• Time and Minds, from Baxter to Rovelli.

    From Simon Laub@21:1/5 to All on Sun Aug 21 21:39:10 2022
    XPost: rec.arts.sf.written, rec.arts.sf.science, comp.society.futures

    In Stephen Baxters book ''Time'' we find ourselves in
    world where it becomes possible to detect messages traveling back
    through time. Thereby making it possible to learn from distant
    descendants how to transform the structure of our current space-time,
    into structures even better suited for mind and intelligence.

    --

    Indeed, what is time, but something that can create minds?
    And something minds use to make sense of the world?
    ?
    It seems to be an undercurrent in some of Baxters books,
    and btw. also very much present when you read physicist Carlo Rovellis
    books?

    Still, setting your head around >>time<< is not easy though.
    And too often, when an idea about >>time<< has been
    presented, there is something not quite right,
    something missing.
    Are time making minds, or are minds making time, or?

    Picking up physicist Carlo Rovelli's book ''The Order of Time''
    helps create some order though...
    Baxter was on to something in ''Time'':
    The concept of time and is connected to the concept of minds.

    Rovelli describes an experience he had as a student when taking LSD:
    Among the strange phenomena was the sense of time stopping.
    Things were happening in my mind but the clock was not going ahead;
    the flow of time was not passing any more.
    It was a total subversion of the structure of reality. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/14/carlo-rovelli-exploding-commonsense-notions-order-of-time-interview

    Time is apparently something that is happening in our minds?

    In ''The Order of Time'', Rovelli continues (In the section ''crumbling
    of time''):
    ''If I were to ask: Are these two stones at the same height? In
    interplanetary space, the correct answer would be, that the question
    doesn't make any sense...
    because there is no single notion of same height, throughout the
    Universe. Similarly, if you ask whether two events are happening at the
    same moment, the correct answer is that it doesn't make sense, because
    there is no such thing as same moment throughout the Universe''...

    In special relativity, we have that two events occurring far apart,
    might even happen in one order when viewed by one observer, and in the
    opposite order when viewed by another.

    In the section of Rovelli's book called ''The World without Time'',
    Rovelli describes physicist John Wheelers reaction to one of his own
    equations in quantum gravity, where there was no time variable:
    ''Explain time? Not without explaining existence!
    Explain existence? Not without explaining time!
    To uncover the deep and hidden connection between
    time and existence... is a task for the future...''

    Sure... :)

    Still, according to Rovelli, ''There is nothing mysterious about the
    absence of of time in the fundamental equations of quantum gravity...
    Such theories describe how things change,
    one in respect to the others, how things happen in the world in relation
    to each other...''
    The movement of bodies is described in relation to other bodies.
    Time holds no priviledged position. Change is more important.

    According to Rovelli time comes because we can't see these many details.
    ''The physical interactions between the part of the world to which we
    belong, and the rest are blind to many variables...''

    It is not possible for us to register all the quantum fluctuations
    going on at any one moment,
    so our interaction with the world becomes partial; we see a blurred
    version of it.
    We take things that emerge at scale and think of them in terms of
    concepts that are meaningful.
    So in a world without time, we seem to create it
    – and that process is highly personal.

    According to Rovelli, ''this opens up the possibility that it wasn't the Universe that was in particular configuration in the past...
    Perhaps it is us, and our interactions with the universe that are
    particular.
    We are the ones who determine a particular macroscopic description?
    The initial low entropy of the Universe, and hence the arrow of time
    (springing from this), may be more down to us, than to the Universe?
    ...
    If a subset of the Universe is special in this sense, then for this
    subset the entropy of of the Universe is low in the past, the second law
    of thermodynamics obtains, memories exists, traces are left - and there
    can be life and thought''.

    Indeed, ''What makes the world go around is not energy, but low entropy.
    Where we belong to a part of the world where spacetime has a dimension
    called time, and where entropy grows...''

    Inside our heads this then becomes a new approximation,
    an approximation on an approximation, where time is uniform,
    universal and ordered.

    According to Andrew Jaffe:
    ''Rovelli reconstructs how our illusions have arisen, from aspects of thermodynamics and quantum mechanics.
    He argues that our perception of time's flow depends entirely on our
    inability to see the world in all its detail''. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04558-7

    Time itself disappears at the most fundamental level.
    But the world we see is a world through a filter.
    We observe a Universe that is becoming increasingly disordered.
    Where Rovelli tell us, that out experience of time comes from (this)
    entropy, and the second law of thermodynamics?
    Filtered by our position in our corner of the Universe, and our perceptions. Other portions (parts) of the Universe might have given us a different perspective of what time really is.


