The Infiniteness of Time

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

I am denying the existence of time.

Was there a "before" posting and a "after" posting of these words?

No, not really.

We can analogously think of these would-be events as if they exist as scenes on an unchanging unplayed DVD in a reality/universe that contains no DVD player and nothing but that unchanging DVD, which is thus an eternal reality without change or time.

The unplayed DVD is analogously the eternal unchanging 4D block universe, timeless and unchanging.

Okay, I don't disagree here, but this is just static data. Nothing happens at this point. But in reality stuff happens, which means this analogy is not complete, the events/scenes on DVD needs to be "played" for stuff to happen, otherwise we wouldn't be here "playing out the scene" of talking about this topic.

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), meaning there must be something transcendental to the unchanging 4D block universe, such that the deterministic physical description of the eternal 4D block universe is incomplete. Is that what you are saying?

If so, I would agree except for the fact that we might be working under the assumption that consciousness is not fundamental, not transcendental, and not physically forceful, in which case the best most parsimonious candidate to potentially explain the apparent transcendentality and apparent change is excluded.

Under normal conditions, I would not favor the illusionary theory of conscious, a theory which is argued by Daniel Dennett. However, if I am forced as a premise/assumption to non-parsimoniously assume that consciousness is not fundamental, not transcendental, and not physically forceful (not things I would normally assume), then I might thus be stuck favoring a Dennett-style theory of consciousness, in other words rejecting your assertion that "something is happening".

In other words, I believe that if time is relative, then change is incompatible with determinism, at least assuming there is nothing transcendental to the otherwise deterministic part of the universe (thus meaning the deterministic part of the universe is all that there is, only an unchanging DVD and no player).

In the paragraph above, I use the phrase "otherwise deterministic part of the universe" to refer to the unchanging DVD, which in Einstein's physics is an unchanging timeless 4D block universe.

If there is nothing transcendental to that unchanging DVD, then presumably ipso faco Dennett would be correct to deny your appeal to conscious experience as proof that something is happening.

Personally, I favor the logic of Descartes over Dennett on this matter (i.e. Cogito Ergo Sum), and thus I would instead prefer to assume there is something transcendental to the 4D block universe. In which case, there may be no change within the 4D block universe itself but rather the change you seem to experience is a change in the relationship between the transcendental DVD player (e.g. your consciousness) and the block universe. To me, that's the most parsimonious way to explain the appearance of transcendental happenings (i.e. your conscious experience). However, if we exclude transcendentality, then I fear we are left with Dennett's theory instead.

I don't consider myself a dualist. I believe you can have a DVD and a DVD player in a monistic reality. Heck, I have them both in my living room right now, and it doesn't seem like any dualism is going on in there. In other words, I think we can preserve monism while still allowing for the possibility that consciousness may be transcendental, fundamental, or physically forceful.

Additionally, we can imagine the DVD is a video game not a movie, such that the unchanging data could be played in all sorts of different ways.

But now you are talking about something(s) that exist outside of this universe [...]

Not necessarily because I used the phrase "could be".

I am not saying there is a DVD player.

The point is that the DVD itself does not contain information about how to play it. The DVD doesn't have rules or information regarding how to turn the data into a series of frames, and it doesn't have rules or information regarding what order those frames need to go in. It doesn't have time. To get time(s), you need something transcendental (i.e. one or more DVD players), but assuming you have multiple DVD players, each player would bring its own relative emergent time because the relative emergent time is created by the player's transcendental organizing of the info on the DVD along with its transcendental experience/display of that information. Thus, any kind of apparent time is transcendentally relative to that player and that player's changing relationship to the unchanging DVD.

Again, I am not saying there is a DVD player, but simply illustrating how the DVD (i.e. unchanging 4D spacetime) has no dimension of time and how nothing is really happening in that DVD because the DVD is unchanging. To get real 'happening' requires something transcendental to the unchanging 4D block universe, and that at best only gives relative emergent non-fundamental time that depends on the transcendental player.

