On Sat, Feb 22, 2014 at 7:40 PM, Edgar L. Owen <[email protected]> wrote:
> Jesse, > > 1. Do you agree you are actually a particular age right now today as you > read this? > Yes. > > 2. Do you agree that I am actually a particular age right now today as I > write this, whether or not you know what that is? > Yes. > > 3. Do you agree that we can both agree on those two ages? > Yes. > > 4. Do you agree that if we were at the same location we would be in the > same present moment? > Depends on what you mean by "same present moment". If you mean something that is inherently incompatible with block time, then no, I don't see a need to assume such a thing. But I do think that if two people are at the same point in space, all reference frames agree on which events on each of their worldline are simultaneous, and the time for one to send a signal to the other and get a response back can be arbitrarily close to zero, so in those senses they can agree on a common "present". > 5. Since you believe you are actually alive in every moment of your life, > including every past and future moment, why is this particular moment the > one you experience yourself in right now? > Because each moment only experiences what's going on at that point, it doesn't have any direct experiences of other moments. So the observer-moment typing this sentence doesn't experience any of the others, but that doesn't mean they aren't real. You believe other people exist and their experiences are just as real as your own, why do you only experience being Edgar Owen and not someone else? If you just imagine various Jesses at different ages being like different people sitting side-by-side in a row, then it's essentially the same picture--you could step up to any specific one and ask why they experience being *that* Jesse and not one of the older or younger ones sitting elsewhere in the row, and this isn't fundamentally different from having a bunch of different people sitting in a row, and stepping up to one and asking why she experiences being *that* person and not one of the others in the row. > > 6. Since you no doubt will claim that every one of your moment selves > experiences itself in its present moment, then how do you explain your > experience of time flowing from those past moments to the present one? And > how do you explain that you have no experience of any of your future moment > selves? If the past and present moments are equivalent, why are they not > symmetrical in this respect? > I assume that all subjective experiences depend on physical brainstates, so I can't know anything that isn't physically encoded in my brain in some way. So the question of why I don't have memories of future selves reduces to a question of why physical systems like the brain can have discrete records of the past but not the future, which I think is ultimately a consequence of the low-entropy boundary condition of the universe near the Big Bang, as I explained in an older post at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/jFX-wTm_E_Q/XbLnkEWtT6kJ . You did respond to that post at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/jFX-wTm_E_Q/yyN5BteqR1IJbut I thought your attempted rebuttal was confused. For example, you said that explaining the physical arrow of time in terms of entropy didn't work because this would imply time would flow backwards in areas of decreasing entropy, but this fails to distinguish between regions where entropy was *spontaneously* decreasing (something too rare to ever be observed at the macroscopic level, though theoretically it the arrow of time *would* be expected to reverse during such a process if it ever happened by chance), vs. areas where the entropy is locally decreasing because a subsystem is making use of low-entropy "fuel" it gets from elsewhere in the system, and shunting off higher-entropy "waste" to other parts of the system, so its local decrease necessarily implies a greater increase in entropy in other parts of the system. In the latter case the arrow of time in the subsystem will match that of the larger system it's interacting with, and I believe this can actually be demonstrated in computer simulations which are based on time-reversible laws. The question of explaining "the experience of time flowing" is trickier. Some block universe advocates would say this is basically an illusion--that we may identify with past or future observer-moments but that there is no actual "flow" from one to another, it's basically no different than identifying with people we're close to and being especially concerned with their happiness. Myself, I would bet that identity-over-time does have a more objective character--I favor the idea of a mathematical "theory of consciousness" of the type discussed by philosopher David Chalmers, and I think that part of this theory will involve defining the probability that the "spotlight" of conscious experience moves from one informational state to another based on some measure of "continuity" between them (whether one has memories of the other and such). This would allow for there to be definite probabilities of different possible "next experiences" in the type of duplication experiments that Bruno describes, or just in the natural splitting which is thought to occur continuously in the many-worlds interpretation. But again this need not imply a unique present moment--if I think of my consciousness as a spotlight successively illuminating various brainstates, there is no need to believe that this spotlight is unique, you could imagine multiple spotlights moving along my worldline with each one at a different point, just as the many-worlds interpretation would imply multiple spotlights for different versions of "me" in different branches of the multiverse. I did discuss this issue a little at the end of my post at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/jFX-wTm_E_Q/jUPOnqbP6hwJbut you didn't respond to that, so I took it you weren't really interested in discussing these more philosophical questions about the nature of consciousness. I'm happy to discuss philosophy of consciousness here, but I do note that this is a complete change in subject from your earlier argument about how *relativity theory* could be used to define a 1:1 correspondence between points on different worldlines, one which is frame-independent. If you still maintain that, then could we keep a parallel discussion thread going to discuss that, separate from the discussion about the argument from qualitative features of conscious experience? Specifically I would be curious to know your answers to the following: 1. The only rules for the 1:1 correspondence that I have been able to glean from your previous posts were: A) the rule saying that if observers are at rest relative to each other far from gravity, then events which are simultaneous in their inertial rest frame also were simultaneous in an absolute frame-invariant sense, and B) the rule saying that if observers start at the same spatial location with clocks synchronized and then move away from each other inertially, identical subsequent readings on their clocks will be simultaneous in an absolute frame-invariant sense. Did you mean for the 1:1 correspondence to include any other rules besides these, and if so what are they? 2. If A) and B) above were mean to be the only two rules, how do you deal with cases where one or both of the observers are accelerating? 