    Indeed, again we are back to the relationship between Time and Minds.
    Time creates minds, or is minds that create time,
    in order to create more minds,
    as Baxter said all along...

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Don Stockbauer@21:1/5 to Simon Laub on Wed Aug 24 00:10:00 2022
    On Sunday, August 21, 2022 at 2:39:42 PM UTC-5, Simon Laub wrote:
    In Stephen Baxters book ''Time'' we find ourselves in
    world where it becomes possible to detect messages traveling back
    through time. Thereby making it possible to learn from distant
    descendants how to transform the structure of our current space-time,
    into structures even better suited for mind and intelligence.

    --

    Indeed, what is time, but something that can create minds?
    And something minds use to make sense of the world?
    ?
    It seems to be an undercurrent in some of Baxters books,
    and btw. also very much present when you read physicist Carlo Rovellis books?

    Still, setting your head around >>time<< is not easy though.
    And too often, when an idea about >>time<< has been
    presented, there is something not quite right,
    something missing.
    Are time making minds, or are minds making time, or?

    Picking up physicist Carlo Rovelli's book ''The Order of Time''
    helps create some order though...
    Baxter was on to something in ''Time'':
    The concept of time and is connected to the concept of minds.

    Rovelli describes an experience he had as a student when taking LSD:
    Among the strange phenomena was the sense of time stopping.
    Things were happening in my mind but the clock was not going ahead;
    the flow of time was not passing any more.
    It was a total subversion of the structure of reality. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/14/carlo-rovelli-exploding-commonsense-notions-order-of-time-interview

    Time is apparently something that is happening in our minds?

    In ''The Order of Time'', Rovelli continues (In the section ''crumbling
    of time''):
    ''If I were to ask: Are these two stones at the same height? In interplanetary space, the correct answer would be, that the question
    doesn't make any sense...
    because there is no single notion of same height, throughout the
    Universe. Similarly, if you ask whether two events are happening at the
    same moment, the correct answer is that it doesn't make sense, because
    there is no such thing as same moment throughout the Universe''...

    In special relativity, we have that two events occurring far apart,
    might even happen in one order when viewed by one observer, and in the opposite order when viewed by another.

    In the section of Rovelli's book called ''The World without Time'',
    Rovelli describes physicist John Wheelers reaction to one of his own equations in quantum gravity, where there was no time variable:
    ''Explain time? Not without explaining existence!
    Explain existence? Not without explaining time!
    To uncover the deep and hidden connection between
    time and existence... is a task for the future...''

    Sure... :)

    Still, according to Rovelli, ''There is nothing mysterious about the
    absence of of time in the fundamental equations of quantum gravity...
    Such theories describe how things change,
    one in respect to the others, how things happen in the world in relation
    to each other...''
    The movement of bodies is described in relation to other bodies.
    Time holds no priviledged position. Change is more important.

    According to Rovelli time comes because we can't see these many details. ''The physical interactions between the part of the world to which we belong, and the rest are blind to many variables...''

    It is not possible for us to register all the quantum fluctuations
    going on at any one moment,
    so our interaction with the world becomes partial; we see a blurred >>version of it.
    We take things that emerge at scale and think of them in terms of
    concepts that are meaningful.
    So in a world without time, we seem to create it
    – and that process is highly personal.

    According to Rovelli, ''this opens up the possibility that it wasn't the Universe that was in particular configuration in the past...
    Perhaps it is us, and our interactions with the universe that are particular.
    We are the ones who determine a particular macroscopic description?
    The initial low entropy of the Universe, and hence the arrow of time (springing from this), may be more down to us, than to the Universe?
    ...
    If a subset of the Universe is special in this sense, then for this
    subset the entropy of of the Universe is low in the past, the second law
    of thermodynamics obtains, memories exists, traces are left - and there
    can be life and thought''.

    Indeed, ''What makes the world go around is not energy, but low entropy. Where we belong to a part of the world where spacetime has a dimension called time, and where entropy grows...''

    Inside our heads this then becomes a new approximation,
    an approximation on an approximation, where time is uniform,
    universal and ordered.

    According to Andrew Jaffe:
    ''Rovelli reconstructs how our illusions have arisen, from aspects of thermodynamics and quantum mechanics.
    He argues that our perception of time's flow depends entirely on our inability to see the world in all its detail''. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04558-7

    Time itself disappears at the most fundamental level.
    But the world we see is a world through a filter.
    We observe a Universe that is becoming increasingly disordered.
    Where Rovelli tell us, that out experience of time comes from (this) entropy, and the second law of thermodynamics?
    Filtered by our position in our corner of the Universe, and our perceptions. Other portions (parts) of the Universe might have given us a different perspective of what time really is.