You are suggesting that there are at least two things that exist 'outside' (external to) this 4D universe; a DVD video game player, and a controlling entity that somehow magically "decides" what to play and in what sequence to play it.

I am not suggesting that. You might be, but I am not.

You are the one who keeps insisting something is really happening. If it is, then it must be transcendental to the unchanging DVD.

I am not a dualist.

I am confident in my belief objective time does not exist, I am confident in my belief that relative time is at best emergent and non-fundamental if not just an utterly fictional illusion, and I am agnostic about the idea that "something is happening" or that "change exists". If your assertion that something beyond the physical 4D block universe is happening and thus it is magical or such, then I am at most agnostic about that if not willing to disbelieve it in the name of parsimony.

I don't believe in anything supernatural or paranormal.

I do believe in consciousness and what I would call "conscious presence", but that is "presence" not in time (i.e. not a 0-D point in 1-D time) but rather a 4-D here and now in timeless 4-D spacetime. As such, it's not clear what the word "presence" means exactly and if it is even the best word for what is really going on if anything is really going on. There's a lot I don't know, and about that kind of stuff I'm generally agnostic. Maybe something is happening; maybe it's not. Either way, time is not real, and spacetime is clearly timeless, which importantly means simultaneity is relative.

In other words, was there a point in spacetime that these words were not posted on this forum and then another point in spacetime when it was posted?

What do you mean by a "point" in spacetime? (Please note, that spacetime is 4D and timeless.)

Sorry, I didn't mean "point" in the literal 0D sense, I mean the "place" in spacetime. If we were to use the DVD analogy, then it is the place (spot) on the DVD which contains the event prior to you posting "I am denying the existence of time." and then the place on the DVD which contains the event just after you posted these words.

I still don't understand the question. What does it mean for a place/spot stored as data on a DVD to be after another place/spot?

It all exists on the timeless unchanging DVD already, and there is no objective order to it all. There isn't even a way to objectively slice the 4D data into 3D frames, let alone objectively order those frames into some proper order. There's infinite ways to translate the 4D data into a series of 3D frames. What data gets played/accessed before or after or at the same as some other data would be up to a transcendental DVD player to decide, if such a thing even exists, and each transcendental DVD player could play the unchanging DVD any one of the infinite ways, if such transcendental DVD players even exist.

The places/spots in 4D spacetime do not have 1D order to them.

Needless to say, if you assume that happening/change is real, and I argue that it is not, then my arguments will contradict your assumptions.

Yes, agreed. From my view, happening/change is logically impossible to deny, whereas from your view, it is not, ...hence our disconnect.

Indeed, I don't see anything logically contradictory in Einstein's block universe model.

If you want to appeal to yours (and my) shared apparently transcendental experience (i.e. consciousness) as proof that something transcendental to the 4D block universe must exist to explain that transcendental experience, I am open to that argument.

However, if we non-parsimoniously assume consciousness is not fundamental, not transcendental, and not physically forceful, then I think that argument fails, or perhaps even contradicts itself. In other words, if we non-parsimoniously assume consciousness is not fundamental, not transcendental, and not physically forceful, then I refuse to believe there is a DVD player (i.e. something transcendental to the unchanging DVD that is timeless 4D spacetime).

I'd quicker accept Daniel Dennett's arguments about consciousness than reject Einstein's physics. However, if I can keep Einstein's and reject (or at least remain agnostic about) Dennett's, then that's the route I would choose.

[Nick_A]

RJG

Nick_A wrote:
I understand what you mean by a line having one dimension but if a point has no dimensions, how does it exist? Yet the fourth dimension of time assumes the point as essential for movement or existence. So how do you define a point? What is it, what does it do, and how does it exist having no dimensions?

I think this is a great question. My two cents is that the existence of "true 0D" points are logically impossible (as there is nothing there to exist). The 0D point is just a reference point (for convenience sake), that does not actually exist. -- which further means that 1D lines are not truly formed by 0D points (because "nothing" x "a gazillion" is still nothing). The universe is not constructed/structured out of "nothing" (no dimension; i.e. "0D points") but out of something, i.e. "dimensions" (1D lines, 2D planes, 3D objects, 4D motion).

