You don't notice philosophical implications if you're talking about 1 death in a universe with 1 zillion sentient beings/points of view/experiences of time. But what if all sentient beings died. In what sense would time continue to pass if nobody experiences it passing?
-
Show this thread
-
This is the "universal death" argument for the reality of subjective time and ephemerality of objective time. I don't know if there's an academic philosophy version of it, but that's what I call it. Universe going from in-parts sentient to a p-zombie universe.
2 replies 0 retweets 1 likeShow this thread -
The classic Nagle "what is it like to be a bat" question is actually not very different from "what is it like to be the universe". I adopt the hard position, which requires a label, that time only exists if there is something it is like for a universe to be a universe.
1 reply 0 retweets 1 likeShow this thread -
Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Schism
Yep. Healthy people don't realize that they're literally producing time-wealth by choosing to live. Suicidal people get it, because the possibility of stopping producing time is actually a live one for them.https://twitter.com/raskolnehkov/status/1228435273081475072 …
Venkatesh Rao added,
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likesShow this thread -
Toy example. Imagine a universe with just 1 sentient being. His time experience is 100% of subjective time experience that exists. He kills himself, subjective time goes away.
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likesShow this thread -
Forget about physics complexities or whether sentience is required for quantum wibbly-wobbly to decohere etc. Assume it's a classical dualist newtonian universe where the subjective is ontologically independent and not the result of some sort of speculative entanglement crap.
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likesShow this thread -
In this universe, the one living being, call him Dent, experiences the future on two levels: a) as an abstract model of "empty" experience flow coming at him that he will fill up with "living" b) visceral sense of time passing
1 reply 0 retweets 1 likeShow this thread -
The argument is that b can actually collapse entirely if you stress information flows, agency, etc. enough. And with b collapsed, a will seem as unreal as angels dancing on a pinhead.
1 reply 0 retweets 1 likeShow this thread -
So even if he does not die, in this universe, subjective time can almost cease to exist if Dent is under sufficiently severe material stress. Time will be close to an abstraction like God for him.
1 reply 0 retweets 1 likeShow this thread -
This has been your irregular random update and outtake from my ongoing thinking about temporality. Please refer all your questions to your friendly neighborhood clock.
2 replies 0 retweets 1 likeShow this thread
One highly loaded/charged definition of time I've been playing with is: time is change in the NPV of all the pain and pleasure expected by sentient beings.
-
-
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
-
-
Replying to @vgr
The personal optimal stopping problem involves both expected value and option value. Making time in your sense might require maintaining delusional hope that overvalues optionality. Though of course denial of death is more straightforward.
0 replies 0 retweets 0 likesThanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.