On Thu, Dec 20, 2018 at 8:28 PM Bruce Kellett <bhkellet...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 21, 2018 at 1:07 PM Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> On Thu, Dec 20, 2018 at 7:11 PM Bruce Kellett <bhkellet...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >> >>> On Fri, Dec 21, 2018 at 11:49 AM Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> Do you believe other locations in space exist? >>>> >>> >>> They exist, but there is no sense in which they are simultaneous with my >>> existence. >>> >> >> There are certain senses in which you could, but I mostly agree (as they >> are not objective). >> >> >>> They exist because events at other locations in my past light cone can >>> affect me, and I can affect events at other locations in my future light >>> cone. >>> >> >> Okay, no problem with this. >> >> >>> Do you believe other locations in time exist? >>>> >>> >>> I believe that I have a past, and will have a future, but I do not >>> believe that these exist in my present. Such an idea is clearly a >>> linguistic confusion. >>> >> >> I agree. >> >> >>> (I answer yes to both questions, that is all I mean by block time -- >>>> that there is no privileged part of space time blessed with the property of >>>> existence). >>>> >>> >>> The present is all that you can know exists. All else is idle >>> speculation. >>> >> >> But you just said there is no such thing as the present (since there is >> no objective notion of simultaneity) >> > > I have never said that there is no such thing as the present. All I have > said is that the notion of a space-like hyper-surface of simultaneity is > not an objective notion. > Okay I agree with this. I happen to take this as evidence that the "passage of time" is also not an objective notion. What do you think about the passage of time, is it purely a subjective notion in your view? > The print moment exists now for ev very one of us individually. > > Of course, you can construct imaginary theories in which unicorns, >>> fairies, and Hogwarts Castle exist, but you would not have any evidence for >>> any of these. >>> >> >> You just said you have evidence for the existence of objects in your past >> light cone. Why presume that they would disappear from existence? What is >> the motivation/justification for such an idea? >> > > I have no evidence that they exist now, since all I am currently aware of > is the record of their past existence as it is present to me now. The > evidence is that they existed in the past. Why is that not sufficient? I > tend not to believe in things, like fairies, for which I have no current > evidence. > This seems to be a trend that explains all aspects of your philosophy. For example, rejecting many-worlds, rejecting other universes, rejecting other points in time, rejecting mathematical objects. It's based purely on what you can see. It is a theory of minimizing the number of objects in reality. But to me this is not a correct application of Occam, which was about simplifying theories by reducing their unnecessary assumptions, rather than reducing the ontologies of those theories. So by lobbing off the assumption that some points in the past stop existing, you get a larger universe, more points in spacetime exist (but this is simpler, as you don't have to add a theory of how different events come into or out of existence), or with many-worlds, if you drop the collapse postulate, you get the same predictions, and a simpler theory (but a huge number of unseen histories). With this different philosophy/value system I don't think we will ever agree on what makes for a better theory, for in all these cases that we disagree, it comes down to my preference for a simpler theory, and your preference for a simpler ontology. Jason -- 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 https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
