Here is Evan Thompson talking about Bergson v Einstein. "Bergson began by declaring his admiration for Einstein’s work – he had no objection to most of the physicist’s ideas. Rather, Bergson took issue with the philosophical significance of Einstein’s temporal concepts, and he pressed the physicist on the importance of the lived experience of time, and the ways that this experience had been overlooked in relativity theory".
Yes, I always thought of Bergson’s attitude along these lines: “Albert, I don’t like the conclusions of your science, that must mean they are wrong.” I don’t like eternalism either, but that’s irrelevant. At the moment, that’s where the best science points, and it would be foolish to ignore it.
Yeah, I am not a huge fan of Bergson. But I'm also no physicist. I really care about the science, but how it shows up in my life is messy, and, like science, provisional. Practically for me it means that it's "presentism for me and eternalism for thee". I do my best to act as though my behavior matters and can be changed, and I do my best to accept what other people do as beyond their control.
Seems your last comment and my reply disappeared. I had saved them so reposting:
Massimo Pigliucci
6m
I share your puzzlement, but to deny the block universe is to reject Einstein’s theory of relativity, one of the most empirically successful scientific theories ever proposed. So, is it possible that our sense of the psychological flowing of time is an illusion, perhaps akin to the illusion of seeing the sun “rising” and “setting”?
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Steven B Kurtz
just now
Not exactly comparable in my view. The visual is partially controlled by perspective, and can be illusory, while bodily functions seem inescapably true. Both are in principle verifiable. I'm a hard nosed realist. ;-) I doubt I can get beyond this; call me empirical.
An old saying is to live every day, as if you would die before midnight as well as live to be a thousand. Each action, may take but a second, or less, but the avenues it opens and closes are real, to at least some extent.
As the universe built this world and my body, how can I not be a part of and vice versa?
Michael, I think there is a difference between Spinoza and Einstein. Spinoza still believed in a “god” of sorts, while Einstein was referring to the laws of nature, though he used metaphorical god-talk. I just don’t see any reason whatsoever to use the g-word.
God is different things to different people and cultures. For me, the physical body of God is our Universe, that includes stars, planets, plants, animals, and even human beings. We are all part of a whole, it created us, and here we are, wondering about our creator. Others may well disagree, and that is their right. I seek neither to be forced to ascent to another’s ideas or to force them to mine. Though it is possible to learn and change ideas through interchange, often called discussions.
Hence the one that is me and the one that is the Universe, still only make one, at least for me.
Michael, it isn’t an issue of forcing one’s beliefs over another. This is a forum for open discussion based on reason and evidence, it’s fine to disagree.
To my way of seeing things, labeling the universe with the term “god” doesn’t add anything, and potentially confuses people, because the word is typically associated with a conscious entity of some sort, which the universe is not, as far as we can tell.
Also, I don’t think we were created by anybody. We are the result of processes in accord with the laws of physics and biology.
I agreed with you in advance when that phrase, in your first paragraph, was modified by saying it is possible to learn via discussions.
God is far more than a conscience entity, at least for me, the living manifestation of it as viewed by me. Anything existing in the Universe was at a minimum, initiated by It.
Have simply had to many totally unexplained experiences that have convinced me of Its existence. It being God, which cannot be either male or female or hermaphrodite or anything else the the soul of everything.
We may just be coming at things from very different viewpoints and experiences. Not necessarily differences in essences.
As an evolutionary biologist, it must be obvious to you that not planning for the future can lead individuals of many species including us to be deselected. Darwin Awards are pointed examples, while squirrels burying acorns are mundane but necessary ones.
A second point is that as far as we know there are no known boundaries to reality. Even if a BB occurred, energy must have been present, or no 'bang', no expansion possible. Could be wrong, but evidence to the contrary might merit a Nobel Prize!
If no boundary (space-time), positing a beginning is a speculation, with a first cause a second order one. Seems to me that metaphysical eternalism is the strong position, with the cycles of living systems the grounding in our experience. In other words, I see no conflict. No inconsistencies.
Perhaps I don't see a conflict because I'm a physicalist. No meta. If anyone presents evidence for the existence of anything that is not physical (energy-matter-information) or fully dependent upon it to exist, a Nobel Prize awaits in my opinion. Ditto for a boundary to reality. Sir Martin Rees and other cosmologists hold that infinite multiverses are possible. I'm clueless on that, but all imaginings, hallucinations, and speculations require caloric throughput!
