RJG wrote: ↑April 18th, 2021, 9:51 am
Scott wrote:...I firmly conclude nothing is really happening, meaning real change does not exist.
My difficulty in understanding you is because of statements like these (...which, to me, come across as obvious logical contradictions).
For example, if I said to you "I firmly conclude married bachelors exist", could you understand and accept that? ...neither can I. And likewise, when you say "nothing is really happening" or "change does not exist" or "everything is an illusion", these are unfathomable to me, because I can't get past its obvious impossibility (i.e. the words in the claim defeat the claim itself).
Furthermore, it doesn't matter if you preface the statement with "If consciousness is real or not real; passive or not, etc", a married bachelor is still logically impossible.
A married bachelor is a logical contradiction.
An unchanging 4D block universe that contains this entire conversion is
not a logical contradiction.
Einstein's physics are
not contradictory or illogical.
The following statement does
not contain a logical contradiction:
"Nothing is really happening."
The following statement does
not contain a logical contradiction:
"Real change does not exist."
The following statement does
not contain logical contradiction:
"This entire conversion including the above statements and this one all exist in the unchanging 4D block universe that contains all of reality across all of would-be time and/or would-be space, noting that neither time nor space really exist, much like hereness and thereness don't really exist, just everything that would be everywhere and would be everywhen if there even could be true theres and true thens."
Scott wrote:If I make that non-parsimonious assumption, then I must therefore reject any appeal to claim that your own personal seeming conscious experience is proof that 'something is really happening' or 'real change is really occurring'.
RJG wrote: ↑April 18th, 2021, 9:51 am
But my own personal "conscious experience" is still part of and within this [unchanging] 4D universe.
Then your so-called "conscious experience" is not really happening. It just exists in an unchanging state as part of the unchanging 4D universe.
In that case, your so-called "conscious experience" is like Batman's experience in terms of what he experiences during any given scene in the movie on an unchanging unplayed DVD that contains the whole story of his life.
Batman and Robin may have a conversion in that movie as contained on the unchanging unplayed DVD (maybe titled "Batman and Robin talk philosophy"), but the conversion never really happens if it is never played by something outside (i..e transcendental to) the DVD containing the whole conversation. The DVD has no eternal presence, just as timeless spacetime has no objective simultaneity and cannot have a universal now (i.e. a present).
If frames from the movie aren't played consecutively on a screen or such, then there is no way to say which would-be frame is now, and there is no screen on which for changing frames to appear. In other words, there is no present or simultaneity. Nothing is on-screen (i.e. now) versus off-screen (i.e. not now) because there is no screen, no present, no here-and-now, on which for it to be.
There is no screen in the DVD, and there is no screen or screen-like thing within 4D spacetime.
That's because 4D spacetime does not contain time. Perhaps more importantly, in Einstein's physics there is no objective simultaneity. There is nothing within the 4D spacetime to say what would be on the screen (if there was a screen), and there is nothing in 4D spacetime to say which things from 4D spacetime would even be on the screen at the same time as each other (if there even was a screen). In terms of a screen or time, both do not exist within the 4 dimensions of timeless unchanging spacetime. In other words, analogies aside, there is neither
objective simultaneity nor
presence in timeless 4D spacetime.
RJG wrote: ↑April 18th, 2021, 9:51 am
Even if it is an illusion, this illusion is nonetheless real and happening
within this universe, ...not outside it.
Not if "this universe" refers to the 4D block universe of timeless spacetime.
The unchanging 4D spacetime contains everything and anything that exists within the 4 dimensions of timeless spacetime (including both what you would categorize as "past" versus "future" or as "here in space" versus "not here in space" or "forward in space (i.e. in front of you)" versus "backward in space (i.e. behind you). All of that exists together in an unchanging timeless 4D state.
In terms of those 4 dimensions of timeless spacetime that contain everything, there is neither
objective simultaneity nor
presence.
Any conversations and/or illusions Batman and Robin would have in the unchanging DVD containing the whole movie in which the conversion or illusions would occur do not happen because the unplayed unchanging DVD is unplayed.
Scott wrote:The unchanging 4D universe contains all so-called "events". The conversation we are having (in which I deny that change happens) exists in an unchanging state…
RJG wrote: ↑April 18th, 2021, 9:51 am
We cannot have a conversation that did not happen. Either it happened or it didn't. Either it exists or it doesn't.
It exists, but it did not happen, and it is not happening, and it cannot happen. (That is, assuming real happening requires real change.) It exists in full on the unchanging DVD that contains the entirety of unchanging timeless 4D spacetime. No change happens. The 4D block universe (i.e. the unchanging DVD movie that contains the entirety of unchanging timeless 4D spacetime) does not change.
There is neither
objective simultaneity nor
presence in the timeless 4D spacetime that contains everything including real dinosaurs, this entire conversion, the big bang, and my great grand-kids deaths.
Scott wrote:...in the unchanging 4D block universe (which is like an unplayed unchanging DVD with no DVD player that contains this conversation including my denial of change).
