poke comments on Timeless Physics - Less Wrong

32 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 27 May 2008 09:09AM

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Comment author: poke 27 May 2008 05:31:17PM 1 point [-]

In philosophy "four dimensionalism" is probably the dominant view of time. We're all spacetime worms in a block universe. I don't know what to make of some of Barbour's ideas but I can swallow timelessness.

It's worth noting, regarding Jadagul's comment, that time travel should be possible in a block universe without paradox and without resorting to many-worlds. The closed time-like curve just exists as part of the block universe and the illusion of paradox stems from our foreknowledge of events. It's not required that we be able to change things (since there's no free will in a block universe) but the fact that we know that we'll be unsuccessful in our attempts to change things is merely strange and not paradoxical. David Lewis has a good discussion of this in his paper The Paradoxes of Time Travel.