Per Petkov, initially in his 1908 lecture article, Minkowski wrote:
“OMG! mind blown 🤯
this changes everything!
we have to rewrite everything we think we knew!!”
But then, in the final draft of the article, Minkowski struck that statement.
Thus we must differentiate between Minkowski’s 4D spacetime math framework vs. the philosophy of block-universe eternalism.
Striking that statement was poor self-promotion strategy.
Also, Minkowski dying was poor self-promotion strategy.
Thus Minkowski forfeited any conscious claim to founding mathematically, the philosophy of block-universe eternalism.
Block-Universe Eternalism Slide 1, by Church Leader
Block-Universe Eternalism Slide 2, by Church Leader
Block-Universe Eternalism Slide 3, by Church Leader
A psychedelic church brother was trying to argue that it’s just fine to falsely give Einstein credit for Minkowski’s 4D spacetime, for a non-specialist audience.
Prior to his research about whether that distinction is important, neither of us made the other, important distinction:
between Minkowski’s spacetime math framework vs. the philosophy of block-universe eternalism.
After the sermon deck’s Alan Moore slides, this Science Policeman/ Cheerleader & I were debating how much, in a pop presentation, we must differentiate & separately credit 2 items:
* Einstein’s “Relativity”
* Minkowski 4D “Spacetime” block-universe
But we did not break out item 3:
* The Philosophy of block-universe eternalism
His research found that Minkowski did not employ the term “block universe”.
I had found already that the key term used by Petkov is “absolute four-dimensional spacetime” (at least, in the second edition of the book, which I have).
compare the Intro (like contrasting the revised title) of the 1st vs. 2nd edition at Amazon > Read sample.
The title of the first edition inadvertently is counterproductive to the author Petkov, because the title implies “Minkowski’s 4D spacetime is subservient to Einstein’s relativity”.
The title of the second edition corrects Petkov’s strategic counterproductive misstep by elevating “spacetime by Minkowski” over “relativity by Einstein”.
The new title reduces Einstein’s Relativity to a footnote in support of Minkowski’s Spacetime.
Petkov so hates the word ‘relativity’ as inappropriate and misrepresentative, and clueless on the part of Einstein, that Petkov’s second edition of his book removes the word “Relativity” from the title and replaces it by the word “Spacetime”.
Space and Time: Minkowski’s Papers on Relativity (2012)
Spacetime: Minkowski’s Papers on Spacetime Physics (March 2020 2nd Ed.)
Petkov strategically uses the more distinctive word “spacetime”, a single word, to replace or go up against the single word “Relativity”.
in 2nd Edition:
Einstein = poor comprehension = “Relativity”
Minkowski = deep comprehension = absolute four-dimensional “Spacetime”
I even noticed that in 1988, in a University course Modern Physics; somewhere I found a translation that in German, “the theory of invariance”, which connotes kind of the opposite of the word ‘relativity’.
kudos to the Physics professor (who I knew since high school) for helping us to read the physicists’ early 20th century writings, and do our own research.
tip: in mobile amazon: aux menu > “Request Desktop Website” > click the Read sample button.
in the course:
1. first, I greatly enjoyed space-time block universe
2. Then I was skeptical and not satisfied with Einstein relativity: how it was described
3. in the third part of the course, I hated Quantum mechanics, specifically the eager rushing to the radical Copenhagen interpretation.
Around that time, James T. Cushing was writing books criticizing that hasty move, in contrast to an available, less-radical alternative interp: eg Bohm’s non-local hidden variables.
Alan Moore Sermon Deck Slides
at https://egodeaththeory.org/2025/12/02/images-upload/ Find “slide”
got the OK to share them
Alan Moore Is Pop Conflation of 3 different items
@Cyberdisciple
Did Alan Moore conflate:
Einstein’s Relativity
Minkowski’s 4D spacetime
the Philosophy of block-universe eternalism
– as if, per the bunk sermon slides, Einstein grokked and advocated as such, phil o block-universe eternalism, as if that is the same thing as Minkowski’s 4D spacetime math framework.
(a further breakout of distinct views: psychedelic eternalism; block-universe eternalism as a nitrous/ mescaline/ psilocybin experiential mode/ state; a state-specific mental world-model)
when we say the “philosophy of” or a “philosophy” approach to the concept of block-universe eternalism,
do we mean ordinary, state, armchair, philosophy,
or we do we mean altered state-based philosophy; loose-cognitive phenomenology?
In a sermon at psychedelic church, it was claimed:
“From Alan Moore, I learned that Einstein thought of the philosophy of block-universe determinism, when Einstein thought of 4D spacetime.
