

A New Theory of Time – Lee Smolin (2013) [video] - tux1968
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Hi4VbERDyI

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Udo
Right off the bat the professor himself admits this is a philosophical work,
it's not scientific. And in fact, the more he explains about it the clearer
that notion becomes. This "theory" is intended to fix a perceived problem with
philosophy and theology, not to achieve any kind of scientific progress. There
are several points in this presentation where I feel our current scientific
understanding of the universe is being grossly misrepresented.

At best you could view this as an effort to build a bridge between those two
worlds, but I've yet to see an instance where such an intention resulted in
something that remained scientifically valid. This gap is exactly as wide as
the difference between the willingness to see nature as it is on the one hand,
and the need to reserve a special corner for humans on the other hand.

I'd imagine philosophers object to the characterization, but my guess is very
few scientists would argue that this work is intended to advance cosmology or
indeed physics as a discipline.

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ExpiredLink
> _this is a philosophical work, it 's not scientific_

BTW, logically and historically all science _is_ philosophy and vice versa.
The special branches of science are philosophies limited to certain areas
unified by the all-encompassing concept of rationality.

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fchollet
No. While historically this has been true during the pre-scientific era, the
terms "philosophy" and "science" have diverged towards their specific modern
meanings since the 17th century.

Both are grounded in rationality; that's not specific to just science. That's
not how you define Science. Science is defined as a process of systematic
observation, measurement, and experiment, leading to the formulation, testing,
and modification of hypotheses --things that the more abstract field of
Philosophy is not concerned with.

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ewzimm
I think that's true if you're talking about a university class, and most of
the people who are associated with philosophy are not scientists, but I also
think it's important to acknowledge that science is only valid because of
epistemological assumptions we arrived at through reasoning. I would be even
be comfortable saying that science is an experimentally-focused branch of
epistemology. Denying the relationship undermines the validity of the
scientific method. Without the connection, scientific assumptions become just
as valid as any arbitrary prophetic system of belief. Here's a helpful
definition of philosophy from Wikipedia:

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those
connected with reality, existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and
language.[1][2] Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such
problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on
rational argument.[3] In more casual speech, by extension, "philosophy" can
refer to "the most basic beliefs, concepts, and attitudes of an individual or
group"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy)

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syncerr
He argues that time is constant, that natural laws vary within time and space,
and that this leads to mean our existence cannot be calculated or precisely
described by a set of mathematical expressions because the constants we would
use to describe the future are not constant, but rather another set of
variables.

I can't see how this makes the future any less knowable[1]. It just adds more
state.

___

[1] Obviously, we can't predict the future as we haven't the resources or the
current state of everything. Naturalism just states that were we to have them,
we could predict the future.

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thibauts
If laws change, there are causes to these changes that are tied to other laws.
Indeed it add more states, and one more layer of laws as I understand it.

English is not my native language and I'm left wondering. Does he talk about
the _why_ he thinks the laws could change ? It sounded to me like a vague
hypothesis but I'd love to understand better.

If I follow my own musing after watching this I would say time could be the
path of least information in an isotropic adimensional space. The axis or path
along which compression is the easiest. This would explain nicely why how our
brain handles it in such a particular way. If Lee Smolin is wrong it would be
the path along which energy cannot be absorbed and entropy can't increase as
state relationships are static. Something like a visible effect of the
strongest possible force. This could be a simple definition of time. Sadly I'm
a layman and most probably completely off the mark.

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abrezas
Why is it neccessary that there would be causes to these changes?

What if the changes to the constants are random?

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thibauts
I try to be open-minded but I have a very hard time believing in acausal
events. Saying change can happen from nothing is like saying that energy can
appear from nothing.

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watershawl
So I watched the whole thing and only understand parts of it, but is his main
theory that the laws of physics which were previously thought to be unchanging
may indeed change over time and that itself is the proof that the universe is
temporal?

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liquidise
That appears to be it. The talk struck me as a philosophical consideration on
a traditionally young-earth-creationist viewpoint. The idea being that
physical laws and constants, namely the speed of light, change over time.

While the scientific portion of the suggestion lacks merit, considering the
hypotheticals is certainly interesting.

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FrankenPC
I thought time, at the bare iron of the universe, was the slow but sure
thermodynamic change into a state of pure information. What's he talking
about? Time as it relates to relativistic theories?

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guelo
Is it just me or has HN become less rigorous and scientific and more into
sensationalistic pablum in the last week or two?

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cjdrake
Bollocks.

