Originally posted by Boxing Pythagoras
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Here in the Philosophy forum we will talk about all the "why" questions. We'll have conversations about the way in which philosophy and theology and religion interact with each other. Metaphysics, ontology, origins, truth? They're all fair game so jump right in and have some fun! But remember...play nice!
Forum Rules: Here
Here in the Philosophy forum we will talk about all the "why" questions. We'll have conversations about the way in which philosophy and theology and religion interact with each other. Metaphysics, ontology, origins, truth? They're all fair game so jump right in and have some fun! But remember...play nice!
Forum Rules: Here
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B Theory Of Time...
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Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s
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Originally posted by seer View PostOK so time doesn't move. Then how do we know it exists?
Literally every time you use a device that makes use of GPS, you're using technology which is built around the implications of Relativity on Time.
How do we measure it?"[Mathematics] is the revealer of every genuine truth, for it knows every hidden secret, and bears the key to every subtlety of letters; whoever, then, has the effrontery to pursue physics while neglecting mathematics should know from the start he will never make his entry through the portals of wisdom."
--Thomas Bradwardine, De Continuo (c. 1325)
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Originally posted by Boxing Pythagoras View PostI presume you mean to ask how we know that it exists as a dimension of measure, rather than asking how we know Time exists at all. The mathematical models of Relativity allow us to make certain predictions about the behavior of the world around us, so we construct experiments to test these predictions and compare the collected data to the predicted results. This has been done to astonishing levels of precision in the case of General Relativity.
Literally every time you use a device that makes use of GPS, you're using technology which is built around the implications of Relativity on Time.
With clocks of varying levels of precision.Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s
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Originally posted by seer View PostI'm sorry, I don't get it, how do clocks measure something that is tenseless and static?"[Mathematics] is the revealer of every genuine truth, for it knows every hidden secret, and bears the key to every subtlety of letters; whoever, then, has the effrontery to pursue physics while neglecting mathematics should know from the start he will never make his entry through the portals of wisdom."
--Thomas Bradwardine, De Continuo (c. 1325)
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Originally posted by Boxing Pythagoras View PostI know. I'm just honestly not understanding which particular issue is confusing, so I'm having difficulty figuring out what needs to be explained more.
Whether we are talking about the A-Theory or the B-Theory, the state of a thing at time t1 and the state of a thing at time t2 are two different states of a single object. The state at t1 doesn't change on either model. It is the object, itself, which is changing. The only difference is that, on the A-Theory (at least on Presentist views) the state at t1 doesn't exist when t2 is the present moment.
There are several reasons why I don't like the film strip analogy. For one, it is completely inadequate and misleading for models in which Time is continuous rather than discrete. For another, even assuming a discrete theory of Time, people latch on to the idea of the film strip moving in Time rather than thinking of it as a depiction of Time, meaning that it is rather useless for actually illustrating the differences in the models for people already having difficulty wrapping their head around it.
Everything. Right now, our eyes see in three spatial dimensions. You're asking me what the entirety of a possibly-infinite, 4-dimensional space-time "looks" like. The best answer I can give is that it wouldn't look like anything you or I could understand.
All of those components form the same object despite being spread out in Time in exactly the same way that your big toe, foot, ankle, shin, thigh, stomach, chest, arms, neck, and head all compose a single object despite being spread out in Space. Whether on the A-Theory or the B-Theory, the entity that is You at 6:30pm is the same entity that is You at 6:31pm, despite being in different states at those different times.Last edited by JimL; 05-30-2020, 10:24 AM.
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There is only the now. And its past events. The future is only what the now becomes. Every place has its now which is a different now being a different place. The order of common past events are different order to each now of each place. The B theory is never true.. . . the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; . . . -- Romans 1:16 KJV
. . . that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: . . . -- 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 KJV
Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: . . . -- 1 John 5:1 KJV
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Originally posted by JimL View PostI understand that much, but if as in B-theory the whole thing, all of time, every state at every point in all of time has always been, how can the things themselves be said to have changed? They are different states at different points in time, but they have always been different states at different points of time, yes?
Imagine if someone asked you the question, "Do all locations on Earth exist for someone in New Jersey?" Now, if you answer that these locations do exist even for a person in New Jersey, imagine the other person saying, "How can people be in different places on Earth if all of those places exist in New Jersey?"