Steven, I’m a physicalist as well, but logical contradictions remain even in a physicalist universe. It is either the case that we live in a block universe (the eternalist position) or we don’t. And the empirical evidence currently favors the block universe. I agree with you about Rees and any speculation concerning multiverses.
Local vs universal is my logic. Both are real. Local is bounded and finite for life forms living there. It isn't a completely closed system, as radiation (including energy) and material enter while heat, gasses, rockets... leave. Reality is best described as infinite until a boundary is evidenced - Occam's Razor. (Note that I'm not a scientist, so forgive my terminology if wrong.)
Not sure you can (ahem, logically) help yourself to your own version of logic. I’m not sure what you mean by “local vs universal” in this context, but at the cost of repeating myself, we either live in a block universe or we don’t. There is no having it both ways.
OK perhaps this is my error. Eternalism is my position. (not Presentism) The switch to Block is what threw me off. I view Presentism similarly to Subjectivism. Space-time is not dependent upon an observer in my position. I mistakenly construed "Block" as Bounded, which was my amateur geometric understanding.
Henri Bergson quoted the old joke probably from Ray Cummings: "Time keeps everything from happening at once." Lee Smolin and Roberto Unger tried to propose a physics based on the starting point of time not being an illusion and, how parsimonious, the universe being singular. I think they ended up with something a little like Bergson's duration. They also had to throw out laws of nature being universal and immutable. But they had a great sense of NOW which changed the future. Free will and now. Sadly it doesn't seem like they won many physicists over.
Here is Salman Rushdie on Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five: "Tralfamadorians, we learn in “Slaughterhouse-Five,” perceive time differently. They see that the past, present, and future all exist simultaneously and forever and are simply there, fixed, eternally. When the main character of the novel, Billy Pilgrim, who is kidnapped and taken to Tralfamadore, “comes unstuck in time” and begins to experience chronology the way Tralfamadorians do, he understands why his captors find comical the notion of free will."
Massimo, maybe there is another attitude we can describe as futurism, in which we concern ourselves with present and future concerns. I think Epicurus is a futurist in this sense when he admits short term pain for long term benefit. The pain one endures while exercising would be an example.
Daniel, hmm, as a psychological attitude perhaps, but it doesn’t sound like a metaphysical position. Even an Epicurean is faced with the same dichotomous possibilities discussed here.
Interesting, Massimo. I love Roberto Mangerbeira Unger and Lee Smolin's take on this; I think you have mentioned them before too. Sean Carroll's remark has some bearing on the ethical dimension; I'm paraphrasing here but I think he said something along the lines of that whatever the correct metaphyisical position, we'd still basically go on living our lives pretty much the same way anyway!
Peter, yes, but I disagree with Sean. As this article tries to show, we *don’t* go on living our lives in the same way. How we think about how the world works does affect how we live in the world. Not just concerning time. Think how different the life of someone who believes in god is from one who doesn’t hold that belief. And the existence of god is a quintessentially metaphysical issue.
That's true of course Massimo but I must admit I find it hard to tell someone's metaphysical beliefs simply on the basis of their ethical behaviour. In general it seems to me that theists and atheists alike behave pretty much the same as each other in terms of their ethics - for good or ill.
Peter, that may be true in some respects, but not in others, which means that a closer inspection may reveal the differences. I’m thinking about things like support for (or opposition to) certain social-political issues, which often translates in different personal behaviors, voting patterns, donations, and so forth.
Agreed Massimo. Perhaps what I'm saying is that there doesn't seem to be a necessary causal connection between the two. There often seems to be a massive disconnect between people's stated beliefs/political support and their ethical behaviour.
Many times when I read your posts, they provoke an overwhelming amount of activity in my thoughts. I want to respond, but there is so much to respond to, and at times it is difficult for me to put into words something that would be comprehensible to others. However, this burst of thought enlivens me, and I welcome it. Thank you
Here is Evan Thompson talking about Bergson v Einstein. "Bergson began by declaring his admiration for Einstein’s work – he had no objection to most of the physicist’s ideas. Rather, Bergson took issue with the philosophical significance of Einstein’s temporal concepts, and he pressed the physicist on the importance of the lived experience of time, and the ways that this experience had been overlooked in relativity theory".
https://aeon.co/essays/who-really-won-when-bergson-and-einstein-debated-time?comment=45185
Yes, I always thought of Bergson’s attitude along these lines: “Albert, I don’t like the conclusions of your science, that must mean they are wrong.” I don’t like eternalism either, but that’s irrelevant. At the moment, that’s where the best science points, and it would be foolish to ignore it.