    Indeed, again we are back to the relationship between Time and Minds.
    Time creates minds, or is minds that create time,
    in order to create more minds,
    as Baxter said all along...

    Time is just one damn thing after another.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Don Stockbauer@21:1/5 to Don Stockbauer on Wed Aug 24 13:13:46 2022
    On Wednesday, August 24, 2022 at 2:10:02 AM UTC-5, Don Stockbauer wrote:
    On Sunday, August 21, 2022 at 2:39:42 PM UTC-5, Simon Laub wrote:
    In Stephen Baxters book ''Time'' we find ourselves in
    world where it becomes possible to detect messages traveling back
    through time. Thereby making it possible to learn from distant
    descendants how to transform the structure of our current space-time,
    into structures even better suited for mind and intelligence.

    --

    Indeed, what is time, but something that can create minds?
    And something minds use to make sense of the world?
    ?
    It seems to be an undercurrent in some of Baxters books,
    and btw. also very much present when you read physicist Carlo Rovellis books?

    Still, setting your head around >>time<< is not easy though.
    And too often, when an idea about >>time<< has been
    presented, there is something not quite right,
    something missing.
    Are time making minds, or are minds making time, or?

    Picking up physicist Carlo Rovelli's book ''The Order of Time''
    helps create some order though...
    Baxter was on to something in ''Time'':
    The concept of time and is connected to the concept of minds.

    Rovelli describes an experience he had as a student when taking LSD: >>Among the strange phenomena was the sense of time stopping.
    Things were happening in my mind but the clock was not going ahead; >>the flow of time was not passing any more.
    It was a total subversion of the structure of reality. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/14/carlo-rovelli-exploding-commonsense-notions-order-of-time-interview

    Time is apparently something that is happening in our minds?

    In ''The Order of Time'', Rovelli continues (In the section ''crumbling
    of time''):
    ''If I were to ask: Are these two stones at the same height? In interplanetary space, the correct answer would be, that the question doesn't make any sense...
    because there is no single notion of same height, throughout the
    Universe. Similarly, if you ask whether two events are happening at the same moment, the correct answer is that it doesn't make sense, because there is no such thing as same moment throughout the Universe''...

    In special relativity, we have that two events occurring far apart,
    might even happen in one order when viewed by one observer, and in the opposite order when viewed by another.

    In the section of Rovelli's book called ''The World without Time'', Rovelli describes physicist John Wheelers reaction to one of his own equations in quantum gravity, where there was no time variable:
    ''Explain time? Not without explaining existence!
    Explain existence? Not without explaining time!
    To uncover the deep and hidden connection between
    time and existence... is a task for the future...''

    Sure... :)

    Still, according to Rovelli, ''There is nothing mysterious about the absence of of time in the fundamental equations of quantum gravity...
    Such theories describe how things change,
    one in respect to the others, how things happen in the world in relation to each other...''
    The movement of bodies is described in relation to other bodies.
    Time holds no priviledged position. Change is more important.

    According to Rovelli time comes because we can't see these many details. ''The physical interactions between the part of the world to which we belong, and the rest are blind to many variables...''

    It is not possible for us to register all the quantum fluctuations >>going on at any one moment,
    so our interaction with the world becomes partial; we see a blurred >>version of it.
    We take things that emerge at scale and think of them in terms of concepts that are meaningful.
    So in a world without time, we seem to create it
    – and that process is highly personal.

    According to Rovelli, ''this opens up the possibility that it wasn't the Universe that was in particular configuration in the past...
    Perhaps it is us, and our interactions with the universe that are particular.
    We are the ones who determine a particular macroscopic description?
    The initial low entropy of the Universe, and hence the arrow of time (springing from this), may be more down to us, than to the Universe?
    ...
    If a subset of the Universe is special in this sense, then for this
    subset the entropy of of the Universe is low in the past, the second law of thermodynamics obtains, memories exists, traces are left - and there can be life and thought''.

    Indeed, ''What makes the world go around is not energy, but low entropy. Where we belong to a part of the world where spacetime has a dimension called time, and where entropy grows...''

    Inside our heads this then becomes a new approximation,
    an approximation on an approximation, where time is uniform,
    universal and ordered.

    According to Andrew Jaffe:
    ''Rovelli reconstructs how our illusions have arisen, from aspects of thermodynamics and quantum mechanics.
    He argues that our perception of time's flow depends entirely on our inability to see the world in all its detail''. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04558-7

    Time itself disappears at the most fundamental level.
    But the world we see is a world through a filter.
    We observe a Universe that is becoming increasingly disordered.
    Where Rovelli tell us, that out experience of time comes from (this) entropy, and the second law of thermodynamics?
    Filtered by our position in our corner of the Universe, and our perceptions.
    Other portions (parts) of the Universe might have given us a different perspective of what time really is.


