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Author Topic:   What is Time and Space
nwr
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Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 147 of 204 (306318)
04-24-2006 3:44 PM
Reply to: Message 146 by GDR
04-24-2006 9:53 AM


Re: Time, Space, Consciousness and Penrose
I found a link to where Penrose said some of these things.
Do those with some expertise agree with Penrose that time is an illusion that stems from consciousness?
I don't agree. Penrose has a history of non-traditional views on consciousness. Some of this is described in wikipedia, and in another wiki entry.
Roger Penrose : Yes I think physicists would agree that the feeling of time passing is simply an illusion, something that is not real. It has something to do with our perceptions.
There seems to be a tendency for physicists to jump into metaphysics. Perhaps that could even be considered an occupational hazard of doing physics.
In some respects, physics treats time much as it treats distance. We don't think about a flow of distance. Rather, we think of objects at different distances as being always in existence. So why not consider all of time to have existed forever? That's the kind of thinking that leads some physicists to question our understanding of time.
For example, the wave equation treats time and distance in very similar ways. However, the heat equation does treat time differently from distance, and fits well with the idea of a flow of time.
The mistake (of Penrose) in my opinion, is to lose track of the distinction between the reality and the science. The scientist constructs a mathematical framework, in order to study reality. The tendency (the occupational hazard) is to come to believe that the framework is reality, and to forget that it is merely a framework to be used for studying reality.
Here is the problem I see with Penrose's idea. If time, and the flow of time, is the kind of illusion that Penrose thinks it is, the those parts of science where the flow of time makes sense are also illusory. That would make biological evolution an illusion. It would make human consciousness an illusion. And then science itself, which is a product of human consciousness, must be taken to be an illusion. In my opinion, this "illusion" idea is self-impeaching.

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 Message 146 by GDR, posted 04-24-2006 9:53 AM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 150 by GDR, posted 04-25-2006 12:58 AM nwr has replied
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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 149 of 204 (306324)
04-24-2006 5:20 PM
Reply to: Message 148 by Son Goku
04-24-2006 4:30 PM


That would make biological evolution an illusion.
I just want to be sure on what you're saying here.
Okay, I was skimpy on detail there.
Biological evolution is, most importantly, about a process of change, a process of adapting to changing conditions.
If the flow of time is an illusion, then the idea of a process is also an illusion. In particular, the idea of adaptation is an illusion.
f one considers evolution from a "Block Time" point of view all you have is a 4-D "shape". A 3-space slice of which, at one end looks like a population of flies with a feeler and, at the other end, a population of flies without a feeler.
If it all exists at once, then there was no process. Rather, the whole slice was laid out. It begs for a creationist explanation.

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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 152 of 204 (306445)
04-25-2006 8:42 AM
Reply to: Message 150 by GDR
04-25-2006 12:58 AM


Re: Time, Space, Consciousness and Penrose
I have no scientific background but it does seem to me from my reading that the more scientists learn the more they learn they don't know.
That's to be expected.
Assume creationism for a moment, and think about the God's eye view. The creator is outside our universe, having created it. So the creator has an external perspective.
By contrast, we are stuck inside our world, trying to work out what it looks like from the inside. You might imagine you are locked in a cabin in a large ship sailing on the seas. What you can see is limited by your internal perspective. Can you work out that you are in a ship? Can you work out that there is a sea?
Whether or not there is a creator, we are still stuck with looking at our world from the inside. We can never expect to answer all of the questions. The problem with doing metaphysics, the problem with talk about "ultimate reality" or a "theory of everything", is that they pretend we could see what our universe looks like from the outside.

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 Message 150 by GDR, posted 04-25-2006 12:58 AM GDR has replied

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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 190 of 204 (347757)
09-09-2006 8:31 AM
Reply to: Message 187 by cavediver
09-08-2006 3:23 PM


Re: Time
Imagine slight changes that would still seem to be consistent with the laws of phsyics.
Why assume that what we know as the laws of physics should be relevant to a different universe?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 187 by cavediver, posted 09-08-2006 3:23 PM cavediver has replied

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 Message 191 by Son Goku, posted 09-10-2006 5:11 PM nwr has seen this message but not replied
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