On Thu, Feb 06, 2014 at 11:42:43AM +1300, LizR wrote: > On 6 February 2014 11:34, Russell Standish <li...@hpcoders.com.au> wrote: > > > On Thu, Feb 06, 2014 at 11:05:22AM +1300, LizR wrote: > > > On 6 February 2014 10:41, Russell Standish <li...@hpcoders.com.au> > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > But where Edgar went wrong was to suggest that this implies that all > > > > points along a path traced out an object moving through space time > > > > > > > > > > Objects don't move through space-time, only through space :-) > > > > > > This is one of Edgar's many misunderstandings, please don't give him any > > > more! > > > > > > > Actually, technically it is a 1p viewpoint that moves through spacetime, > > not objects (as these are in fact worldlines). So I stand > > corrected. I was being sloppy :). > > > > Weeeeeeell..........I don't like to correct you, Russell, because you are > obviously very knowledgeable in these matters, but... > > ....I'm going to do it again, anyway. Apologies in advance! :) > > Even 1p viewpoints don't move through space-time.
I sincerely disagree. In one second's time, my 1p viewpoint will be at a different set of spacetime coordinates. To paraphrase Gallileo - yet it moves. It is impossible for it to stay at the same coordinates, and still be a 1p viewpoint. > That was Hermann Weyl's > mistake, or at least sloppy phrasing, which seems to have led to > generations of people thinking that their minds are "moving through > space-time" like the man squeezed between two plates on a train in "The > Sirens of Titan" (if I remember correctly). But, at least according to SR, > nothing moves through space-time, not even minds. IIUC, SR doesn't describe minds, just physical things like clocks, billard balls and relationships between them. Even then, it only applies to limited situations, such as when inertial reference frames are involved, hence the epithet "Special". > This is where the > "capsule theory of identity" come in. We have the impression that our minds > move through time (or that time flows) because we only have memories of the > past - but that's all there is to it, at least according to SR. That is Barbour's idea to explain how the 1p comes about, IIUC. I don't find it particular convincing, but then I'm not especially interested in finding a reductionist explanation of 1p like that. It seems the wrong question to me. But it is definitely not "according to SR", which doesn't attempt to describe the subjective view, let alone everything. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
