121–130 of 132 posts
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Cute, but I think there is a substantial difference between not born and dead.
What is that difference exactly?
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It can value itself. After all, that's what it's doing now via us. It doesn't necessarily have to configure itself into something like a human to perceive and appreciate itself.
What is "it" when "it" is purely random noise? By definition and known physics, heat-death of the universe means there is absolutely no configuration.
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Do you need it exactly, to know that it exists? What is the difference between two stars in the sky? Must you know the physical differences exactly to say they are different?
What is the "substantial difference"?
I mean, I get that these are fun discussions to have. Likely even meaningful. But the odd friction this is adding to enter the conversation seems overblown.
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> The idea of time being real or not raises the question of whether it's, a) always necessary to consider... Not really. Time could be real, and still not necessary to consider in all situations. I think this argument applies to your b) as well, but I'm less sure of that...
So to clarify, we can choose to use time whether it's real or not. The question is, given it isn't always applicable, and it may not always be necessary where it is partially so, are there situations where it causes paradoxes where it is a source of noise instead of information, and how can we know when applying it whether it causes one or the other? Godel as a logician would have approached it as just another formal…
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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.
While the RoS indicates that observers won't agree on the order of distant events, I don't think that it eliminates the possibility of an absolute present moment. You could simulate a system with relativistic physics just fine with a single global clock, just by adjusting the local simulation refresh rate to account for time dilation. Players might disagree on the order of events and the amount of time that had passe…
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…
“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.
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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…
Has your perspective ever changed? Have you ever had amnesia (loss of memory), or creation of false memory, via disease, injury, inebriation, or anesthesia? 99.99% likely you have.
I'm not saying my conscious perception is constant, but if you plot consciousness as a binary variable on a graph (conscious, not conscious), a lifetime would look something like this, relatively constant.
Before birth Birth ..... life ...... death
.............................~~--------------------------------------.------------------................
. = not conscious
~ = ..?
- = conscious
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> _the fact that I perceive the world from "my" perspective remains constant_ 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.
And that robot would be me.
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While the RoS indicates that observers won't agree on the order of distant events, I don't think that it eliminates the possibility of an absolute present moment. You could simulate a system with relativistic physics just fine with a single global clock, just by adjusting the local simulation refresh rate to account for time dilation. Players might disagree on the order of events and the amount of time that had passe…
Right, that's interesting. Thanks. This is analogous to saying that we live in an Einsteinian simulation run from a Newtonian world, right?