    Indeed, again we are back to the relationship between Time and Minds.
    Time creates minds, or is minds that create time,
    in order to create more minds,
    as Baxter said all along...
    Time is just one damn thing after another.

    Time is the Nature's way of preventing everything from happening all at once.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Don Stockbauer@21:1/5 to Don Stockbauer on Wed Aug 24 13:17:29 2022
    On Wednesday, August 24, 2022 at 3:13:47 PM UTC-5, Don Stockbauer wrote:
    On Wednesday, August 24, 2022 at 2:10:02 AM UTC-5, Don Stockbauer wrote:
    On Sunday, August 21, 2022 at 2:39:42 PM UTC-5, Simon Laub wrote:
    In Stephen Baxters book ''Time'' we find ourselves in
    world where it becomes possible to detect messages traveling back through time. Thereby making it possible to learn from distant descendants how to transform the structure of our current space-time, into structures even better suited for mind and intelligence.

    --

    Indeed, what is time, but something that can create minds?
    And something minds use to make sense of the world?
    ?
    It seems to be an undercurrent in some of Baxters books,
    and btw. also very much present when you read physicist Carlo Rovellis books?

    Still, setting your head around >>time<< is not easy though.
    And too often, when an idea about >>time<< has been
    presented, there is something not quite right,
    something missing.
    Are time making minds, or are minds making time, or?

    Picking up physicist Carlo Rovelli's book ''The Order of Time''
    helps create some order though...
    Baxter was on to something in ''Time'':
    The concept of time and is connected to the concept of minds.

    Rovelli describes an experience he had as a student when taking LSD: >>Among the strange phenomena was the sense of time stopping.
    Things were happening in my mind but the clock was not going ahead; >>the flow of time was not passing any more.
    It was a total subversion of the structure of reality. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/14/carlo-rovelli-exploding-commonsense-notions-order-of-time-interview

    Time is apparently something that is happening in our minds?

    In ''The Order of Time'', Rovelli continues (In the section ''crumbling of time''):
    ''If I were to ask: Are these two stones at the same height? In interplanetary space, the correct answer would be, that the question doesn't make any sense...
    because there is no single notion of same height, throughout the Universe. Similarly, if you ask whether two events are happening at the same moment, the correct answer is that it doesn't make sense, because there is no such thing as same moment throughout the Universe''...

    In special relativity, we have that two events occurring far apart, might even happen in one order when viewed by one observer, and in the opposite order when viewed by another.

    In the section of Rovelli's book called ''The World without Time'', Rovelli describes physicist John Wheelers reaction to one of his own equations in quantum gravity, where there was no time variable: ''Explain time? Not without explaining existence!
    Explain existence? Not without explaining time!
    To uncover the deep and hidden connection between
    time and existence... is a task for the future...''

    Sure... :)

    Still, according to Rovelli, ''There is nothing mysterious about the absence of of time in the fundamental equations of quantum gravity... Such theories describe how things change,
    one in respect to the others, how things happen in the world in relation to each other...''
    The movement of bodies is described in relation to other bodies. >>Time holds no priviledged position. Change is more important.

    According to Rovelli time comes because we can't see these many details. ''The physical interactions between the part of the world to which we belong, and the rest are blind to many variables...''

    It is not possible for us to register all the quantum fluctuations >>going on at any one moment,
    so our interaction with the world becomes partial; we see a blurred >>version of it.
    We take things that emerge at scale and think of them in terms of concepts that are meaningful.
    So in a world without time, we seem to create it
    – and that process is highly personal.

    According to Rovelli, ''this opens up the possibility that it wasn't the Universe that was in particular configuration in the past...
    Perhaps it is us, and our interactions with the universe that are particular.
    We are the ones who determine a particular macroscopic description?
    The initial low entropy of the Universe, and hence the arrow of time (springing from this), may be more down to us, than to the Universe?
    ...
    If a subset of the Universe is special in this sense, then for this subset the entropy of of the Universe is low in the past, the second law of thermodynamics obtains, memories exists, traces are left - and there can be life and thought''.

    Indeed, ''What makes the world go around is not energy, but low entropy. Where we belong to a part of the world where spacetime has a dimension called time, and where entropy grows...''

    Inside our heads this then becomes a new approximation,
    an approximation on an approximation, where time is uniform,
    universal and ordered.