A point as I understand it, is defined as a limit. Time is defined as the vertical repetition of a moment producing existence. A point is the beginning of eternal recurrence or the vertical repetition of a moment. We can't know the limit but experience it as how phenomenon relate to each other. The day of a planet is much greater than the day of a dog.

A person's life is more than one moment and this line of points descending vertically from our source produces the first dimension or length.

The second dimension producing the surface is created by points or repetitions beginning at right angles along the line of time, and extending out into infinity. It is the line of eternity in which a person's life can be experienced as a repeating whole

There are many possible eternities creating the sixth dimension or what science calls multi verse theory.

Einstein was describing the sixth dimension as I know it which makes change in ones life possible.

The process of block time which vertically connects the dimensions of time with eternity and all possible eternities, takes place within the seventh dimension (NOW) or the eternal unchanging. This is why some call the living process of integrating the first six dimensions of creation within the eternal unchanging: "The body of God

[RJG]

Okay, I don't disagree here, but this is just static data. Nothing happens at this point. But in reality stuff happens, which means this analogy is not complete, the events/scenes on this DVD need to be "played" for stuff to happen, otherwise we wouldn't be here "playing out the scene" of talking about this topic.

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)...

Yes, something is happening, but there is nothing "transcendental" (mystical, magical) about it. Consciousness is not transcendental. Consciousness is just another physical bodily experience/interaction.

Consciousness is the singular bodily experience of 'recognition', made possible by memory. For it is recognition that converts a non-conscious bodily experience into a conscious experience, that we then call “consciousness”.

In short, consciousness is the recognition of physical bodily reactions.

...meaning there must be something transcendental to the unchanging 4D block universe, such that the deterministic physical description of the eternal 4D block universe is incomplete. Is that what you are saying?

No, there is nothing transcendental in our 4D universe. Consciousness is as deterministic as anything else. "Transcendentalism" (anti-math/logic) does not exist in our 4D universe. Your DVD analogy 'excludes' consciousness, whereas our 4D universe 'includes' consciousness. Our 4D universe is not static, it is constantly changing.

Change happens/exists! - this is logically impossible to deny (as our denial itself only affirms its existence).

I don't believe in magic (transcendentalism). Logic is our innate; a priori (and only) means to "make sense". Once we crack open the door to accepting anti-logic possibilities, then anything and everything becomes possible, and then nothing makes sense (...everything then becomes non-sensical).

[Edited for added clarity]

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Okay, I don't disagree here, but this is just static data. Nothing happens at this point. But in reality stuff happens, which means this analogy is not complete, the events/scenes on this DVD need to be "played" for stuff to happen, otherwise we wouldn't be here "playing out the scene" of talking about this topic.

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)...

There is nothing "transcendental" (mystical, magical) with consciousness whatsoever. Consciousness is just another physical bodily experience/interaction.

Transcendental doesn't mean "mystical" or "magical" to me. I use it more in the sense that the Y axis of a 2-D graph transcends the X axis, or the sense in which transcendental numbers are called transcendental. In other words, is seems like you might be proposing some kind of 5th dimension (of "time"?) that "transcends" the unchanging 4D universe of timeless spacetime.

Granted, another way of using the word "transcendental" in certain specific contexts is essentially as a synonym for 'spiritual', with 'spirit' meaning 'consciousnesses' in which case consciousness is transcendental by definition. That is, assuming we are talking about the kind of consciousness that a philosophical zombie cannot have versus the kind of waking non-spiritual non-transcendental consciousness even a theoretical p-zombie is capable.

Consciousness is the singular bodily experience of 'recognition', made possible by memory. For it is recognition that converts a non-conscious bodily experience into a conscious experience, that we then call “consciousness”.

In short, consciousness is the recognition of physical bodily reactions.

