On Sat, Jan 4, 2014 at 9:37 PM, LizR <[email protected]> wrote: > On 5 January 2014 15:01, Jason Resch <[email protected]> wrote: > >> What is moving if it's not time? >> >> Our minds are, from one slice in spacetime to the next. >> > > Jason, > > I agree completely with all your other replied to Edgar, but I think the > above one could be misleading. I know what you mean (it's similar to the > famous phrase about our minds "crawling up our worldlines") but it creates > just the sort of mental picture that presentists will leap on with cries of > "AHA! So it does move after all!!!" > > So, let me just put the record straight. Our minds are NOT moving from one > slice of space-time to the next. Nothing is. However, the slices are > connected in a manner determined by the laws of physics (which could, for > example, be demonstrated by viewing the whole schmeer as a Feynman diagram, > as you mentioned) and this is sufficient to give us the illusion that there > is a "moving present moment". In practice (if we leave aside a comp type > explanation and assume our minds are generated by the activity of our > brains) then that brain activity is sufficient to give a powerful illusion > that we are "moving through time". But, as the guy in "Memento" > demonstrates, this is an merely illusion, caused by the persistence of > memory, which effectively gives us a physical connection to the past via > the arrangement of the worldlines of the molecules making up our physical > structure. > > Liz,
Thanks for making that clarification, which is important. You interpret my meaning correctly, it is not that the value is moving up along the y-axis in the graph of the function y=2x+7, but that for increasing x's, there are increasing y's. In the same sense, we can interpret that as one looks at ascending time-slices, you will see accumulating memories, etc. Edgar's assertion that we "wouldn't feel like we are moving through time" unless time "really moves", contradicts computationalism, which his theory supposedly assumes. (Actually, I see no way at all how successively creating and and then deleting successive slices in time even could explain our sensation of moving through time.) Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
