block universe
11 Dec 2022 - 11 Aug 2026
- A cosmological view of time as simply another space-like dimension. All times past present and future exist at "once", they are just different slices through a single 4D block. Good and Real lays out this theory and its consequences in some detail.
- Free will doesn't make any sense in such a cosmos, nor does it provide much support for personal experience of the Now, nor the perception of time as flowing.
- Bergson was adamantly opposed to "the spatialization of time".
- The Anxious Tradition by Mike Brock
When we make it visible, the connection to the defense structure becomes clear. The block universe is the Cartesian project applied to time. To treat all temporal coordinates as equivalent points on a four-dimensional manifold — to step outside temporal flow and regard 2025 and 12025 with the same ontological equanimity — requires exactly the vantage point outside time that no situated reasoner can occupy.
- William Burroughs called this "the prerecorded universe" and viewed himself as fighting a war against the very idea.
- This is wise: Timeless Control — LessWrong
When you take a perspective outside time, you have to be careful not to let your old, timeful intuitions run wild in the absence of their subject matter. In the Block Universe, the future is not determined before you make your choice. "Before" is a timeful word. Once you descend so far as to start talking about time, then, of course, the future comes "after" the past, not "before" it.
One must avoid mixing up timeless and timeful thinking. E.g., trying to have "Determinism" acting on things before they happen. Determinism is a timeless viewpoint, so it doesn't mix well with words like "before".
- Yes this might be called false or partial spatialization of time – you think you have captured time, but you still imagine yourself an observer outside of the 4D block, somehow free to observe any part, to travel to any part. Doesn't work that way!
- The block universe makes no sense because it presumes an observer outside of time. No such thing (unless you are some kind of old-school theist I guess). It's a trick.
- Life in Four Dimensions: A Defence of the Block Universe Theory | Oxford Academic
- which is unpublished...
- philosophy is so broken. I'm not even sure what is going wrong here, but obviously something is.