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Time might not exist, according to physicists and philosophers – but that’s ok (theconversation.com)
23 points by jamesdco 1518 days ago
3 comments

I'm really disappointed by this article. The author is a philosophy professor, but what he has written here is horribly vague, fluffy, imprecise. He seems to be spruiking his recent book, but his summary of its argument is so light on details I can't tell if it is worth reading or not.
I suspect anyone would be hard-pressed to explain what makes this more worth reading than http://web.archive.org/web/20150818094035/http://www.timecub... , except perhaps as part of a sociological study of academia.
I think the topic is a legitimate and interesting one – what is time, anyway? What is the relationship between the concept of "time" as a concept in theoretical physics (which isn't a singular thing, since there are multiple competing theories with somewhat different things to say about it) and "time" as something we are all intimately familiar with from our everyday lives? But, as an introduction to that topic – I don't think this article is a good one. And, from what I've read of their book – only the first few pages (via Google Books preview) – I'm not really impressed by their book either (although maybe it is unfair of me to judge without being able to see the whole thing). But, even if their take on the topic leaves much to be desired, that doesn't mean the topic itself is worthless, nor that somebody else couldn't write a better take on it.
Yes, I agree with all of that, but I note that everything you say applies equally well to the site I linked.
There seems to be a trend of bypassing hard topics by just saying it doesn’t exist.

“Free will solved! It doesn’t exist!”

“Consciousness solved! It doesn’t exist!”

“Time solved! Etc”