On 27 January 2014 13:36, Stephen Paul King <[email protected]>wrote:
> Dear LizR, > > Very good points that you make, but they are peripheral!!!! What I am > trying to draw attention is: How did the "order" and the "relating" come to > pass? (in the last sentence you wrote.) > This is the question of the origin of the laws of physics. I don't think you can address that by assuming there is something special about time over and above its usual usage as a dimension - it would be better to start with something far more primitive, and see if you can extract time as a dimension from it, imho. (Comp tries to do this, for example.) > > Is is just sitting there, in eternity, and our consciousness somehow is > a reflection of this "order" and "relating"? > Yes. Although the phrase "in eternity" is misleading if we assume time is emergent from something more primitive. > I would buy this explanation iff we have an account of why those > particular orders and relations are considered and not all the infinitely > many others. > Presumably, assuming there *are *infinitely many others, these ones are considered because an anthropic selection principle places us in a universe that is compatible with our existence. > Like I have written previously, I am past the point of buying the idea > that there is a Reality out there independent of us that we passively come > to experience. I am tired of explanations that ask us to believe that > change is an illusion that somehow persists. > OK, well if you're fed up with that sort of discussion, all I can advise is don't engage with discussions which make this assumption (which will be most discussions about physics, since it's a standard assumption). You may be right about this, of course - comp comes to the same conclusion - but the reality merchants still have plenty of evidence on their side. The onus is on dissenters to show otherwise. Also, I have to say that if you insist on using phrases like "change is an illusion that somehow persists" that mainly seem to indicate that you don't understand something (the whole concept of time being a dimension?) - rather than indicating any problem with our existing understanding of physics. So it might be worth you getting to grips with how ideas like the block universe work, and why they are treated as unproblematic by the vast majority of the physics community, before you attempt to demolish them. > Can we try a different set of concepts? > As long as it's clear which concepts we're assuming, and which are open to discussion. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, 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.
