tronvillain

wdog:
Well, it may be a far out theory in terms of our intuitive notions about time, but it is definitely not in terms of physics. Exactly what problems do you think it would present "uncertainty and the nonlinearities of the world"? I fail to see any.

Liquidrage

Would you care to point out what paradox I put forth exactly? I obviously don't agree there is one.

Kharakov

Time doesn't exist without consciousness to perceive it. How can a 'rate of change' exist without consciousness to percieve it?

Kharakov

The universe itself. I really don't see any other way of answering the question honestly. The universe was here when I got here, I have never known anything other than the universe, and I have to assume the universe is just doing its own thing. The universe is just being a universe, if you know what I mean.

tronvillain

Kharakov:
I suspect that the Earth would continue to move around the sun at a rate of about sixty-seven thousand miles per hour even in the absence of consciousness to percieve the rate of change.

[ November 07, 2002: Message edited by: tronvillain ]</p>

Ted Hoffman

Tron
So what exactly did you say earlier that we failed to address?
Just state the point you wanted to make again please because it seems I missed it.

Ted Hoffman

Tron : *sigh* Saying that all moments exist "simultaneously" is not the same as saying that all moments exists simultaneously - it simply means that all moments in time actually exist rather than simply being potential inherent in a moving present.

Intensity : This is just a way of thinking. Its not a fact or a scientific principle. Its not testable or falsifiable so I will not argue about it.
But suffice it to say that when we say "exist", we implicitly mean exist in the present reality.
Unless you want to use language that is not precise. For example, if I get your juice from the fridge and drink it, then you come two days later and ask me "is my juice there?" and I reply "yes your juice exists". You check in the fridge and find the juice missing. You comb the house and look for it all over. Then I keep on harping "your juice exists". Of course the question will be "exists where"? And later it will be "it doesn't exist anymore". We operate within the present. And that the way our reality is shaped.
And of course I will be nuts. Because "exist" implies present reality. Reality itself implies state at the "present moment".

Tron : If you burn your house down to fine ash today, the house will still exist yesterday, so the ash can exist alongside the house "simultaneously", though it can not exist alongside the house simultaneously. Using the English language to talk about time is difficult, and occasionally you have to use words differently.

Intensity : This merely shows you have a faulty definition of the word "existence" and "moment".
If you defined them as you formulate your proposition, you will realize your argument is self-refuting.

A moment is a specific point in time.
To say all moments exist simultaneously is to say "all moments exist at the same time" (simultaneously being defined as "existing or happening at the same time").
So what does it mean to say "all specific points in time exist at the same time"?
This is self contradictory because "specific points in time" means time is a continuum that can be referred to in discrete terms.
It also means there are many points in time (ie several moments).

But "at the same time" means at the same specific instance in time.

Your fallacy is in reifying time. You are thinking of time as a concrete entity - like a table - which can have a cup, a pot and a kettle at the same time on the surface. With time, only the present is available at a time. We can't have all moments available at the same time.
One present at a time will create the past and access the future. You cant have it all.

wdog

tron,

Intensity seems to have the best handle of the concept of time. I agrre with him that existence should be localized in time, nothing else makes sense to me.

I think you are viewing time thru a prism of spatial analogy. we have to be careful with that as it has limited usefuleness.

what I mean by nonlinearities of the world are the inherent unpredictabilities of a lot of macrophenomena. it is not possible even in principle to know the exact state of our atmosphere in 3 months. it must evolve one moment at at time to its next state unpredictably. what you seem to be saying is that the future state already exists somehow, that is opposed to how we understand the weather. it can't exist because nature herself doesn't know what it should be.

I think I would say that time can be regarded as a parameter variable when you describe our existence with the evolution of the universe. The reality is the physical state (fields, particles), and it has a unique existence.

Ted Hoffman

wdog
I'm glad we are on the same footing on this matter. You say Tron is "viewing time thru a prism of spatial analogy" I think so too and he has comitted a reification fallacy of some sorts.

See Tron, for the past to exist, it must exist somewhere.
And going by this false thinking, it would mean that somewhere in the universe (things exist in the universe) there is me being born, me crying, me sleeping etc. The same to all of us. You moving the mouse, you eating chicken. The singularity, 2 seconds after the big bang, the presolar material collapsing to form our galaxy, the mountains forming... etc. You are implying all that exists except we cant access it. We are in one frame - they are in another.

Where will all this info get stored?

Reality would be crowded and very soon, the past would crowd into the present. And then, crowd the present out of existence. And then only the past would exist.

A dead universe.

[ November 08, 2002: Message edited by: Intensity ]</p>

Ted Hoffman

...Hourglass fallacy
I think I have discovered a new mental state/fallacy. Where one views the present, the past and the future to be existing simultaneously.

&lt;intensity carefully enters his name in the Guiness Book of world records and makes himself a nominee for the Noble Prize for physics and logic&gt;