41–50 of 132 posts
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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.
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If time is not a straight progression where the past is what happened and the now is reality and the future is what might happen, that's interesting and changes a lot about how we model things. But as long as you can only perceive it as such, it's a meaningless distinction from a practical view.
Hm, I would have expected more respect to the importance of the unperceived from a reificator.
But outside of something like serializing events in an application, I don't think I can reify time. If you've got an idea for it, please clue me in because the possibilities are endless.
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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…
That's only your perception because you have memory. If we copied your memories right now and put them in a robot body 3000 years from now, it would also have the illusion of a single continuous perspective.
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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…
On the plus side, much like matter and energy, it is unlikely that consciousness is created or destroyed in the operations of the universe. Instead, it just gets reconfigured.
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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?
Folks 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…
Further, memory itself gives the impression of irreversible time.
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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.
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How do you decide that your new view is valid and is not based on your need to lessen the fear of death. I have problems with this with every new thing I try to use to make death more palatable, be it religion, philosophy or anything else. I just cannot believe in anything because I feel its just a convenient way to make the fear smaller. How can any view be valid if its based on self interest?
In this case the view in question (the B-theory of time) is supposed to be backed up by science: e.g., the Gödelian models in the OP, but, much more than that, the relativity of simultaneity. The RoS is really non-negotiable, and still entails that the actual world does not have a Newtonian absolute present.