    According to Andrew Jaffe:
    ''Rovelli reconstructs how our illusions have arisen, from aspects of thermodynamics and quantum mechanics.
    He argues that our perception of time's flow depends entirely on our inability to see the world in all its detail''. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04558-7

    Time itself disappears at the most fundamental level.
    But the world we see is a world through a filter.
    We observe a Universe that is becoming increasingly disordered.
    Where Rovelli tell us, that out experience of time comes from (this) entropy, and the second law of thermodynamics?
    Filtered by our position in our corner of the Universe, and our perceptions.
    Other portions (parts) of the Universe might have given us a different perspective of what time really is.


    Indeed, again we are back to the relationship between Time and Minds. Time creates minds, or is minds that create time,
    in order to create more minds,
    as Baxter said all along...
    Time is just one damn thing after another.
    Time is the Nature's way of preventing everything from happening all at once.

    "If somebody asks me what is the nature of time , then
    I don't know . If someone doesn't ask me about the nature of time , then I do know." - Saint Augustine

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Don Stockbauer@21:1/5 to Don Stockbauer on Wed Aug 24 13:19:51 2022
    oOn Wednesday, August 24, 2022 at 3:17:31 PM UTC-5, Don Stockbauer wrote:
    On Wednesday, August 24, 2022 at 3:13:47 PM UTC-5, Don Stockbauer wrote:
    On Wednesday, August 24, 2022 at 2:10:02 AM UTC-5, Don Stockbauer wrote:
    On Sunday, August 21, 2022 at 2:39:42 PM UTC-5, Simon Laub wrote:
    In Stephen Baxters book ''Time'' we find ourselves in
    world where it becomes possible to detect messages traveling back through time. Thereby making it possible to learn from distant descendants how to transform the structure of our current space-time, into structures even better suited for mind and intelligence.

    --

    Indeed, what is time, but something that can create minds?
    And something minds use to make sense of the world?
    ?
    It seems to be an undercurrent in some of Baxters books,
    and btw. also very much present when you read physicist Carlo Rovellis books?

    Still, setting your head around >>time<< is not easy though.
    And too often, when an idea about >>time<< has been
    presented, there is something not quite right,
    something missing.
    Are time making minds, or are minds making time, or?

    Picking up physicist Carlo Rovelli's book ''The Order of Time''
    helps create some order though...
    Baxter was on to something in ''Time'':
    The concept of time and is connected to the concept of minds.

    Rovelli describes an experience he had as a student when taking LSD: >>Among the strange phenomena was the sense of time stopping.
    Things were happening in my mind but the clock was not going ahead; >>the flow of time was not passing any more.
    It was a total subversion of the structure of reality. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/14/carlo-rovelli-exploding-commonsense-notions-order-of-time-interview

    Time is apparently something that is happening in our minds?

    In ''The Order of Time'', Rovelli continues (In the section ''crumbling
    of time''):
    ''If I were to ask: Are these two stones at the same height? In interplanetary space, the correct answer would be, that the question doesn't make any sense...
    because there is no single notion of same height, throughout the Universe. Similarly, if you ask whether two events are happening at the
    same moment, the correct answer is that it doesn't make sense, because there is no such thing as same moment throughout the Universe''...

    In special relativity, we have that two events occurring far apart, might even happen in one order when viewed by one observer, and in the opposite order when viewed by another.

    In the section of Rovelli's book called ''The World without Time'', Rovelli describes physicist John Wheelers reaction to one of his own equations in quantum gravity, where there was no time variable: ''Explain time? Not without explaining existence!
    Explain existence? Not without explaining time!
    To uncover the deep and hidden connection between
    time and existence... is a task for the future...''

    Sure... :)

    Still, according to Rovelli, ''There is nothing mysterious about the absence of of time in the fundamental equations of quantum gravity... Such theories describe how things change,
    one in respect to the others, how things happen in the world in relation
    to each other...''
    The movement of bodies is described in relation to other bodies. >>Time holds no priviledged position. Change is more important.

    According to Rovelli time comes because we can't see these many details.
    ''The physical interactions between the part of the world to which we belong, and the rest are blind to many variables...''

    It is not possible for us to register all the quantum fluctuations >>going on at any one moment,
    so our interaction with the world becomes partial; we see a blurred >>version of it.
    We take things that emerge at scale and think of them in terms of concepts that are meaningful.
    So in a world without time, we seem to create it
    – and that process is highly personal.

    According to Rovelli, ''this opens up the possibility that it wasn't the
    Universe that was in particular configuration in the past...
    Perhaps it is us, and our interactions with the universe that are particular.
    We are the ones who determine a particular macroscopic description? The initial low entropy of the Universe, and hence the arrow of time (springing from this), may be more down to us, than to the Universe? ...
    If a subset of the Universe is special in this sense, then for this subset the entropy of of the Universe is low in the past, the second law
    of thermodynamics obtains, memories exists, traces are left - and there
    can be life and thought''.