Yeah, I am not a huge fan of Bergson. But I'm also no physicist. I really care about the science, but how it shows up in my life is messy, and, like science, provisional. Practically for me it means that it's "presentism for me and eternalism for thee". I do my best to act as though my behavior matters and can be changed, and I do my best to accept what other people do as beyond their control.
Good fun to contemplate Marcus Aurelius ofyen helps
Ny thoughts fell to Shakespeare “ to be or not robe. That is the question” brief, but often brevity is source of wisdom
Seems your last comment and my reply disappeared. I had saved them so reposting:
Massimo Pigliucci
6m
I share your puzzlement, but to deny the block universe is to reject Einstein’s theory of relativity, one of the most empirically successful scientific theories ever proposed. So, is it possible that our sense of the psychological flowing of time is an illusion, perhaps akin to the illusion of seeing the sun “rising” and “setting”?
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Steven B Kurtz
just now
Not exactly comparable in my view. The visual is partially controlled by perspective, and can be illusory, while bodily functions seem inescapably true. Both are in principle verifiable. I'm a hard nosed realist. ;-) I doubt I can get beyond this; call me empirical.
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My choices would be Spinoza and Einstein.
An old saying is to live every day, as if you would die before midnight as well as live to be a thousand. Each action, may take but a second, or less, but the avenues it opens and closes are real, to at least some extent.
As the universe built this world and my body, how can I not be a part of and vice versa?
Michael, I think there is a difference between Spinoza and Einstein. Spinoza still believed in a “god” of sorts, while Einstein was referring to the laws of nature, though he used metaphorical god-talk. I just don’t see any reason whatsoever to use the g-word.
God is different things to different people and cultures. For me, the physical body of God is our Universe, that includes stars, planets, plants, animals, and even human beings. We are all part of a whole, it created us, and here we are, wondering about our creator. Others may well disagree, and that is their right. I seek neither to be forced to ascent to another’s ideas or to force them to mine. Though it is possible to learn and change ideas through interchange, often called discussions.
Hence the one that is me and the one that is the Universe, still only make one, at least for me.
Michael, it isn’t an issue of forcing one’s beliefs over another. This is a forum for open discussion based on reason and evidence, it’s fine to disagree.
To my way of seeing things, labeling the universe with the term “god” doesn’t add anything, and potentially confuses people, because the word is typically associated with a conscious entity of some sort, which the universe is not, as far as we can tell.
Also, I don’t think we were created by anybody. We are the result of processes in accord with the laws of physics and biology.
I agreed with you in advance when that phrase, in your first paragraph, was modified by saying it is possible to learn via discussions.
God is far more than a conscience entity, at least for me, the living manifestation of it as viewed by me. Anything existing in the Universe was at a minimum, initiated by It.
Have simply had to many totally unexplained experiences that have convinced me of Its existence. It being God, which cannot be either male or female or hermaphrodite or anything else the the soul of everything.
We may just be coming at things from very different viewpoints and experiences. Not necessarily differences in essences.
As an evolutionary biologist, it must be obvious to you that not planning for the future can lead individuals of many species including us to be deselected. Darwin Awards are pointed examples, while squirrels burying acorns are mundane but necessary ones.
A second point is that as far as we know there are no known boundaries to reality. Even if a BB occurred, energy must have been present, or no 'bang', no expansion possible. Could be wrong, but evidence to the contrary might merit a Nobel Prize!
If no boundary (space-time), positing a beginning is a speculation, with a first cause a second order one. Seems to me that metaphysical eternalism is the strong position, with the cycles of living systems the grounding in our experience. In other words, I see no conflict. No inconsistencies.
Steven, you seen no conflict between eternalism and presentism? As far as I can tell the two positions are metaphysically incompatible.
Perhaps I don't see a conflict because I'm a physicalist. No meta. If anyone presents evidence for the existence of anything that is not physical (energy-matter-information) or fully dependent upon it to exist, a Nobel Prize awaits in my opinion. Ditto for a boundary to reality. Sir Martin Rees and other cosmologists hold that infinite multiverses are possible. I'm clueless on that, but all imaginings, hallucinations, and speculations require caloric throughput!
