David Builes: The Metaphysics of Time and Consciousness

[@greenmountainfarms7515]

Ɓest part of waking up is a philosophy discussion on time! What a time to be alive! 😂

[@jps0117]

Evidently, David Builes subscribes to the adage "No time like the present!" :)

[@robinsonerhardt]

Terrific!

[@MajestyofReason]

David!! Legend!! Wonderful vid! Thanks for the shout, too :)

[@robinsonerhardt]

Thanks, Joe!

[@bendybruce]

You really are quickly becoming one of my favorite podcasters. I love your range of guests and I also appreciate the apparent integrity of your interviewing style. There are much bigger podcasters out there without naming names who I think long ago through their actions have betrayed the fact they really are little better than grifters.

[@robinsonerhardt]

Thank you so much. I really appreciate this.

[@bendybruce]

@@robinsonerhardt Authenticity is not something that can be faked and you have it in spades. But please, don't ever invite Terence Howard, And don't feel you ever need to wear a suit and tie to prove your intellectualism.

[@Lemarcus03]

This guy is the coolest kind of quirky. I was born into Fundamentalist Christianity but had trouble with not questioning anything. Am a Free Thinker & Scientifically-oriented but had a mystical personal experience. So , I really gravitate to these conversations.

[@robinsonerhardt]

I'm so glad you found this, then!

[@Lemarcus03]

@@robinsonerhardt I forgot to mention that I'm also an over sharer. 😎

[@boohoo5419]

his "quirkyness" seems like an act. this guy really rubs me the wrong way. his thoughts are pretty basic. the acting is doing the "job"!

[@deadandre_]

interview of the year. i loved how excited he was to share this info. heavy and heady but worth it. bring david back please

[@whitb62]

This was an excellent interview. I’ve never heard of Dr. Builes. I will definitely check out some of his other stuff online. I’d love for you two to go deeper into logic, set theory, and philosophy of maths if y’all ever do this again.

[@fnamelname9077]

Thank you for this video! I haven't heard enough discussion of idealism. I really appreciate David's perspective.

[@robinsonerhardt]

Glad it was helpful!

[@zendallkane5016]

Please get Bernard Kastrup to discuss analytical idealism. He has some really convincing arguments on its behalf.

[@fnamelname9077]

@@zendallkane5016 That sounds awesome!

[@dramirezg70]

This was an amazing episode. Love Dr. Walsh. She brings and contextualizes so much information.

[@CurtOntheRadio]

Thanks Podcat! And thanks to your assistant.

[@robinsonerhardt]

Thank you, Curt!

[@zzarkoo]

Great episode as always. I usually don't comment but I saw a comment about your lack of intro this time around and how it works fine without - I really do think that the intros add something to your podcasts. I like hearing more info about the people you're talking to and whether you've had them on previously and such. I just think it's better with, it feels more proper in a way and it adds a certain charm

[@robinsonerhardt]

Thanks for letting me know. I really appreciate your thoughts. I'll be continuing to think about it!

[@charc4819]

Yes, really weird without an intro. I'd like you to take one minute ​saying who your guest is. Name, field etc.. You don't have to spend 5-10 mins on an intro (I find long intros annoying) but gotta say, no intro whatsoever is a very strange decision :-)

[@annascott3542]

I don’t care for intros.

[@monkerud2108]

So i ranted a bit, but to boil down my point, this notion of markovian appearances of the transformations relating state to state have sort of notion of continuous distance in phase space temporally, then we can say the distance is always shorter between neighbouring subsystems in time than distant ones, whether the relation is deterministic or not in the formalisation of physical law we are looking at.

[@bernardofitzpatrick5403]

Learning curve for me! Novel concepts/ ideas/terms. Gold 💥

[@monkerud2108]

Whether it looks more plausible or less to formulate it as a presentist conception or as a block in not really about the possibilities to description, either can always work, its just how simple and clear the notion of distances in phase space work.

[@dosesandmimoses]

Thank you gentlemen-

[@robinsonerhardt]

You're welcome!

