Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id PAA01453 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sun, 10 Mar 2002 15:27:46 GMT X-Originating-IP: [137.110.248.206] From: "Grant Callaghan" <grantc4@hotmail.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Cultural traits and vulnerability to memes Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2002 07:22:27 -0800 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: <LAW2-F53a0osA91E9GQ0000b9e0@hotmail.com> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 10 Mar 2002 15:22:28.0215 (UTC) FILETIME=[6396E070:01C1C847] Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>
>So I guess that makes me firmly anti determinist 'cos I think that traits
>are programmed in to us for the purpose of making us vulnerable to
>culturally appropriate memes and defensive against culturally inappropriate
>ones.
>I hope that this makes some sort of sense as I am a bit tired too.
>Cheers
>Jeremy
>
In this month's Discovery magazine, there is an article about the friendship
between Einstein and Godel and their view of the universe.
"For us believing physicists," Einstein once wrote, "the distinction between
the past, the present, and the future is only an illusion." It was a
melancholy remark, made as Einstein faced death, but it flowed directly from
Einstein's special theory of relativity. Imagine a group of observers
scattered carelessly throughout the cosmos. Each is able to organize the
events of his life into a linear order -- a world line of the kind just
described. Each is convinced that his life consists of a series of nows,
moving moments passing from the past to the future. Special relativity
urges a contrary claim. The observers scattered throughout space and time
are all convinced their sense of now is universal. Now is, after all, now,
is it not? Apparently not. Time passes at a different rate depending on
how fast a person is moving: While one hour passes on Earth, only a few
seconds might pass on a rocket ship hurtling away from Earth at nearly the
speed of light. It is entirely possible that one man's now might be another
man's past or future.
"Godel's solution to the field equation vindicated the deepest insight of
Einstein's theory, namely that time is relative. But Einstein's theory of
relativity suggests only that time does not exist in the conventional sense,
not that time exists in no sense whatsoever. Einstein's claim is more
subtle. He suggests that "change" is an illusion. Things do not become,
they have not been, and they will not be: They simply are. Time is like
space; it is precisely like space. In traveling to Singapore, I do not
bring Singapore into existence. I reach Singapore, but the city has been
there all along. So, too, I reach events in the future by displacing myself
in time. I do not bring them into being. And if nothing is brought into
being, there is no change."
Who am I do dispute Einstein? But if there is no change, how would I travel
to Singapore? I've had similar thoughts myself, though. I have seen the
universe as a continuum that we divide into a bunch of nows by the ticking
of our internal clocks. But what's inside and what's outside of that clock
are different. The universe, with all it's observable features, is not
divided. The dividing of the universe into nows is something we do with our
process of perception in order to try and understand it. In the end, what
we see is what we get.
Anyway, I thought you might enjoy the thought that Einstein was, in a sense,
a determinist. And so, too, may Godel have been.
Cheers,
Grant
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