3 ms·

I don't see how this responds to the thrust of the argument. The argument is that if order doesn't matter to the directionality of subjective time then no order

I don't see how this responds to the thrust of the argument. The argument is that if order doesn't matter to the directionality of subjective time then no order doesn't matter either. Time isn't required to differentiate two states just as time isn't required to differentiate two static regions of space. The features of the thing can do the differentiation. Whether you consider all of block spacetime as a single entity or subdivided in various ways is a matter of convention. But regions of this block spacetime can be grouped by way of their apparent dynamical connection. I.e. the appearance of evolution following laws connects some regions with others sequentially.

CooCooCaCha 2y ago
Ah I think I wasn’t clear. I don’t really care if time moves sequentially or jumps around in random order. My concern is with the existence of time itself. What gives space meaning is coordinates, which allow multiple things to exist separately from each other. Likewise you need another coordinate to differentiate “snapshots” of the universe. So in that sense time is necessary to differentiate two states. But i understand we’re talking about a more fundamental notion of time so i get what you’re saying. Perhaps a better way to put it is time is necessary for events to happen. Let’s say you could view the universe from the outside, ok great but what can you do with that? You still need time to do things even if you’re outside the universe. Otherwise it would literally be frozen and meaningless. That’s my issue with these timeless theories is people imagine viewing the universe as a static 4D object but they still talk about it as if things are happening outside the universe and you need time for events to happen. If time doesn’t exist then a “gods eye view” is meaningless because nothing could happen from that perspective either. It’s also a strong statement about the origins of reality because if time doesn’t exist then reality could not have been created through any process. God or otherwise.
- hackinthebochs 2y ago
  I get where you're coming from and I'm sympathetic to the argument. I don't give block universe stuff high credence myself. If consciousness is a process, then there would need to be discrete events that constitute the process. No events, no processes, no consciousness. I certainly find this highly intuitive. But this may be a biased analysis based on our time-oriented conceptual milieu. Can we make sense of processes without events? We normally understand a process as a sequence of static events. Time here is really just defining a dependency relation between configurations and some indexical. But a dependency relation doesn't need to be constituted by something that has change as an essential property. Dependency is just matter of an orientation through the state space. Orientation rather than change could be fundamental. With orientation comes trajectories through this structure which could plausibly ground processes. The indexical doesn't matter from the perspective of the subjective evolution of time. What's the difference between a process evolving over essential time and a process "unwound" along a trajectory? Plausibly nothing relevant to consciousness.

CooCooCaCha 2y ago

Ah I think I wasn’t clear. I don’t really care if time moves sequentially or jumps around in random order. My concern is with the existence of time itself. What gives space meaning is coordinates, which allow multiple things to exist separately from each other. Likewise you need another coordinate to differentiate “snapshots” of the universe. So in that sense time is necessary to differentiate two states. But i understand we’re talking about a more fundamental notion of time so i get what you’re saying. Perhaps a better way to put it is time is necessary for events to happen. Let’s say you could view the universe from the outside, ok great but what can you do with that? You still need time to do things even if you’re outside the universe. Otherwise it would literally be frozen and meaningless. That’s my issue with these timeless theories is people imagine viewing the universe as a static 4D object but they still talk about it as if things are happening outside the universe and you need time for events to happen. If time doesn’t exist then a “gods eye view” is meaningless because nothing could happen from that perspective either. It’s also a strong statement about the origins of reality because if time doesn’t exist then reality could not have been created through any process. God or otherwise.

hackinthebochs 2y ago
I get where you're coming from and I'm sympathetic to the argument. I don't give block universe stuff high credence myself. If consciousness is a process, then there would need to be discrete events that constitute the process. No events, no processes, no consciousness. I certainly find this highly intuitive. But this may be a biased analysis based on our time-oriented conceptual milieu. Can we make sense of processes without events? We normally understand a process as a sequence of static events. Time here is really just defining a dependency relation between configurations and some indexical. But a dependency relation doesn't need to be constituted by something that has change as an essential property. Dependency is just matter of an orientation through the state space. Orientation rather than change could be fundamental. With orientation comes trajectories through this structure which could plausibly ground processes. The indexical doesn't matter from the perspective of the subjective evolution of time. What's the difference between a process evolving over essential time and a process "unwound" along a trajectory? Plausibly nothing relevant to consciousness.