Q&A

Q: I thought the idea of reality conforming to (or perhaps being created as a result of) one’s thoughts especially interesting, though I don’t like the phrase “time-dependent.” To me, “time,” as the word is typically used, means a measurement of change. (One second is determined by a particular unit of change in the physical world.) This would imply that reality changes as a result of thought changing, which is sort of what you’ve described but not quite. I think a better word to use would be “moment,” such that reality is “moment-dependent.” In this case, reality would simply conform to whatever the thought is, and not the difference between thoughts. Both interesting ideas, but I think the latter is actually a more accurate, valuable description of your perspective. I say this because, as you have contemplated, our conception of reality may be different now than at any time before or after now, emphasizing the importance of the individual moment.

A: I think this is coming down to more of an argument of definition/choice of word than meaning. When I say time, I’m talking about an instant in time, not an increment of time. Of course this is all idealized, and I don’t know if it even makes sense to talk about “instants of time”, but I think what you are getting at by “moment-dependent” is exactly the what I mean by “time-dependent”, unless you don’t mean “instant in time” by “moment”. i.e., if “r(t)” is a time-dependent function that outputs the state of reality at time “t”, the “t” we are looking at is a number, not a difference between numbers, and I think calling it “moment” could raise more confusion in definition because it is not as commonly used a word as say “time”.

On second thought, I think a more appropriate way of putting it is just “thought-dependent” reality, in which each thought may or may not have anything to do with time at all. Time may or may not exist, each thought may or may not exist in a distinct instant of time, and so forth. All we’re assuming is that different thoughts exists, which give rise to different realities, so there - thought-dependent reality!