Re: Gödel and the unreality of time

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 15 May 2018, at 21:52, Lawrence Crowell  
> wrote:
> 
> On Monday, May 14, 2018 at 10:52:51 AM UTC-5, telmo_menezes wrote:
> https://edwardfeser.blogspot.fr/2018/05/godel-and-unreality-of-time.html 
>  
> 
>  The Gödel universe is a net rotating universe. The whole spacetime is 
> rotating, which means the Kerr effect dominates over standard gravitation. 
> This results in closed timelike curves. This spacetime violates the averaged 
> weak energy condition (AWC) T^{00} ≥ 0 of Hawking and Penrose, which means 
> quantum fields are not bounded below. The anti-de Sitter (AdS) spacetime 
> violates the averaged weak energy condition as well. However, its conformal 
> structure is such that on a local causal patch closed timelike curves are 
> removed. 
> 
> The Gödel universe most likely does not exist, or at least we are not in that 
> spacetime. Since it violates the AWC quantum particles can emerge from the 
> vacuum. With the AdS spacetime causal wedges can generate entire cosmologies. 
> I am not sure if the Gödel universe can do this. Generally this is regarded 
> as a pathological spacetime, one that is maybe removed by a superselection of 
> states in quantum gravitation.
> 
> I am not sure this means time does not exist. It would mean in a way that 
> time has no global properties, but locally it would still have meaning. On a 
> frame with a short enough duration there is not time looping it seems 
> plausible that time can be defined

The point of Gödel is that some solution of Einstein GR theory can admit 
circular time. Gödel was skeptical about time, but also on the whole of 
naturalism. Eventually Einstein understood why we can choose mathematics when 
interested in fundamental question.

Gödel is the one who showed that the computation are realised in arithmetic, 
and makes the point clearly in a footnote, but he missed the Church-Turing 
thesis, and mechanism. Well Gödel did 99,9%. But Post, Turing and Church got 
the universal “thing”.

Gödel does not seem to have been really interested in cosmology, but he did 
have some interest in theology, as explained in the books by Hao Wang. Yet, 
neither its “Gödel ‘sRotating Universe”, nor his proof of the existence of 
(St-Anselmus’) god, were taken seriously by him. It was just models (solutions) 
of theories/equations to illustrate philosophical/metaphysical points: notably 
here the disparition of time, and the fact that theology can be done rigorously.

An interesting book on Gödel and Einstein on Time  is “A World Without Time, 
the ForgottenLegacy of Gödel and Einstein”, by Palle Yourgrau (Allan 
Lane-Penguin 2005, London). Apparently Einstein was forbidden to even think 
about quantum mechanics !). And Einstein seems to have forbid to itself to 
search for a relation between incompleteness and the quantum, but with 
mechanism this comes as a gift on the plate of the relative self-reference.

Bruno 


> 
> LC 
> 
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Re: Gödel and the unreality of time

[Lawrence Crowell]

On Monday, May 14, 2018 at 10:52:51 AM UTC-5, telmo_menezes wrote:
>
> https://edwardfeser.blogspot.fr/2018/05/godel-and-unreality-of-time.html 
>

 The Gödel universe is a net rotating universe. The whole spacetime is 
rotating, which means the Kerr effect dominates over standard gravitation. 
This results in closed timelike curves. This spacetime violates the 
averaged weak energy condition (AWC) T^{00} ≥ 0 of Hawking and Penrose, 
which means quantum fields are not bounded below. The anti-de Sitter (AdS) 
spacetime violates the averaged weak energy condition as well. However, its 
conformal structure is such that on a local causal patch closed timelike 
curves are removed. 

The Gödel universe most likely does not exist, or at least we are not in 
that spacetime. Since it violates the AWC quantum particles can emerge from 
the vacuum. With the AdS spacetime causal wedges can generate entire 
cosmologies. I am not sure if the Gödel universe can do this. Generally 
this is regarded as a pathological spacetime, one that is maybe removed by 
a superselection of states in quantum gravitation.

I am not sure this means time does not exist. It would mean in a way that 
time has no global properties, but locally it would still have meaning. On 
a frame with a short enough duration there is not time looping it seems 
plausible that time can be defined

LC 

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Gödel and the unreality of time

[Telmo Menezes]

https://edwardfeser.blogspot.fr/2018/05/godel-and-unreality-of-time.html

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Re: The Unreality of Time

[Jason Resch]

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 2:30 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  On 7/31/2012 10:48 AM, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

 The problem is to explain also why the entropy of the early universe was
 so low. If you just accept that this is the case and also don't bother
 about the very distant future, there is no problem. But if you assume that
 time goes on from the infinite distant past and/or to the infinite distant
 future, you have a problem, because smaller local low entropy states are
 then more likely than the whole observable universe being in some low
 entropy state.

  That make me think about the people that try to discover the whys of the
 arrow of time by taking concepts like beginning of the universe.  That
 presuposses the arrow of time that he is trying to demonstrate how it
 arises in the first place. this is a circular reasoning.


 No, it's not circular.  Beginning is just the low entropy state.


  All that he can demonstrate empirically is that it follows entropy, an
 then, he is puzzled by the fact that  entropy was so low at the beginning


 The interesting question is why there is there uniformity in the different
 'arrows of time'.



Brent,

You may enjoy these musings on that question:
http://www.sidis.net/ANIMContents.htm

I don't know how accurate it is, but it was written by someone regarded as
one of the smartest of people from recent history.  In any event, I found
it quite interesting, and would be interested to hear other's thoughts
about his ideas.

Jason


 Why does the local increase in thermodynamic entropy match the expansion
 of the universe?  Why does the radiation AoT match the quantum branching of
 MWI?




  but if we take the idea of a block universe shaped as a four dimensional
 bell  with a singularity in the left ( see the figure that I linked), there
 is no arrow of time here. is our life that goes along very  short  segments
 from left to right in the middle of  this figure. what  we do is to
 extrapolate this sort segment to the whole figure. But this is not right.
 first, time is local, according with general relativity. How we extrapolate
 it? by assuming that time progress in the universe in the  direction that
 we perceive causality, that is, in the direction of entropy increase.

  but even so, there is not a single arrow of time where entropy
 increases. there are infinite lines of  entropy increase/arrows of  time
 departin from the singularity, which diverge radially trough the bell and
 extend to the right in the figure.

  If i´m right, the existence of a gradient of entropy and, thus the
 existence of a singularity with maximum entropy somewhere, at a point which
 we consider origin of the universe, is a pre-requisite for natural
 selection and life. Natural selection (as I said before) select good
 correlations which deal with macroscopical events, to design life and
 observers. That is why we see this universe with such unavoidable notion of
 beginning and not other in other ways.

  A boltzman brain is just a curiosity, unless the bolzman fluctionation
 create not a single brain but a local portion of the universe that develop
 in a way that maintain intellgent beings. In this case, it
 is indistinguishable if the universe is or not the product of a boltzman
 fluctuation.


 The problem is that statistical mechanical estimates of probabilities
 favor the random occurrence of the curiosity over the universe.

 Brent

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Re: The Unreality of Time

[Bruno Marchal]

On 03 Aug 2012, at 01:43, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

Evgnii,. The question is that the mind is not the brain in the same  
way that Microsoft Word running in a computer ins not the computer.  
The intuitive notion of location of our self, our mind behind de  
eyes and thus inside the skull is not a mere derivation of the fact  
that the brain is located there, but it is different. It is a  
evolutionary adaptation, and a adaptation is a design, that is for  
good reasons our intuition in location of our self is in the head.  
But the fact that is is an adaptation and not something derived from  
the position of the brain is that the mind can be cheated to be  
located in a separated place. Wiht a camera and a monitor and  
glasses of virtual realtiy it is possible to cheat ourseves, and  
think that we are behind our bodies.


We think thar our self is in the head because in this way we control  
better ourselves and we can react to inmediate dangers better.( That  
is why fighter pilots, that need  heavy feedback and agile movements  
fly with their machines, while the spy and air to ground missions  
can be managed remotely)


but the mind is not in the phisical space . Rather that that, in the  
kantian sense, space , the intuitive space, the euclidean space,  
seems to be the way the mind organize the objects of his perception.  
This space may be isomorphic with the space of the phisical world,  
but is not the same. Think  for example of a program which simulate  
a 3D space with objects which receive feedback from the physical  
space trough a camera. Both spaces are siimlar, but the simulated  
space do not use phisical space.


so when a person look at his hand, he is perceiving his hand, and by  
definition the hand he sees is in his mind. This hand is not in the  
phisical space, it is in the mental space. it is not in the phisical  
world. it is in the mental world.  But there is a phisical hand.  Is  
natural selection the designer that assures that his phisical hand  
is doing what is mental hand his doing, Except if it is an  
schizofrenic, is using allucinatory drugs or has some serious  
deficiency. It natural selection the designer that discard  bad  
mental perceptions of reality.


However, this does say nothing about the nature of the phisical  
world. The fact taht two persons see the same does not assure that  
the phisical world is that way. Both can be in a Matix world, where  
his sensory nervous terminations are conected to a computer  
simulation. And still both perceive space and objects.  But this  
arangement can not evolve as a result of  any natural process,


If we are machine, then that arrangement did evolve (in a logical non  
temporal sense) from a very special natural number atemporal process.  
Which indeed is not a natural process in the aristotelian sense.
This is testable, for that atemporal process can be described through  
computer science and mathematics.
Thanks to QM in physics, and Gödel in math, computationalism (we are  
local relative digital machine) fits with the empirical physics, up to  
now.


