Jun 5, 2023 01:25 PM
(This post was last modified: Jun 5, 2023 03:47 PM by C C.)
PROLOGUE TO ARTICLE
Albert Einstein: "And now he has preceded me briefly in bidding farewell to this strange world. This signifies nothing. For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, even if a stubborn one." --Letter written on March 21, 1955 to the children of his friend, Michele Besso
Paul Davies: "Physicists prefer to think of time as laid out in its entirety--a timescape, analogous to a landscape--with all past and future events located there together. It is a notion sometimes referred to as block time. Completely absent from this description of nature is anything that singles out a privileged special moment as the present or any process that would systematically turn future events into present, then past, events. In short, the time of the physicist does not pass or flow." --That Mysterious Flow (Scientific American)
Robert Geroch: "There is no dynamics within space-time itself: nothing ever moves therein; nothing happens; nothing changes. [...] In particular, one does not think of particles as 'moving through' space-time, or as 'following along' their world-lines. Rather, particles are just 'in' space-time, once and for all, and the world-line represents, all at once the complete life history of the particle." --General Relativity from A to B
Paul Davies: "Peter Lynds's reasonable and widely accepted assertion that the flow of time is an illusion (25 October, p 33) does not imply that time itself is an illusion. It is perfectly meaningful to state that two events may be separated by a certain duration, while denying that time mysteriously flows from one event to the other. Crick compares our perception of time to that of space. Quite right. Space does not flow either, but it's still 'there'." --New Scientist, 6 December 2003, Sec. Letters
Hermann Weyl: "The objective world simply IS, it does not HAPPEN. Only to the gaze of my consciousness, crawling upward along the life line [worldline] of my body, does a certain section of this world come to life as a fleeting image in space which continuously changes in time." --Philosophy of Mathematics and Natural Science
A Debate Over The Physics of Time (Quanta Magazine): "According to our best theories of physics, the universe is a fixed block where time only appears to pass. Yet a number of physicists hope to replace this 'block universe' with a physical theory of time."
ARTICLE
There is no free will in Einstein's universe
https://iai.tv/articles/the-disturbing-b..._auid=2020
INTRO: Both philosophers and physicists have wondered about the implications of the block universe theory, which states that we live in a 4D world where there is no real passage of time. In this response piece to the recent IAI News Article Ethics, Death and the Block Universe, philosopher David Kyle Johnson argues that the block universe has radical implications for our experience of life, including death.
EXCERPTS: . . . Now, whether the block universe also changes how you view death depends on what version of the block universe you embrace—what theory of time you think accurately describes it. On the “A theory of time,” it is true that all moments in time exist, but one moment has a special status: the present. And which moment is the present is always changing. It’s as if the block is a reel of film that is being shown; whichever frame is in front of the light, and thus being protected, is analogous to the moment in the block that is the present moment. On this theory, death is consequential. After death, all the moments in time that contain you being conscious will forever be past; although they still exist, and thus you still exist in a sense, no moment of time that contains you being conscious will ever occur again. This means you will never be conscious again.
On the “B theory of time,” however, there is no present moment; all moments simply exist, and no one moment is “occurring” while the others aren’t. They all just are and the passage of time is simply an illusion created by how each conscious mind experiences the moment it is in. On this view, every moment of your life “always” exists, in every sense (including whether it is “occurring”), just as much as every moment after your death. So your death really does not change anything at all. The moments in time that contains you being conscious, and the ones that don’t, are all always equally real and “happening.”
Since relativity entails that there is no privileged reference frame, and there would have to be for the A-theory to be true, I imagine that the B-theory is what Einstein had in mind when he comforted the widow of Michael Besso. And since on that theory, death really does change nothing, I think that Effingham’s critique of Einstein’s statement is ill-founded. If the B-theory of time is correct, the moments in the block during which Besso are still alive are just as real and occurring as the present moment....
