[ExI] New article about the Block Universe

[Jason Resch]

On Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 7:16 AM John Clark via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 17, 2026 at 4:11 PM BillK via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> *> Welcome to the Block Universe Where time is an illusion,*
>
>
> *According to the block universe time is not an illusion, it is a
> variable; and it's not a new idea, theologians have been playing around
> with the predestination concept for over 1000 years. But today we know
> something that neither those ancient theologians nor the scientists who
> first proposed the block universe idea did not. It has been experimentally
> shown that Bell's Inequality is violated, and that proves that either local
> hidden variables do not exist or it proves the universe is not realistic;
> that is to say unmeasured things do NOT exist in one and only one definite
> state, so there can be more than one result in an experiment because there
> is ALWAYS more than one experimenter performing the experiment, at least an
> astronomical number to an astronomical power of them, and possibly an
> infinite number. *
>

Existing as a multiplicity does violate realism or locality in QM, the wave
function is still real, and moons still exists when no one is looking. And
changes still only propagate at c. But what multiverses models do violate
is something called "contra-factual definiteness."*

There are many conceptions of QM with block time. For example, this "really
simple interpretation of QM" by Wei Dai:

http://www.weidai.com/qm-interpretation.txt

Jason


P.S.

* From the many worlds FAQ:
https://anthropic-principle.com/preprints/manyworlds


"To recap. Many-worlds is local and deterministic. Local measurements
split local systems (including observers) in a subjectively random
fashion; distant systems are only split when the causally transmitted
effects of the local interactions reach them. We have not assumed any
non-local FTL effects, yet we have reproduced the standard predictions
of QM.

So where did Bell and Eberhard go wrong? They thought that all theories
that reproduced the standard predictions must be non-local. It has been
pointed out by both Albert [A] and Cramer [C] (who both support
different interpretations of QM) that Bell and Eberhard had implicity
assumed that every possible measurement - even if not performed - would
have yielded a *single* definite result. This assumption is called
contra-factual definiteness or CFD [S]. What Bell and Eberhard really
proved was that every quantum theory must either violate locality *or*
CFD. Many-worlds with its multiplicity of results in different worlds
violates CFD, of course, and thus can be local.

Thus many-worlds is the only local quantum theory in accord with the
standard predictions of QM and, so far, with experiment."

>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20260319/2b76e324/attachment.htm>