Is Leo's view of time correct?

[fridjonk]

Infinity can not be something. It's exactly that which is nothing. As soon as you say something is infinite, it is not. Because it can't be, it's finite. 

The universe is not infinite, it has a beginning and it will end. The future is not infinite because it has a beginning and an end. 

As soon as you think about infinity logically, you're chasing your tail. 

[Member]

12 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

That means that time travel isn't possible - in other words all memory of the past has been obliterated. All you have is a "potential" past that could have created the "now". It's the same the other way round. You can't reach a future step 2001, without going through all the steps inbetween. The future is always just "potential".

Not sure if that's impossible since you're traveling the space all the time. For example, "A" is 30 years old and just met "B" who is 10 years older than "A". The way in which "present A" interacts with "future B" looks like real time interaction from "A" first-person relative point of view when it's just spooky information accessed from a different space-time reality. Imo, it is not impossible to see time traveling "aliens" popping into someone's past from a far away future ?

[Anderz]

47 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

It's good to note that with this model, if you are given the graph at step 1001, then it's impossible to work backwards to step 999. That means that time travel isn't possible - in other words all memory of the past has been obliterated.

In the Wolfram model, the graph is the foundation but then from that it produces all kinds of complicated interconnections. Their math is way above my head, but the expanding graph can be seen as a wholeness. So for example at step 1001, all the past steps are still there as information. Physicist Leonard Susskind said that the deepest law of physics he knows of is that information is indestructible.

[Anderz]

10 minutes ago, fridjonk said:

Infinity can not be something.

I agree. And Leo calls ultimate reality nothing. I would call it no-thing, or the unmanifested. And the unmanifested is infinite. But exactly, infinity cannot be some manifested thing.

[Member]

Here is THE answer:

 

[LastThursday]

@Member the impossibility I was referring to was the Wolfram model as a model of time. In that model time travel wouldn't be possible. Unless as @Anderz says somehow the model keeps all past states embedded in it.

The essence of time travel is that either past states are kept in some sort of pristine condition which you can re-enter. Or, that the past state is exactly re-constructible from the present state, and you can somehow step backwards through time (by running an algorithm).

To be able to step backwards through time, you need to have a reversible algorithm, otherwise there is ambiguity in which direction to go backwards. But since there is a direction of time given by entropy, it is not possible in reality to go backwards, it's a one way street. Entropy stops the past being re-constructible.

That only leaves the other option, that the past is stored in pristine condition like a frame in a film. That's what the idea of spacetime suggests.

I have a problem with that because I believe the present moment is constantly being imagined de-novo: there is no past state to go to, each moment is erased from existence.

This makes sense to me, because the present moment comes from nothing. It can't have an extended existence, because it is an infinitely thin slice of time (zero width). It comes from nothing and goes back to nothing.

Edited July 1, 2020 by LastThursday

[Anderz]

17 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

To be able to step backwards through time, you need to have a reversible algorithm, otherwise there is ambiguity in which direction to go backwards. But since there is a direction of time given by entropy, it is not possible in reality to go backwards, it's a one way street. Entropy stops the past being re-constructible.

Wolfram said that entropy is a result of computation leading to more complexity. Something like that. I believe he is correct. And Leonard Susskind said that entropy is hidden information, which as I interpret it means that entropy can actually be order and that it just appears as disorder to us because we lack the full knowledge and thereby information is hidden.

Is actual time travel possible? In my opinion, absolutely not. Imagine traveling back one hour and meeting your past self, and then the two of you travel back to the present. Impossible. Why? Because it's impossible to move away from the now. (I believe Einstein's relativity will be proven to be completely wrong).

[Anderz]

Wolfram's model might only be applicable to a subset of reality. Because it may very well be that reality is not only a result of a simple algorithm. And also, the notion of time they use is incomplete in my opinion, because time in their model ticks as a certain clock speed, which I argue requires some external clocking mechanism. But other than that I think it's a great project.

[Leo Gura]

Time is a projection of the human mind. Once you stop projecting it you will realize that the present moment is Eternal.

No time = Eternity = every moment exists forever

[LastThursday]

3 hours ago, Anderz said:

because time in their model ticks as a certain clock speed,

Even if there is only an ever present now and nothing else, most of us can see that there appears to be a constancy to how things change. But I agree it's not like frames in a video ticking by at a constant rate. It's more like a rush of stuff (qualia or whatever) coming into consciousness randomly. That rush has a constant rate like water flowing in a river.

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

No time = Eternity = every moment exists forever

Agreed this whole discusion is abstraction and projection, but it's fun.