Bruno







2012/7/31 Evgenii Rudnyi use...@rudnyi.ru
Alberto,

Thank you for your answers. I will make one comment now. I plan to  
read Schneider on molecular machines (thanks for the link) and then  
I may make more comments.


On 31.07.2012 11:08 Alberto G. Corona said the following:

Evgenii, great questions

2012/7/30 Evgenii Rudnyiuse...@rudnyi.ru

On 30.07.2012 11:19 Alberto G. Corona said the following:


...


The activity of the brain is the mind and the mind is a separate
world that includes all that can be perceived. What is outside of the
mind may just plain mathematics. What we call phisical world is in
reality set of phenomenons perceived by the mind. Observations happen
in the mind. We can repeat and verify experiments because we live in
the same mathematical reality outside of the mind, and because our
minds have similar architecture and experience, so we have the same
language, interests, experimental machines, procedures, so, as Eric
Voegelin said, we live in a shared social mind.


I am not sure if I understand. How do you connect these two  
assumptions:



What we call phisical world is in reality set of phenomenons  
perceived by

the mind.

because we live in the same mathematical reality outside of the mind

Do you mean that the world outside of the mind is congruent with the
perceived world by the mind?

Yes. This is not magical, but a product of natural selection. Our  
mental

world is made to support life, and life is the art of maintaining and
reproducing our bodies, that live outside of the mind. A computer can
simulate anythnig we want, but our brains are dedicated computers  
devoted

full time to carefully examine the external reality that appear to our
perception as phenomenons or else, we would not survive. Some  
irrealities

can be accepted  when they are in a trade-off with other more valuable
knowledge, or the 

Re: The Unreality of Time

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

Alberto,

I have one more question.

On 31.07.2012 11:08 Alberto G. Corona said the following:

Evgenii, great questions

2012/7/30 Evgenii Rudnyiuse...@rudnyi.ru


On 30.07.2012 11:19 Alberto G. Corona said the following:


...


  Let us say that there is some conglomerate of atoms. When it

computes and when not?

 From a black-box perspective, they compute when they are open to to
the


environment and they maintain its internal entropy. That may be the
definition of life too. From inside, they must live in a predictable
environment with smooth phisical laws where entrophy dangers and
opportinities can be discovered to react appropriately



I would suggest to consider a series as follows:

A greath exercise,




1) A rock;


A rock does not compute but it may be said that  it maintain its internal
order by generating a newtonian force equal and opposed to every force
exerted against it. So it may be considered that perform a analogical
computation. But a rock does not preserve and extend its information by
reproduction.



2) A ballcock in the toilet;


It is an analogical device with a detector (the piece thar floats) and an
actuator  (the piece that closes the flux of water) . Both are solidary.
The computation is the most simple possible: upon a threshold the flux of
water is interrupted.



Could you please describe a bit more what the difference in computation 
do you see between a rock and a ballcock?


A quote about the rock to this end:

Take that rock over there. It doesn’t seem to be doing much of 
anything, at least to our gross perception. But at the microlevel it 
consists of an unimaginable number of atoms connected by springy 
chemical bonds, all jiggling around at a rate that even our fastest 
supercomputer might envy. And they are not jiggling at random. The 
rock’s innards ‘see’ the entire universe by means of the gravitational 
and electromagnetic signals it is continuously receiving. Such a system 
can be viewed as an all-purpose information processor, one whose inner 
dynamics mirror any sequence of mental states that our brains might run 
through.


Evgenii

http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2011/02/rock-and-information.html

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Re: The Unreality of Time

[Alberto G. Corona]

Evgenn

I have not much time this week. I just added a paragraph below.  I will ask
this with more detail later:

2012/8/2 Evgenii Rudnyi use...@rudnyi.ru

 Alberto,

 I have one more question.

 On 31.07.2012 11:08 Alberto G. Corona said the following:

  Evgenii, great questions

 2012/7/30 Evgenii Rudnyiuse...@rudnyi.ru

  On 30.07.2012 11:19 Alberto G. Corona said the following:


 ...


Let us say that there is some conglomerate of atoms. When it

 computes and when not?

  From a black-box perspective, they compute when they are open to to
 the

  environment and they maintain its internal entropy. That may be the
 definition of life too. From inside, they must live in a predictable
 environment with smooth phisical laws where entrophy dangers and
 opportinities can be discovered to react appropriately


 I would suggest to consider a series as follows:

 A greath exercise,



  1) A rock;

  A rock does not compute but it may be said that  it maintain its
 internal
 order by generating a newtonian force equal and opposed to every force
 exerted against it. So it may be considered that perform a analogical
 computation. But a rock does not preserve and extend its information by
 reproduction.


  2) A ballcock in the toilet;

  It is an analogical device with a detector (the piece thar floats) and
 an
 actuator  (the piece that closes the flux of water) . Both are solidary.
 The computation is the most simple possible: upon a threshold the flux of
 water is interrupted.


 Could you please describe a bit more what the difference in computation do
 you see between a rock and a ballcock?

 A quote about the rock to this end:

 Take that rock over there. It doesn’t seem to be doing much of anything,
 at least to our gross perception. But at the microlevel it consists of an
 unimaginable number of atoms connected by springy chemical bonds, all
 jiggling around at a rate that even our fastest supercomputer might envy.
 And they are not jiggling at random. The rock’s innards ‘see’ the entire
 universe by means of the gravitational and electromagnetic signals it is
 continuously receiving. Such a system can be viewed as an all-purpose
 information processor, one whose inner dynamics mirror any sequence of
 mental states that our brains might run through.

 Evgenii

 http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2011/02/**rock-and-information.htmlhttp://blog.rudnyi.ru/2011/02/rock-and-information.html


It could be said that even an elemental particle computes, because it
interacts in defined ways with other particules. Matter then is a parallell
computer with as much nodes as particles etc. But this is a paralelized
version of the idea of the universe simulated by a computer program, with
the variation that the computer is the whole universe itself.

Life, thus would be a computation over a computation, because living beings
compute at the macrostate level, using macrosciopical laws, not at the
particule level.  Byt I think that the idea of particle computing is wrong.
the idea of a simulation trougn steps that represent a new state of every
particle is wromg, whether the steps are caculated by a computer or the
whole universe. Among other things because time is not a first class
citizen in any cosmological theory. I think our observations, that is,
life, determine a local time, but that´s all. I think that the best view of
the particles according with the theory are trajectories in a static
space-time  within a manifold where nothing changes. This is the idea of
the block universe. Computation at the level of particles is wrong from my
point of view. And thus the idea of a computation  in a rock does not
.refer to the interactions between individual particles. From my point of
view my description of a rock as a newtonian computer  is just a intriguing
curiosity for now.

A ballcock perform some computation it generates good outcomes for the
humans no matter if the flux of water is intense or slow and thus it may be
considered as candidate to be  a part of a living being. What living being?
 It may be part of what Dawkins call the extended genotype of the human
being. like a car or any human invention. Then a rock have a similar
function if this rock is part of a wall in a house, for example.




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Re: The Unreality of Time

[Alberto G. Corona]

Evgnii,. The question is that the mind is not the brain in the same way
that Microsoft Word running in a computer ins not the computer. The
intuitive notion of location of our self, our mind behind de eyes and thus
inside the skull is not a mere derivation of the fact that the brain is
located there, but it is different. It is a evolutionary adaptation, and a
adaptation is a design, that is for good reasons our intuition in location
of our self is in the head. But the fact that is is an adaptation and not
something derived from the position of the brain is that the mind can be
cheated to be located in a separated place. Wiht a camera and a monitor and
glasses of virtual realtiy it is possible to cheat ourseves, and think that
we are behind our bodies.

We think thar our self is in the head because in this way we control better
ourselves and we can react to inmediate dangers better.( That is why
fighter pilots, that need  heavy feedback and agile movements fly with
their machines, while the spy and air to ground missions can be managed
remotely)

but the mind is not in the phisical space . Rather that that, in the
kantian sense, space , the intuitive space, the euclidean space, seems to
be the way the mind organize the objects of his perception. This space may
be isomorphic with the space of the phisical world, but is not the same.
Think  for example of a program which simulate a 3D space with objects
which receive feedback from the physical space trough a camera. Both spaces
are siimlar, but the simulated space do not use phisical space.

so when a person look at his hand, he is perceiving his hand, and by
definition the hand he sees is in his mind. This hand is not in the
phisical space, it is in the mental space. it is not in the phisical world.
it is in the mental world.  But there is a phisical hand.  Is natural
selection the designer that assures that his phisical hand is doing what is
mental hand his doing, Except if it is an schizofrenic, is using
allucinatory drugs or has some serious deficiency. It natural selection the
designer that discard  bad mental perceptions of reality.

However, this does say nothing about the nature of the phisical world. The
fact taht two persons see the same does not assure that the phisical world
is that way. Both can be in a Matix world, where his sensory nervous
terminations are conected to a computer simulation. And still both perceive
space and objects.  But this arangement can not evolve as a result of  any
natural process,

2012/7/31 Evgenii Rudnyi use...@rudnyi.ru

 Alberto,

 Thank you for your answers. I will make one comment now. I plan to read
 Schneider on molecular machines (thanks for the link) and then I may make
 more comments.

