I’m not really any sort of expert on relativity, but occasionally I play one on the internet. Any actual experts are encouraged to point out mistakes made below:
According to Einstein, space and time are really one and distorting space can also distort time. It is for that reason that a vessel could travel “faster than light” in a certain sense by expanding the space on one side of it and compressing it on the other side (although it is believed this would require more energy than exists in the universe). As you wind back time near the big bang space becomes so compressed that normal laws of physics cease to apply. At the very beginning there was no space and hence no time. It is thus meaningless to ask about the time before the Big Bang.
That is something I have often heard from scientists, so I am more confident in its accuracy. The next one gets into weird territory:
It is not merely the case that everything is pre-determined. According to Einstein we only subjectively perceive time to be moving forward from an absolute past to present to future, but in fact no two events can actually be objectively “simultaneous”, and when two different observers disagree over which of two events happened first there is not necessarily a correct answer. Space and time are one and every event is not simply destined to happen but in a sense HAS ALREADY HAPPENED.
I’ve heard fewer people push that line, so I could well be misrepresenting things, and quantum mechanics might also clash with the super-determinism I describe.
Entitled to an Opinion 
December 10, 2007 at 12:44 pm
Oh, so it’s *you* who Auster was quoting.
I think his response was kind of confused.
December 10, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Yes, I use the same e-mail address for blog-related matters as to register for things online and I just picked a name whose sound I liked (using a meaningless string of consonants would come of as obviously phone if someone was checking). I’m not even much of a fan of Mr. Nock’s writing.
Yes, Auster seems to have some notion of objective time that exists beyond the universe, which is just the sort of thing Einstein was attacking. An Eliezer Yudkowsky posts that seems relevant is Semantic Stopsigns. Scott Aaronson’s Mistake of the Week: Explain Everything (Or Don’t Bother Explaining Anything) is also relevant.
The strange thing is that Auster seems to think the anonymous contribution of a Wikipedia editor is a decisive blow against Darwinism and that he focuses on how Darwinists talk rather than the theory of Darwinism itself. Reality is what it is, regardless of how unequipped the protein computers we call our brains are to understand it.
December 10, 2007 at 3:17 pm
I was a bit mystified by the recent Auster posts on Darwinism. At least I now know where some of the material came from.
FWIW, not only is he finding a supposed “glass jaw” in an anonymous wiki editor’s word choices, but he relies on a ridiculously strained reading of the text in question. When I read that a lion’s behavior is “successful in evolutionary terms”, I don’t understand that to refer to the achievement of some goal that the lion held. A couple of comments in, he admits that “biological success” or “reproductive success” would have been appropriately non-teleological rewordings. For the life of me, I can’t see the distinction between these terms.
I have seen a similar obsession with the language of evolutionary biologists, rather than the content of their theories, in a number of anti-Darwinists. I’ve never really figured out (but I would like to understand) what they see as compelling in this type of argument.
December 10, 2007 at 3:38 pm
The second statement is rather off the mark. The fact that there is no such thing as simultaneity implies a lot less than you seem to think it implies. In particular, it doesn’t imply that “everything that will happen has already happened” (not even “in a sense”).
Not all events can be seen by different observers in different orders. For example, if event A is me letting go of a ball and event B is the ball hitting the floor, in no frame of reference can an observer see B happen before A. That’s because A and B have a causal relationship, i.e. their time-like separation is larger than their space-like separation, i.e. B lies within the future light cone of A.
Events can only be seen by different observers to be in different orders if they have no causal relationship, i.e. if they lie outside each other’s light cones. For example, me dropping a ball and at the “same” time someone else dropping a ball on Europa. Depending on an observer’s direction of travel and speed, they might observe either one happen first.
The fact that simultaneity is relative does not banish causality. Causality implies that there are things that have not yet happened. Even in Einstein’s universe, time still flows. The future may be deterministic (although quantum mechanics says it is not), but it is nonetheless distinct from the present and the past.
December 10, 2007 at 3:54 pm
As already explained at the thread under discussion, I’ve critiqued Darwinian theory at length as well as the language used by Darwinists. The language used by Darwinists is highly relevant as it reflects the false consciousness their own theory forces upon them. I do not base my rejection of Darwinian theory on such language. It does, however, add to the picture by showing that the Darwinians themselves cannot speak conssistently about Darwinism.
