Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id WAA27334 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 22 Aug 2001 22:44:21 +0100 Message-ID: <002b01c12b53$5f061a80$f986b2d1@teddace> From: "Dace" <edace@earthlink.net> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <Pine.OSF.4.21.0108181256130.22200-100000@marple.umd.edu> <00a901c12918$67202b80$c024f4d8@teddace> <3B80F277.D7F8E38F@bioinf.man.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Logic Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 14:42:38 -0700 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Sender: fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Chris Taylor
> > Bergson asks us to think of time in terms of a pond. There's no
absolute
> > separation between the surface of a pond and its depths. Yet we go
around
> > speaking of the "surface" and the "depths" as if they were two different
> > things.
>
> Surface - air-water interface.
> Depths - below surface.
>
> Current - happening now, instantly part of the past.
> Past - things that have happened.
>
> There is a difference between the past and the present
And there's a difference between heads and tails. But the difference is
only within the context of sameness. There's no gap separating the two
sides of a coin, and it's the same with present and past. Like the coin,
time is singular. It's not composed of discrete elements. Our distinction
between present and past, between days and hours, is purely utilitarian. If
we didn't distinguish between heads and tails, flipping a coin would be
meaningless. But that doesn't mean the disinction between them is absolute.
- you can argue
> that we're passing along the fourth dimension of space-time thingy, but
> MR would be the index case of something from the past having *any*
> existence in the present.
If time is merely another dimension tacked onto the first three, then past
and future are akin to left and right, and "time travel" is perfectly
plausible. If time is a kind of space in which we're constantly moving at
the same rate in the same direction, then going back to the past would
simply entail stopping and reversing direction. In principle there's
nothing to prevent this. This flawed view also implies absolute
determinism, since everything has already happened. We can hop around to
see our future as well as our past. Yet, the very idea of a time tourist
implies a second kind of time, a continuous motion from the tourist's past
to the tourist's future. This is real time, the time that cannot be reduced
to a kind of extra-space. As Bergson pointed out, real time cannot be
eliminated. "Sooner or later" we are forced to confront its inherent
nature.
> This is a bigger question than development,
> because you're positing the passage of information from the past,
> direct. So are we talking about some undiscovered continually existent
> store of info (so where do we start looking), or are we talking about
> access to information direct from the past?
Where do we start looking for memory? This could take awhile, since time is
a matter of when, not where.
Sheldrake refuses to say definitively whether organic form somehow stays
with the current of time, or if the past is in some way literally present.
I think it's because he's not willing to be completely true to Bergson.
From the point of view of matter, the past is null and void. The past has
neither space nor matter. But if time is a thing in itself, irreducible to
material events in space, then the past doesn't need space and matter to
exist. Of course, to posit that anything has inherent nature or
self-existence is move from physics into metaphysics. Perhaps Sheldrake is
wise to stay out of this dispute.
> Books etc. don't count, because they are in the present as well as the
> past (sort of a concrete version of option one in the last paragraph).
As material objects, books exist only in the present. If a book could exist
in the past as well as the present, then it would still be at the printing
factory and the bookstore as well as your hands while you read it.
> Btw, to what extent do allegedly MR-influenced items refer
> to the past, and to what extent to other contemporary instances of the
> item?
Morphic resonance works across time, not space. Non-contact effects across
space involve fields, whether morphic, electromagnetic, or gravitational.
Ted
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Aug 22 2001 - 22:48:54 BST