 On 31.07.2012 11:08 Alberto G. Corona said the following:

  Evgenii, great questions

 2012/7/30 Evgenii Rudnyiuse...@rudnyi.ru

  On 30.07.2012 11:19 Alberto G. Corona said the following:


 ...


  The activity of the brain is the mind and the mind is a separate
 world that includes all that can be perceived. What is outside of the
 mind may just plain mathematics. What we call phisical world is in
 reality set of phenomenons perceived by the mind. Observations happen
 in the mind. We can repeat and verify experiments because we live in
 the same mathematical reality outside of the mind, and because our
 minds have similar architecture and experience, so we have the same
 language, interests, experimental machines, procedures, so, as Eric
 Voegelin said, we live in a shared social mind.


 I am not sure if I understand. How do you connect these two assumptions:


 What we call phisical world is in reality set of phenomenons perceived
 by
 the mind.

 because we live in the same mathematical reality outside of the mind

 Do you mean that the world outside of the mind is congruent with the
 perceived world by the mind?

 Yes. This is not magical, but a product of natural selection. Our mental

 world is made to support life, and life is the art of maintaining and
 reproducing our bodies, that live outside of the mind. A computer can
 simulate anythnig we want, but our brains are dedicated computers devoted
 full time to carefully examine the external reality that appear to our
 perception as phenomenons or else, we would not survive. Some irrealities
 can be accepted  when they are in a trade-off with other more valuable
 knowledge, or the perception is too expensive. We do not see individual
 dangerous bacterias for example, but we avoid  them by smell and taste and
 some visual clues,  well before we noticed its existence.

 So when we have in front of our eyes  an arrangement of atoms that has
 direct or indirect meaning for our purposes, we identifty and classify it
 according with his use: men, women, disgusting, pleasing, horses,
 experiments, countries..but also atoms, electrons and so on. And we
 proceed
 acordingly. None of these things exist outside of the mind, but what we
 are
 sure of is that outside there is 

Re: The Unreality of Time

[meekerdb]

On 8/2/2012 4:43 PM, Alberto G. Corona wrote:
We think thar our self is in the head because in this way we control better ourselves 
and we can react to inmediate dangers better.( That is why fighter pilots, that need 
 heavy feedback and agile movements fly with their machines, while the spy and air to 
ground missions can be managed remotely) 


That's why fighter pilots *don't* fly with their missiles. The missiles can turn sharper 
and react faster.  The reason fighter pilots fly with their planes is that the procurement 
system is run by ex-fighter pilots and pilots like to have airplanes to fly in.


Brent

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Re: The Unreality of Time

[Alberto G. Corona]

Evgenii, great questions

2012/7/30 Evgenii Rudnyi use...@rudnyi.ru

 On 30.07.2012 11:19 Alberto G. Corona said the following:



 What do you mean by the world of the mind is different form the
 phisico-mathematical world? Is this as by Descartes res cogitans vs. res
 extensa?


As you said, it is a matter of common sense and Descartes had it.  But it
can be also derived from the Computational hypothesis in virtue of it, even
monist materialists have to accept the world of the mind, (and I need the
opinion of Bruno) because two different material substrates can support
the same mind. Materialism is a monism but has a hidden dualism that is
converted back into monism by the process of avoiding delicate questions,
for example the nature of perceptions and the nature of the suppossedly
external phenomenons that they affirm that they study, This i suspect,
does not resist a deep examination. Within the monist sceintist,  It
resurfaces in the mathematical nature of reality that implies a dualism
between matter and (some) mathematics. That is because matter ,and
 perceived phenomenons of reality are nothing but mental categories like
electron, Person, among other more abstract like USA or Vanity or Essence,
 all of them have some correspondence with the outer world, that I argue,
is purely mathematical. This is the world outside of the mind. Any way you
take it, wether the mind is a product of the matter or the opposite or
something else, there are two different realities. no matter if you put
both in a single substance, or you divide them



 [Our phenomenology conform a common, communicable reality among us

 because it is the product of a common mind, that is a product of
 a common brain architecture, that is a result of a common brain
 development program that is a result of a common genetic
 inheritance]


 Let me ask Max Velmans' question again. According to neuroscience,
 all conscious experience including visual is in the brain. Hence,
 according to the ultimate causes, is the brain in the world or the
 world in the brain? What would you say?


 Again, this question is quite important, as we have to define what

 observation is. Does for example observation happens in the brain



 The activity of the brain is the mind and the mind is a separate
 world that includes all that can be perceived. What is outside of the
 mind may just plain mathematics. What we call phisical world is in
 reality set of phenomenons perceived by the mind. Observations happen
 in the mind. We can repeat and verify experiments because we live in
 the same mathematical reality outside of the mind, and because our
 minds have similar architecture and experience, so we have the same
 language, interests, experimental machines, procedures, so, as Eric
 Voegelin said, we live in a shared social mind.


 I am not sure if I understand. How do you connect these two assumptions:


 What we call phisical world is in reality set of phenomenons perceived by
 the mind.

 because we live in the same mathematical reality outside of the mind

 Do you mean that the world outside of the mind is congruent with the
 perceived world by the mind?

 Yes. This is not magical, but a product of natural selection. Our mental
world is made to support life, and life is the art of maintaining and
reproducing our bodies, that live outside of the mind. A computer can
simulate anythnig we want, but our brains are dedicated computers devoted
full time to carefully examine the external reality that appear to our
perception as phenomenons or else, we would not survive. Some irrealities
can be accepted  when they are in a trade-off with other more valuable
knowledge, or the perception is too expensive. We do not see individual
dangerous bacterias for example, but we avoid  them by smell and taste and
some visual clues,  well before we noticed its existence.

So when we have in front of our eyes  an arrangement of atoms that has
direct or indirect meaning for our purposes, we identifty and classify it
according with his use: men, women, disgusting, pleasing, horses,
experiments, countries..but also atoms, electrons and so on. And we proceed
acordingly. None of these things exist outside of the mind, but what we are
sure of is that outside there is something that make all of us perceive the
same things and it respond with certain laws that we have discovered that
are mathematical. So both are congruent because the mind evolved to be
congruent, but not only congruent, but congruent in  certain defined ways.
There is a branch called evolutionary epistemology that study the
epistemological consequences of the evolved nature of our mind.


  However, The COMP hypothesis it is possible to parsimoniously
 substitute every component of the brain by a silicon analogue without
 the mind being aware of the change. this , for me, makes the question
 were our minds come from a mistery


 Do you know Bruno's theorem? If yes, what do you think about it?


Yes, I agree with the 

Re: The Unreality of Time

[Bruno Marchal]

On 30 Jul 2012, at 19:57, meekerdb wrote:


On 7/30/2012 2:19 AM, Alberto G. Corona wrote:
The Boltzman brains , according with what i have read, are  
completely different beasts. Boltzman pressuposes, that , since no  
random arrangement of matter is statistically impossible, and  
Boltzman demonstrated it in certain conditions (ergodic  
conditions) , with enough time, some arrangements of matter would  
simulate minds, or even worlds and civilizations. But 15.000  
Million years, that is the age of the universe is not enough.


Boltzman was considering the question of how the universe came to be  
in its state of low entropy.  I could be due to a random  
fluctuation.  And it was more probable that the random fluctuation  
simply produced the universe as we see than a fluctuation that  
produced a big bang universe which then evolved into what we see.


Actually I doubt this, like the probability that life appears on earth  
and leads to us, is plausibly bigger than the probability that I  
appears here just now, in my exact current state.



And extending this line of thought further, a fluctuation that  
merely created a brain along with the illusion of this universe was  
still more probable (i.e. less improbable).


If that were true, that could be used to put more doubt on the  
existence of the 1-person indeterminacy measure, I think.


In the UD, or arithmetic, this reflects the competition between little  
numbers (simple explanation) and big numbers (algorithmically complex  
explanation). But the indeterminacy bears on all numbers, so the  
little one have to multiply much more than the complex one, in some  
ways. Linearity at the physical bottom might be explained by that  
phenomenon, qualitatively.





Sean Carroll has a good discussion of this and why this argument  
does not hold for a multiverse, in his book From Infinity to Here.


Looks interesting. I guess this can be very easily extended to the  
many dreams occurring in arithmetic.


Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: The Unreality of Time

[David Nyman]

On 31 July 2012 10:08, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com wrote:

 Materialism is a monism but has a hidden dualism that is converted back
 into monism by the process of avoiding delicate questions, for example the
 nature of perceptions and the nature of the suppossedly external
 phenomenons that they affirm that they study, This i suspect, does not
 resist a deep examination. Within the monist sceintist,  It resurfaces in
 the mathematical nature of reality that implies a dualism between matter
 and (some) mathematics. That is because matter ,and  perceived phenomenons
 of reality are nothing but mental categories like electron, Person, among
 other more abstract like USA or Vanity or Essence,  all of them have some
 correspondence with the outer world, that I argue, is purely mathematical.
 This is the world outside of the mind. Any way you take it, wether the mind
 is a product of the matter or the opposite or something else, there are two
 different realities. no matter if you put both in a single substance, or
 you divide them


Well said.