[...] The first and most obvious “threat” that the block universe theory raises is to our free will. If what I will do exists before I even do it, it doesn’t seem I freely choose to do what I do. Why? When I think I am freely choosing to do or not do some action, I think that both doing that action and not doing that action are both genuine, actual, real possibilities. If, instead, only one is possible, it is not within my power to choose otherwise; and if the future already exists, only one action is possible. And on the block universe view, the future already exists. It’s as set as the end of a movie I am already watching. I may think it could go any number of ways—but that is only because I am currently ignorant of what already exists. In reality, both my decision and action are already written; they’re already “in the can.” So, my choice to do the action is not free... (MORE - missing details)
Will is the "capability of conscious choice and decision and intention" that is is determined and carried out by the operations of the autonomous brain/body. Accordingly, the "free" modifier added to "will" cannot incoherently refer to being free from the (predictable in theory) constraints and identity of the physical agent that exercises will to begin with.
A non-contradictory interpretation of free will (FW) merely denotes the physical subject being [contingently] free from external coercion -- i.e., free to do what an autonomous entity does, regardless of consequences, mistaken thinking, ignorance, etc. Not being responsible for _X_ in a practical or legal context due to domination from another agency forcing one to desert the usual behavior and choices of one's current but still developing identity configuration.
Whereas a traditional conception of FW amounting to "I could have done otherwise" under the exact same physical circumstances (from subatomic to macroscopic levels), is thus dead (inconsistent) before it leaves the starting gate. By virtue of being nonsensical (interpreting "free" as being free from the brain/body and its own systematic response to environmental situations), it actually has no legit argumentive effect in rendering "will" incompatible with determinism. (With respect to both a block universe -- that simply exists, and a presentism type universe conforming to and outputted incrementally by a rigid, computational or deterministic process.)
The hard incompatibilism view also stemming from that faulty tradition extends to contending that even indeterminism (randomness) undermines will, since totally disorganized interactions cannot output deliberated choices (is not will), and intermittent (mitigated) randomness intruding upon and disrupting the brain/body's regulated system is just another catergory of external instrusion causing one to do something one otherwise would not.
But via instead interpretating the "free" modifier properly, randomness is not essential for will, anyway.
Yet randomness (in the causal or everyday sense) could be a potential part of a particular individual's identity. That is, s/he or they could decide to no longer behave/think in a governed way and try to avoid repeated patterns of any kind. However, being unpredictable -- even in a mitigated sense -- is again not essential for will, and could actually be quite self-injurious and life threatening (depending on the magnitude of avoiding governed and rational actions).
- - - additionally - - -
(1) Authentic randomness (if there is such) would concern events that do not adhere to any pattern and are not amenable to being produced or predicted by computation or deterministic processes. If we could factually declare that _X_ event occurring "right now" is random (for whatever reason), it would not lose that classification after it and those of us categorizing it as such are construed as part of the past by later, different states of ourselves. Randomness isn't ephemeral -- a robust meaning of "randomness" is not dependent on temporal status (past, present, future).
Thereby, even random classified events would be presevered in a block universe, albeit those are unessential for will to begin with (see above).
(2) Free will isn't about having the liberty to decide who you want to be (and what, where) before you exist -- which includes the applicable innate and acquired tendencies. You obviously can't do that before you exist. You are the person here with your particular life history and memories. You can't be someone else or you cease to exist. A plastic square wistfully daydreaming "I wish could have been a sphere" is synonymous with "I wish I had never been manufactured (born)."
(3) Will isn't the capacity to change your "programming", though will can contingently concern that (it's a feature or possibility that can be outputted by will). If you change your "programming" at some point in life, it's still (barring brain injury, surgical alteration by outsiders, radical drug effects, etc) the result of your particular identity configuration (at that time of development) being receptive to whatever external factors bring about that transformation.
Whereas another person -- with different innate and environmentally acquired tendencies slash thought orientations -- may resist change under the same influences (whether they be harsh or comforting). This doesn't mean the resistant individual "can't be reached" at some point in the future, only that he/she/they may require different triggers or stimulus.
