The Length of Now from Alicia Eggert on Vimeo.
It was about time, this week. First I listened to Time is way weirder than you think, a podcast with Ezra Klein and Dean Buonomano. If you listen to it you will hear the terms Presentism and Eternalism. Buonomano declares that he is a Presentist. I am leaning toward Eternalism, myself. (link to Wikipedia page on Eternalism). Eternalism makes sense with Quantum physics… It’s hard to feel this concept of time, but this is true for many things that are new and that we grapple with. All musicians know about this. A rhythm feels alien and strange and impossible at first. Then it becomes clunky and jagged. Given enough time, eventually we inhabit the rhythm and it becomes smooth and organic. Maybe, twenty years from now, I can get my head around Eternalism…
I didn’t plan this TIME related week at all. It’s like the end of the year conspired to make me think about time! Next I listened to a Long Now Seminar podcast with the artist Alicia Eggert. (Website)
Check out her Vimeo page for more video of her work.
One of her pieces “You Are (On) An Island” ties in with this photo I took in Lisbon last month:
Indeed I find that each of us is a world and is on a world, is an island and is on an island. We are never alone. For one, we carry several pounds of bacteria and other non-human beings in our gut. To those beings we are a universe.
From my universe to your universe, what do you hope for in the new year, 2023?
> If you listen to it you will hear the terms Presentism and Eternalism. Buonomano declares that he is a Presentist. I am leaning toward Eternalism, myself.
Interesting … until quite recently (past two-ish years or so) I probably would have agreed with you (and I guess strictly speaking I still do). But with a … “explanation refinement” … I suppose. Julian Barbour discusses this often.
Maybe a “radical timelessness” would be appropriate in my case.
I think I now incline toward the Amplituhedron[1][2] based approach. This has been well-discussed by Nima Arkani-Hamed and his case is quite compelling. I won’t provide any links because there are so many. Just search for his name.
So, time and space are probably illusions and are emergent. Not fundamental to nature, but we abstract them both through consciousness.
—
[1] https://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.2007.pdf
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amplituhedron
Thanks Steve. A lot to digest.