3. Do you think rules A) and B) can actually be derived mathematically from the standard textbook equations of relativity theory, or do you base them on some sort of intuition which isn't strictly mathematical? If you think they are implied mathematically by the equations of relativity theory, can you provide the derivation? > And yes, our disagreement is p-time versus block time, because all your > arguments are basically based on your conviction there is no such thing as > an actual now, an actual present moment in which you exist and are actually > a particular age. > No, they are based on the fact that I don't see any compelling argument for believing there *must* be such a thing as an "actual present moment" that goes beyond the limited definitions I mentioned in my answer to question 4 above. Although I strongly favor the block time view I do not claim to be absolutely sure that it's correct, so in that sense I am "agnostic" on the issue. You are the one who has a clear "conviction", and many of your arguments seem to be trying to show that there is something absolutely contradictory about block time or some argument that shows relativity theory falls apart if we don't assume an objective universal present moment. If you want to say that you are at least a little "agnostic" too, that you don't absolutely rule out block time even if you strongly favor an absolute present, then please say so. If not, then our debate is analogous to a debate between a religious believer who claims to be able to "prove" that God exists and that atheism is incoherent, and an agnostic who strongly favors the non-existence of God but doesn't claim to be totally certain, and who is just trying to show that the believer's attempts to "prove" God all fail, while leaving open the question of whether God actually exists or not. > > Last question: Why do you act every minute of every day as if you live in > a present moment through which clock time flows if it actually doesn't? How > can your mind be so completely deluded in this respect? Why does everyone > in the world except a few members of the block universe cult believe this > and act on it successfully every minute of their lives? Why is everyone in > the world so deluded except for the block universe cult? > In what specific ways am I acting "as if I live in a present moment", defined in some more universal, non-local sense than the definitions I gave in answer to question 4? Obviously each of my observer-moments is most concerned with things in my immediate temporal vicinity, but that doesn't imply that I'm acting as if other times don't "exist", any more than being most concerned with things in one's immediate geographical vicinity means you are acting as if other places don't exist. > > One more question: Do you agree that if you lived in a block universe that > you would be completely deterministic with no free will at all, and that > you would be effectively a pre-programmed zombie? > No, determinism means that future states are completely determined by past states, it's logically possible that you could have a block universe where the laws of physics would *not* allow perfect prediction of future states by a Laplacina demon who knew the complete physical state of the universe at an earlier time. And if the laws of physics *are* deterministic, wouldn't we be equally lacking in the type of "free will" you're talking about regardless of whether the future actually existed or not, since either way the future state would be totally inevitable given the present state? Also, note that many philosophers define "free will" in a different way that isn't inherently incompatible with determinism, a view known as "compatibilism": http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/ > One more: If you flash freeze a brain with the exact state of its neural > circuitry intact would that brain be alive or dead? Would it know what its > state was? > I tend to believe that in a mathematical theory of consciousness of the type I discussed, a single "observer-moment" would be associated with a set of causally-interconnected events occuring in the brain over some short time period, perhaps linked to the psychological concept of the "specious present", a time period during which signals arriving at the brain at slightly different times become integrated into a single perception where all the signals are informed by the context of the others. An example of this is the "phi phenomenon", where if two spot at slightly different locations are flashed together in quick succession, subjects report seeing the dot move continuously from one location to the other, and if the two dots flashed by the experimenters have different colors, they actually report seeing the dot change color midway through the movement, *before* it reached the second location; in this case it seems the signals associated with the second dot have been "backdated" so that they could be integrated with the signals associated with the first one. Anyway, the short of it is that if experiences are associated with networks of causally-interconnected events rather than just physical arrangements of matter at a single moment, then a frozen brain wouldn't be experiencing anything. > > And stop labeling my theory "presentism". It's not a subset of any other > theory type. People label things to keep from actually understanding them. > I have only said that your theory is a "presentist" one, not that it is synonymous with presentism. Obviously your theory is a specific *type* of presentist theory which adds a lot of additional ideas that aren't part of a bare definition of presentism, just like general relativity or Newtonian gravity are specific *types* of mathematical theories of gravity. Are you denying that your theory would even be a *type* of presentist theory? Remember, the