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Carlo Rovelli on the ‘greatest remaining mystery’: The nature of time

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Re: Carlo Rovelli on the ‘greatest remaining mystery’: The nature of time

#2
Not to nitpick, but I'm not sure the nature of time is so indisputably the greatest remaining mystery.

The nature of consciousness, life, and death can all certainly give it a run for its money.

Incidentally, would anyone happen to have a direct link to a version of this article that could be read without enabling javascript?

Re: Carlo Rovelli on the ‘greatest remaining mystery’: The nature of time

#3

Not to nitpick, but I'm not sure the nature of time is so indisputably the greatest remaining mystery. The nature of consciousness, life, and death can all certainly give it a run for its money. Incidentally, would anyone happen to have a direct link to a version of this article that could be read without enabling javascript?

Also the origin of the universe, why it's accelerating its expansion, how are gravity and quantum phenomena reconciled and how do they work.... I'd say it's a great time to be alive and there's no shortage of important questions!

Re: Carlo Rovelli on the ‘greatest remaining mystery’: The nature of time

#4

Not to nitpick, but I'm not sure the nature of time is so indisputably the greatest remaining mystery. The nature of consciousness, life, and death can all certainly give it a run for its money. Incidentally, would anyone happen to have a direct link to a version of this article that could be read without enabling javascript?

"Nature of existence" probably encapsulates all of those ideas including time as time seems to be required for a creation/destruction type event.

Re: Carlo Rovelli on the ‘greatest remaining mystery’: The nature of time

#5

Not to nitpick, but I'm not sure the nature of time is so indisputably the greatest remaining mystery. The nature of consciousness, life, and death can all certainly give it a run for its money. Incidentally, would anyone happen to have a direct link to a version of this article that could be read without enabling javascript?

Yes. For me the greatest remaining mysteries are more in this order.

1. Nature of Life (we are still nowhere near understanding how it arose or how living organisms work in all their intricate detail).

2. Nature of Consciousness - what is consciousness, how can living matter instantiate it, how can we quantify it, etc?

3. Origin of the Universe

4. Why do we seem so alone in the Universe?

5. Resolving Quantum Mechanics / Gravity

6. Understanding Time

Re: Carlo Rovelli on the ‘greatest remaining mystery’: The nature of time

#6

Not to nitpick, but I'm not sure the nature of time is so indisputably the greatest remaining mystery. The nature of consciousness, life, and death can all certainly give it a run for its money. Incidentally, would anyone happen to have a direct link to a version of this article that could be read without enabling javascript?

Consciousness: Thomas Metzinger’s “The Ego Tunnel”

Life and death: Molecular biology

Re: Carlo Rovelli on the ‘greatest remaining mystery’: The nature of time

#7

Not to nitpick, but I'm not sure the nature of time is so indisputably the greatest remaining mystery. The nature of consciousness, life, and death can all certainly give it a run for its money. Incidentally, would anyone happen to have a direct link to a version of this article that could be read without enabling javascript?

how is death misunderstood?

Re: Carlo Rovelli on the ‘greatest remaining mystery’: The nature of time

#8

Not to nitpick, but I'm not sure the nature of time is so indisputably the greatest remaining mystery. The nature of consciousness, life, and death can all certainly give it a run for its money. Incidentally, would anyone happen to have a direct link to a version of this article that could be read without enabling javascript?

I'm not sure I can conceive of the nature of any of those things being separable from the others, so I wouldn't try to compare them.

Re: Carlo Rovelli on the ‘greatest remaining mystery’: The nature of time

#9
post #4

Not to nitpick, but I'm not sure the nature of time is so indisputably the greatest remaining mystery. The nature of consciousness, life, and death can all certainly give it a run for its money. Incidentally, would anyone happen to have a direct link to a version of this article that could be read without enabling javascript?

"Nature of existence" probably encapsulates all of those ideas including time as time seems to be required for a creation/destruction type event.

nature of consciousness is the biggest one IMO, precisely because it doesn't appear to be captured by "nature of existence." we have good physical/mathematical models on hand re: causation, such that we can at least start hypothesizing about what change is, where the universe came from, what if anything differentiates life from other motion, etc.

but consciousness is so categorically different that we can't even start. "well, brains are made up of cells and further of particles, and electricity works this way and here's some results from information theory and [UTTER MAGICAL WALL / ABYSSAL GAP] then there's the subjective experience of consciousness and will. and damnit we don't have anything like a logical or explanatory connection between these two sides, but for 'well, if i destroy 'someone else's' (??? what's this possessive in our fundamental terms???) body in the right way, it stops acting as if it's conscious like me, and also my own consciousness (which i can't describe with any specificity) changes when i do weird physical things involving drugs, injury, nutrition, um... and attitudes seem to matter, and there's definitely a subconscious, i guess, and...'..."

Re: Carlo Rovelli on the ‘greatest remaining mystery’: The nature of time

#10
post #7

Not to nitpick, but I'm not sure the nature of time is so indisputably the greatest remaining mystery. The nature of consciousness, life, and death can all certainly give it a run for its money. Incidentally, would anyone happen to have a direct link to a version of this article that could be read without enabling javascript?

how is death misunderstood?

I don't know, but here's some food for thought:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_suicide_and_immortalit...

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