On Mar 9, 1:24 pm, Andrew Soltau <[email protected]> wrote: > On 08/03/11 16:14, Brent Meeker wrote:> On 3/8/2011 3:14 AM, Andrew Soltau > wrote: > >> What I am driving at here is the same question as in the email Comp. > >> Granted that all possible states exist, what changes the point of the > >> present moment from one to another. My referring to 'the thinker' was > >> probably not a helpful metaphor. Given the universal numbers, what > >> carries out the process whereby one is transformed into another? What > >> makes the state of the thinker or the dreamer into the state of that > >> entity at the next moment? > > >> Andrew > > > I think the idea is analogous to the block universe. In Platonia all > > the states of "the thinker" and his relation to the world are > > "computed" in a timeless way. > > OK. But for any given definition of the thinker, there is a version of > the world to which he corresponds. Whether considered as a physical > entity, or a mind or a record of observations, I am instantiated in a > specific version of the universe. On observation, this state changes. > The observer is now in a new and different state, and is instantiated in > a new and different version of the universe. > > If one steps back and looks at all the possible states of the thinker, > existing in all the different corresponding states of the universe at > each moment, the result is the movie film Barbour refers to. This is a > timeless situation. > > > The impression of time for "the thinker" is recovered by putting the > > states into a sequence which is implicitly defined by their content. > > So then you have a sequence, but still nothing actually happens. This is > exactly the scenario Deutsch addresses. > > /Nothing/ can move from one moment to another. To exist at all at a > particular moment means to exist there for ever. (1997, 263; his italics) > > One seems to pass from moment to moment, experiencing change. Deutsch, > however, declares that this can only be an illusion. > > We do not experience time flowing, or passing. What we experience are > differences between our present perceptions and our present memories of > past perceptions. We interpret those differences, correctly, as evidence > that the universe changes with time. We also interpret them, > incorrectly, as evidence that our consciousness, or the present, or > something, moves through time. (1997, 263)
Movement of or through time is dismissed too easily here. Why don we have to experience our history one moment at a time if it all already exists (albeit with a sequential structure) > Physically, this is unassailable. Hmm. The arguments in favour of the block universe are actually rather subtle > However, we can explain the appearance > of change very neatly, by saying that the frame of reference is changed, > from one moment to the next to the next, with no change in anything > physical. The "Frame of Reference" being non-physical? >The only drawback is that this requires something 'outside' of > the moments, and there is nothing outside the multiverse. The solution I > propose is that phenomenal consciousness is an emergent property of this > unitary system as a whole. If it is a property of the whole system, why are we each only conscious of one small spatio temporal area? Why bring consciousness in at all? Why not have a time-cursor that is responsible for the passage of time? > In other words, this process is to the > moments the way the computational capability of a computer is to the > frames of a movie in solid state memory. > Based on that, my belief is that, in the collapse dynamics of quantum > mechanics, we have discovered evidence for a property of the unitary > system in action, we just haven't recognised it as such. Which is why it > gives rise to all the puzzles it does. > > > > > Brent -- 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.