The quote I referenced from Wikipedia was a comment similar to many other comments used by Darwinian writers. There was nothing unusual about it. It was entirely typical. If you folks are now going to rest your case on the fact that I quoted Wikipedia rather than, say, Nicholas Wade, then you’re admitting your intellectual bankruptcy. I will soon write an expanded version of that article in which I show the teleological language routinely used by Darwinian writers STARTING WITH DARWIN.
Finally it’s most curious that you folks are also now using Einsteinian theory to prohibit any discussion about what is outside the universe, since Einstein himself believed there was a divine creator.
How convenient for materialists, to preclude any critical discussion of materialism, by defining the universe in such a way as to eliminate even the possibility of asking questions as to what precedes or exists outside the universe!
Liberalism, by coincidence (or not by coincidence) operates the same way. Everything outside liberalism is simply bigotry, Nazism, fascism, so liberalism can never be questioned.
December 11, 2007 at 2:46 pm
Everything outside liberalism is simply bigotry, Nazism, fascism, so liberalism can never be questioned.
Well, it’s important to bear in mind the distinction between being ridiculed and being shot.
But the idea that time began with the beginning of the universe doesn’t preclude asking why there is a universe in the first place. I was under the impression that most Christians and Jews would agree that time began with creation. There is a story that St. Augustine was once asked what God was up to before he began creating heaven and earth. The St. replied, “He was creating a hell in which to punish youths who ask such impertinent questions.” Unfortunately, the story is almost certainly apocryphal.
The teleological language of evolutionary theory is of course purely metaphorical, much like “water seeks its own level”.
December 11, 2007 at 8:27 pm
The language used by Darwinists is highly relevant as it reflects the false consciousness their own theory forces upon them.
Isn’t “false consciousness” for lefties? Also, why do you assume the false consciousness from their theory rather than one they had previously before they knew the theory, since the teleological language they use is the same?
If you folks are now going to rest your case on the fact that I quoted Wikipedia rather than, say, Nicholas Wade, then you’re admitting your intellectual bankruptcy.
Where did I say “I rest my case”? I said it was strange that you thought the Wikipedia quote was a big deal.
Finally it’s most curious that you folks are also now using Einsteinian theory to prohibit any discussion about what is outside the universe, since Einstein himself believed there was a divine creator.
Richard Dawkins, the paradigmatic Darwinist-atheist extremist, claims to follow an “Einsteinian religion”. Einstein was basically an atheist even if he did say things like “God does not play dice”.
How convenient for materialists, to preclude any critical discussion of materialism, by defining the universe in such a way as to eliminate even the possibility of asking questions as to what precedes or exists outside the universe!
Many of us believe in multiple universes which exist outside of ours.
We’re not discussing liberalism here, and I don’t think you have a very accurate view of it. As with Islam you choose the view of it most critical (liberals do the same thing) when if you wanted an accurate view you would likely seek out the analyses of more disinterested people.
Nice point, George, on teleological language.
January 21, 2008 at 12:51 pm
No, he didn’t. He explicitly rejected the idea of a ‘Divine Person’ and used the word ‘God’ to refer to the fundamental, impersonal order of the universe.
April 27, 2008 at 3:24 pm
I like the second quote more than the first, but I think all determinism should lead to the perspective that time is just another coordinate on a single coherent reality. Some models, like relativity or the 18th century principle of least action, bring it into sharper focus.
Back to the first quote.
Time is just another coordinate. But one can ask about causality without time: “why relativity?” “why these initial conditions?” are better questions than “what’s before the big bang?”
Asking what’s before the big bang is sort of like asking what’s north of the north pole. But I think there’s some cheating in that statement, some sweeping problems under the rug: both the big bang and black holes are singularities, where there’s a hole in space-time which is not described by GR, just as the north pole is not described by the north-east coordinate system.
But what’s wrong with that?
It may be necessary to fill in the hole–there really is a north pole–or it may not. What’s wrong with a hole? Few people complain about what happens after infinite time.
There are solutions to GR which are compact, having no holes at all. But time travel is possible in such a solution. That really forces you to divorce time from causality.
May 16, 2008 at 4:35 pm
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