On 12/30/2013 1:56 AM, LizR wrote:
On 30 December 2013 20:53, Stephen Paul King <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hi LizR,
Round and round we go... This sentence "It emerges because instants are
connected
to each other in a way that makes there appear to be smooth change between
them."
does not explain anything. I have read just about every book and paper that
attempts
to explain time away. All fail on this point. None offer any reason for the
illusion
of change to be there in the first place. If we point to a sequence (of
numbers,
events, states, whatever) we still need to explain how that particular
sequence is
the one that just "happened". No, it could not "Happen".
A good way to visualise a block universe is like the frames of a movie stacked on top of
each other. The books, papers etc you read are not attempting to "explain time away" -
they are attempting to explain how time arises from the relevant equations. (Actually, I
suspect that you are betraying a personal bias against the idea by using that phrase, so
I may be wasting my typing fingers here! But anyway...)
You are asking what connects the frames together. The answer is the laws of physics. In
the Newtonian and Relativistic views this is what the laws of physics are - equations
which describe how things change over time. They describe a block universe.
Asking why one sequence of events "just happened" is assuming there has to be an
external time in which one sequence is selected, or evolves, or otherwise occurs. In
"classical" relativity this question is answered by saying that the block universe is
the only possible outcome of the laws of physics, assumed to be deterministic. So we
have a Laplace's demon type answer. Quantum theory, in the form of the MWI gives a
broader answer by allowing all events allowed by the probabalistic laws of physics to
occur. A block multiverse has no need to evolve or select a sequence of events, because
all sequences compatible with the laws of physics occur.
But QM requires initial conditions too. Do you propose a multiverse in which all possible
(logically non-contradictory) initial conditions obtain?
Brent
That answers the question of how this particular sequence "just happens" for both GR
/and /QM!
:-)
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