Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id KAA28385 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 23 Aug 2001 10:48:16 +0100 Message-ID: <3B84D0E1.C38F7592@bioinf.man.ac.uk> Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 10:46:09 +0100 From: Chris Taylor <Christopher.Taylor@man.ac.uk> Organization: University of Manchester X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Logic References: <Pine.OSF.4.21.0108181256130.22200-100000@marple.umd.edu> <00a901c12918$67202b80$c024f4d8@teddace> <3B80F277.D7F8E38F@bioinf.man.ac.uk> <002b01c12b53$5f061a80$f986b2d1@teddace> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Dace wrote:
>
> 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.
Uh-uh - H/T is an arbitrary assignment to two distinct sides of a
para-2D object. Now is the point where the past starts. You define the
surface as where the water stops, but it is more than that - consider
water striders (pond skaters) - they live their whole lives at the
interface, exploiting its properties.
> - 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.
Personal time just implies that you can't stay still in this extra
dimension. Btw noone convinced me that we are not in a completely
deterministic universe (although I'm more or less on my own on that one
I think) - find me the outcome without a cause.
> > 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.
Memory in us (you look in the brain btw) is almost certainly stored the
way it is in neural networks that have been trained. Neural networks are
inanimate and therefore can't be resonating, yet they have memory.
> 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.
Er, all my stuff, and me, existed in the past; you've lost me here. I
was on about the difference between transmitting from the past via an
unbroken chain of intermediates, and with a gap (MR).
> > 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.
So what's going on with all these staring at the back of the head / pet
+ owner experiments if it's a time thing only? Has Sheldrake perhaps
cast his net a bit wide? Sort of Pauling in his vitamin C frenzy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Taylor (chris@bioinf.man.ac.uk)
http://bioinf.man.ac.uk/ »people»chris
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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