    Indeed, ''What makes the world go around is not energy, but low entropy.
    Where we belong to a part of the world where spacetime has a dimension called time, and where entropy grows...''

    Inside our heads this then becomes a new approximation,
    an approximation on an approximation, where time is uniform,
    universal and ordered.

    According to Andrew Jaffe:
    ''Rovelli reconstructs how our illusions have arisen, from aspects of thermodynamics and quantum mechanics.
    He argues that our perception of time's flow depends entirely on our inability to see the world in all its detail''. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04558-7

    Time itself disappears at the most fundamental level.
    But the world we see is a world through a filter.
    We observe a Universe that is becoming increasingly disordered.
    Where Rovelli tell us, that out experience of time comes from (this) entropy, and the second law of thermodynamics?
    Filtered by our position in our corner of the Universe, and our perceptions.
    Other portions (parts) of the Universe might have given us a different perspective of what time really is.


    Indeed, again we are back to the relationship between Time and Minds. Time creates minds, or is minds that create time,
    in order to create more minds,
    as Baxter said all along...
    Time is just one damn thing after another.
    Time is the Nature's way of preventing everything from happening all at once.
    "If somebody asks me what is the nature of time , then
    I don't know . If someone doesn't ask me about the nature of time , then I do know." - Saint Augustine

    What was God doing before the beginning of time?

    He was creating Hell for those who pry into mysteries.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Don Stockbauer@21:1/5 to Don Stockbauer on Sun Aug 28 06:45:22 2022
    On Wednesday, August 24, 2022 at 3:19:53 PM UTC-5, Don Stockbauer wrote:
    oOn Wednesday, August 24, 2022 at 3:17:31 PM UTC-5, Don Stockbauer wrote:
    On Wednesday, August 24, 2022 at 3:13:47 PM UTC-5, Don Stockbauer wrote:
    On Wednesday, August 24, 2022 at 2:10:02 AM UTC-5, Don Stockbauer wrote:
    On Sunday, August 21, 2022 at 2:39:42 PM UTC-5, Simon Laub wrote:
    In Stephen Baxters book ''Time'' we find ourselves in
    world where it becomes possible to detect messages traveling back through time. Thereby making it possible to learn from distant descendants how to transform the structure of our current space-time,
    into structures even better suited for mind and intelligence.

    --

    Indeed, what is time, but something that can create minds?
    And something minds use to make sense of the world?
    ?
    It seems to be an undercurrent in some of Baxters books,
    and btw. also very much present when you read physicist Carlo Rovellis
    books?

    Still, setting your head around >>time<< is not easy though.
    And too often, when an idea about >>time<< has been
    presented, there is something not quite right,
    something missing.
    Are time making minds, or are minds making time, or?

    Picking up physicist Carlo Rovelli's book ''The Order of Time'' helps create some order though...
    Baxter was on to something in ''Time'':
    The concept of time and is connected to the concept of minds.

    Rovelli describes an experience he had as a student when taking LSD: >>Among the strange phenomena was the sense of time stopping. >>Things were happening in my mind but the clock was not going ahead;
    the flow of time was not passing any more.
    It was a total subversion of the structure of reality. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/14/carlo-rovelli-exploding-commonsense-notions-order-of-time-interview

    Time is apparently something that is happening in our minds?

    In ''The Order of Time'', Rovelli continues (In the section ''crumbling
    of time''):
    ''If I were to ask: Are these two stones at the same height? In interplanetary space, the correct answer would be, that the question doesn't make any sense...
    because there is no single notion of same height, throughout the Universe. Similarly, if you ask whether two events are happening at the
    same moment, the correct answer is that it doesn't make sense, because
    there is no such thing as same moment throughout the Universe''...

    In special relativity, we have that two events occurring far apart, might even happen in one order when viewed by one observer, and in the
    opposite order when viewed by another.

    In the section of Rovelli's book called ''The World without Time'', Rovelli describes physicist John Wheelers reaction to one of his own equations in quantum gravity, where there was no time variable: ''Explain time? Not without explaining existence!
    Explain existence? Not without explaining time!
    To uncover the deep and hidden connection between
    time and existence... is a task for the future...''

    Sure... :)

    Still, according to Rovelli, ''There is nothing mysterious about the absence of of time in the fundamental equations of quantum gravity...
    Such theories describe how things change,
    one in respect to the others, how things happen in the world in relation
    to each other...''
    The movement of bodies is described in relation to other bodies. >>Time holds no priviledged position. Change is more important.

    According to Rovelli time comes because we can't see these many details.
    ''The physical interactions between the part of the world to which we
    belong, and the rest are blind to many variables...''