definition of presentism is just that there is an objective universal present, and that nothing outside the present really "exists", both of which seem to be characteristics of your p-time theory. Jesse > > On Saturday, February 22, 2014 6:07:17 PM UTC-5, jessem wrote: >> >> >> >> On Sat, Feb 22, 2014 at 3:03 PM, Edgar L. Owen <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Jesse, >> >> I think the basic problem in our discussion, which seems intractable from >> you answers below, is your basic belief that time doesn't doesn't flow, >> that there is no such thing as a now in which you or the twins actually >> exist. From your answers it seems clear that you can't even bring yourself >> to agree that you are actually some particular age right now, or were at >> any time in the past. If you don't even believe that I can't see any hope >> of agreement or having a meaningful discussion. >> >> >> If "right now" is taken to presume there is a UNIQUE now, then you are >> simply assuming what you seemed to be trying to prove. On the other hand, >> if "right now" is understood to be an "indexical" term (see >> http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/indexicals/ ) whose meaning depends on >> who's saying it, like "here" or "mine", then of course I have a definite >> age "right now". It's just that in this case "I" must be understood to >> refer to a particular observer-moment among many, the one having the >> experience of saying the sentence. So the fact that I have a definite age >> right now does not imply the nonexistence of other Jesse-observer-moments >> at different ages who could be just as real as I am, and who would mean >> something different by "right now", any more than the sentence "I am here >> in Rhode Island" implies the nonexistence of other people at different >> locations who would mean something different if they used the word "here". >> This is not to say that those other Jesse-observer-moments MUST be just as >> real as I am, just that the fact I can say "I have a definite age right >> now" doesn't prove anything one way or another about whether other >> Jesse-observer-moments with different "nows" exist or not. >> >> >> >> >> It's quite clear from all the numerous examples I gave that it is >> possible to determine a 1:1 correlation between the twin's actual ages in >> terms of their own clock time readings (what you call their proper times). >> >> >> >> You have never given any *general* rule for determining this, you just >> gave two rules for specific cases: 1) the rule saying that if observers are >> at rest relative to one another far from gravity, the ages that are >> simultaneous in their inertial rest frame are also simultaneous in p-time, >> and 2) the rules saying that if observers start at a common location with >> clocks synchronized and then travel away from that location inertially, >> identical subsequent readings on their clocks will be simultaneous in >> p-time (again assuming no gravity). This doesn't tell us how to determine >> the 1:1 correlation if one of the observers accelerates during his journey, >> or if they are in a gravitational field. What's more, you didn't really >> give any rational *justification* for these rules, you just asserted that >> they were true. Even a fellow believer in presentism might disagree with >> these rules (for example, many presentists believe in a preferred reference >> frame, such that only events that were simultaneous in that frame *truly* >> happened "at the same time")--do you think they should just take your >> pronouncements on faith? >> >> Finally, there is the small matter that rule 1) leads to a paradox where >> two different points on the same person's worldline would end up being >> simultaneous in p-time, assuming p-time simultaneity is transitive and that >> events at the same point in spacetime in relativity also happen at the same >> p-time. Your only response to my bringing up this paradox (the one with >> four observers Alice, Bob, Arlene and Bart in >> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/jFX-wTm_E_Q/pxg0VAAHJRQJ) >> was to deny that events at the same point in spacetime happen at the same >> p-time, but some of your comments made me think you were misunderstanding >> the meaning of "same point in spacetime", so I repeatedly asked you to >> address some simple questions that would clarify if you were understanding >> the meaning the same way that I do. But you have been incredibly evasive, >> continually ignoring my requests to answer my questions on the subject, >> even when I narrowed it down to a single question at the end of my last >> post to you at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/jFX-wTm_ >> E_Q/LF0Xcds_qtQJ >> >> I would think that if an intellectually honest person is told there is a >> contradiction in something they've proposed, they would want to explore the >> argument for a contradiction, either showing that it doesn't work or >> admitting the contradiction is genuine and revising their position. >> Repeatedly ducking the issue doesn't seem to be the response of someone who >> is interested in open-minded intellectual exploration, as opposed to paying >> attention only to arguments that support their current beliefs. >> >> >> >> >> This is their 'true actual age' because both twins agree on both actual >> ages and how their clock times correlate. They do this not by OBSERVING the >> other's age, but by calculating it from knowledge of how relativity works >> in both their frames. >> >> >> I don't see how relativity supports either of your premises 1) or 2) >> above, and you have never given any attempt to derive them from basic >> agreed-upon equations of SR like the time dilation equation or the Lorentz >> transformation. >> >> >> >> >> But since you can't even bring yourself to admit the twins were actually >> alive with a particular actual age at every point on their world lines I >> see no useful way to continue the discussion. >> >> >> >> Again, if "particular actual age" is understood as an indexical term, >> then of course I "admit that"--each point on their world-line has a >> specific actual age (proper time between that point and their birth), it's >> just that there's no basis in relativity for thinking that there must be a >> *unique* point on their worldline that represents their age "now" in some >> universal present. >> >> >> Thus the basic disagreement is not really about whether p-time is >> >> ... > > -- > 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. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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