Actual Infinities

[Mudhammam]

I still have my problems with comparing cardinal numbers (concerning the elements of sets) with length measures. They are mathematically not exactly the same. Also, we neither know that space and time are discrete, nor do we know that time started 13.8 billion years ago. Sure, we could assume these things as real possibilities for the sake of an argument, but there is no real scientific data on that.

Anyways, I was going to say something else - imagine the universe were deterministic. This could still be true in a quantum world if there are some mad hidden variables underlying it all, or in a many worlds interpretation - who knows. Anyways, imagine that it is deterministic. In that case, knowing the state of the universe exactly at one point in time gives you knowledge of the universe at all times. In fact, one could argue that philosophically, a snapshot at one point in time + the laws of physics is equivalent to the whole timeline, because the rest of it can be obtained using a uniquely determined procedure - the future and the past are more or less the same as the present, viewed through a different filter (and those who know how the Heisenberg picture in quantum mechanics works, might understand better what I mean).

So, time does not exist, and doesn't pass. All that exists is a static snapshot of the universe in what we would call the distant future, in which all that you and I call time, and events, and experience, is encoded.

I hence propose last-tuesdayism on steroids

Cheers + Happy Halloween week

Setting aside the fact that physics rather conclusively points towards an indeterminate universe, if time doesn't exist, in what sense am I experiencing it pass from one moment to the next though? Does this static block of being contain "tunnels" of consciousness in which the illusion of motion occurs? And what causes it to have this quality of a continuous, seamless flow in one direction?