I’m trying to wrap my head around these concepts and it seems like they are basically one in the same.
If all points in time exist at once, this implies determinism?
If the universe is deterministic, that implies all “choices” are already made and so all moments in time already exist?
In: Physics
You can be eternalist and determinist to a certain extent. They’re not mutually exclusive. Eternalist thought considers now, ten minutes from now, and ten minutes ago all equally “real.”
Deterministic thought suggests that since every response is a reaction to something, there is no such thing as free will. Your fate has already been determined.
The problem is that determinism is easily disproved just by you making a choice on a whim.
It is worth understanding the history of (scientific, causal) determinism – that all future events can be predicted from the present. A key way into understanding this is Laplace’s Demon.
Now imagine a version of eternalism where time is a sort of physical dimension, with the perceived present moving through that dimension. It doesn’t follow that we can determine the nature of things further along that dimension based on what we observe in other points along the dimension.
A nice illustration of what I mean is to look at choked flow in a fluid. This is a situation where fluid passing through an orifice travels at the speed of sound. In normal flow the flow rate through the orifice depends on pressure in the downstream section. Thus in normal flow we can determine downstream pressure from upstream pressure and flow rate. In contrast in choked flow we cannot make that determination from the measurements because flow rate becomes independent of downstream pressure.
If perceived time corresponds to the dimension along the pipe (with downstream being the perceived future) then choked flow is sort of like a situation where we can’t determine a downstream (future) condition despite it really physically existing.
Nope, the choices are not made yet, but they are “exists” in a sense that their count is finite. The same is with the time pounts – they “exist”, but which one and with whst configuration of space bound to it will come to life – is unknown
I think determinism focuses more on the succession of events than eternalism does. In eternalism, all points in time can exist equally, but does that necessarily mean they’re determined yet?
Determinism means that the state of the universe at present time completely determine everything in the future.
Eternalism said that everything in the future and the past is already there.
Crucially, eternalism does not said that the future is determined by the past!!! In other word, if some super computer being is given a complete specification of the current state of the universe (at current time, whatever that means), there are no ways to predict the all the future. In fact, eternalism does not even said that there are “present” or “future” time at all. But determinism still believe in the idea of present or future.
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