[@monkerud2108]

Nice conversation, not done listening to it but thank you :). It is important to remember that "is" does a lot of work in a lot of places in a sort of unavoidable way with discussing these things in philosophy or in physics and so i thinknits perfectly respectable to have a view that ambigous or uncertain. I think thats appropriate, i don't think its ever possible to decide the question of presentism vs b theory like conceptions. They are ways to think about models and our conceptions of empirical inquiry, i contend that every theory you could possibly formula has a representation in terms of either, even topologically excotic theories. My personal view is that this kind of destinction is as unresolvable as the existance of god, or the existence of forms independent of mind as a physical subsystem. For example math proofs are only possible if they actually happen in this universe, or another universe, however you want to draw lines in existence, if nobody is ever concretely writing it down or thinking about it, something as simple as the existence of a number so large nobody has thought about it or used it for anything, might never be instantiated in thought or proof ever. And if that is the case you could just assume the number isn't real or doesn't exist in Plato's universe of forms so to speak, and you would lose nothing practically. We do know for numbers that the ideas of numbers in full generality exists and is instantiated in brains, and so an objection based on that immediately comes to mind, but empirically it makes little difference, only the ideas that are experienced have any available qualifiers for existence available to us, doesn't mean they don't exist, or that a general idea of them dont exist in some brain out there. But its an interesting space of conceptions to think about. I would maybe ask whether the existing world has some type of completeness to it, analogous to turing completeness but for analog variables, whether that covers in some way all of Plato's universe of forms or not, is a though question, but it is also an undecipherable one, existence outsode any experience is a non starter for evaluating the meaning of such concepts of existence.

[@robinsonerhardt]

Thank you so much!

[@monkerud2108]

You can formulate it in a very simple way, that looking at the immediate past to predict the future involves a transformation of state that is easier to get approximately correct than if you look further into the past. This would not be true of the physical content of a world with discontinuous time travel for example, with continuous time travel however it is always possible to construct a representation of it without any reference to time travel at all, just the size of the shift in state in a transformation between adject state vs further separated states, in the space of temporal and spatial transformations from state to state according to dependencies we call laws of physics and coincidence, constitute a kind of distance in ohase space that is really like distance in a proper sense but in a much more complicated mathematical space, where displacement is just this transformation between codetemining states. Works the same for distributions and more classical concrete states or beables. So its just a question of continuity of the ohase space with space and time as variables not just background. Completely random discontinuous phase spaces and distances in them can be completely arbitrary, but they also would have a completely well defined notion of distance, but then it can be anything right, what we want to think about are the properties of the continuety, the configuration continuety in a completely arbitrary phase space is just a sort of continuety by fiat, the most general and useless kind to think about, a sort of overly sophisticated notion of useless counterexamples or something like that, the formalized physical content counterpart of a sentence like; " if a duck was a zebra then rode on elegance icecream." or "bsi gekzn! fkwKngk eosdmsød $&737#" which is just the kind of library of bable idea, but for physical content. We don't care about just certain mathematical properties like continuety, we can always restore that at some level of abstraction if we like to do so, but the way the properties look organised so to speak, thats where we can actually reason about them instead of just formalising them in perpetuity.

[@proddreamatnight]

28:06 my face the whole time trying to understand what's being talked about

[@Getexposedddddd]

Great content man TY

[@fnamelname9077]

Did the video get garbled at 00:22:00 for anyone else?

[@jps0117]

Yes.

[@cwcarson]

Seems to fix itself at 28:00

[@cwcarson]

maybe not

[@cwcarson]

34:15 :)

[@robinsonerhardt]

UGH. I am incredibly sorry about this.

[@AdrianBoyko]

I think we need to distinguish between “time travel” and “time teleportation” in some of these discussions.

[@robinsonerhardt]

How so?

[@AdrianBoyko]

@@robinsonerhardt It’s the difference between cryogenically freezing yourself to “time travel” into the future vs “time teleporting” to the desired future by skipping everything in between. “Travel” has the sense of “visiting” every point between but “teleportation” doesn’t.

