On 4/21/2015 6:40 PM, LizR wrote:
The block universe concept is simply another way of treating time as a dimension - or, of course, of merging space and time into a 4D continuum, as in special relativity. All the arguments against it I've seen (so far) rely on mischaracterising it (in ways that are fairly obvious when you stop and think about them). Einstein was quite happy with the idea,
Einstein was also very unhappy with quantum uncertainty.
so anyone who wants to "prove Einstein wrong" had better have something that isn't just an obviously mistaken attack on a straw man view that no physicist would subscribe to before they start, or they risk looking a bit stupid. For example the above quoted paper apparently states that "/This view is however based on time-reversible microphysical laws and does not represent macro-physical behaviour and the development of emergent complex systems, including life, which do indeed exist in the real universe" /- which is just rubbish; the BU concept is simply what you get if space-time is a continuum. The author has obviously simply got some incorrect view of the whole concept, written a paper around it (and probably been laughed at by the vast majority of physicists).
Note he's co-author of a book "The Large Scale Structure of Spacetime" with Stephen Hawking and "Flat and Curved Spacetimes" with R M Williams. So maybe you should think about it before you laugh.
The simplest way to think about a block universe is to look at an event in the past. An important decision, say. If you can't now change it, what evidence do you have that you could have changed it at the time?
What evidence do you have that you could not have?
What does that concept even mean?
Ellis means it's unpredictable from the initial values on a Cauchy surface - not just in practice, but in principle.
Note that the multiverse doesn't change this view, it just broadens it. Especially since QM is deterministic for a multiverse.
For some meanings of "deterministic". Brent -- 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/d/optout.
