Previously in series: Relative Configuration Space
[http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/05/relative-config.html]
[http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/03/dissolving-the.html]

Warning: The central idea in today's post is taken seriously by serious
physicists; but it is not experimentally proven and is not taught as standard
physics.

Today's post draws heavily on the work of the physicist Julian Barbour
[http://www.platonia.com/papers.html], and contains diagrams stolen and/or
modified from his book "The End of Time
[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0753810204/platonia]". However, some of
the arguments here are of my own devising, and Barbour might(?) not agree with
them.

I shall begin by asking a incredibly deep question:

What time is it?

If you have the excellent habit [http://yudkowsky.net/bayes/truth.html] of
giving obvious answers to obvious questions, you will answer, "It is now 7:30pm
[or whatever]."

How do you know?

"I know because I looked at the clock on my computer monitor."

Well, suppose…