[@Michelle-g2h9q]

Good point

[@plamenhadzhiev]

@@AdrianBoyko great point here, thanks for this

[@charliesteiner2334]

I feel like the last section of "What is the number 2 really like, as some extra intrinsic property metaphysically glued to it? And if there's no answer, that means 2 doesn't exist." is almost a reductio of the entire argument-structure "X must have inaccessible properties metaphysically glued to it, or X doesn't exist."

[@themaximus144]

I didn't notice at first because I was just listening, but the video seems to freeze for me at roughly 23 mins. The audio keeps going though. Edit: doesn't really bother me just figure i'd point it out. This was a great interview as always.

[@robinsonerhardt]

Yes...I'm very sorry about that!

[@themaximus144]

@@robinsonerhardt No need to be sorry. Just wanted to alert you.

[@chillyshotorbitus5152]

Just in few words : time [universe mass/energy/space transformation] - property : pace, rate, tempo -> slow down [macroscale] or acceleration [micro]. Empirical evidence : a) childhood vacation length b) insects research (g: fly see world in slow motion) c) microorganisms (under microscope) d) super-time accelerated atomic world (electronics construction). Simplest to imagine will be Fast-Forward or Slow-Forward video tapes or dvd movies rewinding. Any questions ?

[@chillyshotorbitus5152]

For the "loaf of bread model" and reverse time travel practically would mean to reverse each chemical/physical materialistic reaction including every single ray of light.

[@boohoo5419]

its a measurement, not a constant! the maximum granularity of stuff that can happen is light speed. the smallest stuff this can act on is energy! you can have this much maximum events in a given timeframe. thats the relativity part in einstein. thats time dilution. you either sacrifice energy/speed or time/actions. both are related to each other. time emerges by stuff happening. not the other way around! time has no fixed rate it marches forward by. time only counts events that have happened. thats it. if humans speak about future time. they simply assume they have the same speed/energy. bcs we are functioning on a different granularity then atoms. we cant act in light speed either way. we dont realize how many "light seconds" have gone by. since the last "second". right? confusing this with the length of your summer vacation is kinda dumb. this obviously is a psychological effect. not time dilution we feel. thats such a different level of granularity. given the speed we move. there are magnitudes of detail and resolution between these two observations. in my opinion. he actually dont get what einstein meant by time is relative if he say "dumb" stuff like this. slowing down video tapes is a good analogy but its a totally different example. and slowing down video didnt visualize the energy trade off. there is no consequence in slowing down the video. it didnt relate to anything else then teh video itself. you have to see the "video" as a closed loop universe. the slowed down video couldnt have an effect on the sorroundings. for example, us watching. there would be no relation. in our universe bcs there is a trade off between energy and and speed its part of one big construct called space-time. it affects the sorrounding parts. its all embedded. not seperate events that go at different speeds. like the video. if you had 20 video recorders all going at different rates. there woudl be no connection. its just the speed some "creator" chose. its not limited by anything or guided by rules.

[@chillyshotorbitus5152]

​@@boohoo5419 well, time has relation to mass/size of the objects, that's why accelerates when you going down with the scale. I mean it is not delusion or speculation taken from the magic hat, but EMPIRICAL FACT, any idea how many processes every cell does each second ? google : "insects see world in slow motion", not enough ? take a look under the microscope. Simplest logic space (larger or smaller - expansion/contraction "thermonuclear scattering") , time : slow down or acceleration (pace), "just like that".

[@AaronChy19]

Indeed, no intro works

[@robinsonerhardt]

Thanks!

