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Diekemper vs Barbour: The Dance of Time - part 4

Science will always supersede philosophy.

Issue 46, 28th February 2016
| Independent theoretical physicist working on the foundations of dynamics and quantum gravity. His most recent book is The Janus Point: A New Theory of Time (Random House, 2020).
512 words
Read time: approx. 3 mins

Read part 1: Joseph Diekemper argues that the present is only a border between past and future.
Read part 2: Julian Barbour replies that arguing over past and future is to miss what really matters.
Read part 3: Diekemper underlines the necessity of philosophy to our understanding of time.
Read part 4: Barbour disagrees: science will ultimately always take precedence over philosophy.


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In response to Joseph Diekemper, I think science will ultimately always take precedence over philosophy, which, I would say, is at its best when questioning existing concepts and suggesting ideas to science.

Moving on to the specific points, Diekemper says his "definition of the passage of time would be stated in terms of events having occurred". But how do you know an event has occurred? I think the minimum requirement is a difference in the world; I should have emphasized difference rather than change. Moreover, in connection with what we call the passage of time, the nature of the difference is generally very characteristic. Take two photos of me a decade apart. They are different; moreover, the whole Julian looks older in one than in the other. It is not the case that my face looks older but my hands younger.

Julian Barbour
Issue 46, 28th February 2016

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bretthar123 14 July 2016

+Dzen_o You may be interested in this web site which is dedicated to 'Information Philosophy'. The scope is truly vast. http://www.informationphilosopher.com/introduction/

Thanks for posting the reference, I intend to study the paper it in detail.
Brett.

Dzen_o 8 March 2016

A next discussion about the notion “Time” that were occurring “time to time” in thousand years already; and in the IAI have been a lot of times already also, though.

And this debating process will be endless till it continues outside the “The Information as Absolute” conception (http://viXra.org/abs/1402.0173 , DOI 10.5281/zenodo.34958 ).

When in this conception it is rigorously proven that all/every what exist in our Universe and outside is/are some informational structures/ patterns/ “statements”, which are elements of the absolutely fundamental and absolutely infinite “Information” Set. There is no and cannot be anything besides the information.

And the definition of the notion “Time” in this conception (including with accounting for the known yet from Zeno logical self-inconsistence of this notion and of the notion “a Change”) is correct and complete – Time, and Space as well, are universal utmost fundamental – grammar - Rules/possibilities that as the possibilities make possible the existence of different informational patterns, at that Space “provides” the “space” for fixed information when Time “provides” the possibility for dynamic (changing) informational patterns (including for patterns that are in some fixed spatial positions, but change their internal states).

As the Rules Space and Time establish only that between different patterns and their states (including a changing of the spatial position) must be the “space intervals” and the “time intervals”. At that both Rules by any means don’t establish and don’t control in concrete cases/ examples of informational patterns/ systems/ structures – what must be these intervals; they act implicitly, as any other grammar rules act at, say writing a text.

The unique obligatory requirement is – these intervals must not be equal to the zero exactly.
More about the ontology of Time and Space – see the link above. There is enough a few pages to formulate what are these notions/ phenomena – in contrast to the endless list of papers, books, etc. in the mainstream philosophy.

Cheers

zamass55 7 March 2016

Spirited debate by the philosopher and the physicist. It would seem that all knowledge , experience and thought should complement one another at times , and are equally important to the understanding of life and human existence. We hope to hear more in the future from these erudite gentlemen.