David

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Re: The Unreality of Time

[smitra]

Citeren Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be:



On 30 Jul 2012, at 19:57, meekerdb wrote:


On 7/30/2012 2:19 AM, Alberto G. Corona wrote:
The Boltzman brains , according with what i have read, are  
completely different beasts. Boltzman pressuposes, that , since no  
random arrangement of matter is statistically impossible, and  
Boltzman demonstrated it in certain conditions (ergodic  
conditions) , with enough time, some arrangements of matter would  
simulate minds, or even worlds and civilizations. But 15.000  
Million years, that is the age of the universe is not enough.


Boltzman was considering the question of how the universe came to be 
 in its state of low entropy.  I could be due to a random  
fluctuation.  And it was more probable that the random fluctuation  
simply produced the universe as we see than a fluctuation that  
produced a big bang universe which then evolved into what we see.


Actually I doubt this, like the probability that life appears on 
earth  and leads to us, is plausibly bigger than the probability that 
I  appears here just now, in my exact current state.



And extending this line of thought further, a fluctuation that  
merely created a brain along with the illusion of this universe was  
still more probable (i.e. less improbable).


If that were true, that could be used to put more doubt on the  
existence of the 1-person indeterminacy measure, I think.


In the UD, or arithmetic, this reflects the competition between 
little  numbers (simple explanation) and big numbers (algorithmically 
complex  explanation). But the indeterminacy bears on all numbers, so 
the  little one have to multiply much more than the complex one, in 
some  ways. Linearity at the physical bottom might be explained by 
that  phenomenon, qualitatively.





Sean Carroll has a good discussion of this and why this argument  
does not hold for a multiverse, in his book From Infinity to Here.


Looks interesting. I guess this can be very easily extended to the  
many dreams occurring in arithmetic.


Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



The problem is to explain also why the entropy of the early universe 
was so low. If you just accept that this is the case and also don't 
bother about the very distant future, there is no problem. But if you 
assume that time goes on from the infinite distant past and/or to the 
infinite distant future, you have a problem, because smaller local low 
entropy states are then more likely than the whole observable universe 
being in some low entropy state.


And Sean Carroll's argument amounts to simply hiding the problem in an 
ever expanding state space, it's not that he has shown that in a 
multiverse the problem doesn't occur.



Saibal

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Re: The Unreality of Time

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Alberto,

On 31 Jul 2012, at 11:08, Alberto G. Corona wrote:


Evgenii, great questions

2012/7/30 Evgenii Rudnyi use...@rudnyi.ru
On 30.07.2012 11:19 Alberto G. Corona said the following:


What do you mean by the world of the mind is different form the  
phisico-mathematical world? Is this as by Descartes res cogitans  
vs. res extensa?



As you said, it is a matter of common sense and Descartes had it.   
But it can be also derived from the Computational hypothesis in  
virtue of it, even monist materialists have to accept the world of  
the mind, (and I need the opinion of Bruno) because two different  
material substrates can support the same mind. Materialism is a  
monism but has a hidden dualism that is converted back into monism  
by the process of avoiding delicate questions, for example the  
nature of perceptions and the nature of the suppossedly external  
phenomenons that they affirm that they study, This i suspect, does  
not resist a deep examination. Within the monist sceintist,  It  
resurfaces in the mathematical nature of reality that implies a  
dualism between matter and (some) mathematics. That is because  
matter ,and  perceived phenomenons of reality are nothing but  
mental categories like electron, Person, among other more abstract  
like USA or Vanity or Essence,  all of them have some correspondence  
with the outer world, that I argue, is purely mathematical. This is  
the world outside of the mind. Any way you take it, wether the mind  
is a product of the matter or the opposite or something else, there  
are two different realities. no matter if you put both in a single  
substance, or you divide them


I agree with all what is said here. I comment rarely your post because  
I usually agree with them.


I do think there is a phenomenological dualism between mind and  
matter, and I do think we can retrieve it from computationalism, where  
such dualism (and others) arise from the fact that all the points of  
view of the self-observing machine obeys different logics, and  
generates different structures in the mind.









[Our phenomenology conform a common, communicable reality among us
because it is the product of a common mind, that is a product of
a common brain architecture, that is a result of a common brain
development program that is a result of a common genetic
inheritance]


Let me ask Max Velmans' question again. According to neuroscience,
all conscious experience including visual is in the brain. Hence,
according to the ultimate causes, is the brain in the world or the
world in the brain? What would you say?


Again, this question is quite important, as we have to define what
observation is. Does for example observation happens in the brain


The activity of the brain is the mind and the mind is a separate
world that includes all that can be perceived. What is outside of the
mind may just plain mathematics. What we call phisical world is in
reality set of phenomenons perceived by the mind. Observations happen
in the mind. We can repeat and verify experiments because we live in
the same mathematical reality outside of the mind, and because our
minds have similar architecture and experience, so we have the same
language, interests, experimental machines, procedures, so, as Eric
Voegelin said, we live in a shared social mind.

I am not sure if I understand. How do you connect these two  
assumptions:



What we call phisical world is in reality set of phenomenons  
perceived by the mind.


because we live in the same mathematical reality outside of the mind

Do you mean that the world outside of the mind is congruent with the  
perceived world by the mind?


Yes. This is not magical, but a product of natural selection. Our  
mental world is made to support life, and life is the art of  
maintaining and reproducing our bodies, that live outside of the  
mind. A computer can simulate anythnig we want, but our brains are  
dedicated computers devoted full time to carefully examine the  
external reality that appear to our perception as phenomenons or  
else, we would not survive. Some irrealities can be accepted  when  
they are in a trade-off with other more valuable knowledge, or the  
perception is too expensive. We do not see individual dangerous  
bacterias for example, but we avoid  them by smell and taste and  
some visual clues,  well before we noticed its existence.


So when we have in front of our eyes  an arrangement of atoms that  
has direct or indirect meaning for our purposes, we identifty and  
classify it according with his use: men, women, disgusting,  
pleasing, horses, experiments, countries..but also atoms, electrons  
and so on. And we proceed acordingly. None of these things exist  
outside of the mind, but what we are sure of is that outside there  
is something that make all of us perceive the same things and it  
respond with certain laws that we have discovered that are  
mathematical. So both are congruent because the mind evolved 

Re: The Unreality of Time

[Alberto G. Corona]

Thnks Bruno, Specially your agreement on dualism make me feel more
confident.

2012/7/31 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be

 Hi Alberto,

 On 31 Jul 2012, at 11:08, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

 Evgenii, great questions

 2012/7/30 Evgenii Rudnyi use...@rudnyi.ru

 On 30.07.2012 11:19 Alberto G. Corona said the following:



 What do you mean by the world of the mind is different form the
 phisico-mathematical world? Is this as by Descartes res cogitans vs. res
 extensa?


 As you said, it is a matter of common sense and Descartes had it.  But it
 can be also derived from the Computational hypothesis in virtue of it, even
 monist materialists have to accept the world of the mind, (and I need the
 opinion of Bruno) because two different material substrates can support
 the same mind. Materialism is a monism but has a hidden dualism that is
 converted back into monism by the process of avoiding delicate questions,
 for example the nature of perceptions and the nature of the suppossedly
 external phenomenons that they affirm that they study, This i suspect,
 does not resist a deep examination. Within the monist sceintist,  It
 resurfaces in the mathematical nature of reality that implies a dualism
 between matter and (some) mathematics. That is because matter ,and
  perceived phenomenons of reality are nothing but mental categories like
 electron, Person, among other more abstract like USA or Vanity or Essence,
  all of them have some correspondence with the outer world, that I argue,
 is purely mathematical. This is the world outside of the mind. Any way you
 take it, wether the mind is a product of the matter or the opposite or
 something else, there are two different realities. no matter if you put
 both in a single substance, or you divide them


 I agree with all what is said here. I comment rarely your post because I
 usually agree with them.

 I do think there is a phenomenological dualism between mind and matter,
 and I do think we can retrieve it from computationalism, where such dualism
 (and others) arise from the fact that all the points of view of the
 self-observing machine obeys different logics, and generates different
 structures in the mind.







 [Our phenomenology conform a common, communicable reality among us

 because it is the product of a common mind, that is a product of
 a common brain architecture, that is a result of a common brain
 development program that is a result of a common genetic
 inheritance]


 Let me ask Max Velmans' question again. According to neuroscience,
 all conscious experience including visual is in the brain. Hence,
 according to the ultimate causes, is the brain in the world or the
 world in the brain? What would you say?


 Again, this question is quite important, as we have to define what

 observation is. Does for example observation happens in the brain



 The activity of the brain is the mind and the mind is a separate
 world that includes all that can be perceived. What is outside of the
 mind may just plain mathematics. What we call phisical world is in
 reality set of phenomenons perceived by the mind. Observations happen
 in the mind. We can repeat and verify experiments because we live in
 the same mathematical reality outside of the mind, and because our
 minds have similar architecture and experience, so we have the same
 language, interests, experimental machines, procedures, so, as Eric
 Voegelin said, we live in a shared social mind.


 I am not sure if I understand. How do you connect these two assumptions:


 What we call phisical world is in reality set of phenomenons perceived
 by the mind.

 because we live in the same mathematical reality outside of the mind

 Do you mean that the world outside of the mind is congruent with the
 perceived world by the mind?

