For those interested in the topic, I can't help but reccomend the book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter.
I’m fairly certain that this isn’t covered at all in that book.
Gödel and the unreality of time
31–40 of 132 posts
Re: Gödel and the unreality of time
#32Folks are asking about the practical import of time not passing---if indeed it does not. I know of this rather substantial one: my fear of death, and I guess that of other people too, depends on the notion that my own annihilation in time, and that of everything I care about, is absolute and definitive. Existence no longer has me as one of its inhabitants, and that's that. This picture is in its turn grounded on a pr…
“but it no longer feels like the absolutely unaceptable deal I used to think it was.”
May I suggest this feeling has more to do with biochemistry than the philosophy? :-) In the sense that this can do with the hormonal level and the anxiety or anger that are controlled by it.
Re: Gödel and the unreality of time
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
> all of the moments that make me and everything I care about are still there, occupying their own spacetime regions, eternal, in a way. Yes but not evolving anymore. What sucks isn't really not existing anymore, what do sucks is having no future. If a supervillain's evil plan was eternally freezing the universe right now, I would be as sad as if it was making it disappear.
The block universe doesn't mean a specific moment in time is all that is, it means that they all coexist. Dynamics in block universe is like reading a book: it seems things happen as you move your attention over the pages, but in truth the story was fixed before you even started.
Which is fine but it's not a meaningful change to the perspective of me on page 120 when I think "when we reach page 163 I will no longer feature in this novel".
Our problems with death are, basically, ego. How you mentally model time and the universe doesn't take that away
Re: Gödel and the unreality of time
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
The block universe doesn't mean a specific moment in time is all that is, it means that they all coexist. Dynamics in block universe is like reading a book: it seems things happen as you move your attention over the pages, but in truth the story was fixed before you even started.
Which is fine but it's not a meaningful change to the perspective of me on page 120 when I think "when we reach page 163 I will no longer feature in this novel". Our problems with death are, basically, ego. How you mentally model time and the universe doesn't take that away
While I agree that death will feature no matter how you model time, the difference between the flowing time and the block universe in this regard is that in the block universe you never cease to exist.
In the model of flowing time, once you are dead you've passed out of existence, only to be clinging on trough the memories of others.
Re: Gödel and the unreality of time
#35For French speaking folks, listen to this course by Bouveresse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kCfgM0U3kw&list=PLOq4PLensL...
Re: Gödel and the unreality of time
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find it weirdly comforting to know that nothing in this universe is really eternal. If you could live literally forever, you'd witness the end of all life on earth in about a billion years, and eventually the slow heat death of the universe. I'd love a lot more life than I have in front of me - a few millenia at least - but even with a traditional, linear view of time there's no point, need or possibility of eterni…
Even if the universe were eternal, the way I see it eternity is just another kind of ending. I think the important thing to realize is that a thing does not cease to have value simply because it is impermanent.
It will cease to have value when there's nobody left to value it.
Re: Gödel and the unreality of time
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even if the universe were eternal, the way I see it eternity is just another kind of ending. I think the important thing to realize is that a thing does not cease to have value simply because it is impermanent.
It will cease to have value when there's nobody left to value it.
Why? Can't we value things that will exist in a future where we no longer belong?
Re: Gödel and the unreality of time
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I can see that that's comforting, perhpas in the same way as believing that all your deceased loved ones are in heaven, does it really make a difference if we can't perceive those other 'there's?
Well, supposing that heaven doesn't exist, it's very different at least in that they really are in those other, fully existing times. Re: your suggestion that whatever cannot be perceived does not make a difference to us, I care deeply about the future wellbeing of my family, including those years I won't see because I'll be long dead. I'd bet you do too.
You seem to miss the point with every response to your original comment. You keep saying things about the importance of things that can't be perceived. No one is suggesting that things don't "make a difference to us" if they aren't perceived. That's silly and doesn't even make sense - of course we care about certain things that we don't (or won't) perceive.
The point is that we experience time as flowing in a certain direction and can't experience it any other way. Knowing that we continue to exist in some tiny sliver of spacetime doesn't change that fact, and so it is not very comforting, for easily understandable reasons.
If you're on your deathbed, with your conscious experience about to flicker and die, no one in the room is going to be comforted by you saying "well look at it this way, my 2 year old self still exists somewhere that you can't ever access and that I'll never return to, and even if I did, none of us would have any idea that this conversation was going to happen in 90 years".
Re: Gödel and the unreality of time
#39For those interested in the topic, I can't help but reccomend the book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter.
I’m fairly certain that this isn’t covered at all in that book.
You are correct, it is not, and the book is not relevant in any way to the article, aside from both containing references to the work of Gödel.
Re: Gödel and the unreality of time
#40Folks are asking about the practical import of time not passing---if indeed it does not. I know of this rather substantial one: my fear of death, and I guess that of other people too, depends on the notion that my own annihilation in time, and that of everything I care about, is absolute and definitive. Existence no longer has me as one of its inhabitants, and that's that. This picture is in its turn grounded on a pr…
There's a better way to look at your mortality, I think, which is to realize that your conception of self is flawed. Try this as an exercise: determine precisely which part of you is "you", the part that if it were to change or cease to exist would make you a different person. What you'll find is that there isn't one. Every part of what you are has changed and evolved over time. Then ask yourself why it is that peopl…
There's one conception of self that I consider fairly constant, my ability to consciously perceive what's going on around me. Despite the fact that all of my body's cells get replaced completely every 7 years, _the fact that I perceive the world from "my" perspective remains constant_
Apart from that, I don't believe in a self.
I assume, that when I die, this perspective goes away as well, I consider death to equal a total loss of consciousness ability to percieve.