Einstein = Relativity = 4D spacetime = block-universe eternalism”
My opponent was trying to spin a narrative that Science is pure and consistent and a single uniform thing, therefore the church sermon slides are correct to give Einstein credit for Minkowski 4D spacetime (& for phil o block-universe eternalism).
The more the Science Policeman/ Cheerleader tries to smoosh together Minkowski and Einstein [theft of credit!], and try to erase and deny any distinction between them, his research that he shows me increasingly urges the opposite – we must de-conflate not just 2, but 3 things:
Einstein Rel’y vs. Minkowski 4D spacetime
& also vs. phil o block-universe eternalism
that we in fact need to make a clear differentiation between three different things
that got all conflated in the Alan Moore slides from during a church sermon
* einstein relativity vs
* Minkowski 4D spacetime vs
* block-universe eternalism in Philosophy
I did not see which research queries the Science Policeman/Cheerleader entered, and what he was expecting to find, or what his motivation/ argument strategy angle exactly was.
He pulled up an interesting distinction between those three things that everyone tries to conflate,
like Science Policeman/ Cheerleader was trying to conflate 2 of them, and I was urging stop giving Einstein credit for “Minkowski 4D spacetime which = phil o block-universe eternalism ” — but I was in error to not yet break out the third item.
I should’ve been better at:
do not give Minkowski credit for the philosophy of block-universe eternalism
in addition to:
do not give Einstein credit for Minkowski 4D spacetime; do not conflate Relativity with block universe.
Needed to add:
do not conflate block universe with Minkowski
tho Petkov’s Intro to his Minkowski book is suggestive that Minkowski had such a deep grasp of ramifs of 4D spacetime, maybe Minkowski in 1908, like James in 1897,
Science Cheerleader’s narrative agenda: “there are no significant disagreements within Science”)
The Science Policeman/ Advocate/ Cheerleader argued that these are unimportant distinctions, and we should just ignore them as being expert-level trivia — yet the research that he pulled up on the screen urged the exact opposite;
that we in fact need to disentangle these three different things.
Minkowski’s Block Universe: Spacetime: Minkowski’s Papers on Spacetime Physics (Petkov, 2021)
https://egodeaththeory.org/2020/11/05/minkowskis-block-universe-computational-framework/
i follow Petkov’s book, who says Minkowski had a full mind blowing grasp of ramifications of 4D spacetime but Einstein barely grasped, initially disparaged 4D spacetime , then shalloely used 4D spacetime
to move from
special relativity (no accrl / grav) to
general rely (accel / grav) – requires math fwk 4D spacetime
research suggests it is unlikely that Minkowski used mescsline
other major component was comic novelist Alan Moore,
sermon slides learned of “relativity = block-universe eternalism = Minkowski 4D spacetime” (conflated) via Alan Moore.
relating:
* ein relativity
* Minkowski 4D spacetime
* Phil of block-universe eternalism
* Alan Moore’s couple novels
* Wlm James 1893 article The Dilemma of Determinism , which actually hates on block-universe eternalism; not really hating domino-chain determinism – he woulda benefitted from differentiating those two – “iron block world”
connect those to one of my best ideas: the SPECTRUM of versions of “determinism”.
ppl think the opposite of freewill is domino-chain determinism , but actually domino-chain determinism is a WEAK & tepid assertion compared to the way more radical position of block-universe eternalism — that the future *already exists*
still no one has written a book on the history of ALL variants of no-free-will aka “determinism” – instead, they silo each department’s debate, AS IF the topic of no-free-will within Christian theology has no relevance to the topic of no-free-will within the field of Philosophy
i gotta read one more time, Petkov’s Intro chapter in Minkowski book
your research shed much light on distinctions i had been suspecting – things werent adding up, like,
William James doesnt clearly discuss his objections to what he should’ve called “block-universe eternalism”;
James says “determinism”, yet he MEANS something drastically different & more radical than mere domino-chain determinism/ causal-chain determinism.
The Dilemma of Determinism (James, 1897) Is Against Eternalism, Not Causal-Chain Determinism
block-universe eternalism is the philosophical question:
if the future already exists, then do we really have free will, or is our destiny already set in stone, and we’re just going through the motions of creating our destiny in an open future?
Sounds crazy, & appears to be true in thr “loose cognition/ eternalism” experiential pov.
the eternalism state of consciousness
book: Acute Religious Experiences
Philosophical implications of science
the many worlds multiverse view of quantum mechanics
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