 Yes. This is not magical, but a product of natural selection. Our mental
 world is made to support life, and life is the art of maintaining and
 reproducing our bodies, that live outside of the mind. A computer can
 simulate anythnig we want, but our brains are dedicated computers devoted
 full time to carefully examine the external reality that appear to our
 perception as phenomenons or else, we would not survive. Some irrealities
 can be accepted  when they are in a trade-off with other more valuable
 knowledge, or the perception is too expensive. We do not see individual
 dangerous bacterias for example, but we avoid  them by smell and taste and
 some visual clues,  well before we noticed its existence.

 So when we have in front of our eyes  an arrangement of atoms that has
 direct or indirect meaning for our purposes, we identifty and classify it
 according with his use: men, women, disgusting, pleasing, horses,
 experiments, countries..but also atoms, electrons and so on. And we proceed
 acordingly. None of these things exist outside of the mind, but what we are
 sure of is that outside there is something that make all of us perceive the
 same things and it respond with certain 

Re: The Unreality of Time

[Alberto G. Corona]

The problem is to explain also why the entropy of the early universe was
so low. If you just accept that this is the case and also don't bother
about the very distant future, there is no problem. But if you assume that
time goes on from the infinite distant past and/or to the infinite distant
future, you have a problem, because smaller local low entropy states are
then more likely than the whole observable universe being in some low
entropy state.

That make me think about the people that try to discover the whys of the
arrow of time by taking concepts like beginning of the universe.  That
presuposses the arrow of time that he is trying to demonstrate how it
arises in the first place. this is a circular reasoning.   All that he can
demonstrate empirically is that it follows entropy, an then, he is puzzled
by the fact that  entropy was so low at the beginning

but if we take the idea of a block universe shaped as a four dimensional
bell  with a singularity in the left ( see the figure that I linked), there
is no arrow of time here. is our life that goes along very  short  segments
from left to right in the middle of  this figure. what  we do is to
extrapolate this sort segment to the whole figure. But this is not right.
first, time is local, according with general relativity. How we extrapolate
it? by assuming that time progress in the universe in the  direction that
we perceive causality, that is, in the direction of entropy increase.

but even so, there is not a single arrow of time where entropy increases.
there are infinite lines of  entropy increase/arrows of  time departin from
the singularity, which diverge radially trough the bell and extend to the
right in the figure.

If i´m right, the existence of a gradient of entropy and, thus the
existence of a singularity with maximum entropy somewhere, at a point which
we consider origin of the universe, is a pre-requisite for natural
selection and life. Natural selection (as I said before) select good
correlations which deal with macroscopical events, to design life and
observers. That is why we see this universe with such unavoidable notion of
beginning and not other in other ways.

A boltzman brain is just a curiosity, unless the bolzman fluctionation
create not a single brain but a local portion of the universe that develop
in a way that maintain intellgent beings. In this case, it
is indistinguishable if the universe is or not the product of a boltzman
fluctuation.


2012/7/31 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be


 On 31 Jul 2012, at 17:36, smi...@zonnet.nl wrote:

  Citeren Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be:


 On 30 Jul 2012, at 19:57, meekerdb wrote:

  On 7/30/2012 2:19 AM, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

 The Boltzman brains , according with what i have read, are  completely
 different beasts. Boltzman pressuposes, that , since no  random 
 arrangement
 of matter is statistically impossible, and  Boltzman demonstrated it in
 certain conditions (ergodic  conditions) , with enough time, some
 arrangements of matter would  simulate minds, or even worlds and
 civilizations. But 15.000  Million years, that is the age of the universe
 is not enough.


 Boltzman was considering the question of how the universe came to be
  in its state of low entropy.  I could be due to a random  fluctuation.
  And it was more probable that the random fluctuation  simply produced the
 universe as we see than a fluctuation that  produced a big bang universe
 which then evolved into what we see.


 Actually I doubt this, like the probability that life appears on earth
  and leads to us, is plausibly bigger than the probability that I
  appears here just now, in my exact current state.


  And extending this line of thought further, a fluctuation that  merely
 created a brain along with the illusion of this universe was  still more
 probable (i.e. less improbable).


 If that were true, that could be used to put more doubt on the
  existence of the 1-person indeterminacy measure, I think.

 In the UD, or arithmetic, this reflects the competition between little
  numbers (simple explanation) and big numbers (algorithmically complex
  explanation). But the indeterminacy bears on all numbers, so the  little
 one have to multiply much more than the complex one, in some  ways.
 Linearity at the physical bottom might be explained by that  phenomenon,
 qualitatively.



 Sean Carroll has a good discussion of this and why this argument  does
 not hold for a multiverse, in his book From Infinity to Here.


 Looks interesting. I guess this can be very easily extended to the
  many dreams occurring in arithmetic.

 Bruno


 http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~**marchal/ http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


 The problem is to explain also why the entropy of the early universe was
 so low. If you just accept that this is the case and also don't bother
 about the very distant future, there is no problem. But if you assume that
 time goes on from the infinite distant past and/or to the infinite distant
 future, 

Re: The Unreality of Time

[meekerdb]

On 7/31/2012 8:36 AM, smi...@zonnet.nl wrote:

Citeren Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be:



On 30 Jul 2012, at 19:57, meekerdb wrote:


On 7/30/2012 2:19 AM, Alberto G. Corona wrote:
The Boltzman brains , according with what i have read, are  completely different 
beasts. Boltzman pressuposes, that , since no  random arrangement of matter is 
statistically impossible, and  Boltzman demonstrated it in certain conditions 
(ergodic  conditions) , with enough time, some arrangements of matter would  simulate 
minds, or even worlds and civilizations. But 15.000  Million years, that is the age 
of the universe is not enough.


Boltzman was considering the question of how the universe came to be  in its state of 
low entropy.  I could be due to a random  fluctuation.  And it was more probable that 
the random fluctuation  simply produced the universe as we see than a fluctuation 
that  produced a big bang universe which then evolved into what we see.


Actually I doubt this, like the probability that life appears on earth  and leads to 
us, is plausibly bigger than the probability that I  appears here just now, in my 
exact current state.



And extending this line of thought further, a fluctuation that  merely created a brain 
along with the illusion of this universe was  still more probable (i.e. less improbable).


If that were true, that could be used to put more doubt on the  existence of the 
1-person indeterminacy measure, I think.


In the UD, or arithmetic, this reflects the competition between little  numbers (simple 
explanation) and big numbers (algorithmically complex  explanation). But the 
indeterminacy bears on all numbers, so the  little one have to multiply much more than 
the complex one, in some  ways. Linearity at the physical bottom might be explained by 
that  phenomenon, qualitatively.





Sean Carroll has a good discussion of this and why this argument  does not hold for a 
multiverse, in his book From Infinity to Here.


Looks interesting. I guess this can be very easily extended to the  many dreams 
occurring in arithmetic.


Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



The problem is to explain also why the entropy of the early universe was so low. If you 
just accept that this is the case and also don't bother about the very distant future, 
there is no problem. But if you assume that time goes on from the infinite distant past 
and/or to the infinite distant future, you have a problem, because smaller local low 
entropy states are then more likely than the whole observable universe being in some low 
entropy state.


And Sean Carroll's argument amounts to simply hiding the problem in an ever expanding 
state space, it's not that he has shown that in a multiverse the problem doesn't occur.


As I understand it, his argument is that the multiverse can be past eternal and yet each 
person will find themselves in a universe that started in a low entropy big-bang because 
bubble universes are most probable when they start small.


Brent

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Re: The Unreality of Time

[meekerdb]

On 7/31/2012 10:48 AM, Alberto G. Corona wrote:
The problem is to explain also why the entropy of the early universe was so low. If you 
just accept that this is the case and also don't bother about the very distant future, 
there is no problem. But if you assume that time goes on from the infinite distant past 
and/or to the infinite distant future, you have a problem, because smaller local low 
entropy states are then more likely than the whole observable universe being in some low 
entropy state.


That make me think about the people that try to discover the whys of the arrow of time 
by taking concepts like beginning of the universe.  That presuposses the arrow of time 
that he is trying to demonstrate how it arises in the first place. this is a circular 
reasoning.


No, it's not circular.  Beginning is just the low entropy state.

All that he can demonstrate empirically is that it follows entropy, an then, he is 
puzzled by the fact that  entropy was so low at the beginning


The interesting question is why there is there uniformity in the different 'arrows of 
time'.  Why does the local increase in thermodynamic entropy match the expansion of the 
universe?  Why does the radiation AoT match the quantum branching of MWI?




but if we take the idea of a block universe shaped as a four dimensional bell  with a 
singularity in the left ( see the figure that I linked), there is no arrow of time here. 
is our life that goes along very  short  segments from left to right in the middle of 
 this figure. what  we do is to extrapolate this sort segment to the whole figure. But 
this is not right. first, time is local, according with general relativity. How we 
extrapolate it? by assuming that time progress in the universe in the  direction that we 
perceive causality, that is, in the direction of entropy increase.


but even so, there is not a single arrow of time where entropy increases. there are 
infinite lines of  entropy increase/arrows of  time departin from the singularity, 
which diverge radially trough the bell and extend to the right in the figure.


