Does the Block Universe Theory Affect Our Understanding of Time and Reality?

[PeterDonis]

As I answered to Peter it is feasible to make out what your world WAS at a previous event.

A finite portion of it, yes. But to know what your entire "world" (meaning simultaneous space) was at a previous event, you need to wait for an infinite time after that event, since the universe is spatially infinite (to the best of our knowledge).

And what will the real solipsist then say? Everything of the past is not part of my now, so I don't know wheter it existed or not.

I have never said this or anything like it. I don't know where you are getting this from. In previous threads I have explicitly said that I have no problem with viewing every event in the past light cone as "real". I realize you weren't in those previous threads, but bobc2 was, and he should know better than to reinforce you on this point.

 

[Vandam]

And I have never said "there was no world". Nor have I said there was a world. I don't think either statement has meaning, for the reasons DaleSpam has already given--there's no experiment you can do to tell whether "the world" as you define it is "real" or not.If you mean the "world" is constructed after the fact--after the observer has already received light signals from all the events in his "world" at some instant--then that's something different than what we've been discussing up to now, because the observer will have to wait for some time *after* a given event before he can construct his "world" at that event. (In fact, if he wants to construct his *entire* "world" at a given event, he might have to wait an infinite amount of time--to the best of our knowledge, the universe is spatially infinite.)

On this view there is no reason to claim that the "world" is "real" at event E; you're only claiming events are "real" after you've received light signals from them, so you know what happens in them. In other words, you are limiting your claims to what's actually known--what's in your past light cone.
Only if they insist on identifying their "world" with their simultaneous space at a given event. But since no events spacelike separated from a given event can affect what any observer observes at that event, their different choices of simultaneous space have no observable consequences, as DaleSpam has pointed out. So there's nothing that *requires* them to disagree. They could both just say that the entire set of spacelike separated events is "elsewhere" (Roger Penrose's term), and defer making any claims about them until they receive more information (as discussed above).

Or, if either one wants to extrapolate from what's known, what's in their past light cone, to *predict* what might be happening at some event that's spacelike separated from them, why would either one need to restrict his predictions to just his own simultaneous space at a given event? Why couldn't observer A make a prediction about what might be happening at an event that is simultaneous with observer B at event E? Why must each one restrict their predictions to their own "world"? Or even to the other's "world"? Why couldn't either of them make a prediction about *any* event that's spacelike separated from them? There's nothing stopping them; they have the same amount of information (in the past light cone) to extrapolate to *any* spacelike separated event. So there's nothing that even picks out either one's "world" as being any different from any other set of spacelike separated events.
I haven't called any of the worlds "real", so this doesn't apply to me.
I have never said the world is only a dream. How are you getting that out of what I said? Are you actually reading what I post? You seem to be making a lot of assumptions about what I am saying that are invalid.
Of course not. If you had actually read what I posted, it would be obvious; I talked explicitly about multiple observers and what each one observes, constructs, etc. I never said that any observer, including me, was "privileged" in any way; they are all on an equal footing.

Peter,
you say you're not a solipsist, but the way you expose things you are...
To be honest, I'm lost. I can't get your vision on things.

What's is the state of a tree you see in front of you?
Does the tree exisited the moment the light started going your way?
Or will you ask me "what do you mean with 'exist'"?

 

[Dale]

For the solipsist relying on ideas from special relativity, he has no external world for his present instant. He is forever moving forward in time at the apex of his past light cone. No information from his otherwise "simultaneous space" is available to him

The same is all true for the non-solipsist also.

, so he is obliged to affirm that he is the only thing that exists

The solipsist affirms that regardless of the above. Furthermore, since all the above is true for the non solipsist also, if the solipsist's conclusion follows from the above (it doesn't imo) then the non-solipsist must make the same conclusion.

A non-solipsist can certainly assert that any event in his past light cone was not merely a figment of his own imagination. He does not need to make assumptions about any events outside of his past light cone in order to not be a solipsist.

You are confounding two unrelated concepts, nobody here is promoting solipsism so your comments are very much a straw man argument.

 

[Dale]

The real/unreal discussion is indeed philosophical

Then it doesn't belong here, and since it is central to your premise, then neither does your premise.

If for you the world is nothing real, but only a subjective/conscious dream, then all worlds are dreams. But SR tells you there's also total spacetime of dreamevents. And A's dreamworld is a section trough dreamspacetime. And B's world is a section through dreamspacetime. That's logic.

Maybe you don't accept that there exists a 'somebody else with consciousness' to 'construct' his own (dream)world. Then you are really a hard solipsist ;) Are you?

You are also committing the same straw man logical fallacy that bobc2 is.

No I am not a solipsist, I am a scientist. If you were to make this absurd claim then I would issue the same challenge which you avoided earlier: what experiment could you perform to measure the "dream"-ness of a specific event or the universe as a whole?

The scientific content of your posts appears to be 0.

 

[PAllen]

New definition for the OED: solipsist: n : someone who disagrees with me, esp. over something not verifiable.

 

[George Jones]

There is no science content being added to this thread, so I have closed it.

The Special & General Relativity is a science forum, not a philosophy forum, so do not discuss philosophy here.