Reflection on the block universe and my framework for understanding life.
This was a response I made in a post about the block universe theory;
I should rephrase that theories like this have a use because whether something is indeterminable as to wether it’s representative of reality is an affirmation of our lack of understanding of reality.
Furthermore the very possibility of such a theory, its premise, points us to the area of our ignorance. It’s a hurtle the clearing of which can bring us closer to understanding reality.
Life the way I understand it, mind you my current understanding is nascent, dispels the block universe.
You can predict the path of objects in space using relativity but you cannot predict action generated by conscious life even though that action is deterministic the emergent nature consciousness makes action unpredictable, that is not set in stone.
Since the beginning of mitochondria, life has been encoding experience into biological form, the shape of that form both morphological and emotional, genetic or behavioral every facet of what we are is shaped by experience.
That’s complex but deterministic.
Consciousness is the thing that does the experiencing without which life is not possible.
Consciousness senses and makes sense of the environment which informs action and that action is encoded as experience, this encoding is as endless and timeless as mitochondrial life.
What I am is experience encoded in biology continuously since the first segment of dna that formed my lineage.
I am the consciousness that is presently encoding,
I experience subjectively and every time I gain understanding my perception changes and with it the way I experience and act and action is causal.
So now you have subjective experience generating dominoes as varied as the ways reality can be experienced subjectively.
Driving to work today I noticed an aggressive driver weave through traffic at high speed and a portion of the drivers witnessing this increased their speed and some slowed down. Not only is everyone’s reaction different it’s as different as subjective experience can be, and that experience is emergent and reactive to what we happen to take in from the environment subjectively.