Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nothing actually moves according to Zeno's paradox.
Zeno's paradox assumes space is infinitely divisible.
The real number line is infinitely divisible, but you can still move a point along it.
A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
391–400 of 455 posts
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#392Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that one thing to keep in mind is that we are only capable of observing the passage of time along one vector because our perception relies upon entropic biological processes. We cannot observe in any subset of possible universes where entropy is not present or is working backwards-Ergo those possibilities are wholly out of our direct perception. That does not mean that causality cannot run in reverse, however…
Biology has nothing to do with it. We can't construct any manner of machine that measures time going in the other direction.
Maybe all that quantum nonsense we can't explain is due to some type of time travel we don't comprehend.
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#393Earlier quoted context omitted.
Causality isn't broken; the universe is "simultaneously causal and teleological," because it's superdetermined. There also isn't any free will, because there isn't actually any agent who could have it. Actions we perceive as volitional actually arise in the brain up to 7s before we "choose" them. The sense of a "me" is a post hoc add-on that claims credit for everything, in order to unite the disparate phenomena that…
And yet doesn't it defy probability that such raw physical determinism would lead to us having this discussion? And if not, is it not amazing that simple subatomic physical applied to a gaseous soup leads to us discussing these questions?
To the first question, not in the least. This discussion is also superdetermined, including the illusory sense of a "me" who "chose" to write these comments.
To the second question, yes. It's beyond comprehension and wondrous. It's maximum novelty and total absurdity.
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#394Earlier quoted context omitted.
Causality isn't broken; the universe is "simultaneously causal and teleological," because it's superdetermined. There also isn't any free will, because there isn't actually any agent who could have it. Actions we perceive as volitional actually arise in the brain up to 7s before we "choose" them. The sense of a "me" is a post hoc add-on that claims credit for everything, in order to unite the disparate phenomena that…
Again this seems like a "God of the gaps" thing - if this universe isn't strictly deterministic then it's superdetermined by a meta universe, and so on
I think it's the opposite. You need a "God of the gaps" in the form of a "person" (actually a collection of phenomena. + the phenomena of identification with these) to explain free will and agency, which defies experimental evidence.
The comment that superdeterminism requires a higher-order determinism, which itself requires a yet-higher-order determinism... I think you're confusing it with a causal mindset. If the universe is effectively a recording, why does it need any ultimate cause? Causal thinking would only make sense from a perspective within that recording.
Of course we want to know "why is any of this here?" But what if the ultimate question doesn't actually have an answer?
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#395Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why does it bother you? As Richard Feynman said, "Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds." Sure, lots of what scientists do, including Feynman, involve an implied philosophy. It is easy to read https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm or https://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v2appf.htm and extract a lot of important philosophical ideas from them. But I have yet…
Feynman was actually quite sophisticated philosophically eg. “The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific truth.” I think when there is a purpose to philosophy eg. understanding science, it works better. When there isn't really philosophers tend to in many cases just discuss what other philosophers have said about each other which tends to get a bit circular and pointless.
Indeed. Feynman was extremely good at getting to the heart of the matter with simple and precise language and no pretensions. This is why so many important ideas of a philosophical nature can be found in his works.
But conversely he had little patience with obfuscating the heart of the matter with unnecessary complications, overly complex or vague language, or pretension of any kind. But philosophers do all of those.
If you read Paul Graham's essay, which I linked to, his proposal for how to fix philosophy is to focus on usefulness. For exactly the reason you stated.
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#396Earlier quoted context omitted.
Feynman was actually quite sophisticated philosophically eg. “The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific truth.” I think when there is a purpose to philosophy eg. understanding science, it works better. When there isn't really philosophers tend to in many cases just discuss what other philosophers have said about each other which tends to get a bit circular and pointless.
I think perhaps there's a subtlety in that quote - "philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds". Maybe part of the meaning, is that I'm the course of doing what scientists do, philosophy doesn't move their particular ball forward in the way they want so they can and sometimes do ignore it. Not necessarily that they should. This guy helped create nuclear weapons, and then quoted…
Feynman attempted to make his speech simple, clear, and precise. It is almost certainly a mistake to read subtlety into his language.
Besides, he expressed his negative opinions on philosophy and philosophers in many ways, on many occasions. He very clearly was on the side of those saying that philosophers SHOULD be ignored by anyone who wished to learn science.
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#397Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not just a matter of our subjective experience of time, it's a matter of the laws of thermodynamics and entropy. Time moves in one direction is another way of saying entropy always increases. If time could move in the opposite direction, then entropy decreases which breaks our understanding of physics.
The direction of causality should also be reversed from what I can tell. Instead of a bullet slowing down as it hits air molecules and pushes them out of the way, the air molecules push on the bullet because the bullet will be sucked into the barrel in the future. More on topic, I think our existing theories of reality tell us that the future probably affects the past, or at very least, is predetermined. If you know…
but what about reverse falling cartridge? Will spacetime around Earth change from "hole" to "hill"?