Albert Einstein: "And now he has preceded me briefly in bidding farewell to this strange world. This signifies nothing. For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, even if a stubborn one." --Letter written on March 21, 1955 to the children of his friend, Michele Besso
Paul Davies: "Physicists prefer to think of time as laid out in its entirety--a timescape, analogous to a landscape--with all past and future events located there together. It is a notion sometimes referred to as block time. Completely absent from this description of nature is anything that singles out a privileged special moment as the present or any process that would systematically turn future events into present, then past, events. In short, the time of the physicist does not pass or flow." --That Mysterious Flow (Scientific American)
Robert Geroch: "There is no dynamics within space-time itself: nothing ever moves therein; nothing happens; nothing changes. [...] In particular, one does not think of particles as 'moving through' space-time, or as 'following along' their world-lines. Rather, particles are just 'in' space-time, once and for all, and the world-line represents, all at once the complete life history of the particle." --General Relativity from A to B
Paul Davies: "Peter Lynds's reasonable and widely accepted assertion that the flow of time is an illusion (25 October, p 33) does not imply that time itself is an illusion. It is perfectly meaningful to state that two events may be separated by a certain duration, while denying that time mysteriously flows from one event to the other. Crick compares our perception of time to that of space. Quite right. Space does not flow either, but it's still 'there'." --New Scientist, 6 December 2003, Sec. Letters
Hermann Weyl: "The objective world simply IS, it does not HAPPEN. Only to the gaze of my consciousness, crawling upward along the life line [worldline] of my body, does a certain section of this world come to life as a fleeting image in space which continuously changes in time." --Philosophy of Mathematics and Natural Science
A Debate Over The Physics of Time (Quanta Magazine): "According to our best theories of physics, the universe is a fixed block where time only appears to pass. Yet a number of physicists hope to replace this 'block universe' with a physical theory of time."
ARTICLE
There is no free will in Einstein's universe
https://iai.tv/articles/the-disturbing-b..._auid=2020
INTRO: Both philosophers and physicists have wondered about the implications of the block universe theory, which states that we live in a 4D world where there is no real passage of time. In this response piece to the recent IAI News Article Ethics, Death and the Block Universe, philosopher David Kyle Johnson argues that the block universe has radical implications for our experience of life, including death.
EXCERPTS: . . . Now, whether the block universe also changes how you view death depends on what version of the block universe you embrace—what theory of time you think accurately describes it. On the “A theory of time,” it is true that all moments in time exist, but one moment has a special status: the present. And which moment is the present is always changing. It’s as if the block is a reel of film that is being shown; whichever frame is in front of the light, and thus being protected, is analogous to the moment in the block that is the present moment. On this theory, death is consequential. After death, all the moments in time that contain you being conscious will forever be past; although they still exist, and thus you still exist in a sense, no moment of time that contains you being conscious will ever occur again. This means you will never be conscious again.
On the “B theory of time,” however, there is no present moment; all moments simply exist, and no one moment is “occurring” while the others aren’t. They all just are and the passage of time is simply an illusion created by how each conscious mind experiences the moment it is in. On this view, every moment of your life “always” exists, in every sense (including whether it is “occurring”), just as much as every moment after your death. So your death really does not change anything at all. The moments in time that contains you being conscious, and the ones that don’t, are all always equally real and “happening.”
Since relativity entails that there is no privileged reference frame, and there would have to be for the A-theory to be true, I imagine that the B-theory is what Einstein had in mind when he comforted the widow of Michael Besso. And since on that theory, death really does change nothing, I think that Effingham’s critique of Einstein’s statement is ill-founded. If the B-theory of time is correct, the moments in the block during which Besso are still alive are just as real and occurring as the present moment....
