Brent, 1. are you sure about our conceptualization to fit 'nature(?)'s'? we are impeded by our figments to explain the world(?) as we CAN, material means, physical world, excuse me: Bruno:) numbers, while all we see (and less we understand of it) is a little segment - one primitive universe among the innumerable others (we cannot even 'see' them) in the interpretation of our individual (personalized) mindset, our personal mini-solipsism (Colin) controlled by the tissue-tool (brain) we use.
2. According to 1.: are you sure that in the unrestricted World the 'time' concept is as we can imagine it? Sequence and consequence are human observations HERE. We cannot include the totality into our thinking, not as a background and not as an interefficient relation of them all. So our conclusions are partial and forcible. 3. R. Bertrand was in 1935 obsolete as compared to the views of 'this list' (or: the cognitive inventory accumulated up to date in our epistemic enrichment). His words have to be updated to the present thinking. (More so the ancient savants!). I don't argue with his statements, just mention 'caution'!. 4. I think what Abram said should reflect our dichotomy of 'continuum' vs. the quantized 'discontinua' - no matter in what scale one thinks. Dense?... The only way we can imagine a change in a discontunuum (WE!!!) is to take two arbitrary points and compare the qualia. No explanation (so far) where and how they became different if you do not abide by a fixed scale. I think topology is in this respect underdeveloped (although I don't know topology). And so may be dimensions - thought of as diversely identified, yet possibly with continuous transition from one (named) to the other (named). If the 'existence' is continuous (and we have no sign indeed to the opposite) then we are in deep trouble. John Mikes ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brent Meeker" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, December 21, 2008 12:24 AM Subject: Re: Time > > Abram Demski wrote: >> Brent, ...... No, I'm saying that the time that appears in physics is a variable that takes real values and so it has the topology of the real line. That topology is continuous so every "moment" has other moments arbitrarily close to it which are well ordered. When I think about this it seems to capture the idea of "sticking together". If I pick any two times there is a dense set of times joining them. Of course time also includes the idea of direction. Most fundamental theories of physics are time symmetric and the "arrow of time" is tied to expansion of the universe by statistics. Bertrand Russell wrote a paper in 1935, which is reprinted in "Logic and Knowledge" 1956 which considers how instants (i.e. moments) are logically constructed from events (which have non-zero durations). He shows that "...the existence of instants requires hypotheses which there is no reason to suppose true..." It's rather technical, but you might find it interesting. I think Russell is right to regard events (intervals) as fundamental and instants as idealized constructs. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
