Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id AAA01916 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 28 Jan 2002 00:05:58 GMT Message-ID: <002701c1a769$7f81c420$f686b2d1@teddace> From: "Dace" <edace@earthlink.net> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <200201260039.g0Q0d4M21269@mail15.bigmailbox.com> Subject: Re: necessity of mental memes Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 11:33:26 -0800 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-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Keith Henson:
> >>Joe, this is one of those cases where if you take another viewpoint,
> >>the problem might make more sense. Consider driving down a road.
> >>From your viewpoint, *anything* could happen, rabbits run across the
> >>road, an airplane land on the road ahead, etc. Now consider it from
> >>the viewpoint of a person far overhead making a film. Now consider
> >>it from the viewpoint of someone watching that film later. They will
> >>see the chain of events where too much head wind and not filling the
> >>tanks caused an aircraft to land on the road in front of your car.
> >>
> Joe Dees:
> >>OF COURSE everthing appears fron hindsight to be necessary, just
> >as things appear in foresight to be contingent, but in the present cusp
> >where causally effective decisions are made, neither assumption can
> >be made, for the appearance/reality distinction collapses on this plane.
> >>>>
> Ted Dace:
> >Ah, but Joe, there's no such thing as time-- remember? There's only a
> >static, four-dimensional space-time. "Before" and "after" are nothing
> >more than "left" and "right" from the limited point of view of people
> >trapped in the illusion of time.
> >
> >As long as you've conceded the reduction of real time to space-time,
> >there's nothing you can say against determinism.
> >
> Wrong; spatiotemporality is quite real
Of course. Everything that exists in space also exists in time. From the
point of view of physical objects, the two are totally intertwined. But
time itself doesn't exist in space. It exists intrinsically, irreducibly.
Only when viewed from the outside-- that is, from the point of view of
space-- does it appear to be purely relative to space. The same is true of
the mind. It exists intrinsically and irreducibly but only when viewed from
inside of it. Obviously, when you view something from outside itself, you
no longer see its self-nature but only its relativity to other things. This
is how physicists approach time (from the pov of space) and how biologists
approach mind (from the pov of brain).
> When you travel faster, the temporal aspect slows (empirically verified by
around-the-world-flying B-52's carrying atomic clocks, compared with clocks
that weren't flown) and the spatial aspect shrinks (gets shorter) on the
axis of travel direction.
>>>
Yet, no matter how fast you travel, you still perceive time-- from within--
the same way you always have. At no point does the person on the rocket
ship perceive a change in tempo. As far as the direct experience of time is
concerned, nothing has changed. The rate of time's passage varies only in
its external relation to space and the objects moving through it more
slowly.
Ted
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