[@stendalbedandbreakfast]

Regarding time travel; we travel through time from birth to death and I'm not the same physical "thing" that I was when i started this journey or even this sentence. Cells have died, others have been generated in a pattern similar, but not identical to, my former self. Non of the cells in my body at the time of my birth are present in this moment and in that sense the thing that was "me" at birth does not exist in the present. Yet "I" still seem to exist. So "I" or "me" does not seem to be dependent upon neither being identical to the former expression of "I" or "me", nor the living cells that constitutes these, but rather to the continual generation of a certain pattern that are similar enough to be identified as "me" (if such a concept is even real in an ontological sense). Therefore I believe that time traveling where you die and reappear is not only possible but a dependent function of time travel.

[@alwilsonwastheman]

A time travel machine would not only have to transport a person back or forward in time but also the entirety of the universe..everything is moving through time

[@jyjjy7]

If everything moved forward with you how would you know you did anything? You are describing time, not time travel.

[@alwilsonwastheman]

​@@jyjjy7If you went back in time, in theory you would end up in the middle of space because the earth, the milky way, etc wont be in that particular spot in the past

[@jyjjy7]

@@alwilsonwastheman Yes, THAT is what would happen with actual time travel

[@holisticalcoholic]

@@alwilsonwastheman It depends on how gravity and spacetime fundamentally work. Therefore we don't know how it would happen. Maybe your worldline takes you back to your relative location because it is conserved through gravity somehow. Maybe you wind up everywhere, or somewhere much farther away.

[@guyelgat5893]

This guy is great

[@nicolaebulgaru]

Thanks

[@robinsonerhardt]

My pleasure!

[@SandipChitale]

The simultaneity is relative between two distant frames of reference. For example, two observers A and B traveling at different velocities may not agree on when a third distant event E happened. But if A, B, and E are at the same location, then by definition, they will agree when E happened. Duh. So what if each entity looks at its own proper time, which is not relative, then there are global events happening everywhere that are farthest proper time away from the Big bang. This set has to be unique by definition, and thus, if we call that global set of the latest local events, then that is what I would call the present moment. Thus, only presentism makes sense. Secondly, we can know about past events only if they have left a trace effect then, which can be accessed in the present moment. We call that memory. And in fact if we cannot access that trace because it is truly gone or cannot be recovered because we are not Laplace's demon, then for all practical purposes that event in the past did not happen. We call that forgetting. The footsteps on the beach may get erased by waves and we will not know if someone was walking on the beach last night. Duh. Also causality is required to have that ability to leave trace effects on on the environment, so it is not clear why people make a big deal out of we can only remember that past. Duh. IMO many confusions happen with respect to "time" because of original misguided use of the word "forward" for the direction of flow of time, which has mislead us to think that time can flow "backward". Time like Tim Maudlin says only flows from before to after order. The forward is like using words like up and down in deep space, especially if you are a spherical object. And if you or not rotating then you cannot even talk about the axis of up and down :) Lastly the notion of time (instant) of physics is different from the notion of psychological time. If we assume the time of physics is continuous then the instant of time is like a geometric point on world line. I time is discrete then time have a minimum extent dictated by that discreteness. The psychological instant is definitely extended because of integration time in our brains.

[@zimuuuuuuu]

!!! YAY THIS IS GREAT YES LETS GOOOOO !!!

[@robinsonerhardt]

Thanks Zimu :)

[@MatrixVectorPSI]

Time is real in the sense that everything exists in the present. Time being relative to an observer, as perceived under general relativity is not. Time dilation gives rise to a lot of misconceptions, but it's really not that complicated. Time isn't actually tied to anyone or anything. Existence persists, the rest is just how we perceive that existence and outline it under a mathematical construct.

[@Mentat1231]

I wonder if Builes has considered the work of Peter Hacker at all. A lot of what he says regarding consciousness and laws seem to unravel very limpidly under the approach Hacker used (and the "First-Person Realist" option would dissolve too).

[@robinsonerhardt]

Hmmm. Not sure. Maybe I'll ask him next time!