If i´m right, the existence of a gradient of entropy and, thus the existence of a 
singularity with maximum entropy somewhere, at a point which we consider origin of the 
universe, is a pre-requisite for natural selection and life. Natural selection (as I 
said before) select good correlations which deal with macroscopical events, to design 
life and observers. That is why we see this universe with such unavoidable notion of 
beginning and not other in other ways.


A boltzman brain is just a curiosity, unless the bolzman fluctionation create not a 
single brain but a local portion of the universe that develop in a way that maintain 
intellgent beings. In this case, it is indistinguishable if the universe is or not the 
product of a boltzman fluctuation.


The problem is that statistical mechanical estimates of probabilities favor the random 
occurrence of the curiosity over the universe.


Brent

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Re: The Unreality of Time

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

Alberto,

Thank you for your answers. I will make one comment now. I plan to read 
Schneider on molecular machines (thanks for the link) and then I may 
make more comments.


On 31.07.2012 11:08 Alberto G. Corona said the following:

Evgenii, great questions

2012/7/30 Evgenii Rudnyiuse...@rudnyi.ru


On 30.07.2012 11:19 Alberto G. Corona said the following:



...


The activity of the brain is the mind and the mind is a separate
world that includes all that can be perceived. What is outside of the
mind may just plain mathematics. What we call phisical world is in
reality set of phenomenons perceived by the mind. Observations happen
in the mind. We can repeat and verify experiments because we live in
the same mathematical reality outside of the mind, and because our
minds have similar architecture and experience, so we have the same
language, interests, experimental machines, procedures, so, as Eric
Voegelin said, we live in a shared social mind.



I am not sure if I understand. How do you connect these two assumptions:


What we call phisical world is in reality set of phenomenons perceived by
the mind.

because we live in the same mathematical reality outside of the mind

Do you mean that the world outside of the mind is congruent with the
perceived world by the mind?

Yes. This is not magical, but a product of natural selection. Our mental

world is made to support life, and life is the art of maintaining and
reproducing our bodies, that live outside of the mind. A computer can
simulate anythnig we want, but our brains are dedicated computers devoted
full time to carefully examine the external reality that appear to our
perception as phenomenons or else, we would not survive. Some irrealities
can be accepted  when they are in a trade-off with other more valuable
knowledge, or the perception is too expensive. We do not see individual
dangerous bacterias for example, but we avoid  them by smell and taste and
some visual clues,  well before we noticed its existence.

So when we have in front of our eyes  an arrangement of atoms that has
direct or indirect meaning for our purposes, we identifty and classify it
according with his use: men, women, disgusting, pleasing, horses,
experiments, countries..but also atoms, electrons and so on. And we proceed
acordingly. None of these things exist outside of the mind, but what we are
sure of is that outside there is something that make all of us perceive the
same things and it respond with certain laws that we have discovered that
are mathematical. So both are congruent because the mind evolved to be
congruent, but not only congruent, but congruent in  certain defined ways.
There is a branch called evolutionary epistemology that study the
epistemological consequences of the evolved nature of our mind.


The world in the brain that is congruent with the world outside of the 
brain brings us a paradox, as described by Max Velmans:


“Lehar (2003), however, points out that if the phenomenal world is 
inside the brain, the real skull must be outside the phenomenal world 
(the former and the latter are logically equivalent). Let me be clear: 
if one accepts that


a) The phenomenal world appears to have spatial extension to the 
perceived horizon and dome of the sky.

b) The phenomenal world is really inside the brain.

It follows that

c) The real skull (as opposed to the phenomenal skull) is beyond the 
perceived horizon and dome of the sky.“


Some problem here is that science that we know has started with 
observations and we make these observations in the three dimensional 
world that we observe outside of our body/brain. Now if we say that 
actually what we consciously observe is in the brain, then we should 
reconsider as well what observation is.


Hence my interest to skeptic arguments. For example, see famous ‘Proof 
of an External World’ by Moore


http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moore/

How? By holding up my two hands, and saying, as I make a certain 
gesture with the right hand, ‘Here is one hand’, and adding, as I make a 
certain gesture with the left, ‘and here is another’ (‘Proof of an 
External World’ 166).


I knew that there was one hand in the place indicated by combining a 
certain gesture with my first utterance of ‘here’ and that there was 
another in the different place indicated by combining a certain gesture 
with my second utterance of ‘here’. How absurd it would be to suggest 
that I did not know it, but only believed it, and that perhaps it was 
not the case! You might as well suggest that I do not know that I am now 
standing up and talking — that perhaps after all I'm not, and that it's 
not quite certain that I am! (‘Proof of an External World’ 166)


With the picture as described by you, this does not work any more.

Evgenii


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Re: The Unreality of Time

[Alberto G. Corona]

2012/7/31 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net

  On 7/31/2012 10:48 AM, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

 The problem is to explain also why the entropy of the early universe was
 so low. If you just accept that this is the case and also don't bother
 about the very distant future, there is no problem. But if you assume that
 time goes on from the infinite distant past and/or to the infinite distant
 future, you have a problem, because smaller local low entropy states are
 then more likely than the whole observable universe being in some low
 entropy state.

  That make me think about the people that try to discover the whys of the
 arrow of time by taking concepts like beginning of the universe.  That
 presuposses the arrow of time that he is trying to demonstrate how it
 arises in the first place. this is a circular reasoning.


 No, it's not circular.  Beginning is just the low entropy state.


It depends.
It is circular if as you said, we postulate that Beginning is just the low
entropy state when   if inmediately after we ask ourselves why in the
beginning the entropy was low. That is precisely the situation that I
mentioned.



  All that he can demonstrate empirically is that it follows entropy, an
 then, he is puzzled by the fact that  entropy was so low at the beginning


 The interesting question is why there is there uniformity in the different
 'arrows of time'.  Why does the local increase in thermodynamic entropy
 match the expansion of the universe?  Why does the radiation AoT match the
 quantum branching of MWI?



  but if we take the idea of a block universe shaped as a four dimensional
 bell  with a singularity in the left ( see the figure that I linked), there
 is no arrow of time here. is our life that goes along very  short  segments
 from left to right in the middle of  this figure. what  we do is to
 extrapolate this sort segment to the whole figure. But this is not right.
 first, time is local, according with general relativity. How we extrapolate
 it? by assuming that time progress in the universe in the  direction that
 we perceive causality, that is, in the direction of entropy increase.

  but even so, there is not a single arrow of time where entropy
 increases. there are infinite lines of  entropy increase/arrows of  time
 departin from the singularity, which diverge radially trough the bell and
 extend to the right in the figure.

  If i´m right, the existence of a gradient of entropy and, thus the
 existence of a singularity with maximum entropy somewhere, at a point which
 we consider origin of the universe, is a pre-requisite for natural
 selection and life. Natural selection (as I said before) select good
 correlations which deal with macroscopical events, to design life and
 observers. That is why we see this universe with such unavoidable notion of
 beginning and not other in other ways.

  A boltzman brain is just a curiosity, unless the bolzman fluctionation
 create not a single brain but a local portion of the universe that develop
 in a way that maintain intellgent beings. In this case, it
 is indistinguishable if the universe is or not the product of a boltzman
 fluctuation.


 The problem is that statistical mechanical estimates of probabilities
 favor the random occurrence of the curiosity over the universe.

 Brent

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Re: The Unreality of Time

[Alberto G. Corona]

Evgenii : I thank you for your questions, since It helps me to re-examine
and clarify my position.

2012/7/29 Evgenii Rudnyi use...@rudnyi.ru

 On 29.07.2012 11:28 Alberto G. Corona said the following:

  These psycho-philosophical arguments like the one of John Ellis are
 what in evolutionary Psychology is called an explanation based on
 proximate causes.


 I guess that science is based on observation and hence it might be good to
 define what observation is. To this end, past, present and future seems to
 be quite a crucial concept. First a scientist plans an experiment. Hence at
 the beginning the experiment is in the future. Then the scientist performs
 the experiment and eventually the experiment is in the past.



The notion of past and present is not only crucial for science, but for
human life. The consciousness of time appears as a consequence of two
things: Lack of information and the hability  that humans have of learning
from experience.  Plants and most of the animals have  innate set of
behaviours or at most, a short learning program that fixes behaviour after
the young age. But humans modify their behaviour depending on the past, but
not only the past but depending on the ordering of events in the past:   In
an experiment , as in a love affair or in a battle, the lessons learned
depends in the order of the events. If we had not that ability to learn
from experience and thus, the  need to remember sequences of events,  then
our philosophers would not have the cognitive capacity to philosophize
about time, nor the scientists would perform experiments.


  Instead, ultimate causes are the physical causes that generate, by
 natural selection, a mind with such concepts and such phenomenology
 that is capable of such reasoning.  I take evolutionary reasoning
 because evolution is the only way to link both kinds of philosophical
 and physical explanations. The first is more important in practical
 terms, because our  phenomenology defines what IS real. Period. But
 only ultimate causes can illuminate and explain them.


 Recently I have written about Grand Design by Hawking. It seems that
 according to you, the M-theory could be an ultimate cause. Yet, it does not
 contain the A-series based on past, present and future. One will find there
 at best the B-series only. It is unclear to me how the M-theory could
 describe a scientist planning and performing an experiment.

