Tim Maudlin - Ultimate Questions - How Do They Evolve?

Ask the most fundamental questions; make the most penetrating inquires; probe the deep essence of existence. Push boundaries. Search the foundations of reality. Imagine all that may exist in physics and cosmology, even beyond current understanding. Then ask how such ultimate questions may change over time.

[thijsh.]

Maudlin knows darn well what is meant by a ""static"" block universe (can't add enough quotation marks); he's just trying to be an obscurantist about his own views where the topology of spacetime is such that time-like paths have the property of 'passing' in the direction of the future and where the time-asymmetry is fundamental. In his views, there is still a block universe where everything exists equally, there are just some subtle differences from the 'conventional' views. He should just be honest and clear about that.

[dt]

The host struggled in the video. The higher dimension he was referring to might be God or a higher being who can access the universe time block as an outside observer. The analogy I have is like a human watching a video. This human can access the time block in the video and watch the past, present, and future of the characters in the video anytime they want.

[notexactlyrocketscience]

Pretty sure every viewer understood the question perfectly. He was referring to the overall shape. Past now and future have no special or distinguishing topological feature if one would view spacetime from at least 1 dimension higher. Tegmark framed it in a similar manner, Carroll I believe as well

[billnorris]

Brilliant! Definitely one of your best interviews yet... densely packed and it invites further investigations. This is the real Frontiers folks... thanks for the show !

[ailblentyn]

I find Maudlin very valuable and interesting. He claims that a certain amount of “profound” talk is meaningless, and I am sure he is right.

[tedlemoine]

The problem is that my now and someone else's now depend not only on time but location.

[jamesruscheinski]

Is time infinitesimal (planck time) slices of past, present and future?

[ztheth]

Maudlin might be the most obtuse and pretentious person I've ever seen interviewed.

[eenkjet]

Embarrassed for Maudlin. He's just not ready to admit to the mysteries of nature. Such a waste of 8 minutes. For time to "pass" requires animism and dynamism and dualism. The sooner Maudlin admits to this, he'll make some philosophical progress.

[ultimateman]

Frustrating to listen to. One would hope that if Robert had brought up the terms "relativity" and "simultaneity" then Tim would have addressed that issue more specifically. This is where a clarity of ideas and proper vocabulary would have helped the discussion immensely.

[jamesruscheinski]

Does the past move away from us and future move toward us while we are in present?

[J]

Internet source: "The block universe theory says that all moments past, present and future all exist and that there is no OBJECTIVE moving present or temporal flow. Temporal flow is a purely subjective appearance to temporal minds".

[drewmandan]

What a horrible discussion. Tim Maudlin apparently doesn't know or understand that there is no simultaneity in relativity. Which means that the past and future are equally real, depending on whose reference frame you're in.

[Mentat]

The issue is whether the ancient Cretans ceased to exist, or whether we are just farther along a coordinate axis from them. Those are fundamentally different things. "Now" is not an indexical along a line. If it were, then the Cretans do indeed exist now, because any one of them would say "it is now" over there in their 4d location. But the actual common sense view of time is that they went out of existence altogether. The whole world (however many coordinate axes it has) morphs and changes, and things go out of existence altogether. It's not just locations on a line, all of which are equally real, but not equally "present" in the merely indexical way that Mars isn't "here".

[chrisc]

I do believe the correct term is "blocked universe".

[szpoti]

How does the title relate to the content?

[paulh.]

Horrible to watch. Maudlin does exactly know what the interviewer tries to convey. According to GR there is now universal „now“; my now can be your future/ past or vice versa hence past, present and future is all equally „real“. The way Maudlin ignorantly reacts „I don’t understand this“ does not really speak in his favour.

[johnayres]

I have always believed in and will always believe in the Block Universe.

[domcasmurro]

What the hell you mean by "high dimension"?

[RickDelmonico]

Time may have nested cycles so that the finest scales are symmetrical. In other words, time is symmetrical at some resolution, for some duration.
The arrow of time is created by entanglement and complexity.
The direction of time's arrow is the breaking of the symmetry of the "potential" of the boundary condition.