> In the end, the very basic purpose of physics is to be able to tell, given state 1, what state 2 will be. Totally. But I would say your idea of predicting is

> In the end, the very basic purpose of physics is to be able to tell, given state 1, what state 2 will be. Totally. But I would say your idea of predicting is still unnecessarily involving a "flow of time"; of things "becoming" or changing in themselves. Relations can hold without this notion of change or "becoming". A carpet with a regular pattern does not evolve in time, yet it has patterns. The patterns could be analogues to the laws of physics. The pattern tells you what can be in adjacent portions of the carpet, just like the laws of physics take input and tell you what will or can happen next. The carpet never changes though. You can imagine a separate observer tracing out a line in the pattern from one section to another and seeing it "change", but again the carpet never changed. Fitting consciousness into this model is very hard I admit. There would be no outside observer tracing out lines in the carpet seeing them change. Instead, the flow of time (the feeling of us persisting from one moment to the next; not being entirely new objects at each instantaneous slice) would have to be a conscious illusion. But so is redness and warmth I could say. Maybe a brainstate is just your memories. And having a sequence of memories gives the illusion you existed prior to this instant. And this process* is done at every instant. *Process as in timeless patterns on a carpet or timeless laws of physics. This process does not "take time", it's just action of particles behaving the laws of physics - in a timeless/carpet sense. Consiousness is given at every instant by the relation of particles, like the imagine on a movie screen is given at each instant from the photons of the projector. It's just that our screen "consciousness" feels persistent due to having memories. If anyone wants a more cogent explanation read Tegmark, Barbour, and Harvey Brown. Here is Harvey https://youtu.be/CA-YsWXRSHU https://youtu.be/CA-YsWXRSHU