A question about the block universe

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According to the block universe theory, the universe is a giant block of all the things that ever happen at any time and at any place. The problem which I have is that how an agent can experience things temporally. That is a valid problem since the block universe is static.
 
I’ve heard of this theory.

What do it’s proponents say?
 
Sounds like a dalliance with understanding the mind of God, the knowing of God who is changeless and knows all without change, thus knows all temporal reality as one and together - “a big block of God’s knowing”.
The problem being how can there be temporal material durationless being yet all in God? How does God do it?

The only person I have found who introduced a plausible explanation is St. Augustine, in his discourse on Genesis 1 in his “Confessions” where he introduces co-operation in creation of the Spiritual and Material (dark matter? formless and void and invisible?), the creation of “heaven and earth”, “IN the Beginning” - not “AT the beginning”, nor “At the Time of the beginning”, but “IN the Beginning”, which he maintained to be a Person, the Second Person of the Trinity. And then, in the Aeviternal Spiritual Heaven, came temporal knowing of God’s eternal knowing, one thing at a time within a Spiritual Creature (the Angel of the LORD), and there was Light.

John Martin
 
Edwin Abbott provided the most widely accepted explanation in Flatland. A zero dimensional point experiences the succession of points in a one dimensional line as time. A 2 dimensional being experiences the succession of cross sections in a 3 dimensional cube as time. And a 3 dimensional creature experiences the cross sections of a tesseract as time. A tesseract is the 4 dimensional analogof a cube, and would be the “block” in the theory you ask about.
 
Dovekin said:
Edwin Abbott provided the most widely accepted explanation in Flatland . A zero dimensional point experiences the succession of points in a one dimensional line as time.
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I didn’t get that. I don’t think that spatial dimension can be related to time.
Dovekin said:
A 2 dimensional being experiences the succession of cross sections in a 3 dimensional cube as time. And a 3 dimensional creature experiences the cross sections of a tesseract as time. A tesseract is the 4 dimensional analogof a cube, and would be the “block” in the theory you ask about.
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Assuming that his theory is correct for one agent how many agents can be at the same time point and their actions being synchronized.
 
Have you ever seen a timeline? A time is assigned to a point, and as you moove to the right, later times occur successively. We see it from 3 dimensions, but a point only sees it from within. It can only see the point on either side. If it moves, it experiences the succession as time, while we see it as static from our view.

On a line, a single point can be at any given point. For 2 or more dimensions, an infinitie number can be in any line, squre, cube, tesseract…
 
Dovekin said:
Have you ever seen a timeline? A time is assigned to a point, and as you moove to the right, later times occur successively. We see it from 3 dimensions, but a point only sees it from within. It can only see the point on either side. If it moves, it experiences the succession as time, while we see it as static from our view.

On a line, a single point can be at any given point. For 2 or more dimensions, an infinitie number can be in any line, squre, cube, tesseract…
Click to expand...
There is a problem here: We know well that past, now and future exist in the block universe so time should be a line instead of a point. This means that the block universe is static since all points in timeline exist.
 
A timeline looks static from a 3 d perspective. That does not mean time is static, only that it appears that way from some perspectives.

Imagine a succession of cubes instead of points. Add an infinite succession of cubes perpendicular to the original line. And another perpendicular to both. Fill in the plane designated by these two lines. This is a plane of cubes that goes along the timeline successively.

Now imagine this plane and the perpendicular timeline and fill in the defined 3d space with cubes. Imagine a fourth perpendicular that this 3d space moves along…
 
Dovekin said:
A timeline looks static from a 3 d perspective. That does not mean time is static, only that it appears that way from some perspectives.
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There is only one perspective in the block universe which is time is static in this perspective. Do you know another perspective in which time is dynamic?
 
The block universe uses a 4d perspective to describe everything as static, much like we use a timeline to give a static perspective to history. To those within these static universes, time is experienced as dynamic, as a point in a line or a plane in a cube.
 
Theories abound all around us. But, how many times have we heard, “Well, in theory…”?
Theory is the scientific term for “guess” or “opinion.” That’s why they must be tested.
 
Dovekin said:
The block universe uses a 4d perspective to describe everything as static, much like we use a timeline to give a static perspective to history. To those within these static universes, time is experienced as dynamic, as a point in a line or a plane in a cube.
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I understand what you saying. You don’t need to repeat. What you are describing is the block universe which is static if you think carefully.
 
STT said:
According to the block universe theory, the universe is a giant block of all the things that ever happen at any time and at any place. The problem which I have is that how an agent can experience things temporally. That is a valid problem since the block universe is static.
Click to expand...
If by a block universe one is arguing that the past present and future exist all at once, then to me the logical consequences is that there is no change and no coherent concept of time apart from a logical ordering of distinct points. To me it’s much like saying that there is only space, no time, just coordinates on a map.

Now you could say that the idea of the past present and future existing all at once is just how the universe appears from a particular perspective, but then you really don’t have a block universe, since it is simply a question of where you are viewing it from dimensionally speaking that one describes it that way.

So i ask what is really meant by the idea of a block universe.
 
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IWantGod said:
If by a block universe one is arguing that the past present and future exist all at once, then to me the logical consequences is that there is no change and no coherent concept of time apart from a logical ordering of distinct points.
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True.
IWantGod said:
To me it’s much like saying that there is only space, no time, just coordinates on a map.
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Time exist as a variable. It doesn’t change though.
IWantGod said:
Now you could say that the idea of the past present and future existing all at once is just how the universe appears from a particular perspective, but then you really don’t have a block universe, since it is simply a question of where you are viewing it from dimensionally speaking that one describes it that way.
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I cannot understand what you are trying to say here.
IWantGod said:
So i ask what is really meant by the idea of a block universe.
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The block universe is defined in OP.
 
STT said:
Time exist as a variable
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What meaning does that really have. We only speak of time because we witness change and would never have comprehended the concept of time apart from that fact.
 
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