 I said at the end that the ultimate causes can be the consequences  of the
existence of the Mind. Of course the M theory is not a theory of
everything, It may be mathematical manifold in which our bodies and the
substrate of our minds live. but the world of the mind is different form
the phisico-mathematical world. In a timeful way of thinking It can be said
that the mind evolved  (along time) by natural selection to permit its owm
survival and reproduction, but it also can be said that the mind, or our
shared minds, made of communicable concepts, make possible the existence of
the mathematical substrate in which we live.


  [Our phenomenology conform a common, communicable reality among us
 because it is the product of a common mind, that is a product of a
 common brain architecture, that is a result of a common brain
 development program that is a result of a common genetic
 inheritance]


 Let me ask Max Velmans' question again. According to neuroscience, all
 conscious experience including visual is in the brain. Hence, according to
 the ultimate causes, is the brain in the world or the world in the brain?
 What would you say?


Again, this question is quite important, as we have to define what
 observation is. Does for example observation happens in the brain


The activity of the brain is the mind and the mind is a separate world that
includes all that can be perceived. What is outside of the mind may just
plain mathematics. What we call phisical world is in reality set of
phenomenons perceived by the mind. Observations happen in the mind. We can
repeat and verify experiments because we live in the same mathematical
reality outside of the mind, and because our minds have similar
architecture and experience, so we have the same language, interests,
experimental machines, procedures, so, as Eric Voegelin said, we live in a
shared social mind.

However, The COMP hypothesis it is possible to parsimoniously substitute
every component of the brain by a silicon analogue without the mind being
aware of the change. this , for me, makes the question were our minds come
from a mistery



  An example of ultimate causes may be the theory of Relativity,
 statistical mechanics, the fact that we live in a four dimensional
 universe and our 4d life lines go along a maximum gradient of
 entropy, and the desplacement along these lines is called time, that
 is local to each line. Another ultimate cause is the nature of
 natural selection, how and why a certain aggregate of matter can
 maintain its internal entropy in his path trough a line 

Re: The Unreality of Time

[meekerdb]

On 7/30/2012 2:19 AM, Alberto G. Corona wrote:
The Boltzman brains , according with what i have read, are completely different beasts. 
Boltzman pressuposes, that , since no random arrangement of matter is statistically 
impossible, and Boltzman demonstrated it in certain conditions (ergodic conditions) , 
with enough time, some arrangements of matter would simulate minds, or even worlds and 
civilizations. But 15.000 Million years, that is the age of the universe is not enough. 


Boltzman was considering the question of how the universe came to be in its state of low 
entropy.  I could be due to a random fluctuation.  And it was more probable that the 
random fluctuation simply produced the universe as we see than a fluctuation that produced 
a big bang universe which then evolved into what we see.  And extending this line of 
thought further, a fluctuation that merely created a brain along with the illusion of this 
universe was still more probable (i.e. less improbable).


Sean Carroll has a good discussion of this and why this argument does not hold for a 
multiverse, in his book From Infinity to Here.


Brent


The Boltzman mechanism lies in random events. the process of natural selection instead 
select random events and create designs more fast. Seen from a mathematical four 
dimensional perspective,, or better, in what the phisicist call a phase space, 
adaptations may be seen as attractors in a chaotic evolution. boltzman evolutions are 
pure chaotic.


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Re: The Unreality of Time

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 30.07.2012 11:19 Alberto G. Corona said the following:

Evgenii : I thank you for your questions, since It helps me to
re-examine and clarify my position.

2012/7/29 Evgenii Rudnyiuse...@rudnyi.ru


On 29.07.2012 11:28 Alberto G. Corona said the following:

These psycho-philosophical arguments like the one of John Ellis
are

what in evolutionary Psychology is called an explanation based
on proximate causes.



I guess that science is based on observation and hence it might be
good to define what observation is. To this end, past, present and
future seems to be quite a crucial concept. First a scientist plans
an experiment. Hence at the beginning the experiment is in the
future. Then the scientist performs the experiment and eventually
the experiment is in the past.






The notion of past and present is not only crucial for science, but
for human life. The consciousness of time appears as a consequence of
two things: Lack of information and the hability  that humans have of
learning from experience.  Plants and most of the animals have
innate set of behaviours or at most, a short learning program that
fixes behaviour after the young age. But humans modify their
behaviour depending on the past, but not only the past but depending
on the ordering of events in the past:   In an experiment , as in a
love affair or in a battle, the lessons learned depends in the order
of the events. If we had not that ability to learn from experience
and thus, the  need to remember sequences of events,  then our
philosophers would not have the cognitive capacity to philosophize
about time, nor the scientists would perform experiments.


This is a position of common sense. Yet, to move forward it is necessary 
to take decisions on how it could be possible to gain knowledge in such 
a way to be sure that the knowledge is the truth (if this is possible at 
all).




Instead, ultimate causes are the physical causes that generate, by

natural selection, a mind with such concepts and such
phenomenology that is capable of such reasoning.  I take
evolutionary reasoning because evolution is the only way to link
both kinds of philosophical and physical explanations. The first
is more important in practical terms, because our  phenomenology
defines what IS real. Period. But only ultimate causes can
illuminate and explain them.



Recently I have written about Grand Design by Hawking. It seems
that according to you, the M-theory could be an ultimate cause.
Yet, it does not contain the A-series based on past, present and
future. One will find there at best the B-series only. It is
unclear to me how the M-theory could describe a scientist planning
and performing an experiment.

I said at the end that the ultimate causes can be the consequences
of the

existence of the Mind. Of course the M theory is not a theory of
everything, It may be mathematical manifold in which our bodies and
the substrate of our minds live. but the world of the mind is
different form the phisico-mathematical world. In a timeful way of
thinking It can be said that the mind evolved  (along time) by
natural selection to permit its owm survival and reproduction, but it
also can be said that the mind, or our shared minds, made of
communicable concepts, make possible the existence of the
mathematical substrate in which we live.


What do you mean by the world of the mind is different form the 
phisico-mathematical world? Is this as by Descartes res cogitans vs. 
res extensa?




[Our phenomenology conform a common, communicable reality among us

because it is the product of a common mind, that is a product of
a common brain architecture, that is a result of a common brain
development program that is a result of a common genetic
inheritance]



Let me ask Max Velmans' question again. According to neuroscience,
all conscious experience including visual is in the brain. Hence,
according to the ultimate causes, is the brain in the world or the
world in the brain? What would you say?



Again, this question is quite important, as we have to define what

observation is. Does for example observation happens in the brain



The activity of the brain is the mind and the mind is a separate
world that includes all that can be perceived. What is outside of the
mind may just plain mathematics. What we call phisical world is in
reality set of phenomenons perceived by the mind. Observations happen
in the mind. We can repeat and verify experiments because we live in
the same mathematical reality outside of the mind, and because our
minds have similar architecture and experience, so we have the same
language, interests, experimental machines, procedures, so, as Eric
Voegelin said, we live in a shared social mind.


I am not sure if I understand. How do you connect these two assumptions:

What we call phisical world is in reality set of phenomenons perceived 
by the mind.


because we live in the same mathematical reality outside of the mind

Do you mean that the world outside of the 

Re: The Unreality of Time

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 28.07.2012 23:43 Stephen P. King said the following:

On 7/28/2012 4:23 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

...

Now I have found the original paper by McTaggart in Internet:

http://www.ditext.com/mctaggart/time.html


...




Dear Evgenii,

Never would I cast aspersions upon McTaggart, but what he actually
proved was not the unreality of time; for Reality is what which is
 incontrovertible to all intercommunicating observers. What McTaggart
 proved was the non-existance of an observational stance that might
allow all moments of time to be apprehended simultaneously. His work
can be seen as a reiteration of the truth that Einstein was able to
show us with his General theory of Relativity.




Stephen,

I do not see how Einstein could describe the transition from being to 
becoming. Einstein's four-dimensional timespace does not have changes. 
This is the reason why Popper has called him once as four-dimensional 
Parmenides.


In Einstein's general theory of relativity, one could after all 
introduce the B-series. Yet, the A-series are not there.


Evgenii

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Re: The Unreality of Time

[Stephen P. King]

On 7/29/2012 2:35 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

On 28.07.2012 23:43 Stephen P. King said the following:

On 7/28/2012 4:23 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

...

Now I have found the original paper by McTaggart in Internet:

http://www.ditext.com/mctaggart/time.html


...




Dear Evgenii,

Never would I cast aspersions upon McTaggart, but what he actually
proved was not the unreality of time; for Reality is what which is
 incontrovertible to all intercommunicating observers. What McTaggart
 proved was the non-existance of an observational stance that might
allow all moments of time to be apprehended simultaneously. His work
can be seen as a reiteration of the truth that Einstein was able to
show us with his General theory of Relativity.




Stephen,

I do not see how Einstein could describe the transition from being to 
becoming. Einstein's four-dimensional timespace does not have changes. 
This is the reason why Popper has called him once as four-dimensional 
Parmenides.


In Einstein's general theory of relativity, one could after all 
introduce the B-series. Yet, the A-series are not there.


Evgenii


Dear Evgenii,

Einstein tried very hard to not describe any becoming whatsoever. 
But one recovers the variability of Becoming when one considers such 
things as minisuperspace http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minisuperspace. 
Basically one considers the possible initial conditions (or metrics) as 
generating different possible universes. But this is problematic itself. 
The problem is that we are confusing the transition from state to state 
with the ordering of an indexing set.


