Contents:
- Block Universe Began September 21, 1908: Space and Time
- The Block Universe and Worldlines in Terms of the Egodeath Theory
- Petkov’s Book Gathering Minkowski’s Papers
- Improvements in the Book Title
- See Also
Block Universe Began September 21, 1908: Space and Time
Hermann Minkowski formally defined the block universe, as a mathematical framework and computational mechanism, on September 21, 1908, in his article Space and Time, which he presented in a lecture that day.
The Block Universe and Worldlines in Terms of the Egodeath Theory
The 4D-spacetime block universe is rock-like, containing frozen embedded worm- or snake-shaped worldlines. The block universe contains all time and change, so the block universe is frozen and does not itself change.
A worldline is your linear stream of subjective mental content, including your personal control-thoughts, spread across time from the past into a single, pre-existing future.
The future is single, pre-existing, and non-branching, even though in the ordinary state of consciousness, it feels like we are steering through a tree of branching possibilities.
Your pre-existing, non-changing worldline is like a dark vein that runs through a white marble slab. The vein in the marble slab may “change” in a certain sense — it might “become” wider at one spot than another — yet the vein overall doesn’t change.
Per the Egodeath theory, in the mystic altered state from visionary plants, the mind has the capacity to experience the frozen block universe, along with experiencing a kind of non-control. There’s always control, but the mind experiences control differently, in the mystic altered state.
Religious mythology describes, using analogy, ingesting visionary plants and then experiencing the block universe and non-control.
Experiencing the block universe and the accompanying type of non-control causes transformation of the mental model of time and control, described by key analogies such as {wine, king, tree, death, snake, dragon, treasure, rock, sacrifice, and rebirth}.
Key mythological analogies that describe the block universe experience and concept are: {snake} = worldline, and {rock} = block universe, as contrasted with the ordinary-state experience of being like a {king} {steering} in a {tree}.
Petkov’s Book Gathering Minkowski’s Papers
Space and Time: Minkowski’s Papers on Relativity (2012), Vesselin Petkov (Ed.)
Use “Look inside” and read the first section of the Introduction: “The not-fully-appreciated Minkowski”. The main reason for publishing this book is “to correct an injustice”: to rightly reduce credit to Einstein and increase credit to Minkowski.
Spacetime: Minkowski’s Papers on Spacetime Physics (March 2020 2nd Ed.)
Has “Look inside” with Kindle (ebook) layout. This edition places the Space and Time article first, to highlight it, before Minkowski’s earlier Relativity and Moving Bodies papers. This edition adds a 4th, posthumous, Derivation article.
Improvements in the Book Title
o The 1st Ed. used the term “Relativity”, but for Minkowski’s block universe concept, the more relevant term is “Spacetime Physics”. Counter-argument: Minkowski’s first article is Relativity.
o The 1st Ed. used the phrase “Space and Time”, as separate words, but the whole idea of Minkowski was to conjoin space and time as four calculation-equivalent dimensions, so Petkov changed it to “Spacetime”. Counter-argument: the title of the lecture and paper is Space and Time.
Both of these changes to the title may be motivated by striving to correct the balancing of credit attribution, by reducing the focus on Einstein and increasing the focus on Minkowski’s contributions.
See Also
History of Developing the Egodeath Theory / Dates of Incorporating the Block Universe into the Egodeath Core Theory
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/11/12/history-of-developing-the-egodeath-theory/
Possibilism vs. Eternalism: Two Models of Time and Control
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/11/12/possibilism-vs-eternalism-2-models-of-time-and-control/
Diagrams.
The Egodeath theory 