Give me an example, so we can be clear about the argument. — Banno

Do I really have to cut and paste from the many articles that explain the difference between A-series and B-series?

The A-series is tensed and ordered. The B-series is un-tensed and ordered. The C-series is un-tensed and unordered.

Do you even know what McTaggart was arguing towards?

Because there is no infinitely large number, just as there can be no infinite distance; the idea is untintelligble. — Janus

I see. You are proscribing reality based on your intellectual abilities. Not a good idea!

Just that it would seem there could be no actual infinite number of planets, and hence the argument that a finite number of possible planets would lead to a duplicate earth would seem to fail. — Janus

How does it seem that there can be no infinite number of planets?

So, if you or Metaphysician Undercover think there is something captured by the A-series but not by the B-series, set it out; but if all you have to say is "you lose the tense", then you have nothing to say. — Banno

Perhaps you have not followed McTaggart's argument? The A-series claims there are objective, changing properties of events: they go from future, become present, and then drift into the past. In the A-series, true statements about the future, may become false statements.

Meanwhile, relativity isn't controversial or anything. — jorndoe

Relativity certainly isn't controversial, but it is problematic. To be a bit more precise, Relativity and Quantum Mechanics render each other problematic.

Would you be happy with 6*10^-16 seconds per 2 seconds? How about 9*10^-16 per 3? You can scale the error like that all you like, it still represents the same error rate — fdrake

It seems to me that what you are implying is that expressing the extraordinary accuracy of the atomic in terms of time scales that a non-technical audience might better understand, is not the same as claiming the clock will still exist in 100,000,000 years?

Ok. If the measurement error analysis in the paper isn't wrong, that means the 1 second in 100 million years isn't wrong. Since that corresponds to an error rate of about 3 * 10 ^ -16, which was derived within the month, — fdrake

If, for the sake of argument, we accept your rash extrapolation into the future, then the implication is that the clock is accurate to 1 year in every 3.154e+15 years. I'm pretty sure there will be some changes in that time, and who wants a clock that's wrong by a whole year?

Yes, time is arbitrary. Change isn't. That is the difference. — Harry Hindu

The unit of time may be arbitrary, but the EM frequency that excites caesium atoms isn't.

I'm thinking it just means that our language can be confusing. We're not accustomed to tense-less chat. So, the block universe = what was, what is, and what may yet come to be. — jorndoe

How about the Block = what was, what is, and what will be?

There is no "may" in the Block.

I don't get the fuss over McTaggert's A and B series. They simply are not incommensurable. Any A-series event can be made a B-series event simply by indexing it. — Banno

You will also have to ignore the tensed nature of the A-series, so no you cant just index an A-series.

Indeed, it doesn't require infinite space. It (a type 1 world, not a duplicate) does at least require an expanding universe, else eventually light would have time to cross the distance. The dup-Earth requires space big enough to form duplicates of something, which could in theory be close enough to be visible from here once light had time to make the trip. That is more probable than what you show below where it by chance just never happens. — noAxioms

The argument for the existence of the Type 1 multiverse requires an infinite, ergodic, and expanding universe.

They're not separate universes (especially types 1 and 3), just separate worlds in this universe. For type 1, the distant Earth is a true duplicate. The space is infinite, but the possible states in a finite space (say that of Earth) are not, so each state much eventually be duplicated given enough distance. — noAxioms

It is psychologically interesting that people generally accept the existence of the Type 1 multiverse, when there is absolutely no evidence for it. I'm not sure if evidence for it is even possible?

Accepting the Type 1 multiverse, which is a consequence of an infinite universe subject to the Bekenstein bound, then the Type 2 adds zero complexity, but many people recoil at the idea, even Penrose!

For those of us who prefer not to sit through a video and who have only a nodding acquaintance with the topic, can you please remind us what a level 3 multiverse is? — fishfry

I didn't watch it either, I just fast-forwarded to the parts in which the physicists were talking. David Deutsch is particularly worth listening to.

As an aside, there is a video where DD is being interviewed by Dutch TV in the same scruffy front room of his house. They ask to see his office, so he takes them there. They mention that his office is very spartan, it is empty. He replies that he had never been there before. Hilarious!

On the contrary, it seems that in the past few years it's becoming time to stop taking physics seriously. Theories that can not be experimentally verified or refuted are not science. — fishfry

Quantum mechanics has been around since 1925, and if you count Einstein's paper on the photo-electric effect as the start (which it was) then since 1905. I have no idea what you mean by "the last few years", but over the last 100 years QM has been the most tested theory ever conceived, and has passed every test. More than that, it has also revealed several astonishing and novel features of reality - interference of matter particles, superposition, entanglement, ...

And by the way, the existence of the other Worlds is experimentally verified.

Models say otherwise. For the distance to be finite, there would need to be an edge where there is stuff only on one side, and not uniform as we see it. This is true of a subjective model (one with a frame and a 'current event'), but not of any objective view. Other-worlds is necessarily a description from the outside. — noAxioms

A 3-manifold, e.g. a 3-sphere, is finite with no edge.

My problem with the existence of a law that demonstrates the regularity of a periodic process is that time, space, and other physical quantities are more fundamental than any law of nature. First comes measurement, whether time, mass, volume, distance, etc., and only then can relationships between these quantities can be seen. — TheMadFool

That is quite a startling claim given that the relationships between mass and energy, energy and wavelength, mass and velocity, length and velocity, time and velocity, ... ... (I could go on and on) were all discovered in Theory before any measurement or reason for measurement could be conceived.

