“Any observed observer (including the person ‘I’ refer to as ‘me’, from whichever perspective the reference is apprehended) is just another observed ‘object’.”

Yet that “object” exists in and of the same context as the observer. Two points of reference in the network.

“All objects appear in the absolute present. The relative past, present and future exist as ideas only.”

So there is only this dynamic physical state, where the changing configuration creates the effect of time.

“The future already ‘is’ in idea… its appearance now appears to be the outcome of processes evolving from the past.”

Yet it is only in this present state in which the calculations occur, that reduce future potential to current actual, along with the residue remaining of prior configurations. It seems more of a funnel, from future to past, than a line, from past to future.

“The film (all future states) already ‘is’, and as such it determines what may appear in the present.”

If the coming together of the input hasn’t occured, than these states are not yet determined. While the laws governing the outcome might be absolute, the total input, much of it traveling at the speed of light, cannot be fully known before the occurence of the event, so neither can the output.

“Usually, the reel unwinds from beginning to end (past to present), though it may be stopped at any point, rewound and replayed, or played backwards.”

What drives this process is the energy, be it light, or momentum, and that is inertial. The earth can’t just be stopped and started the other direction, without a force hitting it, that would do more than just reverse its direction.

The premise of determinism is based on this physical inertia, so why it gets ignored, when the issue is the asymmetry of time, is a mystery to me, other than time gets idealized as that narrative dimension, which lacks actual, physical inertia. We can flip the pages of the book, or the frames of the film either direction.

The reason determinism isn’t a consequence of this inertia is there is no singular frame in which all input can be located. Even the current cosmology, of the universe as a single entity, has started to break down, with multiverses, dark matter and dark energy. Reality is both network and nodes. Input is potentially infinite.

“Regardless, the sequence of events, and ‘time passing’, in the film remain unchanged.”

Exactly, but reality is not a film, but that interplay between energy expanding, as form coalesces. It’s only in our linear, faunal point of view, that it plays out primarily as sequence, rather than feedback. Flora simply expand, relative to their context, given the amount of energy they can process. So their form is a function of the limits of this energy, relative to context. Much like nations, or empires.

“In this analogy, the present moment appears as an ever-changing pattern of the screen as the film plays.’

The projector light goes prior to succeeding images, as these frames are illuminated and replaced by the next. Light goes past to future, while frames go future to past.

“Before, during and after the film runs, the images on the reel remain as they are ‘ever-unchanged’. The screen too remains as it is.”

Old film tends to decay. Though now we digitize it. So, no it doesn’t last forever. Information is collected, but the energy required to sustain it gets monumental and doesn’t remain in the same forms forever. In fact these stores start to define what they store. The medium becomes the message. Bureaucracy takes over. Process corrodes pattern.

It is the changing configuration of this energy which creates time. Whether the forms are stable for billions of years, or change at the speed of light.

“In the case of Consciousness, all that may ever be, already is… hidden in the mystery of Omniscience… it is made apparent in the eternal present as the sensory images are formed by the Power of Consciousness into momentary patterns that accord with the ideas-Known, to create the appearance of ‘my body’, and ‘my thoughts’, and ‘my feelings’, and ‘my surroundings’… as in a dream.”

Consciousness functions as a process/energy. So yes, it is “conserved.” Always and only present. It’s the forms/thoughts/emotions/lives that change.

“Though nothing ever really changes.”

Without those ups and downs, it would just be a flatline. Waves, all the way down. And cycles and feedback.