What Carrier is saying is that defining consciousness isn't so simple as reducing it to matter. It is a concept that exists across a length of time as well. It only exists if we understand that it has dimension in time.If consciousness "only" exists as an extension of matter and energy, how is it that a mathematical model can "describe" (math is a language) a concept like eternity, which Carrier believes to be true of an eternal multiverse?
My immediate thought when listening to that part was; what else only exists when time is included? Orbits are a function that requires time. All verbs require time(I think). Gravity requires time(as do the other forces). I'm sure the list is endless.
The objective truths of mathematics are a priori assumptions.
I'll have to check this. I think Kant argued that mathematical constructs were synthetic and a priori. But that is a lot like Platonism, which I think is false. It's also not the way math is used in science, which is as abstractions of real quantities.
I partially agree. But keep in mind much of our knowledge is gained through extrapolative methods. Carbon dating of a sunken ship's golden bars, measuring the distance of far away stars, plotting the course of a rover travelling to Mars. It is the strange beauty of math that it allows us a glimpse into the future and into the past, through extrapolation.A construct like math, utilized to model the real world, would be limited to a description and measurement of the span of time it exists within. Do you agree or disagree?