[...] The first and most obvious “threat” that the block universe theory raises is to our free will. If what I will do exists before I even do it, it doesn’t seem I freely choose to do what I do. Why? When I think I am freely choosing to do or not do some action, I think that both doing that action and not doing that action are both genuine, actual, real possibilities. If, instead, only one is possible, it is not within my power to choose otherwise; and if the future already exists, only one action is possible. And on the block universe view, the future already exists. It’s as set as the end of a movie I am already watching. I may think it could go any number of ways—but that is only because I am currently ignorant of what already exists. In reality, both my decision and action are already written; they’re already “in the can.” So, my choice to do the action is not free... (MORE - missing details)
Will is the "capability of conscious choice and decision and intention" that is is determined and carried out by the operations of the autonomous brain/body. Accordingly, the "free" modifier added to "will" cannot incoherently refer to being free from the (predictable in theory) constraints and identity of the physical agent that exercises will to begin with.
A non-contradictory interpretation of free will (FW) merely denotes the physical subject being [contingently] free from external coercion -- i.e., free to do what an autonomous entity does, regardless of consequences, mistaken thinking, ignorance, etc. Not being responsible for _X_ in a practical or legal context due to domination from another agency forcing one to desert the usual behavior and choices of one's current but still developing identity configuration.
Whereas a traditional conception of FW amounting to "I could have done otherwise" under the exact same physical circumstances (from subatomic to macroscopic levels), is thus dead (inconsistent) before it leaves the starting gate. By virtue of being nonsensical (interpreting "free" as being free from the brain/body and its own systematic response to environmental situations), it actually has no legit argumentive effect in rendering "will" incompatible with determinism. (With respect to both a block universe -- that simply exists, and a presentism type universe conforming to and outputted incrementally by a rigid, computational or deterministic process.)
The hard incompatibilism view also stemming from that faulty tradition extends to contending that even indeterminism (randomness) undermines will, since totally disorganized interactions cannot output deliberated choices (is not will), and intermittent (mitigated) randomness intruding upon and disrupting the brain/body's regulated system is just another catergory of external instrusion causing one to do something one otherwise would not.
But via instead interpretating the "free" modifier properly, randomness is not essential for will, anyway.
Yet randomness (in the causal or everyday sense) could be a potential part of a particular individual's identity. That is, s/he or they could decide to no longer behave/think in a governed way and try to avoid repeated patterns of any kind. However, being unpredictable -- even in a mitigated sense -- is again not essential for will, and could actually be quite self-injurious and life threatening (depending on the magnitude of avoiding governed and rational actions).
- - - additionally - - -
(1) Authentic randomness (if there is such) would concern events that do not adhere to any pattern and are not amenable to being produced or predicted by computation or deterministic processes. If we could factually declare that _X_ event occurring "right now" is random (for whatever reason), it would not lose that classification after it and those of us categorizing it as such are construed as part of the past by later, different states of ourselves. Randomness isn't ephemeral -- a robust meaning of "randomness" is not dependent on temporal status (past, present, future).
Thereby, even random classified events would be presevered in a block universe, albeit those are unessential for will to begin with (see above).
(2) Free will isn't about having the liberty to decide who you want to be (and what, where) before you exist -- which includes the applicable innate and acquired tendencies. You obviously can't do that before you exist. You are the person here with your particular life history and memories. You can't be someone else or you cease to exist. A plastic square wistfully daydreaming "I wish could have been a sphere" is synonymous with "I wish I had never been manufactured (born)."
(3) Will isn't the capacity to change your "programming", though will can contingently concern that (it's a feature or possibility that can be outputted by will). If you change your "programming" at some point in life, it's still (barring brain injury, surgical alteration by outsiders, radical drug effects, etc) the result of your particular identity configuration (at that time of development) being receptive to whatever external factors bring about that transformation.
Whereas another person -- with different innate and environmentally acquired tendencies slash thought orientations -- may resist change under the same influences (whether they be harsh or comforting). This doesn't mean the resistant individual "can't be reached" at some point in the future, only that he/she/they may require different triggers or stimulus.
