From: *Jason Resch* <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
On Tue, Dec 18, 2018 at 7:27 PM Bruce Kellett <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On Wed, Dec 19, 2018 at 12:19 PM Jason Resch <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On Tue, Dec 18, 2018 at 6:45 PM Bruce Kellett
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On Wed, Dec 19, 2018 at 11:27 AM Jason Resch
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On Tue, Dec 18, 2018 at 6:05 PM Bruce Kellett
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
wrote:
On Wed, Dec 19, 2018 at 11:02 AM Jason Resch
<[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On Tue, Dec 18, 2018 at 3:23 PM John Clark
<[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Arithmetical computationsdon't change so
there can't be a correspondence between
them and the evolution of spacetime or
with anything else that can change.
"y = 2x+1" defines the arithmetical relation
of "oddness".
Solutions to this equation yield (compute) for
*y* all possible odd numbers. *y* changes with
respect to increasing values of *x*, just as
John Clark's brain changes with respect to
increasing values of *t*.
How does 'x' change?
With respect to y, and vice versa (like your brain
state and your location in spacetime).
Poor analogy. Change in the physical world is governed by
dynamics, described by equations with a veritable 't',
called time. Time is probably only a local phenomenon, but
I do not see any 'time' variable in arithmetic.
It depends on the equation.
What equation? There are no dynamics in arithmetic.
There are computations.
But no dynamics.
The analogy with the block universe idea is useless,
because the block universe idea is only a picture, not a
reality. Special relativity merely abolishes any notion of
Newtonian absolute time, it does not prove that all
instants of time are equally and simultaneously existent.
The whole notion of simultaneity is abolished in
relativity. Minkowski's block universe was a response to
this, but not a very good picture in the final analysis,
because it completely fails to capture the local dynamical
aspect of the time variable.
Did you read https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/11921131.pdf ?
No. Why should I?
Because you believe relativity cannot be used to justify the block
universe concept.
I do not have the time or inclination to rebut every argument that is
presented in arbitrary papers. But if you abandon the idea of
'simultaneity' as used in this paper, the objections to the idea of "the
present" as a ourely local concept collapse.
What is your interpretation of the
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rietdijk%E2%80%93Putnam_argument ?
The "present" is a local concept which cannot be extended to
global hyperplanes.
Which would means there is no such thing as a present point in time.
No, the idea has no such implication.
Remember, the only sensible definition of "time" is an operational
definition -- "time is what is measured on a clock". This is a
purely local concept.
So then you have reduced the present to a point in spacetime, a single
event.
Strictly speaking, yes. But for practical purposes, the spatial extent
of the "present" can be defined as that region over which the travel
time of a light signal is negligible compared to the characteristic time
scale of the processes of interest.
Do you agree in principal, that human experience of a
dynamically evolving universe cannot be used to decide between
block time and presentism?
Special relativity certainly cannot be used to justify the block
universe concept.
That wasn't my question. Do you believe your experience rules out the
block universe?
No, neither do I believe that my experience necessitates a block
universe view. Special relativity renders the idea of global
simultaneity otiose. So global hypersurfaces of simultaneity make little
sense. They make even less sense in general relativity, where the local
nature of the concept of time is even more evident.
Bruce
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