Real-Time Physics

James Putnam

What I said has nothing to do with superstition. It has to do with learning instead of dictating nature. You have your own superstition: Self this and self that. The existence of cause appears to be your black cat.

James Putnam

Eckard Blumschein

Tom,

Einstein was quoted by Zeh and also by others as having declared the distinction "between past, present and future an illusion albeit an obstinate one".

IIRC Hilbert did even declare the arrow of time an illusion. Wasn't this a silly but logical consequence of the claimed invariance of the laws of nature under shift and even reversal of time? They overlooked that the arrow of time comes from the non-local inputs to the laws.

I consider Providence, fatalism, and also your seemingly scientific belief in continuity illusions. The Providence of the (Ver)fuehrer of Germany was ridiculous. His Reich did not last 1000 years by only twelve. Fatalism is also destructive.

Your discussion with James Putnam revealed to me that your position is pretty close to mine except for my conviction that past and future are in reality quite different from each other. I would agree on that there is usually no preferred actual moment along the time-line of something artificial like a recorded video or sound or the output of a simulation. However we are living within our real world which is steadily changing with more or less limited possibility of prediction. Einstein's physics doesn't and cannot consider this aspect. Yes, you missed seeing this.

Theories that are based on the block universe omit causality. Therefore their proponents felt forced to deny the now as something of relevance in physics and discredit it as an unspecified illusory perception.

You wrote: "It isn't the now that is illusion (All physics is local); it is the perception of time as past, present and future that is illusion."

I see this a logically flawed presentist position. For good reasons, Einstein spoke of past, future and now, not of their obviously irrelevant for physics subjective perception.

Let me state an antithesis to yours: Anything that happens in physical reality is embedded in a plurality of influences from past processes.

Eckard

Thomas Ray

"You have your own superstition: Self this and self that."

Self organization in nature -- like evolution -- is empirical.

Thomas Ray

Hi Eckard,

To my memory, Einstein's remark about an obstinate illusion was in relation to his grief over the death of his best friend (Michele Besso).

"I consider Providence, fatalism, and also your seemingly scientific belief in continuity illusions. The Providence of the (Ver)fuehrer of Germany was ridiculous. His Reich did not last 1000 years by only twelve. Fatalism is also destructive."

Well sure, I agree. If historicism (historical determinism) had real value, we would all be followers of Marx's "scientific socialism."

"Your discussion with James Putnam revealed to me that your position is pretty close to mine except for my conviction that past and future are in reality quite different from each other."

They're different because they are different words. The meaning of the words, though, does not apply to relativistic distances.

"I would agree on that there is usually no preferred actual moment along the time-line of something artificial like a recorded video or sound or the output of a simulation. However we are living within our real world which is steadily changing with more or less limited possibility of prediction."

Absolutely. All physics is local.

"Einstein's physics doesn't and cannot consider this aspect. Yes, you missed seeing this."

I can't see something that isn't there. That all physics is local, explains the limit of predictive possibilities.

"Theories that are based on the block universe omit causality."

There's no reason to invoke causality to describe least action.

"Therefore their proponents felt forced to deny the now as something of relevance in physics and discredit it as an unspecified illusory perception."

I think it's completely specified.

"You wrote: 'It isn't the now that is illusion (All physics is local); it is the perception of time as past, present and future that is illusion.'

"I see this a logically flawed presentist position. For good reasons, Einstein spoke of past, future and now, not of their obviously irrelevant for physics subjective perception."

Einstein would never allow subjective perception (what he called "mere personal belief") to color his science. The science is objective.

"Let me state an antithesis to yours: Anything that happens in physical reality is embedded in a plurality of influences from past processes."

I don't disagree with that. Past influences in some reference frame, however, may be future influences in another. Nature is demonstrably imbued with positive, as well as negative, feedback effects.

All best,

Tom

James Putnam

Tom,

"Self organization in nature -- like evolution -- is empirical"

Organization and evolution are empirical. Their cause is not known. Your reference to 'self' is your superstition. Superstition is a belief neither supported by reason nor evidence. No one knows what cause is. The evidence does not include learning what cause is. The evidence is limited to effects. We learn what cause does and not what cause is. There is no 'reasoning' based on 'evidence' that organization and evolution create themselves.