[@TheEivindBerge]

Wow, so there's a name for it: I'm a first-person realist! I have thought about that a lot but never knew it by that name. Whether first-person realism is true is also called the idiotic conundrum, by the way. You should put the originator of that word on the show and have an in-depth discussion about first-person realism. His name is Geoffrey Klempner. Like him, I am not satisfied with dismissing first-person realism. It may well be the most important question in philosophy. It seems to me that someone just like me could have existed without being me. WHAT is the difference? What makes us this particular first-person when there is no fact in the universe which says it must be so? Erwin Schrödinger wrote a book dismissing first-person realism but I found it totally unconvincing. At least he was aware of the problem, though. It seems to me that everyone who rejects first-person realism does so for bad reasons, usually either Hindu dogmatism (as does Schrödinger) or shallow physicalism.

[@robinsonerhardt]

Thanks for the recommendation!

[@Earthad23]

Time is the felt sense of duration.

[@Dyslexic-Artist-Theory-on-Time]

This is an invitation to see a theory on Time where light is both a wave and a particle, with a probabilistic ∆×∆pᵪ≥h/4π, future continuously unfolding in relation to the electron probability cloud of atoms and the wavelength of light. In this theory, the wave-particle duality of light and matter (electrons) creates a blank canvas that we (atoms) can interact with forming a future relative to the energy and momentum of our actions. This interaction is represented by a constant of action in space and time, mathematically denoted as the Planck constant h/2π. This concept is supported by the fact that light photon energy ∆E=hf is continuous exchange into the kinetic energy Eₖ=½mv² of matter, in the form of. electrons

[@fnamelname9077]

Does Modal Realism lead to similar conclusions to Wolfram's Ruliad? Both seem to posit that the limited world we experience is merely the recognition that there exists a concept that is those limitations, without preventing the existence of other concepts of other limits - which would be equally real and substantial.

[@bradmodd7856]

You went deep on what seems like a mad but interesting theory. This theory invalidates everything, makes everything meaningless and would mean everything would happen, which is maybe infinite. The only more radical theory would be a non-universe or nothing and it is hard to conceive because even if we imagine a universe of nothing before this universe magically came into existence, then you have imposed a potentiality on that original nothing universe, so it was never truly void.

[@fnamelname9077]

​@@bradmodd7856 How does one rigorously distinguish between the concomitant concepts of, say, obliquity and acuteness, and the concomitance of nothing and something as concepts? What is a concept?

[@boohoo5419]

time isnt an object. time is how many stuff has happened. its a measurement, not a constant! the maximum granularity of stuff that can happen is light speed. the smallest stuff this can act on is energy! you can have this much maximum events in a given timeframe. thats the relativity part in einstein. thats time dilution. you either sacrifice energy/speed or time/actions. both are related to each other. time emerges by stuff happening. not the other way around! time has no fixed rate it marches forward by. time only counts events that have happened. thats it. if humans speak about future time. they simply assume they have the same speed/energy. bcs we are functioning on a different granularity then atoms. we cant act in light speed either way. we dont realize how many "light seconds" have gone by. since the last "second".

[@philrached]

@21:45 (travels through time)

[@TheCommuted]

How can you prove information can travel from the future to the present using quantum mechanics?

[@gxfprtorius4815]

People have been discussing what the world is really about for thousands of years and are as confused as ever 😀

[@robinsonerhardt]

Very true...

[@StephenYuan]

I mean we're probably more confused because we know all about the answers that all the people that came before us thought.

[@dawid_dahl]

Stop projecting. 😄

[@volaireoh883]

Or have they?

[@letsgococo288]

No such thing as thousands of years in this simulation.

[@1vootman]

Im more of a Block Universe guy myself. Einstein's theories are very robust and so far withstood many, many tests to disprove

[@jamysmith7891]

The ever evolving moment

[@JustNow42]

Wrong question. Try with how does time actually works?

[@monkerud2108]

A lot of silly typos, i think i just write quick on my phone and my head generates the text with no mistakes and then my thumbs are not doing the best job following up. I write kind of long pros, and i like the style of fleshing things out as much as i can but then circling back to the notion that it cannot be proven in a sense, asking for ak objective unconditional answer to questions like thesw is kind of a non starter, like trying to do logic with no assumptions to start with.