    It is not possible for us to register all the quantum fluctuations >>going on at any one moment,
    so our interaction with the world becomes partial; we see a blurred
    version of it.
    We take things that emerge at scale and think of them in terms of concepts that are meaningful.
    So in a world without time, we seem to create it
    – and that process is highly personal.

    According to Rovelli, ''this opens up the possibility that it wasn't the
    Universe that was in particular configuration in the past...
    Perhaps it is us, and our interactions with the universe that are particular.
    We are the ones who determine a particular macroscopic description? The initial low entropy of the Universe, and hence the arrow of time (springing from this), may be more down to us, than to the Universe? ...
    If a subset of the Universe is special in this sense, then for this subset the entropy of of the Universe is low in the past, the second law
    of thermodynamics obtains, memories exists, traces are left - and there
    can be life and thought''.

    Indeed, ''What makes the world go around is not energy, but low entropy.
    Where we belong to a part of the world where spacetime has a dimension
    called time, and where entropy grows...''

    Inside our heads this then becomes a new approximation,
    an approximation on an approximation, where time is uniform, universal and ordered.

    According to Andrew Jaffe:
    ''Rovelli reconstructs how our illusions have arisen, from aspects of
    thermodynamics and quantum mechanics.
    He argues that our perception of time's flow depends entirely on our inability to see the world in all its detail''. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04558-7

    Time itself disappears at the most fundamental level.
    But the world we see is a world through a filter.
    We observe a Universe that is becoming increasingly disordered. Where Rovelli tell us, that out experience of time comes from (this) entropy, and the second law of thermodynamics?
    Filtered by our position in our corner of the Universe, and our perceptions.
    Other portions (parts) of the Universe might have given us a different
    perspective of what time really is.


    Indeed, again we are back to the relationship between Time and Minds.
    Time creates minds, or is minds that create time,
    in order to create more minds,
    as Baxter said all along...
    Time is just one damn thing after another.
    Time is the Nature's way of preventing everything from happening all at once.
    "If somebody asks me what is the nature of time , then
    I don't know . If someone doesn't ask me about the nature of time , then I do know." - Saint Augustine
    What was God doing before the beginning of time?

    He was creating Hell for those who pry into mysteries.

    Good luck with backwards time travel.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Truthslave@21:1/5 to Don Stockbauer on Sat Oct 29 14:30:53 2022
    On 28/08/2022 14:45, Don Stockbauer wrote:
    On Wednesday, August 24, 2022 at 3:19:53 PM UTC-5, Don Stockbauer wrote:
    oOn Wednesday, August 24, 2022 at 3:17:31 PM UTC-5, Don Stockbauer wrote: >>> On Wednesday, August 24, 2022 at 3:13:47 PM UTC-5, Don Stockbauer wrote: >>>> On Wednesday, August 24, 2022 at 2:10:02 AM UTC-5, Don Stockbauer wrote: >>>>> On Sunday, August 21, 2022 at 2:39:42 PM UTC-5, Simon Laub wrote:
    In Stephen Baxters book ''Time'' we find ourselves in
    world where it becomes possible to detect messages traveling back
    through time. Thereby making it possible to learn from distant
    descendants how to transform the structure of our current space-time, >>>>>> into structures even better suited for mind and intelligence.

    --

    Indeed, what is time, but something that can create minds?
    And something minds use to make sense of the world?
    ?
    It seems to be an undercurrent in some of Baxters books,
    and btw. also very much present when you read physicist Carlo Rovellis >>>>>> books?

    Still, setting your head around >>time<< is not easy though.
    And too often, when an idea about >>time<< has been
    presented, there is something not quite right,
    something missing.
    Are time making minds, or are minds making time, or?

    Picking up physicist Carlo Rovelli's book ''The Order of Time''
    helps create some order though...
    Baxter was on to something in ''Time'':
    The concept of time and is connected to the concept of minds.

    Rovelli describes an experience he had as a student when taking LSD: >>>>>>>> Among the strange phenomena was the sense of time stopping.
    Things were happening in my mind but the clock was not going ahead; >>>>>>>> the flow of time was not passing any more.
    It was a total subversion of the structure of reality.
    https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/14/carlo-rovelli-exploding-commonsense-notions-order-of-time-interview

    Time is apparently something that is happening in our minds?

    In ''The Order of Time'', Rovelli continues (In the section ''crumbling >>>>>> of time''):
    ''If I were to ask: Are these two stones at the same height? In
    interplanetary space, the correct answer would be, that the question >>>>>> doesn't make any sense...
    because there is no single notion of same height, throughout the
    Universe. Similarly, if you ask whether two events are happening at the >>>>>> same moment, the correct answer is that it doesn't make sense, because >>>>>> there is no such thing as same moment throughout the Universe''... >>>>>>
    In special relativity, we have that two events occurring far apart, >>>>>> might even happen in one order when viewed by one observer, and in the >>>>>> opposite order when viewed by another.