RJG wrote: ↑April 18th, 2021, 9:51 am
If it is "unplayed" then it didn't happen, but since
this denial did happen, it therefore[...]
You have committed the
begging the question fallacy. The denial did not happen because without objective simultaneity, change is incompatible with determinism. The full conversation including the denial simply exists in full in an unchanging eternal state, as everything else exists in the unchanging timeless 4D block universe (i.e. the unchanging DVD containing everything in timeless 4D spacetime including this full unchanging conversation). In a loose sense of the words, this full conversion (plus dinosaurs, the big bang, and my great grandchildrens' deaths) have always existed and always will in an unchanging 4D state, but with the caveat that there is no time and thus the word 'always' is a bit of a misnomer that actually refers to unchanging timeless eternity.
As you correctly say, if it is "unplayed" (i.e. if there is nothing outside of or beyond the timeless unchanging 4D spacetime to play the unchanging DVD containing all of 4D spacetime), then it is not happening. Nothing happens; no change exists.
In analogy, if there is no DVD player(s) and (no screens attached to those players), then there is no
present(s) or presence(s). If the DVD contains the whole movie in an unchanging state, then there is no "presence" (i.e. no here-and-now) without a DVD player (i.e. something transcendental to the timeless DVD containing everything) to define that present, to cut out that present from the rest of the full movie containing everything.
In timeless spacetime, a 'present' would not be a point in 1D time (because there is no dimension of time in spacetime) but rather a 'present' would be an inseparable here-and-now (a small changing 4D blob highlighted out of the full 4D block universe).
In the 4D block universe that is all of spacetime, there is no 'now', there is no 'present', and there is no time. In 4D spacetime, there is no objective simultaneity. There is nowhere and nowhen within the 4 dimension of timeless spacetime upon which or within which for things to happen.
***
Terrapin Station wrote: ↑April 20th, 2021, 9:17 am
By no means have I read all of this discussion, so I'm probably missing some stuff I need, though I am familiar with the topic overall.
At any rate, there are a number of things in your comments that I don't get. To start with:
Scott wrote: ↑April 16th, 2021, 8:08 pm
If I am understanding correctly, you are saying that, because you have a conscious experience that appears to be happening, something must be happening (i.e. some kind of transcendental change is occurring),
Why would the change be "transcendental"?
1. Because it definitely doesn't exist within the 4 dimensions of timeless spacetime. I am not claiming it does exist, but if it does exist, it must therefore exist beyond, meaning outside of (i.e. "transcendental" to), the 4 dimensions of timeless spacetime that contain everything including this whole conversion, the big bang, real dinosaurs, and the death of the Sun.
2. Because as I understood his comments, RJG seemed to specifically appealing to his own consciousness as somehow providing evidence that something exists outside of or beyond the unchanging 4D block universe of 4D timeless spacetime, like a DVD player and/or a movie-watcher existing outside of an unchanging DVD that contains an entire movie including all scenes that could be played. In other words, it seems to me he was proposing that he had a consciousness that was really having a changing relationship with the otherwise unchanging 4D block universe that contains everything including this whole conversion, the Big Bang, real dinosaurs, and the death of the Sun. In other words, he seemed to be claiming that through consciousness itself he had access to some kind of true real
presence, even though there is no present (i.e. universal now) within the entirety of the timeless 4D spacetime that contains everything including this whole conversion, the Big Bang, real dinosaurs, and the death of the Sun.
Terrapin Station wrote: ↑April 20th, 2021, 9:17 am
I also say that the "block" picture can't be right because change at least occurs phenomenally. Why would that be interpreted as saying that some "transcendental" change is occurring?
If the 4D block universe can't be right/complete because X exists and X is incompatible with the timeless 4D block universe being all that there is, then by definition X is transcendental to the block universe, similar to how the 2D imaginary number plane is transcendental to the 1D real number line, or that way that the Y axis transcends the X axis on a 2D graph.
Regardless, perhaps you and I are using the terms "phenomenally" and "transcendentally" as synonyms or near-synonyms, but I can't be sure. What do you men by phenomenal change? What phenomenal change can scientifically be shown to be "happening" (whatever that means) that isn't already covered by the timeless 4D physics of 4D timeless spacetime? If it is something that exists in addition to what is contained within the 4 dimensions of timeless spacetime, then how could that
not, ipso facto, mean by definition that it transcends that 4D would-be block universe?
Nothing contained within the 4 dimensions of timeless spacetime is changing, so are you proposing something that exists 'outside' of or 'beyond' the 4D spacetime in some way and that the relationship between (1)
that extra phenomenal thing and (2)
the unchanging 4D spacetime is what's changing (in analogy to the way a movie-watcher can have a changing relationship to an unchanging DVD containing the full movie that creates a presence (i.e. which frame/scene from the movie is 'now') and thus gives the appearance of flowing time to that movie-watcher through a consecutive series of on-screen frames flowing by one-by-one in order?