[@gxfprtorius4815]

First person realism - tying 1st person up with consciousness? Why not tie it up with biology. Then you can use the theory of evolution to explain why neural systems, producing consciousness evolve - namely because you can then predict what might happen in the future and consequently run away, fight or predate, whatever you fell like the most.

[@OBGynKenobi]

The sexual tension is palpable.

[@jyjjy7]

Hey Robinson can you please bring up the cognitive science understanding of consciousness when talking to these anti-physicalist metaphysicians. The brain is categorically a computer and consciousness is a symbolic cognitive model of the self interacting with its environment correlated with patterns in sensory nerve impulses from organs that sparsely couple with certain aspects of the local physics. Arguing against the above at this point basically requires reality to be a trick of some kind because all the evidence supports it. Importantly note there is not actually a "hard" problem to the above while idealism literally makes a joke out of the hard problem via a simple relabeling of physical reality as "consciousness" and claiming the problem is solved as if by semantic magic. What I'm saying is the supposed hard problem isn't actually a thing from a physicalist/scientific perspective, it's every other explanation that claims consciousness is something other than software the brain is running that have an unsolvable hard problem. If have no idea why popular opinion thinks idealism is a solution to a hard problem physicalism can never solve, or why no one ever argues against such. Notice how this understanding of consciousness answers the Mary/redness argument against physicalism. If you knew literally everything possible about a Nintendo with a catridge inside of it, code, processors, etc, then no, of course it does not mean you know what it is like to play Super Mario Bros. Your brain cannot emulate a Nintendo anymore than it can emulate the brain of a bat. That's just not how things work.

[@chrishorst2124]

This is the kind of philosophy I am just not interested in, because it's all semantics. Is the present all that exists, or do the future and past exist too? The past existed when it did, and the future will exist when it does, and the present exists now. So yes and no, depending on your definitions. Special and General Relativity add twists, but the ultimate conclusion is the same; there's no practical difference between the answers, thus no metaphysical significance. it's just interpretation.

[@zendallkane5016]

How can you even experience an illusion without consciousness? What has the experience? This seems like a huge explanation gap.

[@CobraQuotes1]

Too much vocal fry

[@JoeMicroscope]

Can’t listen. Speech too fast and garbled.

[@williamolenchenko5772]

The present "now" is the intersection between timeless eternity and time. "Now" is both temporal and eternal.

[@malachi5813]

...

[@bjorneriksson6480]

why do young people talk like ventriliquists, with a frozen mouth that barely moves?

[@plato7771]

A total waste of time. No need to watch.

[@oliviamaynard9372]

I am listening now. Just want to be 1st 7:09 How is all possible world's a niche philophical point of view when in physics it's becoming rather accepted it feels like? They call it many worlds. How is many worlds different from all possible worlds? 17:58 How does presentism deal with experiments that show causes can influence the past

[@professorwolverinebeardsan470]

Most physicists are pretty agnostic towards such statements. From their perspective if it can't be tested then it isn't really physics.

[@robinsonerhardt]

Hahaha congratulations on being first!

[@oliviamaynard9372]

@@robinsonerhardt Thank you!

[@justinshere]

The many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics results from the view that the quantum state/wavefunction is a complete description of reality and always obeys the Schrödinger equation (i.e. the wavefunction never collapses). Skipping over a lot of detail, environmental decoherence gives rise to an emergent description of branching into many different classical worlds. If you have an electron in a superposition of spin up and spin down and you go measure it, you can think of reality as splitting into a world where you saw it up and one in which you saw it down. This can lead to effectively very many worlds and branches with crazy things, but it is not saying that every possible world exists. The fringe view discussed in this video was the view that every possible world is real. So there would be a universe that is quantum mechanical and in which many worlds is true, another disconnected universe which fundamentally obeys Newtonian mechanics, a 1-dimensional universe with a single particle, etc

[@oliviamaynard9372]

@@justinshere thank you!

[@CR3199]

10:31