Psy-Kosh comments on Timeless Physics - Less Wrong

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

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Comment author: Psy-Kosh 27 May 2008 09:28:51PM 1 point [-]

Well, I'm not sure there's no observable difference. I mean, let's say you have universe in state |A> such that the evolution of the state vector would cause it one nanosecond later (whatever the heck that turns out to really mean) to be, oh, say something like (-|A> + |B>)/sqrt(2)

Now, if time was truly nonexistant then those two would interfere with each other, right? ie, it's sortakinda the same sort of test to find out if two particles are really identical or not.

Except, wait, if we're talking total state of reality... how would one perform the experiment in the first place? what "clock" would one use? Okay, I think I'm starting to see it. So what's analogous to time? something like the euclidian distance between two configurations? |(r2 - r1)| or something like that? Actually, if so, then that would also pretty much make it clear that you can slice configuration space anyway you want to obtain surfaces of simultaneaty... Okay, I think I'm starting to like this idea better now.