Steven, I’m a physicalist as well, but logical contradictions remain even in a physicalist universe. It is either the case that we live in a block universe (the eternalist position) or we don’t. And the empirical evidence currently favors the block universe. I agree with you about Rees and any speculation concerning multiverses.
Local vs universal is my logic. Both are real. Local is bounded and finite for life forms living there. It isn't a completely closed system, as radiation (including energy) and material enter while heat, gasses, rockets... leave. Reality is best described as infinite until a boundary is evidenced - Occam's Razor. (Note that I'm not a scientist, so forgive my terminology if wrong.)
Not sure you can (ahem, logically) help yourself to your own version of logic. I’m not sure what you mean by “local vs universal” in this context, but at the cost of repeating myself, we either live in a block universe or we don’t. There is no having it both ways.
OK perhaps this is my error. Eternalism is my position. (not Presentism) The switch to Block is what threw me off. I view Presentism similarly to Subjectivism. Space-time is not dependent upon an observer in my position. I mistakenly construed "Block" as Bounded, which was my amateur geometric understanding.
Henri Bergson quoted the old joke probably from Ray Cummings: "Time keeps everything from happening at once." Lee Smolin and Roberto Unger tried to propose a physics based on the starting point of time not being an illusion and, how parsimonious, the universe being singular. I think they ended up with something a little like Bergson's duration. They also had to throw out laws of nature being universal and immutable. But they had a great sense of NOW which changed the future. Free will and now. Sadly it doesn't seem like they won many physicists over.
Here is Salman Rushdie on Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five: "Tralfamadorians, we learn in “Slaughterhouse-Five,” perceive time differently. They see that the past, present, and future all exist simultaneously and forever and are simply there, fixed, eternally. When the main character of the novel, Billy Pilgrim, who is kidnapped and taken to Tralfamadore, “comes unstuck in time” and begins to experience chronology the way Tralfamadorians do, he understands why his captors find comical the notion of free will."
https://www.salmanrushdie.com/what-kurt-vonneguts-slaughterhouse-five-tells-us-now/
Thanks for the link to Rushdie’s essay, I was not aware of it!
Great post, really enjoy it and leave something to think about. Thanks!
PD: I think you may find this interview interesting: https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/science-under-siege-a-talk-with-peter
Felipe, thanks, appreciated!
Massimo, maybe there is another attitude we can describe as futurism, in which we concern ourselves with present and future concerns. I think Epicurus is a futurist in this sense when he admits short term pain for long term benefit. The pain one endures while exercising would be an example.
Daniel, hmm, as a psychological attitude perhaps, but it doesn’t sound like a metaphysical position. Even an Epicurean is faced with the same dichotomous possibilities discussed here.
Interesting, Massimo. I love Roberto Mangerbeira Unger and Lee Smolin's take on this; I think you have mentioned them before too. Sean Carroll's remark has some bearing on the ethical dimension; I'm paraphrasing here but I think he said something along the lines of that whatever the correct metaphyisical position, we'd still basically go on living our lives pretty much the same way anyway!
Peter, yes, but I disagree with Sean. As this article tries to show, we *don’t* go on living our lives in the same way. How we think about how the world works does affect how we live in the world. Not just concerning time. Think how different the life of someone who believes in god is from one who doesn’t hold that belief. And the existence of god is a quintessentially metaphysical issue.
That's true of course Massimo but I must admit I find it hard to tell someone's metaphysical beliefs simply on the basis of their ethical behaviour. In general it seems to me that theists and atheists alike behave pretty much the same as each other in terms of their ethics - for good or ill.
Peter, that may be true in some respects, but not in others, which means that a closer inspection may reveal the differences. I’m thinking about things like support for (or opposition to) certain social-political issues, which often translates in different personal behaviors, voting patterns, donations, and so forth.
Agreed Massimo. Perhaps what I'm saying is that there doesn't seem to be a necessary causal connection between the two. There often seems to be a massive disconnect between people's stated beliefs/political support and their ethical behaviour.
Oh yes, people don’t always act on their stated beliefs, and quite often rationalize their actions.
Many times when I read your posts, they provoke an overwhelming amount of activity in my thoughts. I want to respond, but there is so much to respond to, and at times it is difficult for me to put into words something that would be comprehensible to others. However, this burst of thought enlivens me, and I welcome it. Thank you
Sakshat, those are some of the nicest words I’ve ever got in response to my writings. Thank you!