at different times and hence subjectively > experiences the passage of time.
That doesn't follow. Time Capsules: Getting Flow from Sequence. Proponents of the Block Universe view believe that there is only a B-Series. Some think that alone is adequate to explain the subjective Flow-of-Time. It is easy enough to see how there could be a sequence in the B series. If we consider a series of 3 dimensional "snapshots" of someone's brain, each subsequent snapshot iwll contain information relating back to previous ones. But is this chain or sequence enough to establish flow ? A B-series without an A-series is like a spatial series. If you had a series of clones arranged spatially so that clone 2 has all of clone 1's memories (and more), clone 3 has all of clone 2's memories (and more) and so on, you would not expect anything to be flowing from one clone to another. The clones form a series of "time capsules", and a such they have a natural sequence, but that is all. Without an A series, there is nothing to justify the idea that only one time capsule is conscious "at a time". Either they all are, or none are. We know we are conscious, so we must reject the "none are" option. The Block Universe therefore predicts that all time capsules are conscious. This is in line with the way the Block Universe spatialises Time. It predicts that consciousness is a single 4-dimensional entity. I would not just be conscious now with memories of the past, I would have a consciousness in the past overlaid on my present consciousness. The objection that being arrayed along the 4th dimension would split consciousness up is week; we don't have a micro-conscousness associated with each neuron, despite their spatial separation. Why should temporal separation have ant atomising, fragmenting effect --wehn B-series time is so similar to space anyway ? > Brent Meeker --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