This is precisely akin to the confusion you seem to be having, here. All moments of time are coextant. That doesn't make them the same moment. So, while it is technically true to say that time t2 exists at time t1, that does not make them the same time; in exactly the same way that the North Pole exists in New Jersey, but it is not the same location as New Jersey.
But I'm not doing that, I'm thinking of the film as an analogy, as a depiction of time, in which the film itself, like time, is continuous. Would you not say that the film is a good analogy for a block universe in which time itself is static, and the film cells being analogous to the points in time? Neither the things in time nor the cells in the film are moving, but the positions of the same objects differ at each point in time and in each cell in the film.
Well, hypothetically say, if we thought of the universe as a 1 dimensional object as viewed from the outside, would you see motion, or would you simply see static objects at each point in the whole of a static time?
That much I understand. But is my body, being that it is spread out in time, forever spread out in time, or does it actually move from one state to the other, from position A at t1 to position B at t2. That's what I'm trrying to understand. What does change actually mean with respect to static time?"[Mathematics] is the revealer of every genuine truth, for it knows every hidden secret, and bears the key to every subtlety of letters; whoever, then, has the effrontery to pursue physics while neglecting mathematics should know from the start he will never make his entry through the portals of wisdom."
--Thomas Bradwardine, De Continuo (c. 1325)
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Originally posted by Boxing Pythagoras View PostMuch in the same way that rulers measure something that is tenseless and static: by having demarcations at regular increments over the particular dimension of measure.Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s
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Originally posted by 37818 View PostThere is only the now. And its past events. The future is only what the now becomes. Every place has its now which is a different now being a different place. The order of common past events are different order to each now of each place. The B theory is never true.
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Originally posted by seer View PostOK, so if I follow this logic, in this universe the 1969 me is still experiencing 1969. As a matter fact there are millions and millions versions of me experiencing every moment I experienced - all this contained in this very same universe.
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Originally posted by Sparko View PostThey are not different versions of you. You are YOU throughout all of your lifetime that exists in every moment of time from your birth to your death. you only "experience" each moment once.Last edited by JimL; 05-31-2020, 09:45 AM.
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Originally posted by Sparko View PostThey are not different versions of you. You are YOU throughout all of your lifetime that exists in every moment of time from your birth to your death. you only "experience" each moment once.Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s
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Originally posted by Boxing Pythagoras View PostI think that you are confusing yourself when you say that these things "have always been." You're mistaking the notion that these moments exist for thinking that they are somehow the same moment.
Imagine if someone asked you the question, "Do all locations on Earth exist for someone in New Jersey?" Now, if you answer that these locations do exist even for a person in New Jersey, imagine the other person saying, "How can people be in different places on Earth if all of those places exist in New Jersey?"
This is precisely akin to the confusion you seem to be having, here. All moments of time are coextant. That doesn't make them the same moment. So, while it is technically true to say that time t2 exists at time t1, that does not make them the same time; in exactly the same way that the North Pole exists in New Jersey, but it is not the same location as New Jersey.
You're actually making the mistake even as you're saying that you don't intend to do so. When you say that "time itself is static," you are saying that time does not change with respect to time. When you say that the cells in the film are not moving, you are imagining a film strip remaining unchanged as time passes. This is precisely the wrong way to think about it.
If it's 1-dimensional, then we have either a dimension of space or a dimension of time, in which case motion is not even coherent. However, presuming that you mean either a 2-dimensional (one space, one time) or a 3-dimensional (two space, one time) universe, how do you propose a person could actually see such a thing? Sight requires both space and time. If we are "outside" of space-time, we haven't got these things available to us. We could make a model of such a thing within our own space-time, but what that model looks like depends entirely upon how we construct it and would fall prey to the same problems of analogy as the film strip.
Again, the definition of change which we've been discussing is exactly the same whether we are talking about the A-Theory or the B-Theory. This is why I think you are still conflating the idea that all of time is coextant for the idea that all of time is the same moment in time.Last edited by JimL; 05-31-2020, 11:58 AM.
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Originally posted by Sparko View PostThey are not different versions of you. You are YOU throughout all of your lifetime that exists in every moment of time from your birth to your death. you only "experience" each moment once.
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