James Putnam

Thomas Ray

"Organization and evolution are empirical. Their cause is not known."

And not needed. Like Laplace, we have no need of the god hypothesis. Causality is encoded in relations.

James Putnam

Tom,

Me: "Organization and evolution are empirical. Their cause is not known."

Tom: "And not needed. Like Laplace, we have no need of the god hypothesis. Causality is encoded in relations."

"Here you are definitely wrong. Do you need help as to understand that there is no feedback from future to past even in case of positive feedback? "

Point is, Eckard, that there is no way in principle to determine the origin of positive feedback. Nor is there such a way in any continuous function.

We understand negative feedback, because we can fix an origin. The world does not consist of negative feedback alone, however. There is built in randomness, deterministic chaos.

Best,

Tom

Thomas Ray

"You don't get cause for free by insinuating that 'encoded' tells us about its own origin."

Your DNA doesn't tell you anything about your origin?

Eckard Blumschein

Tom,

There is no feedback from future to past even in case of positive feedback if

the microphone picks up sound from its own loudspeakers, amplifies it, and sends it through the speakers again. If a signal propagates backward or it loops then this always means backward or looping in space. Time does not reverse. It doesn't matter whether or not an origin is known and mathematically formulated.

Typical mistakes are e.g. the idea that there were just two first humans, Adam and Eve and the stupid question what was first chicken or egg.

Eckard

James Putnam

Tom'

""You don't get cause for free by insinuating that 'encoded' tells us about its own origin.""

"Your DNA doesn't tell you anything about your origin?"

My DNA contains my design. My DNA is a code. The code is not its origin? Perhaps if you tried reaching back to the origin instead of picking out after effects to mention as substitutes, you would develop an awareness of why something cannot come from nothing.

James Putnam

Thomas Ray

James,

"My DNA contains my design."

Who designed you? Are you an android?

"My DNA is a code. The code is not its origin?"

Of course not. It's *your* origin that your DNA encodes. All biological organisms, at the extreme of the origin of the first cell, are self-replicating. The origins of multicellular organisms -- like you and me -- don't go back that far; we are corporations of cooperating cells, and those cellular units are still self-replicating, containing part of the first cell that ever existed.

"Perhaps if you tried reaching back to the origin instead of picking out after effects to mention as substitutes, you would develop an awareness of why something cannot come from nothing."

Space and time aren't "nothing" in the sense of not existing. These are, however, necessary to existence. If spacetime is physically real, there may be no other necessary conditions and spacetime is sufficient.

Best,

Tom

Thomas Ray

Eckard, you write: "If a signal propagates backward or it loops then this always means backward or looping in space. Time does not reverse. It doesn't matter whether or not an origin is known and mathematically formulated."

If the world is an engineered phenomenon, it doesn't matter, because there s no reason to engineer positive feedback into a system. The world, however, does exhibit positive feedback phenomena.

James Putnam

Me: "My DNA contains my design."

Tom: "Who designed you? Are you an android?"

Me: The scientific question is not 'Who' designed me. It is: What is the origin of intelligent life? The answer is not yet known because we are stuck with a foundational science that insists the properties of the universe are mechanical yielding mechanical results.

Me: "My DNA is a code. The code is not its origin?"

Tom: "Of course not. It's *your* origin that your DNA encodes."

And then Tom goes on to mention a listing of after-effects instead of addressing the question of origins other than to repeat the word self as if each thing is its own cause: "All biological organisms, at the extreme of the origin of the first cell, are self-replicating. The origins of multicellular organisms -- like you and me -- don't go back that far; we are corporations of cooperating cells, and those cellular units are still self-replicating, containing part of the first cell that ever existed."

The history behind our exchange:

Me: "You have your own superstition: Self this and self that."

Tom: "Self organization in nature -- like evolution -- is empirical."

Me: "Organization and evolution are empirical. Their cause is not known."

Tom: "And not needed. Like Laplace, we have no need of the god hypothesis. Causality is encoded in relations."

Me: "You don't get cause for free by insinuating that 'encoded' tells us about its own origin."

Tom: "Your DNA doesn't tell you anything about your origin?"

Me: Tom did not address the question of origin. He lists effects. He relies on the word 'self' to substitute for cause as if effects are their own cause.

James Putnam

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