StephenLawrence - 26 August 2012 05:42 AM

http://www.sfu.ca/~swartz/freewill1.htm#threat

For example, if you were to choose(!) to raise your arm, then there would be a timelessly true universal description (let’s call it “D4729”) of what you have done. If, however, you were to choose not to raise your arm, then there would be a (different) timelessly true universal description (we can call it “D5322”) of what you did (and D4729 would be timelessly false).

Stephen

Seems to me that Swartz is wrong; whatever action he took it would be called “event D4729” and could never be called “event D5322” at that precise moment.
D4729 is “an” event at a specific spacetime coordinate, not a “specific” event, thus is always timelessly true..

Write4U - 26 August 2012 03:10 PM

Seems to me that Swartz is wrong; whatever action he took it would be called “event D4729” and could never be called “event D5322” at that precise moment.
D4729 is “an” event at a specific spacetime coordinate, not a “specific” event, thus is always timelessly true..

No idea what you are trying to say. Did you read the whole article? (With an open mind…?) Is it clear to you what position Swartz is defending? And how the cited passage fits in his ideas?

Write4U - 26 August 2012 03:10 PM

Seems to me that Swartz is wrong; whatever action he took it would be called “event D4729” and could never be called “event D5322” at that precise moment.
D4729 is “an” event at a specific spacetime coordinate, not a “specific” event, thus is always timelessly true..

His point is, although it is timelessly true it would be timelessly false if he had done otherwise.

Stephen

StephenLawrence - 26 August 2012 06:24 AM

So true propositions including laws would be false if the world had been different, which he says absolutely cleary.

We should not mix up two different ways of creating ‘possible worlds’:
1. a possible world where there are other laws of physics
2. a possible world with the same laws of physics but other events occurring

You suggest Swartz mixes those two. I am sure he doesn’t. His ‘possible worlds’ are of category 2: the laws of physics (chemistry, biology…) are fixed, but we don’t know them all. By doing their experiments his researchers discover which law describes the movement of the arm. It is determined what movement the research object will do, but the researchers do not know how it is determined. They find the real description by seeing if the research object will raise his arm or not. In this way the description follows the raising of the arm (or not). But not the law of nature itself.

Another point that may create confusion: the meaning of physically possible. You are continuously taking it to mean:

a. According to the laws of physics and the initial conditions of the universe

Doug and I using it as:

b. According to the laws of physics

To extend b. a little: an event is physically possible when there is a set of initial conditions that produce this event according the laws of physics.

You are right when you use definition a. that if I did not want to go to Paris last weekend in this universe, then it is physically impossible. I said that several times. But even in this universe, the sentence “If I had wanted to go to Paris last weekend, I could have gone to Paris” is meaningful and true.

Why?

In the first place because of formal logic: the sentence as a whole is still true even if the antecedent is not true, even if it is not true because it describes a physically impossible event. What the sentence means is that (o shit here it comes…) that when I imagine that everything is exactly the same at that moment, that only a tiny change (now I wanted to go to Paris), would suffice for me to have gone to Paris. But in this formal meaning of the sentence, I am not interested in if that would be physically possible or not, i.e. if this event would be possible given how the universe banged.

In the second place there is the conventional meaning of such sentences: everyday people are travelling to Paris, because they want to. It is possible: there are trains, planes, touring cars, and all affordable for normal people like you or me. That means: if I want to, I could go to Paris. So what it means is that in a huge number of very similar cases, people go to Paris, because they want to. Referring to the big bang as condition for people to able to go to Paris is an overly technically interpreted way of looking at such sentences. That’s why I say that you sticking to this technical meaning means you are suffering from the philosophical disease.

But both interpretations make it clear: a going back to exact conditions that took place far before the events happening is in no way needed.

Time exists in our universe. “Timeless” does not (AFAIK) except as a conceptual construct.  Hence, I wonder about statements re: something being “timelessly” true or false.

StephenLawrence - 27 August 2012 12:05 AM

Write4U - 26 August 2012 03:10 PM

Seems to me that Swartz is wrong; whatever action he took it would be called “event D4729” and could never be called “event D5322” at that precise moment.
D4729 is “an” event at a specific spacetime coordinate, not a “specific” event, thus is always timelessly true..

His point is, although it is timelessly true it would be timelessly false if he had done otherwise.

The sentence, yes. But there is no law of nature changed. There is a true description of a law of nature found.

TimB - 27 August 2012 12:18 AM

Time exists in our universe. “Timeless” does not (AFAIK) except as a conceptual construct.

Is gravity time dependent?

GdB - 27 August 2012 12:22 AM

TimB - 27 August 2012 12:18 AM

Time exists in our universe. “Timeless” does not (AFAIK) except as a conceptual construct.

Is gravity time dependent?

I understand that time is effected by gravity, but does gravity exist in the absence of time?

I am wondering whether statements, about something being timelessly true or false, make sesne.

TimB - 27 August 2012 12:30 AM

I am wondering whether statements, about something being timelessly true or false, make sesne.

Yes. But not eternally, of course. 

In a black hole?

GdB - 27 August 2012 12:35 AM

TimB - 27 August 2012 12:30 AM

I am wondering whether statements, about something being timelessly true or false, make sesne.

Yes. But not eternally, of course. 

It seems to me that concepts can be timelessly true or false, but how can actualities, if they cannot exist outside of our space time continuum?

StephenLawrence - 27 August 2012 12:05 AM

Write4U - 26 August 2012 03:10 PM

Seems to me that Swartz is wrong; whatever action he took it would be called “event D4729” and could never be called “event D5322” at that precise moment.
D4729 is “an” event at a specific spacetime coordinate, not a “specific” event, thus is always timelessly true..

His point is, although it is timelessly true it would be timelessly false if he had done otherwise.

Stephen

That’s what I am having trouble with.

If he had done otherwise it would still be event D4729. Event D4729 happened at a specific time at a specific airport, say LA. If the event had happened at Chicago Airport with someone else, it might be called D5322. It is all relativistic in spacetime. Any event happens in a slightly different way to every observer, thus the statement “everything being the same to everyone at any given place and time”, is really logically impossible. It is a purely subjective experience in a private “reality”.

If the universe is deterministic, each event is a specific spacetime event at a specific place, under specific circumstances, and has a specific spacetime coordinate. The coordinate identification number is event D4729.
I have no problem with these spacetime coordinates in the past and the present. I have a problem with saying that event D5322 in the future must already be coordinated (determined by natural laws).

TimB - 27 August 2012 12:30 AM

I am wondering whether statements, about something being timelessly true or false, make sesne.

Well, does the following make sense?

It is true that on the 15th of September 2012 I had vegetable stew with rice for dinner.

Tomorrow that will still be true and the day after that will still be true and so on.

Stephen

GdB - 27 August 2012 12:17 AM

We should not mix up two different ways of creating ‘possible worlds’:
1. a possible world where there are other laws of physics
2. a possible world with the same laws of physics but other events occurring

Right

You suggest Swartz mixes those two.

The way he ‘creates’ possible worlds and the way Lewis does it, is assuming determinism, if I had made a different choice indeterminism would be true.

So the possible world Swartz creates is of type 1)

I am sure he doesn’t. His ‘possible worlds’ are of category 2:

They cannot be because he must be introducing indeterminism in the possible world he creates.

Stephen