--
Onward!

Stephen

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.
~ Francis Bacon

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Re: The Unreality of Time

[Alberto G. Corona]

These psycho-philosophical arguments like the one of John Ellis are what in
evolutionary Psychology is called an explanation based on proximate causes.

Instead, ultimate causes are the physical causes that generate, by natural
selection, a mind with such concepts and such phenomenology that is capable
of such reasoning.  I take evolutionary reasoning because evolution is the
only way to link both kinds of philosophical and physical explanations. The
first is more important in practical terms, because our  phenomenology
defines what IS real. Period. But only ultimate causes can illuminate and
explain them.

[Our phenomenology conform a common, communicable reality among us because
it is the product of a common mind, that is a product of a common brain
architecture, that is a result of a common brain development program that
is a result of a common genetic inheritance]

An example of ultimate causes may be the theory of Relativity, statistical
mechanics, the fact that we live in a four dimensional universe and our 4d
life lines go along a maximum gradient of entropy, and the desplacement
along these lines is called time, that is local to each line. Another
ultimate cause is the nature of natural selection, how and why a certain
aggregate of matter can maintain its internal entropy in his path trough a
line of maximum increase of entrophy, and it is by detection computation
and acting to avoid dangers and to capture good things. The good and bad
entropy must come in identifiable bags in an eternal videogame. This is a
requisite for life. Non avoidable changes of entropy causes mass
extinctions.

[The maximum gradient of entropy is paradoxically at first sight, the most
 computable path, that is why life proceed in this direction:
http://www.slideshare.net/agcorona1/arrow-of-time-determined-by-computability
 ]

To avoid bad bags, and to capture and make use of these good entrophy bags,
the living beings have to compute. The bad bag of winter, when detected as
cold beyond a threshold of intensity and duration by some plants, trigger a
set of predefined chemical reactions that make leaves to fall in order to
avoid energy waste. This is a computation.

Each bag has a way of dealing with it. Many bags are other living beings
that want to eat you or you want ot eat it. To deal with them you need a
primitive short term notion of  time. But gazelles and lions act the same
way everytime. They do not act different based on conscious evaluations of
past events.

They may be other human beings and this time you need a more sophisticated
notion of time, because persons act different depending on its memory. The
humans depend on a complex cronological knowledge, some of it is enhanced
and inherited from ancestors. So there is a experiential time and a mytical
time. This is just for our survival as individuals and as a working
society. This memory, as I said before evolved in the first place for
cooperation, to remember cooperators and defectors.

In each point of our lines of life in the 4d space we mentally play with
the past to deal with the unknown future. We may exist in every point
thinking this way.

The line of reasoning can be reversed by the anthropic principle:  our
psichology is the causation of the physical universe, because if our
phenomenology does not exist, the universe would´nt exist. There is no way
to give pre-eminence to one or the other line of causation.

2012/7/29 Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net

  On 7/29/2012 2:35 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

 On 28.07.2012 23:43 Stephen P. King said the following:

 On 7/28/2012 4:23 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

 ...

 Now I have found the original paper by McTaggart in Internet:

 http://www.ditext.com/mctaggart/time.html

  ...



  Dear Evgenii,

 Never would I cast aspersions upon McTaggart, but what he actually
 proved was not the unreality of time; for Reality is what which is
  incontrovertible to all intercommunicating observers. What McTaggart
  proved was the non-existance of an observational stance that might
 allow all moments of time to be apprehended simultaneously. His work
 can be seen as a reiteration of the truth that Einstein was able to
 show us with his General theory of Relativity.



 Stephen,

 I do not see how Einstein could describe the transition from being to
 becoming. Einstein's four-dimensional timespace does not have changes. This
 is the reason why Popper has called him once as four-dimensional
 Parmenides.

 In Einstein's general theory of relativity, one could after all introduce
 the B-series. Yet, the A-series are not there.

 Evgenii

  Dear Evgenii,

 Einstein tried very hard to not describe any becoming whatsoever. But
 one recovers the variability of Becoming when one considers such things as
 minisuperspace http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minisuperspace. Basically
 one considers the possible initial conditions (or metrics) as generating
 different possible universes. But this is problematic itself. The problem

Re: The Unreality of Time

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 29.07.2012 11:28 Alberto G. Corona said the following:

These psycho-philosophical arguments like the one of John Ellis are
what in evolutionary Psychology is called an explanation based on
proximate causes.


I guess that science is based on observation and hence it might be good 
to define what observation is. To this end, past, present and future 
seems to be quite a crucial concept. First a scientist plans an 
experiment. Hence at the beginning the experiment is in the future. Then 
the scientist performs the experiment and eventually the experiment is 
in the past.



Instead, ultimate causes are the physical causes that generate, by
natural selection, a mind with such concepts and such phenomenology
that is capable of such reasoning.  I take evolutionary reasoning
because evolution is the only way to link both kinds of philosophical
and physical explanations. The first is more important in practical
terms, because our  phenomenology defines what IS real. Period. But
only ultimate causes can illuminate and explain them.


Recently I have written about Grand Design by Hawking. It seems that 
according to you, the M-theory could be an ultimate cause. Yet, it does 
not contain the A-series based on past, present and future. One will 
find there at best the B-series only. It is unclear to me how the 
M-theory could describe a scientist planning and performing an experiment.



[Our phenomenology conform a common, communicable reality among us
because it is the product of a common mind, that is a product of a
common brain architecture, that is a result of a common brain
development program that is a result of a common genetic
inheritance]


Let me ask Max Velmans' question again. According to neuroscience, all 
conscious experience including visual is in the brain. Hence, according 
to the ultimate causes, is the brain in the world or the world in the 
brain? What would you say?


Again, this question is quite important, as we have to define what 
observation is. Does for example observation happens in the brain?



An example of ultimate causes may be the theory of Relativity,
statistical mechanics, the fact that we live in a four dimensional
universe and our 4d life lines go along a maximum gradient of
entropy, and the desplacement along these lines is called time, that
is local to each line. Another ultimate cause is the nature of
natural selection, how and why a certain aggregate of matter can
maintain its internal entropy in his path trough a line of maximum
increase of entrophy, and it is by detection computation and acting
to avoid dangers and to capture good things. The good and bad entropy
must come in identifiable bags in an eternal videogame. This is a
requisite for life. Non avoidable changes of entropy causes mass
extinctions.

[The maximum gradient of entropy is paradoxically at first sight, the
most computable path, that is why life proceed in this direction:
http://www.slideshare.net/agcorona1/arrow-of-time-determined-by-computability



]

In your presentation you use terms causation and computation. How would 
you define them?


Let us say that there is some conglomerate of atoms. When it computes 
and when not?


The same is with causation. What is causation according to ultimiate 
causes? Does it mean something more as solution to some transient 
inexorable governing laws?


As for the entropy and the arrow of time, recently I have found some 
nice quotes about Boltzmann


From Boltzmann’s fluctuation hypothesis to Boltzmann’s Brain
http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2012/06/boltzmanns-brain.html

That's what happens with the entropy approach:

“And that minimum fluctuation would be “Boltzmann’s Brain.” Out of the 
background thermal equilibrium, a fluctuation randomly appears that 
collects some degrees of freedom into the form of a conscious brain, 
with just enough sensory apparatus to look around and say “Hey! I 
exist!”, before dissolving back into the equilibrated ooze.”


Evgenii

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The Unreality of Time

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

John Ellis McTaggart
The Unreality of Time
Mind: A Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy 17 (1908): 456-473

I have learned about the McTaggart's A- and B-series from John Yates.

http://www.ifsgoa.com/

Now I have found the original paper by McTaggart in Internet:

http://www.ditext.com/mctaggart/time.html

In the paper, the author proves that time is unreal. He first introduces 
the A-series that contain past, present, and future and then shows that 
this idea is self-contradictory.


I should say that the paper is popular nowadays as well, Google Scholar 
shows about 700 citations.


The paper is relatively short (about 8500 words) and it is nice. I like it.

Evgenii



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Re: The Unreality of Time

[Stephen P. King]

On 7/28/2012 4:23 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

John Ellis McTaggart
The Unreality of Time
Mind: A Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy 17 (1908): 456-473

I have learned about the McTaggart's A- and B-series from John Yates.

http://www.ifsgoa.com/

Now I have found the original paper by McTaggart in Internet:

http://www.ditext.com/mctaggart/time.html

In the paper, the author proves that time is unreal. He first 
introduces the A-series that contain past, present, and future and 
then shows that this idea is self-contradictory.


I should say that the paper is popular nowadays as well, Google 
Scholar shows about 700 citations.


The paper is relatively short (about 8500 words) and it is nice. I 
like it.


Evgenii




Dear Evgenii,

Never would I cast aspersions upon McTaggart, but what he actually 
proved was not the unreality of time; for Reality is what which is 
incontrovertible to all intercommunicating observers. What McTaggart 
proved was the non-existance of an observational stance that might allow 
all moments of time to be apprehended simultaneously. His work can be 
seen as a reiteration of the truth that Einstein was able to show us 
with his General theory of Relativity.



--
Onward!

Stephen

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.
~ Francis Bacon


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