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Interesting because it messes with the school of thought that everything is determined already and we're just following a sequence of actions that arise from the starting conditions of the universe. If causality is broken then maybe we have free will?
I used to believe that the world is lazily loaded. That means the first moment I see something (e.g., a world map) is the point where all the past history to consistently explain the observation gets "locked in".
Interesting because it messes with the school of thought that everything is determined already and we're just following a sequence of actions that arise from the starting conditions of the universe. If causality is broken then maybe we have free will?
I would argue that the idea instead is to try to make predictions for future experiments. In the case of quantum gravity, especially string theory, these might be thought experiments (what happens if you fall into a black hole), technically infeasible experiments (what would a particle accelerator with the size of the solar system produce), or even completely hypothetical (what if the universe would have eleven macroscopic dimensions) but that does not change the underlying mindset.
When it comes to the interpretation of quantum mechanics there is just nothing left to explain. There is no experiment that decides between different interpretations, so that is it as far as most physicists are concerned.
The ideas in the linked article suffer from the same fate: there does not seem to be even a hypothetical way to test them, and the topic is therefore considered one of philosophy more than physics.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you show that there is a factual past without parsing it through your perception? It was factual that the earth was 6000 years old, until it wasn't.
> It was factual that the earth was 6000 years old, until it wasn't. This is the opposite of the example you seem to think it is. The Earth has always had the same actual date of origin. If it is not factual now that the Earth is 6,000 years old, then it wasn't before either. The whole argument here is that people's perceptions and reality can in fact be different.
Maybe, but I'm asking: can you show that peoples' perceptions match/differ from reality, without relying on perceptions being factual/reliable?
If not, then how do you know that reality is fixed?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What? No. The factual past is what actually happened. Don't mistake the map for the territory.
Can you point us to The Territory please? You see it, I presume?
I used to believe that the world is lazily loaded. That means the first moment I see something (e.g., a world map) is the point where all the past history to consistently explain the observation gets "locked in".
Interesting because it messes with the school of thought that everything is determined already and we're just following a sequence of actions that arise from the starting conditions of the universe. If causality is broken then maybe we have free will?
That's a very lazy school of thought though. It's just atheistic Calvinism, a tautology masquerading as a "philosophy". Calvin believed in pre-destination (your fate and every decision you make is decided before you exist) on the grounds that, because God exists and is omnipotent, what you are doing must therefore be what God wants to happen, both good and bad. After all, God is omnipotent, so there you go. Today's C…
I used to believe that the world is lazily loaded. That means the first moment I see something (e.g., a world map) is the point where all the past history to consistently explain the observation gets "locked in".
What changed?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you show that there is a factual past without parsing it through your perception? It was factual that the earth was 6000 years old, until it wasn't.
I would argue that factual past is unprovable without some sort of visual evidence, and even that can be manipulated...especially with AI on the rise. The problem with your point is that EVERYTHING is parsed through your perception, and you can just as easily make the point with the same logic that you can't prove that what you are currently experiencing is present reality. What actually happened is unprovable withou…
So sure that regardless of what evidence you are presented, you'd be certain that you ate a grapefruit. Even if:
- I showed you videoproof that you were eating a sandwich for breakfast
- we had all of your family say they were having breakfast with you and saw you eating a sandwich
- a doctor came and said "I analyzed your stool and found no evidence of grapefruit"
- we had a message, cryptographically signed by a key you generated/controlled, that said "man this sandwich is delicious"
Even with any amount of evidence to the contrary, you'd still believe that you ate a grapefruit?
If not, then are you sure that it's fact that you ate a grapefruit, or it's just that all current evidence points to you eating a grapefruit?