On 26 January 2014 09:53, Stephen Paul King <[email protected]>wrote:
> Dear LizR, > > Umm, I thought that I wrote up a semi-technical argument against the > block universe concept. Maybe you didn't see it. I will try again to make > the case using your remarks below. > Good luck. You need to show why time can't be treated as a dimension (without using the concept in your argument). > > > > On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 3:18 PM, LizR <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On 26 January 2014 08:54, Stephen Paul King >> <[email protected]>wrote: >> >>> >>>> Either way the concept of a block universe is one of the most mind >>>> blowingly moronic ideas anyone ever came up with. It reminds me of the >>>> ideas me and my buddies used to come up with in Jr. High School just for >>>> laughs but which no one was dumb enough to ever take seriously. >>>> >>> >>> But people actually do, very smart people too! >>> >>>> >> Even I do, so not just smart people. >> >> Stephen, you have to provide some reason why the block universe concept, >> which was used in both Newtonian and Einsteinian physics, is wrong. >> > > We now know, given the weight of evidence in support of QM, that > Newtonian physics is "wrong", even thought it can be used for making > approximations when we can safely assume that the uncertainty principle and > relativistic effects are negligible. There are metaphysical assumptions > built into Newtonian physics, many of which survive into GR. > One of these assumptions is that objects have properties innately, > completely independent of whether or not those properties are measured. We > know that this assumption is nonsense and should not be used in our > reasoning. > I hope that I don't need to duplicate what one can find in any good > article by, say Jeremy Butterfield, about the implications of Bell's > theorem. See, for example, > http://philoscience.unibe.ch/documents/physics/Butterfield1992/Butterfield1992.pdffor > yourself. > > > >> Your attempt using QM misused the concept of simultaneity, and in any >> case QM works fine it you make the block universe into a block multiverse - >> all the quantum probabilities come out correctly, as per Everett, from a >> deterministic evolution. >> > > Not at all! A block universe is a static 4 dimensional object. Am I > mistaken in this belief? A "block multiverse" is a word salad, IMHO. > > > >> The fact that it's a block Hilbert space (or whatever) doesn't stop time >> evolution being mapped along a dimension. That is all 'block universe" >> means - that time is a dimension. >> > > Ah! How exactly does this "mapping of time evolution" occur? If a block > universe is all that exists, what is doing the action of mapping energy, > spin, charge, etc. measures to a sequence of points that can be faithfully > represented as a "dimension"? > Trajectories of objects are curves in a space, not "dimensions", at > best they are partially ordered sets of "events" that have properties > associated with them. The association is done using tangent spaces... I > digress. > The idea that time is a dimension has been repeatedly been shown to be > problematic by people such as Chris Isham and David Albert, I didn't just > make up that it is a problem. > > > >> >> There is no problem with change in a block universe. Change occurred in >> the past, which is a good example of a block universe. No one has refuted >> that argument as yet, and in fact they can't - the past clearly *is* a >> block universe, by all the definitions given, one that extends from the big >> bang to just before the present. The logical inference is that it continues >> through the present into the future, and our feeling that time "flows" is >> an illusion (no one has ever explained what that metaphor means, by the >> way, except with reference to a second time stream - but that just moves >> the block universe from 4D to 5D). >> > > I disagree. We forget that when we think of a 4d object we are involved > with it, we are associating change with features of it. They are not "in > it". Our thinking using this idea only re-enforces the mistake that we can > observe things in a way that is 1) faithful to what is "actually out there" > and 2) that our observations are passive. No work is required nor > disturbance of the observed occurs. > This thinking is wrong. > > > >> >> The argument from incredulity has never worked very well in science. >> > > Could you point to an example of an "argument from incredulity" so that I > might understand how you are claiming that my arguement is such? > > > >> A lot of things that people couldn't get their heads around turned out >> to be true. But for most physicists the BU isn't one of them, it has long >> been understood and accepted. Anyone who draws a graph with a time axis >> implicitly accepts it. Anyone who describes time as a dimension implicitly >> accepts it. No sensible alternative has ever been proposed. Saying that "it >> doesn't explain becoming" is disproved with reference to the past - clearly >> things became other things in the past. >> > > I have proposed a sketch of an alternative, it may not be sensible yet... > I welcome questions... > >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the >> Google Groups "Everything List" group. >> To unsubscribe from this topic, visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/topic/everything-list/TBc_y2MZV5c/unsubscribe >> . >> To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to >> [email protected]. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >> > > > > -- > > Kindest Regards, > > Stephen Paul King > > Senior Researcher > > Mobile: (864) 567-3099 > > [email protected] > > http://www.provensecure.us/ > > > “This message (including any attachments) is intended only for the use of > the individual or entity to which it is addressed, and may contain > information that is non-public, proprietary, privileged, confidential and > exempt from disclosure under applicable law or may be constituted as > attorney work product. 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