To me, that's a religious-like non-parsimonious assertion with which I therefore don't agree. I think the parsimonious thing to do is to remain agnostic about whether that particular proposed solution to the hard problem of consciousness happens to be correct. Nonetheless, for the sake of argument and simplicity in this topic, I am more than happy to assume that for the sake of argument consciousness is non-fundamental, non-transcendental, and non-forceful.

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'.

If consciousness is non-fundamental, non-transcendental, and non-forceful, then I firmly conclude nothing is really happening, meaning real change does not exist.

...meaning there must be something transcendental to the unchanging 4D block universe, such that the deterministic physical description of the eternal 4D block universe is incomplete. Is that what you are saying?

Our 4D universe is not static, it is constantly changing.

Change happens/exists - this is logically impossible to deny (as our denial itself only affirms its existence).

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 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). Thus, neither the existence of that denial, nor the existence of anything else in the unchanging 4D block universe, proves that something is happening or that change exists.

Nothing is changing about the 4D universe. All things or so-called 'events' including she so-called 'past', so-called 'present', so-called and 'future' (using some random reference line) exist together in the unchanging 4D timeless spacetime that contains all of eternal reality.

I suspect the alleged "changes" to which you are referring are merely differences between imaginary arbitrary 3D frames in the unchanging 4D universe. In other words, you may be arbitrarily considering one part of the unchanging 4D whole that contains everything and comparing it to a different part of the unchanging 4D whole that contains everything, and calling the differences between those two parts 'changes', but needless to say both parts exist in the unchanging whole.

If consciousness is non-fundamental, non-transcendental, and non-forceful, then I conclude change is incompatible with determinism, due in part to the fact that we know scientifically that neither objective time nor objective simultaneity exist in the 4D universe that is 4D timeless spacetime.

[RJG]

...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.

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'.

But my own personal "conscious experience" is still part of and within this 4D universe. Even if it is an illusion, this illusion is nonetheless real and happening within this universe, ...not outside it.

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…

We cannot have a conversation that did not happen. Either it happened or it didn't. Either it exists or it doesn't.

...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).

If it is "unplayed" then it didn't happen, but since this denial did happen, it therefore has "played out" (it happened!).

[Fellowmater]

If matter/energy is naturally created on average (and it must be because we are here) and time is infinite, we would have reached infinite matter/energy density by now. Note that the universe cannot have been expanding forever because if we trace back in time, we would find a point in time when it was not expanding; at best the universe must be oscillating, so infinite density would be reached. So this argument rules out quantum fluctuations as the cause of the universe.

[Steve3007]

If matter/energy is naturally created on average (and it must be because we are here) and time is infinite, we would have reached infinite matter/energy density by now...

If time was not identically equal to change and it was infinite, as RJG says it is, why does matter/energy have to be naturally created on average? Couldn't there conceivably have been a single instance of the creation of all the currently existing matter/energy at some point in the past, preceded by an infinity of nothing happening? Would there be any logical problems with that?

(Note: I'm not talking here about what the evidence suggests is actually the case but what could possibly be the case given the premise that started the above paragraph.)

[RJG]

Note that the universe cannot have been expanding forever because if we trace back in time, we would find a point in time when it was not expanding…

Fellowmater, contrary to what science tells us, it is logically impossible for this universe to "expand" at all. There cannot be space outside of space to expand into. If the universe exists (which it does), then it exists infinitely (no bounds/limits at ALL dimensions).

A "space outside of space" is as logically impossible as a "time before time". X<X is logically impossible, (...and logic always trumps science).

Couldn't there conceivably have been a single instance of the creation of all the currently existing matter/energy at some point in the past, preceded by an infinity of nothing happening? Would there be any logical problems with that?

Yes, there are problems with this. A "single instance of creation" event is logically impossible. Events are something-happening-somewhere. Without pre-existing something (matter) happening (time) somewhere (space) there can be no event, nor "creation" whatsoever.

If space does not yet exist, then 'where' did this event happen?
If time does not yet exist, then how could this event 'begin'?
If matter does not yet exist, then 'what' happened?

