The artist formerly known as uwot makes a good point, as do you, wtf.wtf wrote: ↑Mon Nov 07, 2022 6:48 pmMy understanding is that special relativity precludes the claim that "at any moment, the universe is in a particular arrangement ..." That is precisely the point. There is no universal moment in relativity.Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Mon Nov 07, 2022 11:46 am As I said to seeds:That includes entangled arrangements and simutaneity. The type of absolute time I mean is the sort that exists independently of anything happening, the type that would keep ticking even if nothing existed. Is there a type of absolute time you think simultaneity supports?Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Sat Nov 05, 2022 3:48 pmI'm happy to concede that at any moment, the universe is in a particular arrangement...
If nothing existed, that would include ticking clocks. They tell us that before the big bang, neither time or space existed.
Assuming I am interpreting them accurately, the points you made in this, and prior posts seem to align with the point I was attempting to make in my "Holoroid camera" post, in that absolute simultaneity of events in the universe is demonstrable (at least in principle via thought experiment).
That being said (and to address what Will was getting at), it still doesn't change the fact that "absolute time" is difficult to pin down.
For one thing, if the entire universe was to vanish from existence in the next five minutes, taking all of its natural and manmade clocks with it,...
...time (at least in some Platonic sense) would still be ticking away from the moment the vanishing took place.
The only question is, at what rate would the ticking be ticking?
In other words, in the scenario I just described, time would literally have no discernable rate, yet we somehow cannot help but imagine that it would still be moving forever forward - away from the specific moment when all of the clocks vanished.
Anyway, setting that particular mystery aside,...
...the purpose of my "Holoroid" post was to demonstrate that the relativity of events that occur in the context of what physicists call "local" reality, is simply an illusion that only conscious beings can experience due to being encapsulated (imprisoned) in a substance whose movement is limited to the speed of light,...
...which, when compared to the instantaneousness of what physicists call "non-local" reality, is nearly the equivalent of standing still.
Indeed, I suggest that the instantaneous interconnectedness of the deepest level of the universe...
(something of which is implied in Spinoza's concept of the underlying "oneness" of reality)
...sort of represents a universal "now" that not only all realities (be they immanent or transcendent) are subject to,...
...but stands as the fixed foundation by which all relative instances of time can be measured (i,e., kind of the equivalent of a metaphorical "North Star" by which to acquire their bearings, so to speak).
Furthermore, if I go my usual route and propose that the fixed speed of light is the result of "purposeful design",...
...then I suggest that the constancy of the speed of light is analogous to the constancy of a spinning DVD disk always staying at the proper speed as the laser scans the bumps and pits - from hub to rim - so that the streaming images on the screen always appear normal.
In other words, the speed of light is the governing parameter of the universe that makes objective reality work for us. For it is the constancy of the speed of light - relative to an observer - that makes it possible for the observer to always stay in-sync with the "programming" in the underlying (non-local) informational underpinning of the universe.
Indeed, it is the constancy of the speed of light that ensures that no matter where we are in the universe, or how fast we are moving, everything will always appear normal to us.
Pretty amazing, don't you think?
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