You see how you keep dropping stasis out of the discussion. You simply presume the thing that gives the idea of "change" any crisp meaning can be taken for granted.

Once you start honestly asking yourself about how stasis could be the case, then the lightbulb might go off. — apokrisis

I am only proceeding now according to your assumptions. You claimed that time, and change are emergent. "Emergent" implies that they emerged from something, and this must be lack of change, stasis. Stasis is not my assumption, it is your assumption, change is emergent. Don't you assume symmetry, and isn't symmetry a form of stasis? Symmetry, stasis, is your primary assumption.

You are the one who takes stasis for granted, not I. I recognize the appearance of stasis, symmetry, and am seeking a cause of it, to validate its appearance as something real. Therefore I have not taken it for granted.

I am only proceeding now according to your assumptions. You claimed that time, and change are emergent. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well if you were following my argument, you would have to bring in its other side - the emergence of stasis (as encoded in the further notion of space).

Don't you assume symmetry, and isn't symmetry a form of stasis? — Metaphysician Undercover

As I've said, symmetry is a way to model stasis because it is the maths of differences that don't make a difference. And so it is a model of physical equilbrium situations, where there are differences, and they don't make a difference.

Math's problem is that it is timeless and energyless in being basically a spatial or geometric conception of things. So symmetry maths has a static character just due to the way maths is derived. You are risking confusing the stasis of the method with the stasis (and flux) of the world the method is used to model.

You are the one who takes stasis for granted, — Metaphysician Undercover

Hardly. I've said it is emergent as an equilibrium state - flux arriving at its own inherent limitations. And "time" speaks to the time it takes to run down a gradient of symmetry-breaking. Time emerges from the fact that such a change can't be instant when it comes to our Universe.

Hardly. I've said it is emergent as an equilibrium state - flux arriving at its own inherent limitations. And "time" speaks to the time it takes to run down a gradient of symmetry-breaking. Time emerges from the fact that such a change can't be instant when it comes to our Universe. — apokrisis

Ok, so prior to symmetry-breaking there must be symmetry?

As I've said, symmetry is a way to model stasis because it is the maths of differences that don't make a difference. And so it is a model of physical equilbrium situations, where there are differences, and they don't make a difference.

Math's problem is that it is timeless and energyless in being basically a spatial or geometric conception of things. So symmetry maths has a static character just due to the way maths is derived. You are risking confusing the stasis of the method with the stasis (and flux) of the world the method is used to model. — apokrisis

Now which is the method, and which is the world? If symmetry is the maths and modeling of the real world stasis, then what is the symmetry which is prior to symmetry breaking, other than stasis? And if there is stasis prior to symmetry-breaking, isn't it true that you have assumed stasis, or taken stasis for granted, as the starting point for your ontology?

Ok, so prior to symmetry-breaking there must be symmetry? — Metaphysician Undercover

Logically prior at least. The question then becomes what this means in terms of a physical model of time.

If symmetry is the maths and modeling of the real world stasis, then what is the symmetry which is prior to symmetry breaking, other than stasis? — Metaphysician Undercover

I say it becomes a model of vagueness once we shift from talk about what currently exists to how existence itself might develop.

To turn vagueness from a metaphysical to a scientific concept, we need good mathematical formalisation. And symmetry maths becomes useful here because of its rigour. But symmetry maths is not a direct intuitive image of developmental processes (such as symmetry-breaking) as it presents a spatialised and timeless picture of nature. It is nature already gone to equilbrium or stasis.

Models of symmetry-breaking are derived more from physics than pure maths. And so the physics invokes further material features - things that bring in time and energy now - such as "spontaneous fluctuations" and "infinite correlations" that both create a dynamical balance, and cause that balance to be tipped.

So now the task for the cosmological emergentist view is even larger. It is not only time, but space, energy, and their interactions, which must all develop into crisp being as well.

Which is fine because at least it fits with the most recalcitrant physical facts of nature we have yet discovered. Everything boils down to the uncertainty (or vagueness) relation encoded in the triad of Planck constants that scale spacetime, energy density, and lightspeed (or the limit on actual material correlations).

The Planck scale tells us there is a "size" below which any normal talk of spacetime or energy density ceases to be physically meaningful. So like it or not, that ought to be factored into any modern discussion of metaphysics.

The Planck scale tells us there is a "size" below which any normal talk of spacetime or energy density ceases to be physically meaningful. So like it or not, that ought to be factored into any modern discussion of metaphysics. — apokrisis

Yes, this is good reason why we should "argue with science". Spacetime is a synthetic concept, produced through the synthesis of the previously separate concepts of space and time. That synthesis is based in certain assumptions. The analytical mind of the philosopher wants to break down this concept of spacetime into its constituent parts, space and time, to fully understand the relationship between these two. When divided into separate concepts of space and time, then we approach "the size below which", from a different perspective. If one of these two is considered to be continuous, and the other discrete, then we have a different approach to the "size below which" issue. Zeno's paradoxes can be resolved in this manner. If, as time passes continuously, spatial change occurs in discrete units of change, then in one unit of spatial change, the hare will pass the tortoise.


If time is understood to be continuous, and space understood to be discrete, or vise versa then the limitations of the Planck scale become very meaningful. Suppose, for example, that time is continuous, and space is discrete. Then, as a very short period of time passes, there are discrete changes to space. Suppose that a sub-atomic particle exists at one location, then after a short period of time passes, it next exists at another location, and this is what we call motion. From this perspective, there is a short period of time when no spatial change is occurring, but time is still passing. Spatial change is occurring in units of change, requiring a certain amount of time to pass before the change occurs. While this time is passing there may still be changes occurring to the underlying (non-spatial, immaterial, or formal) structure of reality, which will cause the particle to materialize at the location which it does, after that period of time has passed.