Again, X<X is logically impossible. If matter-time-space exist, then they have always (infinitely) existed. There is no other logical explanation.

[Steve3007]

If matter/energy is naturally created on average (and it must be because we are here) and time is infinite, we would have reached infinite matter/energy density by now...

If time was not identically equal to change and it was infinite, as RJG says it is, why does matter/energy have to be naturally created on average? Couldn't there conceivably have been a single instance of the creation of all the currently existing matter/energy at some point in the past, preceded by an infinity of nothing happening?

Yes, this is a problem. A "single instance of creation" is logically impossible...

Fellowmater proposed that matter/energy must be naturally created on average, and then argued that with infinite time available infinite matter/energy would therefore have been created by now. I pointed out that in such a universe of infinite time there's no necessary reason to think that matter has to have an average positive creation rate as he proposed. In such a universe, a finite quantity of matter/energy could all have been created during some finite period of time in the past, before which no matter matter/energy existed. I don't see your comment here as relevant to that point.

Or course, none of this is relevant to my own views on time. I was just answering Fellowmater's point about a hypothetical infinitely old universe.

[RJG]

In such a universe, a finite quantity of matter/energy could all have been created during some finite period of time in the past, before which no matter matter/energy existed. I don't see your comment here as relevant to that point.

Yes, my comment/response was not directly relevant to your specific question. ...sorry for butting in.

But, the point of my comment/response was to explain that it is logically impossible to create matter/energy (and space-time) in the first place, and at any "finite period of time". Since it cannot logically be created, it was not-created. And therefore, if it exists, then it has infinitely existed.

[Steve3007]

Yes, my comment/response was not directly relevant to your specific question. ...sorry for butting in.

No problem with you butting in. I just wanted to be clear about the context of what I was saying as a reply to a particular thing that Fellowmater said.

But, the point of my comment/response was to explain that it is logically impossible to create matter/energy (and space-time) in the first place, and at any "finite period of time".

As you know, we've discussed this many times before. It is not logically impossible to create matter/energy. There is no logical contradiction in saying "some matter came into existence". Being in disagreement with an empirically derived conservation law (or with any other empirically derived law) doesn't mean being logically impossible. Being difficult to reconcile with all of the patterns we've noticed in our experiences to date doesn't mean being logically impossible.

[RJG]

It is not logically impossible to create matter/energy. There is no logical contradiction in saying "some matter came into existence".

How is it logically possible to create or bring some matter/energy into existence, without contradicting logic (X=~X or X<X)? There is no logic (that I know of) that connects "Nothing" to "Something".

Furthermore, "Something coming from Nothing" is an oxymoron. It is as logically impossible as are "married bachelors". The words within the claim defeat the claim. -- The "coming from" within the statement/claim implies an action; an "event". It implies events are possible in the absence of something (when nothing yet exists). Events themselves are a composition of something-happening-somewhere (matter-time-space). Without the pre-existence of all three of these ingredients (matter-time-space) there can be no event (or no "coming from"s). The pre-'existence' of these ingredients defeats the 'nothingness' of the claim, ...hence the "oxymoron".

We can only get something from something, not nothing!

[Steve3007]

How is it logically possible to create or bring some matter/energy into existence, without contradicting logic (X=~X or X<X)? There is no logic (that I know of) that connects "Nothing" to "Something".

I don't recognize the way you're using the whole concept of logic, and never really have.

Logic is a set of rules that relate propositions to each other. So a question like "How is it logically possible to create or bring some matter/energy into existence?" makes no sense to me and doesn't in any discernible way relate to expressions like X=~X or X<X. It's a question about how it's possible for some event to happen. It's not a question about the logical consistency of propositions. So it makes as little sense to me as "How is it logically possible that it's raining today when I didn't expect it to be?". Statements like "X is not equal to X" or "X is less than X" are, as far as I can see, not related in any way to a statement like "matter/energy exists where none existed before".

If we decided that it's not possible for matter to appear or disappear without changing into the same quantity of a different form of matter, we wouldn't be stating something that is true by definition; logically true. We'd be stating something that has been found empirically to be true, and possibly described by a general law called something like "conservation of matter".