Your pointer is good, but the language is still temporal - but of course there's no getting away from the paradigm.

My projection is this for what it's worth:

No time = no moment(s) at all = nothing exists (if that isn't an oxymoron)

The moment you're in has no duration (no time), so doesn't exist per se. Another way of seeing that I guess is that whatever moment you're in, is the one you're in, there is no other moment.

[Leo Gura]

30 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

so doesn't exist per se

It exists. It's just that existence is Eternal.

Anywhoooo.... this cannot be understood without a radical change in your state of consciousness. So don't bother thinking about it too much.

[Carl-Richard]

Imagine doing all this just for semantics.

[Anderz]

3 hours ago, LastThursday said:

Even if there is only an ever present now and nothing else, most of us can see that there appears to be a constancy to how things change. But I agree it's not like frames in a video ticking by at a constant rate. It's more like a rush of stuff (qualia or whatever) coming into consciousness randomly. That rush has a constant rate like water flowing in a river.

Yes, I like that description. It's a flow of information. And I think of it both ways: time is a constant flow consisting of more and more complex moments. Julian Barbour calls it time capsules and Nows. He has written about physics having a timeless foundation.

 

[Anderz]

@Leo Gura The most amazing discovery I have made, is that reality as a whole is changeless. Maybe you have mentioned that in some of your videos. Or do you have another view?

It's also similar to Brahman in Hinduism and God in Christianity:

Quote

"Brahman connotes the highest Universal Principle, the Ultimate Reality in the universe.[1][2][3] In major schools of Hindu philosophy, it is the material, efficient, formal and final cause of all that exists.[2][4][5] It is the pervasive, infinite, eternal truth and bliss which does not change, yet is the cause of all changes.[1][3][6]" [my emphasis] - Wikipedia

"I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed." - Malachi 3:6

 

[Member]

11 hours ago, LastThursday said:

The essence of time travel is that either past states are kept in some sort of pristine condition which you can re-enter. Or, that the past state is exactly re-constructible from the present state, and you can somehow step backwards through time (by running an algorithm).

Past is static only according to classical physics but with the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, anything could be possible.

Take for example this scenario:

Quote

the grandparent paradox is certainly avoided with a “many worlds” theory. PL1 travels to the past, accidentally prevents his grandparents from meeting (and therefore mating), and this creates a new world, W2, in which PL2 doesn’t exist. But the paradox is avoided, because the time traveler was PL1, from W1, not PL2 , who doesn’t exist in W2. Note, however, that this doesn’t mean that time travel is possible - the many worlds theory is just that, a theory, and we have no evidence, only scientific conjecture, that there are indeed many parallel worlds in existence, or they would be brought into being via actions of a time traveler.

Link

[Anderz]

The real shocker is that it's not time that is an illusion, it's change that is an illusion. Impermanence is maya, the appearance of change. Think of reality as a single changeless block, and what can that block do? The answer is; nothing. Since the block is changeless, everything in the block is also changeless. So not only is there no free will. There isn't even any change in reality other than as a manifestation of the changeless totality.

Quote

"Time is what keeps everything from happening at once." - Mark Twain

 

[Adam M]

The truth is that time is a mentally constructed thing. Anything that you say that involves time is automatically wrong from an absolute perspective.

Now is eternal. Meaning that it completely transcends any notion of time. It is time-less.

Making distinctions between beginning/end is already a dualistic way of categorizing reality. Thus it is incapable of accurately describing the nature of Now.

Edited July 2, 2020 by Adam M

[Member]

1 hour ago, Anderz said:

The real shocker is that it's not time that is an illusion, it's change that is an illusion. Impermanence is maya, the appearance of change. Think of reality as a single changeless block, and what can that block do? The answer is; nothing. Since the block is changeless, everything in the block is also changeless. So not only is there no free will. There isn't even any change in reality other than as a manifestation of the changeless totality.

It's not even change ? Just different patterns ?

 

[Anderz]

2 minutes ago, Member said:

It's not even change ? Just different patterns ?

Yes, I actually have a similar view. A simple example I have is to imagine nondual reality as the single constant Pi = 3.14159265... and examine what the cause of say the 5th decimal is. The cause of that decimal is the whole constant Pi itself!

With our reality there is a slight difference though in my opinion. Reality is not like a Blu-ray disc with a movie on it. Even though the information on the disc indeed is timeless and changeless, reality has a different structure. Reality is an expansion of information and complexity. And that gives rise to evolution and the arrow of time.

[Member]

@Anderz The problem is that time/reality is purely mental. It's not like there is a giant block of information existing on its own. Without a mind, there is no time. So natural evolution is not what it seems.