    In the section of Rovelli's book called ''The World without Time'', >>>>>> Rovelli describes physicist John Wheelers reaction to one of his own >>>>>> equations in quantum gravity, where there was no time variable:
    ''Explain time? Not without explaining existence!
    Explain existence? Not without explaining time!
    To uncover the deep and hidden connection between
    time and existence... is a task for the future...''

    Sure... :)

    Still, according to Rovelli, ''There is nothing mysterious about the >>>>>> absence of of time in the fundamental equations of quantum gravity... >>>>>> Such theories describe how things change,
    one in respect to the others, how things happen in the world in relation >>>>>> to each other...''
    The movement of bodies is described in relation to other bodies. >>>>>>>> Time holds no priviledged position. Change is more important.

    According to Rovelli time comes because we can't see these many details. >>>>>> ''The physical interactions between the part of the world to which we >>>>>> belong, and the rest are blind to many variables...''

    It is not possible for us to register all the quantum fluctuations >>>>>>>> going on at any one moment,
    so our interaction with the world becomes partial; we see a blurred >>>>>>>> version of it.
    We take things that emerge at scale and think of them in terms of >>>>>> concepts that are meaningful.
    So in a world without time, we seem to create it
    – and that process is highly personal.

    According to Rovelli, ''this opens up the possibility that it wasn't the >>>>>> Universe that was in particular configuration in the past...
    Perhaps it is us, and our interactions with the universe that are
    particular.
    We are the ones who determine a particular macroscopic description? >>>>>> The initial low entropy of the Universe, and hence the arrow of time >>>>>> (springing from this), may be more down to us, than to the Universe? >>>>>> ...
    If a subset of the Universe is special in this sense, then for this >>>>>> subset the entropy of of the Universe is low in the past, the second law >>>>>> of thermodynamics obtains, memories exists, traces are left - and there >>>>>> can be life and thought''.

    Indeed, ''What makes the world go around is not energy, but low entropy. >>>>>> Where we belong to a part of the world where spacetime has a dimension >>>>>> called time, and where entropy grows...''

    Inside our heads this then becomes a new approximation,
    an approximation on an approximation, where time is uniform,
    universal and ordered.

    According to Andrew Jaffe:
    ''Rovelli reconstructs how our illusions have arisen, from aspects of >>>>>> thermodynamics and quantum mechanics.
    He argues that our perception of time's flow depends entirely on our >>>>>> inability to see the world in all its detail''.
    https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04558-7

    Time itself disappears at the most fundamental level.
    But the world we see is a world through a filter.
    We observe a Universe that is becoming increasingly disordered.
    Where Rovelli tell us, that out experience of time comes from (this) >>>>>> entropy, and the second law of thermodynamics?
    Filtered by our position in our corner of the Universe, and our perceptions.
    Other portions (parts) of the Universe might have given us a different >>>>>> perspective of what time really is.


    Indeed, again we are back to the relationship between Time and Minds. >>>>>> Time creates minds, or is minds that create time,
    in order to create more minds,
    as Baxter said all along...
    Time is just one damn thing after another.
    Time is the Nature's way of preventing everything from happening all at once.
    "If somebody asks me what is the nature of time , then
    I don't know . If someone doesn't ask me about the nature of time , then I do know." - Saint Augustine
    What was God doing before the beginning of time?

    He was creating Hell for those who pry into mysteries.

    Good luck with backwards time travel.



    Interesting thread.

    To my way of thinking Time and intelligence are synonymous.
    Any claim of intelligence, be it A.i or H.i must also account for time.

    Time could be just as simple as an appreciation for cause and effect.
    eg eating this will have that effect.

    It might be about the implied transactions over time. eg what is likely
    to have already transpired since that data was recorded or broadcasted.
    eg the competition between current data and old information.

    Time for most is about a sense of sequence, or order, or sequence, or relevance. Do you heat the pan before you've filled it with water? Do
    you condemn that man for past actions based on a future change of the law?

    With A.i comes so many autonomous procedures, routines accepted on
    the level of habits. Habits without this key component, eg a sense
    of time, or timing, then they fail on that first measure of
    intelligence. With A.i as the source for these habits, few would be
    any the wiser to the effects of these routines over time.

    A.i would become the cause for so much else without no one having
    knowledge of this.

    I wouldn't mind seeing a few stories to illustrate this point.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)