Those who have read my past threads and seen the summary of my metaphysics analysis (Mathematico-Cognition Reality Theory-MCRT) know that I think that time is an irreducible property of reality and my analysis suggests that even Barbour's configuration space (Platonia, the Multiverse whatever you want to call it) isn't truly timeless.
The trouble with a timeless multiverse lies in the notion of 'the space of all mathematical possibilities'. Unfortunately the notion of 'all mathematical possibilities co-existing' is highly suspect, precisely because it's so ill-defined. There are some things in math for which the quantifier 'existence' is suspect.... infinite sets in particular. If 'the space of all possibilities' is itself still evolving as I suggested, then Platonia would not be timeless as Barbour (and many here on this list) thinks. Another reason for suspecting that Platonia isn't truly timeless lies in the fact that Barbour's Platonia is an attempt to totally remove 'boundary conditions' from science. Note that no attempts to remove boundary conditions from science have ever succeeded. Why should Barbour's theory suddenly be the exception? There's a very good reason for defining boundary conditions... because without an 'inside and 'outside' to an entity, one simply cannot analyze it as a dynamical system. That's why no attempt to remove boundary conditions from science has ever succeeded. Now when the 'system' under disussion is 'all of reality' it may seem tautological that 'there exists nothing outside reality because reality is everything that exists'.... but... well... this so called tautology is not neccesserily true! The trouble lies in the definition of a 'thing'. If there are incomprehensible things, then it may actually make sense to talk about them existing 'outside reality'. Standard philosophy only recognizes one quantifier for 'existence' but perhaps thre are several different notions. Again, Barbour's attempt to 'remove an outside to reality' also prevents us from analyzing reality as a dynamical system, because any system analysis requires us to define system boundaries and external actors. Again, no attempts to remove boundary conditions from science have ever succeeded. Why? Because Barbour's entire notion of a timeless Platonia is misguided. It's an attempt to 'objectify everything, to imagine that 'all of reality' can somehow be comprehensible to a rational mind. But why should this be true? Why shouldn't there exist incomprehensible things? Again, we have examples from mathematics...such as uncomputable numbers...which appear to suggest that there do exist incomphensible things. And I propose that the existence of incomphrensible things enables us to establish boundary conditions for all of reality and refutes Barbour's notion of timlessness. So here's my alternative to a timeless Platonia: What I suggest is that we should take the comprehensible/incomprehensible division as the boundary condition for 'reality'. We then define TWO different 'existence' quantifiers. Let: 'eXistenZ' = everything which exists which is in principle comphrensible and let 'existence' = everything which exists, including INCOMPREHENSIBLE things. Then: 'eXistenZ' is a sub-set of 'existence', but all minds can take 'eXistenZ' to be reality, because only this part of existence is actually comprehensible to them. The advantage of this is that it enables us to apply ordinary system analysis to eXistenZ. eXistenZ does have a boundary and therefore 'an inside and outside'. And unlike Barbour's scheme, eXistenZ is not timeless. Now one might try to argue that it's pointless to imagine 'incomprehensible things' because they can have no comprehsible effect on reality. But the argument isn't true. Reason could still tell us which things were incomprensible (for an analogy to this, note that we DO have comptable proofs that there exist incomputable numbers) and further more, incomprehensible things could still have *comprehensible* effects on eXistenZ and therefore they could be referenced indirectly, through these comprehensible effects. Now to summarize my analysis again: Start by defining the boundary between incomprehensible and comprehensible things as the boundary condition for 'reality'. Comprehensible (in principle) things are inside reality... call this eXistenZ. And the incomprehensible things are outside reality. Existence in it's totality. Next I pointed out that we *could* actually reference the incomprehensibles indirectly - because incomprehensible things *can* have comprehensible effects on eXistenZ. Then we have the basis for a new reality theory! *Identify the incomprehensibles *Reference them indirectly through their comprehensible effects on eXistenZ *Apply standard system analysis: let: The effects of the incomprehensibles on eXistenZ be the 'inputs' The 'system' which is reality is of course eXistenZ And the system 'outputs' are how the incomprehensibles are changed by their interaction with eXistenZ So: Incomprehensibles >>(input) eXistenZ (ouput)>>Incomprehensibles In my MCRT analysis I listed 27 fundamental metaphysical actors. I believe that the 'incomprehensible things' are what I defined as the intrinsic 'Matrix' properties. There were 3 of these, which I defined as follows: *Energy* - Capacity to do work *Volition* - Capacity to make choices *Information* - A variance, or 'difference'. Now, how, you may ask, can these three things actually be 'incomprehensible' when I've just defined them? ;) I point out again that incomprehensible things could be referenced indirectly by their comprehensible effects. And I maintain that's all of any definitions of these three things actually do. After all: have you ever *seen* Energy, Volition and Information directly? Never! All definitions of these three things have only ever referenced them indirectly.... by their comprehensible effects! So these three things *could* logically be incomprehensible things. If they are, we can consider them as the inputs and outputs of the eXistenZ system. Here's my reality theory at this point: Energy, Volition, Information >>>(Inputs) eXistenZ (Outputs) >>> Energy, Volition, Information This system analysis has the advantage that we still have boundary conditions as science requires, and we have a possible means to define the purpose of eXistenZ! Or to be more precise, we could, if you like, define a utility function for reality. The utility function (or 'purpose') of reality, would consist of taking in Energy, Volition and Information , transforming them in some way (inside the 'eXistenZ' system) then outputting the transformed Energy, Volition and Information to the external environment (the wider 'existence'). eXistenZ itself could still be some sort of Platonia or multiverse, however it wouldn't be timeless. The advantages of this scheme over Barbour's: *The scheme does not try to eliminate boundary conditions *The scheme allows for incomprehensible things and does not try to objectify all of reality inside a comprehensible theory *The scheme allows us to apply standard system analysis to 'reality' *The scheme provides a way to define a purpose or utility function for reality I'd say the scheme suggested here has the advantage over Barbour's timeless Platonia on all counts! --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
