Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > Peter Jones writes: > > > Physical determinism is the idea that the > > future is genrated form the persent by rigid physical > > laws. As opposed to the idea that the future is fixed > > becasue it is already "there", like the end of a movie > > which is already in the can , and need not bear any logical > > relation to what has gone before (especially > > if it is a david Lynch movie). > > I don't see how you can distinguish between a movie + projector > system and any other deterministic physical system.
If you change th N'th fream of a move, the N+1'th frame does not change If you change the N'th stage of a causally-linked physical process the N+1'th stage *does* change. > If I turn the > projector on with the film in place, the ending of the movie is neither > more nor less fixed than the final arrangement of billiard balls if I hit > one of them with the cue. If I had hit the first ball a little differently, > or the air currents in the room had been a little different, then the > final arrangement of balls would have been different, but then if the > chemicals in the film had undergone some unexpected reaction, or the > motor of the projector started to behave differenltly, then the film > on the screen would also have been different: The only way the end of the film can change is if something happens to the *final* frames. The frames of the move are not causally interlinked. What makes a process a process is that changing one part of it changes other parts. I have explained this before. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---