So no, it is always theory first.

My physics isn't that good but look at the wikipedia article on the pendulum. The period, supposed to be regular, T = 2pi[(L/g)^0.5] where L = length of the pendulum and g is acceleration due to gravity. As you can see before we can derive this law, we need to know T, L and g. In other words, we already need a clock to measure time (T). How do we know that that clock is keeping accurate time? — TheMadFool

You do not need to know what T, L and g are. L and g can take any values, and we can still calculate T. If such a physical system existed, it would provide a perfect clock. All we would need to do is measure g and use that to DEFINE L and T. But of course, no such physical system exists.

But atomic transitions do exist, and the energy of transition can be measured. Because theory tells us the relationship between energy and frequency, and that transitions are induced in atoms when subjected to EM radiation of that frequency, we may DEFINE the second via that frequency.

Regularity is critical in all measurements. Consider a student's ruler. If the centimeter markings are spaced differently (the should be spaced the exact same length) then the ruler is "broken". Similarly, if the seconds ticked off by a clock are of different "lengths" then time measurement would be pointless. — TheMadFool

The SI unit of length is defined in terms of time.

The SI unit of time is defined in terms of a property of matter.

The physical process has to be regular. In my OP I mentioned how this is ''less'' of a problem with other quantities like length, mass, volume because we have a standard whose state has been specified. With time it's different because we can never be sure of the regularity of a time piece. We can't be 100% certain that one period of a cesium atom takes the same time as the next. — TheMadFool

In the case of the atomic clock, there is no regular process. The clock is tuned to a constant of a physical system, and the second is thus DEFINED. The only "regularity" is that all the atoms have the same physical property, which, since we know they are indistinguishable, is a non-issue.

How do we know that? My watch's error can be detected by an atomic clock. How do we detect the error of an atomic clock? How do we know the ''1 second of error in 100 million years''? — TheMadFool

A physical process provides the definition of the second, the accuracy relates to the technology we have with which to measure that physical process.

By taking the temperature of the Cosmic Microwave Background.

If I bring home six beers and put them in the fridge, and I see my son take three, — Wayfarer

Six beers, three beers, maybe you are on a different intellectual plane? Hard to tell.

Yes, necessarily so, because if you don't understand everything, you can't know that everything is understandable. — ernestm

You asked for the proof, you got it.

Mind your temper. — Wayfarer

Pardon me for literally understanding everything.

So, if reality is perfectly comprehensible, then surely you must understand everything, mustn't you? Doesn't the first entail the second? — Wayfarer

Let me hold you by the hand and give you a childish example: An equation may have a solution, which you may prove must exist, but that does not mean you possess the solution. Is that a bit complicated?

"then surely you must understand everything"? Fucking idiot!

You were the one who said you understand everything, — ernestm

You are lying.

and as an axiomatic system is consistent only if incomplete, according to the best of current thought on the topic, you must have a solution to it we don't know — ernestm

What do axiomatic systems have to do with the fundamental comprehensibility of reality?

So I request your paper on it a second time, and excuse me but I have less entertaining things to do. — ernestm

So you are happy to bullshit, but want a reference from me. Well here it is:

http://www.daviddeutsch.org.uk/wp-content/deutsch85.pdf

That's your second problem. You didn't understand the grammar of one of my posts either. rofl. — ernestm

If you can't explain your claimed relevance of Gödel's 2nd theorem to the comprehensibility of reality, then you have been caught bull-shitting.

I look forward to your disproof of Gödel's second incompleteness theorem. Please do send me the link to your paper ) — ernestm

Please explain the relevance of Gödel's 2nd theorem?

According to you, I can't know any no more than you do, because you understand everything perfectly. So whatever I say you will say is wrong, probably including this statement. — ernestm

It would help if you could construct a sentence.

Anyway, it is proved that reality is comprehensible. it is an exact physical law.

well, that depends how much of reality you want to comprehend, doesn't it. — ernestm

Does it? What do you know?

#9/11

Although we can improve our comprehension by effort, reality is ultimately beyond perfect comprehension. — ernestm

Sorry to burst your bubble, but it is proved that reality is perfectly comprehensible.

#7/7

No, it means that it is irrelevant within mathematics whether its strictly hypothetical models represent anything that really exists. In other words, a non-dimensional point does not necessarily have to represent something that is actually non-dimensional. — aletheist

Except that quarks, leptons, and bosons are point particles.

Dualism is nothing at all to do with the functionality of models of the material world. It is about how the abstractions we apply to our perception of material states and events might themselves be independent of material reality. — ernestm

You mean likr non-computable numbers?

#Orlando

Please trivialize 49 dead and 53 injured, particularly if you are a homophobe.

I said nothing at all about quarks, leptons, bosons, or the Standard Model. My claim is strictly about mathematics. — aletheist

But you said:

No, we utilize non-dimensional points (and other mathematical constructions) as strictly hypothetical objects, and recognize that they do not have real existence. — aletheist

Which means, according to you, the Standard Model is wrong. Please explain.

#Nice

Go ahead and trivialize 86 dead and 434 injured.