My point is not that the human experience of time is wrong. The experience is real, but it may be an interface rather than a fundamental feature of reality. Our brains are optimized for local 3D survival, not for grasping global spacetime structure.

Because everyone shares the sensation of temporal flow, we naturally assume it must be objective.…[Read more]

Reg:

Our 5D brains “see” the 4D nature of Spacetime so we traveled along a geodesic spacetime path. In fact it took us no time at all to get here!!

Money in the bank….!!

So, “Let the Sun Shine In” on what this 5th Dimension is. The fruits of the Parsimony Tree are falling off here.

Janke:

I would put my money on no reality. Not the standard model. Not the block. Not parallel. Not string. Not multiverse. Not steady state. Not oscillating.

Reality of course doesn’t care where you put your money, especially the quadrants of timespace labeled “Federal Reserve 1913”, “Savings & Loan 1987”, “Housing Market 2007” or “Congress and…[Read more]

Jake:

Reg, if aliens show up at your door and are to us what we are to eukaryotes and KNOW the nature of the universe what odds would you require before you laid down your money on the block universe?

Pascal’s Wager doesn’t answer any question, otherwise Vegas would be the data capital of the world.

FYI – This is not debate in the usual sense. I am stress-testing a model of reality in public. I think it has a lot of merit. It is not intuitive because it goes against our evolved sense of time flow. But this is only useful on Earth, locally. Relativity strongly suggests a 4D spacetime structure that looks block-like. I’m trying to break it. I…[Read more]

If they called in the middle of the night I would ask them, “What time do you call this??”  They would probably reply “Relative to what frame?”

Then, after a few introductory nanu nanu’s, I would realize that their framework does not privilege clock labels as they have evolved to think purely in relational or structural terms. I would think to m…[Read more]

That is a nice voice from 1932.

95 theses. 99 luftballoons. 9 9 9 Wally George. 9’s are wild. Crazy 8s.

I would put my money on no reality. Not the standard model. Not the block. Not parallel. Not string. Not multiverse. Not steady state. Not oscillating.

Reg:

I can’t think of a reply or a witty retort. I can only hear the words “Diet of Worms” (sic) echoing in my head and I am visualizing a sleuth of bears chanting “I’m a Bear and Bears love to embrace Catholics” as they wander into the forest.

The “Diet of Worms” comes after the bears embrace and engorge on the frightened Catholics t…[Read more]

Reg, if aliens show up at your door and are to us what we are to eukaryotes and KNOW the nature of the universe what odds would you require before you laid down your money on the block universe?

Yes, indeed our timekeeping systems must correspond to real physical behaviour. Otherwise, they would be useless. Sundials, mechanical clocks, atomic clocks, radioactive decay all work because the universe contains stable and repeatable processes. But what they only do is to track regular physical change.

But moving from “clocks correspond to p…[Read more]