Thursday, December 13, 2018

Hmm …

… Carlo Rovelli: In physics, the difference between past and present is extraordinarily slippery | Spectator USA. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

What is wrong is the extrapolation of our human experience of time to the entire reality of time. The analogy with the flat earth is pretty good: it’s not wrong to say that earth is essentially flat in London. If an architect assumes that the ground is flat for building a house he’s not wrong. The house will not fall down. But of course if we look at Earth from a distance, it’s not flat. You start to see the discrepancies. Our perceptions are not wrong, they’re just imprecise. If we try to use them to understand the universe at large, then we go wrong.
Time lived is different from time abstracted from life, just as music played is different from a musical score.

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