If you wanted to show that "at one time there was nothing and at a later time there was something" was logically unsound then you'd need to show the self-contradiction in that statement, not just ask how it could be true.

Furthermore, "Something coming from Nothing" is an oxymoron. It is as logically impossible as are "married bachelors". The words within the claim defeat the clam. -- The "coming from" within the statement/claim implies an action; an "event". It implies events are possible in the absence of something (when nothing yet exists). Events themselves are a composition of something-happening-somewhere (matter-time-space). Without the pre-existence of all three of these ingredients there can be no event (or no "coming from"s). The pre-'existence' of these ingredients defeats the 'nothingness' of the claim.

No. As we've discussed many times before "something is nothing" is an oxymoron. "Something coming from nothing" is not.

We can only get something from something, not nothing!

That's a re-statement of an empirically derived law (a general rule inductively derived from specific observed instances) called conservation of matter. No matter how many times an inductively derived law like that is re-affirmed by observation, and therefore no matter how surprising and unlikely the proposition that it might not be universal after all might be, that doesn't make it a logically necessary truth.

[RJG]

How is it logically possible to create or bring some matter/energy into existence, without contradicting logic (X=~X or X<X)? There is no logic (that I know of) that connects "Nothing" to "Something".

I don't recognize the way you're using the whole concept of logic, and never really have.
Logic is a set of rules that relate propositions to each other. So a question like "How is it logically possible to create or bring some matter/energy into existence?" makes no sense to me and doesn't in any discernible way relate to expressions like X=~X or X<X.

In other words, how do you get from A to B? How do you get Something from Nothing? ...just saying that it does, does not logically make it so. We could also as easily say "pigs can fly", but our saying so does not necessarily mean that it is so. There must be some logical connection making it so.

The logic I use is very simple, it is called Simple Logic. The 3 axioms are:

• X=X
  X=~X is logically impossible
  X<X is logically impossible.

There is nothing more objectively certain in all of reality than that of a logical impossibility. So then, when we recognize the X<X or ~X=X form of argument, we can immediately discard it as an objectively certain non-truth (a logical impossibility). So that is what I look for. I want to weed out all the non-truths from my contaminated pool of knowledge in an attempt to get closer to knowing true knowledge.

If you wanted to show that "at one time there was nothing and at a later time there was something" was logically unsound then you'd need to show the self-contradiction in that statement, not just ask how it could be true.

If time does not yet exist then logically there cannot be at "one time there was nothing" and at "another time there was something". Furthermore if matter did not yet exist then it does not logically follow that at "one time there was no matter" and "another time there was matter". We could also say at "one time pigs don't fly" and "another time pigs do fly". Without logic, we could say and claim anything! And saying and claiming anything does not necessarily make it so, or is very convincing whatsoever.

Furthermore, "Something coming from Nothing" is an oxymoron. It is as logically impossible as are "married bachelors". The words within the claim defeat the clam. -- The "coming from" within the statement/claim implies an action; an "event". It implies events are possible in the absence of something (when nothing yet exists). Events themselves are a composition of something-happening-somewhere (matter-time-space). Without the pre-existence of all three of these ingredients there can be no event (or no "coming from"s). The pre-'existence' of these ingredients defeats the 'nothingness' of the claim.

No. As we've discussed many times before "something is nothing" is an oxymoron. "Something coming from nothing" is not.

The oxymoron itself is in the words "coming from" and "nothing". Coming from implies something [X], and nothing implies not-something [not-X]. Married implies X, and Bachelor implies not-X. X=~X is logically impossible. "Something coming from Nothing" and "Married bachelors" are oxymorons [X=~X].

We can only get something from something, not nothing!

That's a re-statement of an empirically derived law (a general rule inductively derived from specific observed instances) called conservation of matter.

No, it is a logical truth that just so happens to agree with an empirical truth. The best of both worlds!

[Terrapin Station]

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:

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"?

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?