3 ms·

Loving this throw away comment without any context: "the only reason that an object appears to change over time is because it is entangled with a clock ... any

Loving this throw away comment without any context: "the only reason that an object appears to change over time is because it is entangled with a clock ... anyone observing the universe externally would see it as completely ... unchanging" How is a clock unchanging? Perhaps it's needs winding, maybe somebody pulled the plug, who knows, but that's the only kind of clock I know that doesn't change.

Pompidou 2y ago
Maybe the clock with the myriads of hands rotations is view as a whole ? All the possibles states of this clock would be seen simultaneously ? But this clock is itself made up of many parts, which are in turn composed of atoms, subatomic particles, etc. The set of all possible states of the clock also includes the set of states occupied by the different parts of the clock (down to the subatomic level) over time, before and after the clock is made and then disintegrates. The clock is, in fact, just one state among many of the atoms that make it up. These atoms were scattered before being assembled into a clock, and they will be scattered again when the clock is destroyed. So, we are not really talking about a clock, but rather a set of atoms that may have occupied very different positions in the universe, and whose supposed unity exists only transiently when a human being looks at this clock. In a certain way, considering the clock as outside of time almost turns it into a non-being, or at least a diaphanous and ephemeral being, lost in a cloud of particles randomly distributed throughout the universe.
prawn 2y ago
And that paragraph is just about the only meat in the article!
memorylane 2y ago
This might be in reference to an idea called the block universe: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternalism_(philosophy_of_time)#:~:text=It%20is%20sometimes%20referred%20to,by%20the%20passage%20of%20time https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternalism_(philosophy_of_ti....
nico 2y ago
It’s not talking about an unchanging clock. It’s saying that change depends on something that runs like a clock, that “ticks”, that alternates sequentially and in cycles An alternative analogy would be: imagine space and time as opposites of a spectrum. If you had just 1 moment in time, with no alternation, no change, then it would be akin to having all the space together at once, nothing moving. In the other extreme, if you had as many moments in time as possible, it would be non-stop change, in a seemingly infinite space that could never be fully explored, “unknowably large”. In a way they are saying that the universe is a sort of superposition of these extremes, and there isn’t any physical difference between them. At least in the models and experiments

Pompidou 2y ago

Maybe the clock with the myriads of hands rotations is view as a whole ? All the possibles states of this clock would be seen simultaneously ? But this clock is itself made up of many parts, which are in turn composed of atoms, subatomic particles, etc. The set of all possible states of the clock also includes the set of states occupied by the different parts of the clock (down to the subatomic level) over time, before and after the clock is made and then disintegrates. The clock is, in fact, just one state among many of the atoms that make it up. These atoms were scattered before being assembled into a clock, and they will be scattered again when the clock is destroyed. So, we are not really talking about a clock, but rather a set of atoms that may have occupied very different positions in the universe, and whose supposed unity exists only transiently when a human being looks at this clock. In a certain way, considering the clock as outside of time almost turns it into a non-being, or at least a diaphanous and ephemeral being, lost in a cloud of particles randomly distributed throughout the universe.

prawn 2y ago

And that paragraph is just about the only meat in the article!

memorylane 2y ago

This might be in reference to an idea called the block universe: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternalism_(philosophy_of_time)#:~:text=It%20is%20sometimes%20referred%20to,by%20the%20passage%20of%20time https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternalism_(philosophy_of_ti....

nico 2y ago

It’s not talking about an unchanging clock. It’s saying that change depends on something that runs like a clock, that “ticks”, that alternates sequentially and in cycles An alternative analogy would be: imagine space and time as opposites of a spectrum. If you had just 1 moment in time, with no alternation, no change, then it would be akin to having all the space together at once, nothing moving. In the other extreme, if you had as many moments in time as possible, it would be non-stop change, in a seemingly infinite space that could never be fully explored, “unknowably large”. In a way they are saying that the universe is a sort of superposition of these extremes, and there isn’t any physical difference between them. At least in the models and experiments