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#398Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why does it bother you? As Richard Feynman said, "Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds." Sure, lots of what scientists do, including Feynman, involve an implied philosophy. It is easy to read https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm or https://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v2appf.htm and extract a lot of important philosophical ideas from them. But I have yet…
That, apart from the first line, seems like a pretty generic/off-topic "I don't get philosophy and it's stupid" rant that could equally well be pasted under any story involving philosophy. I don't see how it relates at all to the comment you replied to, which I thought was a good one.
Let me explain how it relates.
The comment advocated that scientists should profess to be philosophers. Why? Presumably because they are engaged in a field of study that philosophers have claimed. Furthermore the author is bothered that they don't. Why? Likely because if scientists acknowledged their status as philosophers, that would raise the status of philosophers.
And so the meat of my comment was illustrating by anecdote that the fact that philosophers have claimed a field, does not mean that they contribute meaningfully to it. Nor that people interested in the field should pay attention to philosophers. Nor that they should call themselves philosophers. Therefore, despite the claim that philosophers lay to topics like "epistemology", scientists SHOULD NOT profess to be philosophers. And anyone who claims otherwise should be laughed at.
Now why did I make my comment?
It is because I saw the comment as being part of the genre of people who attempt to raise the status of their field by laying an unwarranted claim to the accomplishments of others. This offends me. Philosophy and philosophers do not deserve credit for the accomplishments of science. And should not demand that scientists give philosophy that credit by relabeling themselves as philosophers.
With all that said, hopefully you'll better see how I saw my response as responsive to the comment. And hopefully you'll understand why I did not find it a good comment.
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#399Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm neither a mathematician nor a physicist, so I'm not nearly informed enough to elaborate on the subject properly, but I would note that the axiom of choice is not proven, and while you can mathematically divide a continuum into infinitesimally small sets, you cannot do the same to physical matter. From my understanding, many of the contradictions between classical and quantum physics arise at this boundary between…
This whole thread hinges on your not giving credence to the word "practically" , as in "approximately". No countably infinity needed, and Continuum Hypothesis isn't relevant at all in any way, as it is aboit uncountable infinity. Until you explain what you are trying to say, you aren't saying anything meaningful. The one showing hubris here is you, tossing around technical terms don't admit you don't understand.
> The one showing hubris here is you, tossing around technical terms don't admit you don't understand.
Hence the disclaimer. I just think this stuff is fascinating. If you're interested, this is the article that originally got me thinking about these ideas as they relate to the flow of time: "Does Time Really Flow? New Clues Come From a Century-Old Approach to Math" [0]. It's effectively an appeal to intuitionist mathematics and a rejection of constructivism, where - simplified - every particle since the big bang can be assigned some "number" that describes its position on its world line, with a precision that is finite, but always increasing - and it's this increase in precision from which emerges the "flow" of time. If you ctrl+f the article for "continuum," you'll see some better constructed arguments for what I'm trying to argue, e.g.:
> Moreover, the continuum can’t be cleanly divided into two parts consisting of all numbers less than ½ and all those greater than or equal to ½. “If you try to cut the continuum in half, this number x is going to stick to the knife, and it won’t be on the left or on the right,” said Posy. “The continuum is viscous; it’s sticky.”
The impression I'm left with is that the difference between constructivist vs. intuitionist mathematics (which rejects the law of the excluded middle) has some parallels to the difference between eternalism (there is a past, present and future) vs. presentism (there is only the present).
As a layman, I just can't help but notice the same patterns come up again and again when looking at unresolved problems between classical and quantum mechanics, namely those that lie at the boundary between the continuous and discrete. FWIW, I asked ChatGPT for some unresolved mathematical problems that might relate to this, and it came up with: The Continuum Hypothesis, The Axiom of Choice, and The Riemann Hypothesis, all of which it admitted are possibly impossible to prove because they're effectively unfalsifiable. (I also showed it this entire thread, and it agreed with your critique of my arguments, but also that every argument in the thread is unfalsifiable - and then it pointed me to the Boltzmann Brain paradox).
[0] https://www.quantamagazine.org/does-time-really-flow-new-clu...
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#400Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is not entirely correct. I can't say on this "retrocausality" stuff in particular, but more generally in quantum foundations, there are a lot of philosophers with a very solid physics/math background who have a better understanding of quantum than most physicists. I find quantum foundations to be not very interesting personally, and I doubt it will have much relevance 20 years in the future, but some philosopher…
> This is not entirely correct. Which part? I didn't say or mean to imply philosophers are not worth taking seriously—if that's what you meant—just that philosophers are not scientists, and in particular, Huw Price is not a scientist. Uncontroversial, I would've thought. An article titled "A growing number of scientists.." that then misrepresents Price as being a scientist, is the thing that's wrong, seems to me. May…
Scientist isn't a job title or a qualification, it's a word for someone doing science. Some philosophers working in quantum foundations deserve to be called scientists, as much as any theorist from the physics department in the field. Price may not be in this category, you certainly would know better.