Strange

You seem almost identical to all the people who come up with their own theories based on "logic". (None of them seem to know much science nor what logic is.) The evidence would seem to contradict that. It might be better if you spent more time listening and learning. Now you have got that little incoherent rant off your chest, are you planning to answer any of the questions and criticisms of your original post?

I think your chances of being right are far less than that. Much closer to zero.

You have a number of replies (mainly pointing out the errors). This is a grossly unscientific attitude. Here, if you have lost it: http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/99378-i-believe-i-have-come-up-with-a-sound-theory-as-to-the-existence-of-dark-matter-and-dark-energy-as-well-as-the-purpose-of-black-h/

I don't really have an opinion. It is not a subject I am very interested in. It seems that he is trying justify his philosophical beliefs by vague references to quantum theory and an argument about evolution. I find the references to quantum theory to be fairly bogus - they are too vague and sound like the sort of semi-religious nonsense a lot of people make up about quantum theory. I can't comment on his evolution argument. It sounds wrong to me but, as I say, I don't know much about it and it isn't an area I have any expertise in.

I have never heard that. However, there is a popular "zero energy" hypothesis that suggests that the total energy of the universe is zero. As the "multiple universes" you are talking about is Everett's Many-Worlds interpretation of quantum theory (i.e. not a hypothesis or theory in its own right) then it cannot "require" any more energy than any other interpretation of quantum mechanics. The Wikipedia page gives a couple of responses to this question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation

Yeah, we all were. Seriously, it is a brave move to come back and say that.

You can probably safely assume that anything in "The Daily Scum Mail" is untrue and largely fuelled by their hatred of women, foreigners and anyone more moderate than Genghis Khan.

Where is that from!? It sounds like something made up by one of those random sentence generators!

Good point. The concept could well predate GR.

It has (may have) an "extent" though. So, for example, our universe may be spatially finite. That would be represented by the finite spatial dimensions in the block/hologram/whatever (your hologram image seems similar to what I had in mind). Similarly, if from the point of view of the poor creatures living in the block and foolishly experiencing time flowing by, the universe may have a beginning and an end; in other words the temporal dimension may be finite as well. That doesn't change the fact that, as you say, the embedded information is static and unchanging (and has no past or future) but its timeline may have a finite length. To take another example, you could represent a person's entire life as a block model: the spatial dimensions would be all the places they went; the temporal dimension representing how long they were in each place. The extent of the spatial dimensions of that block would be some number of miles in each direction and the extent of the temporal dimension would be four score years and seven, say. But, as far as the block model is concerned their entire life (and even that of the dog they had as a child) exists equally. Are we getting closer? Seconded. (Not that I really care )

I agree completely. Even if free will were an illusion, that is irrelevant. (It is as philosophically empty as solipsism or the "simulated universe")

I think I understand you, but I think your use of words is slightly confusing. Let's say the universe was created 14 billion years ago and, for simplicities sake, will collapse to a singularity again in 14 billion years. Then the block model has a length in the temporal dimension of 28 billion years (and at those time coordinates, has a spatial size of zero). But that block is, in your words, eternal and unchanging, even though it describes a universe of finite lifetime. Does that make sense?

My guess is that storing the values in a (binary) file and using that to initialise an array when the program starts, would be fastest.

Have you checked how long it takes to retrieve a data item from mySQL, compared with storing it in an array, compared with calculating it?

Well, I guess it is time for this: https://xkcd.com/895/

That implies some sort of meta-time in which you are considering the existence of the block. The universe itself, even if described by "eternalism" or the block universe, could have a fixed, limited lifetime. That sounds overly simplistic to me. The idea of "now" is pretty dubious when you start looking at the physiological aspect of it. Part of (what we think of as) our consciousness does is to integrate events that are widely separated in time to make them appear as if they are happening at the same time. For example when you see your fingers pick up a hot cup but the sensation of heat arrives a few hundred milliseconds later, both senses are concurrent. The brain is obviously delaying some things that are happening in order to integrate them with things that might arrive half a second or more later. So, it is entirely possible that you have "consciously" made the decision (whatever that means) but the awareness of that has to be delayed in order to be integrated with the rest of your "conscious" awareness. The evidence is not in the least bit clear. Yet.

OK. But I was thinking of "eternal" in the sense of having infinite extent in the temporal dimension. So there is a clear difference between eternal and eternalism. In both the eternalist and presentist views, the universe could be eternal or have a finite existence.

I believe that is true (but I'm not sure). But if the mass-energy can change while the volume, as you suggest, stays the same, how can you relate them? (But I have no idea if what you want to do is practical or not).

Interesting that he argues that free will is compatible with the block universe model. I wonder if Tampitump is still around to read an alternative point of view. So it seems you (and philosophers?) are using "eternal" in a very different sense than the usual meaning, which may be what confused me. (I also don't see a clear link between presentism and what he calls a tensed view. But then I don't see any inherent contradiction or incompatibility between "tensed" and "tenseless" either.)

I think you are correct. Especially as the force of gravity is mainly determined by the curvature in the time dimension (don't ask me to expand on that!) Similarly, his "2D funnel" phrase sounds wrong, too.

Proving a theorem just means it is mathematically correct, not that it says anything about the real world. There are plenty of branches of mathematics that do not seem to relate to anything in the real world. His theorem has nothing to do with quantum theory. In that article he mentions (in passing) "some interpretations" of quantum theory, presumably the ones that suit his point of view. This is all very vague and just trying to make it ound like physics is one his side (it is not clear that it is). And, as we can never know anything about the "real world" other than what we perceive, the whole exercise seems futile.

Thanks.

Ah, OK. So the block model does not have to be eternal, you are just thinking of a version where it is? I agree that spatially and temporally infinite are separate things (I'm not sure that is relevant though). The universe could be eternal and finite in extent. Or infinite in extent and of limited duration. (Similarly, it could have a point of creation or destruction but still be eternal!) Perhaps. But as the OP has stormed off in a huff...

Wow. Ah, thanks. I couldn't find anything. Do you still have a link to that last one? 'Fraid I can't answer that. (I assume you mean "extent of space-time curvature"?) I would guess the answer is no, as the curvature cannot be quantified by a simple value and there is a complex mapping from mass-energy to curvature. (Plus there are other factors that affect the amount of curvature, for example pressure.)

I feel privileged to have been around to hear the original broadcasts. Nothing else has quite lived up to that (not even the repeats!)