On Friday, January 31, 2014 5:32:49 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote: > > On 1 February 2014 01:40, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com <javascript:> > > wrote: > >> On Friday, January 31, 2014 2:22:12 AM UTC-5, Liz R wrote: >> >>> On 31 January 2014 17:19, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>>> On Thursday, January 30, 2014 10:24:48 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Why do some people have such a problem with "how change can emerge >>>>> from something static" ? It's as simple as F = ma - a static equation >>>>> describing something changing. Change is by definition things being >>>>> different at different times. If you map out all the times involved as a >>>>> dimension, you will naturally get a "static" universe, just as putting >>>>> together all the moments making up a movie gives you a reel of film - but >>>>> only from a "God's eye perspective". This is the perspective science >>>>> gives >>>>> us, the perspective given by using equations and models and maps to >>>>> describe reality; it isn't the world of everyday experience, which (at >>>>> best) views those equations and so on from within (assuming for a moment >>>>> they are so accurate as to be isomorphic to reality). >>>>> >>>>> Obtaining change from the static view used by science is a >>>>> non-problem, and has been since Newton published his Principia. >>>>> >>>> >>>> Is a description the same as emergence though? We can read a film strip >>>> as a moving picture because of the nature of our sensory capacities, not >>>> because the moving picture emerges from the God's Eye view of the frames. >>>> F=ma begins with acceleration already assumed, so it is an equation that >>>> we >>>> interpret as referring to motion, nut the equation itself doesn't refer to >>>> anything. It's neither static nor dynamic, its just conceptual. >>>> >>>> I am illustrating where the idea of a block universe comes from, and >>> the context in which it makes sense. If you mean ontological emergence, the >>> origin of physics, that can't be answered within the framework of >>> explaining how a block universe works. It's a separate question. If you >>> mean emergence within a block universe, clearly that can occur, as it >>> happened in the past, and the past is a block universe according to the >>> normal definition. >>> >> >> I thought that the whole point of a block universe is that nothing can or >> needs to "emerge". It is all there in the block. >> > > It emerges along the time axis. Evolution, for example, can operate in a > block universe. All the phenomena we experience can occur in a block > universe, otherwise no one would entertain the possibility that we live in > one. >
I don't think that very many people do seriously entertain the possibility that we live in a block universe. It's not that the effect of evolution couldn't exist in a block universe, its that it wouldn't make sense to say that it 'operates', since the beginning and ending of the operation would be, from an absolute perspective, simultaneous. What is not explained is why, if there was a block universe, would being inside of it be filled with both simultaneous and chronological sensations. What would restrict some part of the block to the point of blindness to most of the time axis, and then insert some kind of illusion of timing associated with that axis? > The fact that it is "all there" from the god's (physicist's) perspective > doesn't stop things changing and emerging within the block. > It doesn't stop it, but it makes it implausible. What does a block want with "_ing" anything? > Things changed and emerged in the past. They're there, embedded in the > past - no one expects them to change (modulo quantum theory and block > multiverses, of course). We don't expect to wake up and discover that the > Norman conquest didn't happen after all, even though at the time that > caused radical change, and was partly responsible for the emergence of the > modern English (i.e. Anglo-Saxon/Danish/French/Latin/etc/etc!) language. > >> >> >>> Or maybe you're just talking nonsense. F=ma refers to a mass >>> accelerating under a force. It is a static equation describing a dynamic >>> process, something that could be useful in visualising how a block universe >>> works, which is why I mentioned it. It's quite straightforward. It isn't >>> rocket science. >>> >> >> But F=ma can only be epiphenomenal in a block universe. There can't be an >> true acceleration because acceleration requires time, and a block universe >> would have only coordinates within a static temporal axis, wouldn't it? >> Acceleration would be a statistical derivative only, it seems to me. >> > > But there *is* time in a block universe. It's a 4D manifold, and time is > a particular axis within it. You seem to want an extra time above and > beyond the existing one. > Just the opposite. I am fully embracing time a just one of the four D axes. What the block universe does not explain is why that axis is presented as a verb while the other three are not, and why that axis is irreversible seeming while the others are not. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
